The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
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Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
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UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld Ontdek de Fascinerende Wereld van UFO's en UAP's: Jouw Bron voor Onthullende Informatie!
Ben jij ook gefascineerd door het onbekende? Wil je meer weten over UFO's en UAP's, niet alleen in België, maar over de hele wereld? Dan ben je op de juiste plek!
België: Het Kloppend Hart van UFO-onderzoek
In België is BUFON (Belgisch UFO-Netwerk) dé autoriteit op het gebied van UFO-onderzoek. Voor betrouwbare en objectieve informatie over deze intrigerende fenomenen, bezoek je zeker onze Facebook-pagina en deze blog. Maar dat is nog niet alles! Ontdek ook het Belgisch UFO-meldpunt en Caelestia, twee organisaties die diepgaand onderzoek verrichten, al zijn ze soms kritisch of sceptisch.
Nederland: Een Schat aan Informatie
Voor onze Nederlandse buren is er de schitterende website www.ufowijzer.nl, beheerd door Paul Harmans. Deze site biedt een schat aan informatie en artikelen die je niet wilt missen!
Internationaal: MUFON - De Wereldwijde Autoriteit
Neem ook een kijkje bij MUFON (Mutual UFO Network Inc.), een gerenommeerde Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in de VS en wereldwijd. MUFON is toegewijd aan de wetenschappelijke en analytische studie van het UFO-fenomeen, en hun maandelijkse tijdschrift, The MUFON UFO-Journal, is een must-read voor elke UFO-enthousiasteling. Bezoek hun website op www.mufon.com voor meer informatie.
Samenwerking en Toekomstvisie
Sinds 1 februari 2020 is Pieter niet alleen ex-president van BUFON, maar ook de voormalige nationale directeur van MUFON in Vlaanderen en Nederland. Dit creëert een sterke samenwerking met de Franse MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP, wat ons in staat stelt om nog meer waardevolle inzichten te delen.
Let op: Nepprofielen en Nieuwe Groeperingen
Pas op voor een nieuwe groepering die zich ook BUFON noemt, maar geen enkele connectie heeft met onze gevestigde organisatie. Hoewel zij de naam geregistreerd hebben, kunnen ze het rijke verleden en de expertise van onze groep niet evenaren. We wensen hen veel succes, maar we blijven de autoriteit in UFO-onderzoek!
Blijf Op De Hoogte!
Wil jij de laatste nieuwtjes over UFO's, ruimtevaart, archeologie, en meer? Volg ons dan en duik samen met ons in de fascinerende wereld van het onbekende! Sluit je aan bij de gemeenschap van nieuwsgierige geesten die net als jij verlangen naar antwoorden en avonturen in de sterren!
Heb je vragen of wil je meer weten? Aarzel dan niet om contact met ons op te nemen! Samen ontrafelen we het mysterie van de lucht en daarbuiten.
31-01-2018
5 Ancient Sites Many Believe Were Built By Aliens
5 Ancient Sites Many Believe Were Built By Aliens
The idea that early mankind was influenced by beings, not of Earth has widely spread in modern society.
With the emergence of the so-called Ancient Astronaut Theory, people have started questioning whether it is possible that in the distant past, perhaps tens of thousands of years ago, ancient mankind was visited by otherworldly beings, by spacefaring civilizations, which came to earth and helped instigate humankind.
On Earth, evidence of alien contact is, according to many, vast.
Many ancient sites on Earth defy explanation. For centuries have experts tried unraveling the mysteries how some of these sites were built. Scholars have wondered about how ancient civilizations had the ability to move supermassive blocks of stones, for hundreds of kilometers, from their quarries to the construction sites. They have tired solving the mystery of how they quarried some of these rocks, and with what kind of tools.
The more they searched, the more questions arose.
Since many questions were left unanswered, some people have started wondering whether some of these sites may have actually been built by aliens?
1. Sacsayhuaman—an ancient alien fortress?
Stones at Sacsayhuaman.
Located outside of Cusco is a massive ancient fortress called Sacsayhuaman. This ancient site was built with supermassive stones that have been chiseled and put into place like an enormous jigsaw puzzle. The ancient fortress walls are composed of Andean rocks that weigh more than 300 tons each, and were carried—transported—from more than 50 kilometers away. Furthermore, somehow these massive stones were lifted and fitted into place with laser-like precision.
Many people argue that cutting, transporting and fitting 300-ton-stones is something that the ancients could have achieved, but only with the help of interstellar visitors.
While personally, I believe that the builders of Sacsayhuaman were of terrestrial origin, I believe they had in their possession advanced ancient technologies that allowed them to achieve such incredible feats.
2. Teotihuacan—the city of Gods
A view of Teotihuacan. Image Credit: Shutterstock.
Teotihuacan is a massive ancient city best known for it massive pyramid complex and incredible astronomical alignment.
The city of the Gods was created thousands of years ago, and its design, architecture, and mysterious characteristics have led many people to believe it was built not by human hands.
One of the most massive structures in Teotihuacan is the Pyramid of the Sun. Interestingly, this structure is also one of the largest such constructions in the Western Hemisphere. Furthermore, the pyramid’s curious alignment is believed to be based on calendrical cycles.
3. The Pyramids of Giza
The Great Pyramid of Giza.
Image Credit: Shutterstock.
How the Pyramids of the Giza plateau were built remains an unsolved mystery. Despite the fact that there is written evidence which explains how some of the blocks were transported to the pyramid, archaeologists really don’t know how the pyramid was built. How did the ancient Egyptians stack the massive blocks of stones? How did they move them as the pyramid grew? What was the true purpose of the pyramid? Why is it that the three main pyramids are aligned with Orion? Why haven’t experts found a mummy inside the pyramid, if it was built as a resting place? Why are there still undiscovered chambers inside it? How is it possible that the builders placed the Great Pyramid at the exact center of Earth’s landmass, more than 4,500 years ago?
All of these questions have led to numerous theories which suggest that the Pyramids were built not by human hands, but by an otherworldly influence.
4. Puma Punku
At a distance of around 45 miles west of La Paz Bolivia we find one of the most magnificent ancient sites on the surface of our planet.
The sheer number of megalithic stones found at Puma Punku are amongst the largest found on the planet. Puma Punku shatters all traditional views on ancient cultures. The incredibly precise stones, precision cuts, and polished surfaces have defied explanation for centuries. The andesite stones used in the construction process of this megalithic site were cut with such precision that they fit together perfectly, and are interlocked with each other without the use of mortar. This ancient site continues to defy the countless theories put forth by mainstream scholars, historians, and scientists. Many people argue that this ancient site was not the product of man, but of the gods who came down from heaven, thousands of years ago.
5. Stonehenge—an ancient alien landing pad?
Located outside of Salisbury we find a massive circle composed of stones, ranging in weight between 30 and 60 tons. Believed to have been built during the Neolithic, this fascinating ancient site inspired great authors like Erich von Däniken to ponder whether it’s a massive model of our solar system and whether it may have been used as a landing pad for alien spacecraft.
Today, modern scholars are still unable to decipher the mystery behind Stonehenge. Experts are unable to figure out how the ancient transported the massive stones, nor why they are positioned like they are.
Featured image credit: Leon Tukker. Freelance concept/environment artist and Illustrator.
Since its epic touchdown on the Red Planet in 2012, Curiosity has driven an 11-mile (18-kilometer) route from its landing site inside Gale Crater to the huge crater’s northern rim. Perched from this vantage point, the rover captured this astonishing panoramic view that not only features the whole enterprising route but also shows much of the crater’s horizon view.
A detailed look of Gale Crater horizon as seen by Curiosity from its “Vera Rubin Ridge” viewpoint.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS.
The component images of the panorama were shot three months ago by the rover’s Mastcam from the northern edge of the Vera Rubin Ridge. Meanwhile, the rover has approached the southern edge of the ridge, examining outcrops along the way.
Clear skies typical of Martian winters allowed the rover to shoot distant details, such as a hill on the northern horizon which was strikingly 50 miles (85 kilometers) away from the rover. The tall mountains you can see surrounding the rover are actually the crater’s walls, some as tall as 1.2 miles (2 kilometers). One can only imagine the size and the force of the impactor that formed the 96-mile basin around 3.8 billion years ago.
Thought your holiday panoramas were cool?
“Even though Curiosity has been steadily climbing for five years, this is the first time we could look back and see the whole mission laid out below us,” said Curiosity Project Scientist Ashwin Vasavada of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California.
“From our perch on Vera Rubin Ridge, the vast plains of the crater floor stretch out to the spectacular mountain range that forms the northern rim of Gale Crater.” The rover photographed the scene shortly before northern Mars’ winter solstice, a season of clear skies, gaining a sharp view of distant details.
Curiosity’s Mastcam took the component images on Oct. 25, 2017.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
In case you notice something weird about these pictures, according to NASA, the panorama “has been white-balanced so the colors of the rock materials resemble how they would appear under daytime lighting conditions on Earth.”
In the annotated version featured below you can see Curiosity’s plotted route from its landing site to Yellowknife Bay (where the rover found evidence of an ancient freshwater-lake environment), all the way through Darwin, Cooperstown, and then Kimberly, Namid Dune, Murray Buttes, Ireson Hill, before crossing the tricky Bagnold Dunes to reach Vera Rubin Ridge.
The Curiosity team received the new images from a relay-link with NASA’s MAVEN orbiter, which beamed back over a gigabit of data in one single relay session — that’s the first time in history that much data has been sent in one go from Mars. And to think, all that data was sent from millions of miles away. Take that, Comcast!
“MAVEN definitely has the potential to move lots of data for us, and we expect to make even more use of it in the future,” said JPL’s Roy Gladden, manager of NASA’s Mars Relay Network Office.
Next, the Curiosity mission is scheduled to drill samples from Vera Rubin Ridge before proceeding to Clay Unit. Curiosity’s drill has been suspended due to a hardware malfunctionsince 2016 so it will be very exciting how the mission pans out.
Aliens zijn al 4000 keer op aarde geland. Steven Greer onthult in tv-interview waarom men dit geheim wil houden
Aliens zijn al 4000 keer op aarde geland. Steven Greer onthult in tv-interview waarom men dit geheim wil houden
Het UFO-onderwerp ligt verscholen onder een mantel van geheimhouding en dat heeft te maken met de technologie waarop deze vliegende voorwerpen zijn gebaseerd. Dat heeft Steven Greer gezegd op RT America.
De financiële kartels eisten vanaf de jaren vijftig dat alle informatie over dit onderwerp geheim zou blijven, omdat ze niet wilden dat mensen erachter zouden komen dat we al heel lang zonder olie en gas kunnen, aldus Greer.
“Het heeft weinig te maken met groene of grijze mannetjes,” zei hij tegen voormalig gouverneur Jesse Ventura. “Het heeft alles te maken met machtsmisbruik.”
Geheimen
Als mensen ontdekken dat we niet alleen zijn zal dat de financiële kartels biljoenen kosten omdat wetenschappers dan gelijk de vraag gaan stellen hoe de aliens hier naartoe zijn gereisd.
Met andere woorden: als naar buiten komt dat UFO’s geen olie of gas nodig hebben stort het systeem van de petrodollar in elkaar en loopt de elite honderden triljoenen aan olie-inkomsten mis.
Greer merkte op dat het leger deze geheimen naar buiten wil brengen, maar dat de inlichtingendiensten en grote corporaties hier een stokje voor steken.
4000 gedocumenteerde gevallen
Op de vraag hoe diep dit gaat antwoordde hij dat zelfs de president, stafchefs en CIA-directeur geen toegang hebben tot de geheime UFO-projecten binnen de Amerikaanse overheid.
Volgens dr. Greer zijn er minstens 4000 gedocumenteerde gevallen waarbij UFO’s op het aardoppervlak zijn geland.
Maar waarom lees je dit dan niet op de voorpagina van alle kranten? “De media zijn onderdeel van het probleem.”
Strange spherical objects falling from the skies and this time three “space balls” crashed down in Larancahuani in the region of Puno, Peru on January 27, 2018.
These kind of mysterious objects have also been reported from Spain, Turkey, Australia, Brazil and other countries, last year.
People wonder where these objects came from as they have no markings and they not burn due to friction when they entering into earth’s atmosphere, but according to officials, the three spheres are the fuel tanks of the SL-23 rocket that re-entered Earth’s atmosphere on the same day.
But are these objects really fuel tanks or maybe they are extra-terrestrial in origin?
Le Dr. Hynek fut l'un des scientifiques les plus impressionnants que j'aie rencontré en travaillant sur le projet ovni, et j'en ai rencontré un bon nombre. Il évita de faire 2 choses que certains d'entre eux faisaient : vous donner la réponse avant de connaître la question ; ou immédiatement commencer à exposer ses réalisations dans le domaine de la science. Les scientifiques ne font pas toujours de la science .
Ovni ufo La classification de Josef Allen Hynek
Hynek naît le 1er mai 1910 à Chicago (Illinois) de parents tchécoslovaques. Il obtient un B.S. de l'Université de Chicago en 1931, puis un doctorat en astrophysique en 1935, où il rejoint l'équipe de l'observatoire McMillin. Travaillant avec N. T. Babrovnikhoff, Hynek observe Nova Herculis en 1934 et Nova Lacerta en 1936. En 1946 la direction assurée par Emerson McMillin est reprise par Hynek jusqu'à la retraite du professeur Manson. Il occupe à cette époque une double fonction, en assurant également la direction de l'Observatoire Perkins.
Un premier signe
Au printemps 1948, Hynek est recruté par l'USAF pour faire partie de la 2nde génération d'experts du projet Sign :
J'enseignais l'astronomie à Colombus, l'Université de l'Ohio. Un jour 3 hommes — et ils n'étaient pas vétus de noir — sont venus me trouver, envoyés par la base Air Force de Wright Patterson située à Dayton, dans les environs. Je me souviens qu'ils ont commencé à me parler de la pluie et du beau temps, de choses comme ça, et finalement l'un d'entre eux m'a demandé ce que je pensais des soucoupes volantes. Je leur ai répondu que pour moi c'était un ramassis d'absurdités, et ça a paru les mettre à l'aise. Alors ils en sont venus au sujet de leur visite. Ils ont déclaré qu'ils avaient besoin d'un conseil en astronomie parce que leur mission consistait à tenter d'éclaircir ces histoires de soucoupes volantes. Ils disaient avoir besoin d'un astronome pour faire le tri entre les phénomènes liés aux météorites, et autres objets célestes. J'ai pensé que ce serait amusant d'accepter, et de bénéficier d'une classification top secret, et tout le reste.
En tant que spécialiste en astronomie, il est chargé de trier les observations en faisant la part de ce qui revenait aux phénomènes d'origine astronomique. A cette époque, certains membres importants du projet croient à l'origine extraterrestre de certains des objets observés :
Certains participants avaient l'air de considérer le problème assez sérieusement. En même temps, il s'était creusé un fossé important au sein de l'Air Force entre 2 écoles de pensée : d'un côté il y avait ceux qui préparaient sérieusement un rapport d'évaluation destiné au général Vandenberg, mais de l'autre il y avait un groupe d'opposants qui finalement emportèrent le morceau, et les plus motivés furent disséminés dans différents endroits. En d'autres termes, les négatifs avaient eu le dernier mot.
Hynek, lui, demeure plutôt sceptique :
Ma propre participation à ce "Projet Sign" n'avait rien arrangé à cette situation, parce que je pense que la plupart de mes propres évaluations étaient empreintes d'une tournure négative. J'allais chercher très loin des explications naturelles, parfois même quand ça ne tenait pas debout. Je me rappelle ce cas du Canyon de Snake River — je pense que c'est celui-là — où un homme et ses 2 fils avaient vu un objet métallique descendre en tourbillonnant dans le canyon, ce qui avait entraîné un balancement au sommet des arbres. En voulant à toutes fins établir une cause naturelle à ce phénomène, j'ai déclaré que c'était une sorte de remous atmosphérique. Bien entendu je n'avais jamais constaté un tourbillon de ce genre, ni je n'avais au fond une quelconque raison de croire que ça puisse même exister. Mais j'étais tellement préoccupé d'y voir une cause naturelle que j'arrivais à me convaincre qu'il ne pouvait y avoir d'autre explication. Il m'a fallu pas mal de temps pour changer ma tournure d'esprit [3].
On peut le lire ici ou là proposant des explications triviales à diverses observations, comme celle de Arnold.
En 1951 il assemble un photomètre photoélectrique pour le réfracteur de McMillin. L'année suivante il entâme une recherche sur la scintillance des étoiles le jour dans le cadre d'un "Projet de Vision Astronomique" financé par l'USAF.
Blue Book
En 1952 une vague d'observations va toucher l'Amérique. Dans le cadre du Projet Stork, Hynek est chargé de sonder discrètement ses collègues astronomes au sujet des ovnis, ce qu'il fait du 22 juin au 11 juillet [4]. Cet été-là dans un débat à la conférence de l'American Optical Society de Boston il ridiculise Donald Menzel [5]. En septembre, il fait l'objet d'une enquête discrète du FBI [6].
Josef Allen Hynek
En 1956, l'astronome Fred Whipple, de l'Université d'Harvard, engage Hynek en tant que directeur associé du projet Moonwatch. Il est chargé d'organiser le lancement de satellites et la formation des astronomes qui doivent les diriger. Ce travail attire sur lui l'attention des médias et du public. Durant la même période, il est aussi consultant scientifique auprès de l'USAF en matière d'ovnis, pour la simple raison qu'il est l'astronome le plus proche de la base de Wright Field, à Dayton (Ohio). Cette base centralise les recherches ufologique, appelée projet Sign.
A cette époque Hynek interroge formellement une quarantaine de ses collègues astronomes : un peu plus de 10 % indiquent avoir observé des phénomènes inexpliqués [7].
Baker-Nunn
A partir de 1955, Hynek est occupé à plein temps sur la mise en place d'un réseau de caméras Baker-Nunn, visant à installer 12 stations de repérage de satellites en divers points du globe. Il engage dans ce projet A. "Bud" Ledwith (qui l'avertit de l'affaire de Kelly-Hopkinsville) pour travailler sur les mécanismes d'horlogerie à quartz des chambres photographiques, puis Walter Webb lorsque le réseau est opérationnel 2 ans plus tard, en février 1957.
En 1959 Hynek abandonne son poste à l'Observatoire pour occuper un professorat à la Northwestern University. En 1960, il devient le patron du département — moribond — d'astronomie de l'université d'Evanston (Illinois). Il le réforme et le réorganise totalement, tout en créant un nouveau centre de recherches astronomiques.
Vallée
Hynek aurait fort fort bien pu passer le restant de ses jours sans se préoccuper des ovnis et du projet Blue Book. Mais cela aurait été compter sans le destin, en l'occurence l'arrivée d'un étudiant français, Jacques Vallée. Depuis sa tendre enfance ce dernier s'intéresse aux ovnis. Vallée fait prendre conscience à Hynek des manipulations dont il a été la victime, ainsi que de celles dont il a été à l'acteur, bien qu'inconsciemment. Un revirement s'opère, et en avril 1963, Hynek écrit dans Yale Scientific Magazine : Le témoin moyen est au-dessus de la moyenne, honnête et sérieux. Aucun examen vraiment scientifique du phénomène ovni n'a été entrepris malgré l'énorme volume de données brutes
Jacques Vallée et Hynek
Hynek et Vallée en 1978 [26]
Un an plus tard en avril 1964, il est amené à enquêter sur le cas Zamora dans le cadre de Blue Book [8]. Ce cas est un de ceux qui marque le plus Hynek qui enquête plusieurs jours pour essayer de trouver le moindre indice qui puisse jeter un doute sur cette affaire. Il n'en trouve pas. Malgré cela, en accord avec le Pentagone, il dicte à Zamora une version éliminant le symbole observé (ci-contre) et la présence des humanoïdes en blanc.
En 1965, Hynek cautionne le premier ouvrage de l'étudiant Vallée, Anatomie d'un Phénomène, et renie ce qu'il avait défendu. Il le fait prudemment, à mots couverts, en redigeant le texte de la 4ème de couverture (un peu plus tard, il écrira la préface du 2nd ouvrage de Vallée, co-écrit avec son épouse Janine).
Le 8 novembre, il déclare : Au lieu d'enquêter sur les apparitions d'ovnis, on ferait mieux d'enquêter sur les gens qui les signalent.
Hillsdale ou le revirement
Hynek et Robert Taylor à Hillsdale en mars 1966
Quelques mois plus tard, le 21 mars 1966, intervient l'affaire du "gaz des marais", à Ann Harbor, dans le Michigan. Un télex de l'United Press International tombe :
40 personnes, dont 12 policiers, ont déclaré avoir vu un objet étrange qui semblait gardé par 4 vaisseaux d'accompagnement, se poser dans un marais proche, pendant la nuit de dimanche.
Le 23, Hynek est sommé d'expliquer l'incident. A court d'arguments, il évoque le gaz des marais. L'explication ne tient pas debout face aux témoignages et décrédibilise totalement Hynek et l'USAF, qu'il représente alors. La presse en fait ses gorges chaudes. Hynek à la conférence de presse du "gaz des marais" à Détroit, en mars 1966, commentant sur la ressemblance d'une photo d'Adamski avec une couveuse pour poulets.
Hynek à la conférence de presse du "gaz des marais" à Détroit, en mars 1966
Va suivre ce qui va apparaître comme un revirement capital de Hynek. Celui-ci exprime une série de critiques sur la façon dont l'étude des ovnis a été gérée par l'USAF [9], contrant ainsi Quintanilla, le nouveau chef du projet Blue Book. Il rappelle que des ovnis ont été vus par des scientifiques. Plus tard, il décrira ainsi le projet Blue Book :
J'étais là au [Projet] Blue Book et je sais quel était leur travail. On leur disait de ne pas exciter le public, de ne pas faire de vagues... A chaque fois qu'arrivait un cas qu'ils ne pouvaient pas expliquer — et il y en avait quelques uns — ils y faisaient particulièrement attention, et laissaient çà aller aux médias... Pour les cas très difficiles à expliquer, ils faisaient des pieds et des mains pour en laisser éloignés les médias. Ils avaient un travail à faire, que ce soit bien ou mal, empêcher le public de s'exciter.
Les scientifiques accusés sur les "soucoupes volantes"
CHICAGO, 17 septembre (UPI) — Un astronome de l'Illinois a critiqué ce qu'il appelle l'échec à enquêter sur les rapports persistants d'objets volants non identifiés en dépit du fait que des observations de nombreuses "soucoupes volantes" restent expliquées.
The New York Times, 18 septembre 1966
Le Dr. J. Allen Hynek, président du département d'astronomie de l'Université Northwestern et consultant pour l'Air Force sur le sujet, a cité ce qu'il appelle le phénomène persistant et dérangeant.
Dans une lettre au magazine Science, il appelle à une investigation scientifique pour dissiper 20 ans de confusion.
Il a accusé les scientifiques de ne pas s'intéresser de l'étude des objets par peur d'abîmer leur stature professionnelle. De nombreuses observations peuvent être expliquées par des phénomènes naturels, a indiqué le Hynek, mais un nombre considérable défient l'explication. Le Dr. Hynek a déclaré qu'il était faux de supposer que l'ensemble des rapports étaient le résultat d'hystéries ou crackposts ou de cinglés, ou le produit de personnes peu éduquées ou non fiables.
En 1967, il participe à la 13ème Assemblée Générale de l'Union Astronomique Internationale à Prague, où il a notamment l'occasion de constater le double langage des soviétique au sujet des ovnis. D'un côté le phénomène est nié, mais de l'autre Felix Ziegel commence à appeler de ses voeux une étude multipartite. Hynek s'inquiète d'une avancée secrète des russes sur le sujet [10].
Congrès
Le 29 juillet 1968, Hynek participe au symposium sur les ovnis organisé par le Congrès américain. Il y fait une déclaration officielle [11] reprenant certains de ses articles antérieurs [12] [13].
Retour au civil
En 1969 sort le rapport de la commision Condon, que Hynek ne manque pas de critiquer [14]. Le rapport marque aussi la fin de l'implication officielle de l'Air Force dans l'investigation du problème ovni, et Hynek est congédié de son poste de conseiller scientifique du projet Blue Book. A partir du 1er juillet, il ne travaille officiellement plus pour l'armée.
En 1972 Hynek publie son 1er livre sur le sujet [15], dans lequel il décrit son audition devant le comité O'Brien, sa critique du rapport Condon et du projet Blue Book, la justification que lui demande l'USAF de cette critique, et crée son fameux système de classification des observations d'ovnis.
CUFOS
Hynek fondateur du CUFOS
Convaincu du manque de franchise de l'USAF qui vient de quitter au sujet des ovnis et du besoin d'étudier sérieusement ce phénomène réel, il fonde en 1973 le CUFOS avec son "collège invisible", un groupe de scientifiques anonymes craignant de perdre leur crédibilité et donc leur financements s'il avaient la maladresse d'étudier ouvertement sur le phénomène.
En 1974, il demande à Jacques Vallée de travailler à ses côtés à l'occasion d'un contact avec Bob Emenegger et Alan Sandler. Il publie Nouveau rapport sur les ovnis. En 1975, il publie un article sur les ovnis [16] dans une revue interne du FBI.
Il devient une sorte de porte-parole des ufologues, notamment en collaborant avec Spielberg pour Rencontres du 3ème Type. Il est conseiller technique pour le film, et vante en cette occasion à Spielberg les qualités de Jacques Vallée, qui servira de modèle pour le personnage joué par François Truffaut. Spielberg rendra hommage à Hynek en le faisant apparaître un instant dans la séquence finale de son film.
Dr J. Allen Hynek dans "Rencontres du 3éme type"
La 1ère fois que je fus impliqué dans ce domaine, j'étais particulièrement sceptique à propos des gens qui disaient avoir vu des ovnis à diverses occasions et complètement incrédule quant à ceux qui déclaraient avoir été à bord de l'un d'eux. Mais j'ai dû revoir mon jugement.
Je me souviens de l'époque de Galileo lorsque j'essayais d'amener les gens à regarder les tâches solaires. Ils se disaient que le Soleil était le symbole de Dieu; Dieu est parfait; donc le Soleil est parfait; donc les tâches ne peuvent exister: donc il n'y a pas à regarder [19].
ONU
Le 27 novembre 1978, il plaide à l'ONU pour une prise en charge sérieuse du problème des ovnis.
En 1979, il publie Aux limites de la réalité, co-écrit avec Jacques Vallée.
En 1984 Hynek il déménage à Scottdale, et confie la direction du centre CUFOS de Chicago à Rodeghier.
En 1985, il s'intéresse au projet Hessdalen (Norvège) et part là-bas suivre les études de lui-même. Il rend des visites fréquentes à Willy Smith, avec qui il développe l'UniCat. Sa dernière visite à Smith a lieu du 20 au 31 août.
Atteint d'une tumeur maligne au cerveau, Hynek doit subir le 5 septembre une 1ère opération chirurgicale. Sa santé va décliner rapidement, et il décède le dimanche 27 avril 1986 au Memorial Hospital de Scottsdale (Arizona).
Auteur de :
Hynek, J. A.: "How to photograph a UFO", Popular Photography, mars 1968, pp. 69-110-112-114
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La classification de Josef Allen Hynek - PART II
La classification de Josef Allen Hynek - PART II
Système de classement de Hynek
Un article de François C. Bourbeau
En 1972, J. Allen Hynek publie un ouvrage [1] dans lequel il publie un système de classement des observations d'ovnis en différentes catégories, indépendamment de l'enquête. Cette classification définit, en fonction de la visibilité ou de la proximité de l'objet, les :
Les Lumières Nocturnes (LN)
Les Lumières Nocturnes (Nocturnal Lights) réprésentent dans le système de classement de Hynek toutes lumières anormales vues à distance dans le ciel nocturne dont la description exclut les possibilités de feux d'avions, étoiles, météores et autres rentrées atmosphériques. Cette catégorie regroupe la plus grande portion d'observations d'ovnis et les événements de plus faible étrangeté ; ils ne fournissent généralement que peu d'information en raison des piètres conditions de visualisation liées à l'obscurité et à la distance. Les NL peuvent être caractérisées par un nombre ou une formation de lumières inhabituelle, une taille ou une forme particulière, des variations de couleur, des traînées bizarres, des halos, etc.
Évidemment, ce qui est observé la nuit, doit 'obligatoirement' produire de la lumière! Voilà pourquoi Joseph Allen HYNEK a choisi cette expression, LN, pour définir tout objet dont le mouvement, la luminosité, la vitesse et aussi parfois la forme, composent les caractéristiques englobant la définition de Lumières Nocturnes (LN).
Généralement observé à de grandes distances de l'observateur, l'OVNI ne ressemblera alors qu'à une masse lumineuse au comportement erratique. Dans cette catégorie, nous retrouvons la plus grande quantité de cas de méprises de la part des observateurs. C'est justement en raison de la distance qui sépare le phénomène de ces derniers qui pourrait représenter le principal facteur problématique.
Aussi, rien n'est plus difficile à estimer et à évaluer dans un ciel noir qu'un objet en mouvement car les objets de référence au sol deviennent alors inefficaces. Finalement, même dans les cas de prises de photographies ou lors de la réalisation d’une bande vidéo, l'absence de calibration de ou des images rend l'identification périlleuse voire impossible. Il ne reste alors que les fonctions de probabilité et d'étrangeté pour classifier la notification, ce qui, nous en convenons, ne nous apprend rien de plus sur la NATURE et l'ORIGINE véritables des OVNI.
Enfin, mentionnons que toute masse d'énergie lumineuse non identifiée sera classifiée dans les LN.
Des exemples de NL sont :
Deux "étoiles" tournèrent chacune autour de l'autre, séparées par des diamètres de 1,5 Lunes ; l'orbite était dans le sens contraire des aiguilles d'une montre une fois toutes les 2 s. La rotation stopaa brusquement, et les lumières restèrent brièvement immobiles. Puis elles commencèrent à s'éloigner l'une de l'autre ; la lumière allant vers le sud s'arrêta mais la lumière allant vers le nord continua, plus vite qu'un avion, bien que plus lentement qu'un météore ; Vues à 21 h 45 le 14 mai 1970 à Bangor (Maine) pendant 2 ou 3 mn par 2 témoins. Signalé par un diplômé du MIT au Centre National pour la Recherche Atmosphérique.
Les Disques Diurnes (DD)
Les Disques Diurnes (Daylight Discs) représentent dans le système de classement de Hynek des objets discoïdaux vus à distance dans un ciel diurne. "Discoïdal" n'est en fait pas limitatif ici, les DD pouvant être caractérisées par des formes diverses, aussi bien celles de cigares, sphères, oeufs, ovales et sources ponctuelles (pouvant d'ailleurs toutes représenter un disque vu à une position différente) que de "soucoupes volantes". Seule une petite portion des observations signalées intervient dans la journée. Des DD ont généralement une couleur prédominante blanche ou argentée, montrent une accélération extrêmement rapide sans bang sonique (ils sont généralement silencieux) et/ou des mouvements particuliers tels que ceux de descente en "feuille morte" ou à l'apparence "d'angle droit" (ou très rapide).
Beaucoup plus rares que les LN, les Disques Diurnes représentent un beau défi pour la recherche sur les OVNI. Habituellement, l'oeil humain est plus facilement en mesure d'évaluer les distances, dimensions, déplacements angulaires entre autres parce que la lumière du jour permet un éclairage complet de la scène et, contrairement aux bâtonnets de l'oeil qui sont les seuls à fonctionner lorsqu'il fait nuit, les cônes entrent aussi en action et permettent de capter les... couleurs! Voilà pourquoi nous voyons surtout en noir et blanc la nuit car l'éclairage n'est pas suffisant pour exciter les dits cônes.
Cette classification visait juste quand HYNEK l'établit dans les années 50, car les phénomènes observés et rapportés mentionnaient presque toujours une forme de type discoïdale ou ovoïde. Ce n'est plus tellement le cas au troisième millénaire. Nous y reviendront plus loin. Il existe quelques variantes de la classification DD, comme OD pour Objet Diurne (référence à OVNI) qui englobe toute les formes géométriques observables. Ainsi, tout objet volant observé le Jour sera classifié comme un OD ou DD.
Des exemples de DD sont :
Disque avec dôme, de 5 à 6 fois le diamètre du Soleil — plat, gris argenté, pas de lueur réfléchie du Soleil, qui était derrière l'observateur. Le disque volait selon une trajectoire stable, directe, approximativement à 1/4 de mile de distance ; il vira vers le haut et accéléra rapidement dans les dernières 2 à 3 s, révélant une zone centrale sombre en-dessous. Vu à 16 h 10 le 11 octobre 1974, à Cloudcroft (Nouveau Mexique), par un astronome professionnel. Signalé à l'étude sur les ovnis de la Société Astronomique Américaine.
Les Rencontres Rapprochées du Premier Type (RRI)
Les Rencontres Rapprochées du 1er type (Close Encounter of the 1st kind ou CE1) représentent dans le système de classement de Hynek les observations d'ovni à distance proche (moins de 150 m/500 pieds) du témoin. Dans ce type d'observation la possibilité de méprise est théoriquement réduite au minimum, l'ovni se trouvant suffisamment près pour être dans le champ de vision immédiat du témoin. Les RR1 impliquent généralement des formes diverses (disques, ovales, sphéres, parfois dômes) en sustentation dans l'air et en rotation. On constate aussi souvent des accélérations rapides en des ascensions ou descentes très raides. Les observations sont presque toujours silencieuses, malgré la proximité de l'observateur.
Toutefois dans ce type d'observation l'ovni n'interragit pas avec l'environnement,
Dans cette catégorie, l'OVNI observé est vu de près bien qu'il n'entre pas en interaction avec l'environnement de manière directe. Certes, il pourra provoquer un choc émotionnel important chez le témoin ou chez les animaux mais cela n'ira pas plus loin. Au-delà de cette distance étalon de 150 mètres, nous parlons alors d'une Rencontre Éloignée du Premier Type (RE I), cette dernière constituant une sous-classe à la première.
Exemples de cas de RR1: 17 avril 1967 à Jefferson City (Missouri)
Les Rencontres Rapprochées du Deuxième Type (RRII)
Les Rencontres Rapprochées du 2ème type (Close Encounter of the 2nd kind, ou CE2) représentent dans le système de classement de Hynek une RR1 interragissant avec son environnement, généralement en laissant des indices physiques de sa présence (traces visibles sur le sol, brulûres où paralysies des témoins), créant des interférences EM (interférant avec l'alimentation électrique, l'éclairage, des moteurs de voiture, la réception TV ou radio). Comme les confirmations radar-et-visuelles, cette catégorie est considérée comme offrant plus de "preuves" concrètes d'un ovni qu'un seul témoignage.
Les RR2 impliquent généralement des formes diverses (majoritairement disques, ovales, sphères, parfois avec des dômes, pieds d'atterrissage, ouvertures, antennes, lumières) en ascension verticale, avec de la chaleur, de la vapeur, des rayons de lumière, en rotation, silencieux ou avec des sons étranges. Les effets constatés peuvent affecter :
le terrain (trace circulaire, ovale, sans forme, brûlure, dépression, déshydratation, laissant parfois la partie centrale intacte, 3 ou 4 empreintes d'appareil, voir empreintes de pas, radioactivité) les arbres et plantes environnants (branches brisées, écrasement, brûlure, plantes fânées) les véhicules environnants (phares, radio, démarrage), les effets disparaissant avec l'ovni ou non (plus rarement peinture brûlée par exemple)
le témoin : nausées, irration des yeux, maux de tête, brûlures, sensation de légèreté, engourdissement, choc, paralysie
les animaux environnants : comportement inhabituel, effraiement Avant 1979 un ufologue recense que 561 cas de type ont été rapportés.
Ces manifestations sont semblables aux premières, mais cette fois il y a des traces sur le sol, des évidences physiques mesurables après coup. La végétation aura été fréquemment aplatie, retournée et, dans quelques cas, brûlée. Des branches d'arbres auront été cassées, de la radioactivité sera anormalement élevée dans l'entourage immédiat de la manifestation; l'aiguille d'une boussole s'affolera indiquant une perturbation du champ magnétique ambiant. Des objets inanimés, tels des voitures, tomberont en panne. Le moteur cale, la radio s'arrête, les phares s'éteignent et une chaleur intense pourra envahir l'habitacle.
Au début, seulement les moteurs à explosion semblaient être affectés par la présence d'OVNI mais nous possédons plusieurs cas bien enquêtés de nos jours, provenant de partout dans le monde, où des moteurs Diesel (injection-compression) ont subi le même sort. De plus, les insectes semblent particulièrement sensibles à la présence d'un OVNI. Leurs chants cessent subitement lorsque l'OVNI se manifeste, et reprennent aussitôt après son départ...
Encore ici, la distance étalon établit demeure à moins de 150 mètres du témoin, au-delà de cette distance, nous parlons d'une Rencontre Éloignée du Deuxième Type (RE II).
Exemples de RR2: Langenburg en 1974 Nort-sur-Erdre (C) en 1987 Voreppe (M) en 1998
Les Rencontres Rapprochées du Troisième Type (RRIII)
Les Rencontres Rapprochées du 3ème type (Close Encounters of the 3rd kind ou CE3) 1 représentent dans le système de classement de Hynek une RR1 ou une RR2 dont on peut voir les occupants. Une variation des RR3 sont les enlèvements, ou RR4.
Ce sont les rapports mentionnant la présence d'entités d'apparence humanoïde, très souvent, dont le comportement donne à penser qu'ils sont les pilotes des OVNI. Toutefois, plusieurs notifications rapportent la présence de ces entités sans qu'il y ait simultanément un OVNI dans les parages? Voilà sans doute pourquoi l'expression humanoïdes ou entités intelligentes non humaines est plus appropriée puisque rien n'indique leur origine, i.e. extraterrestre.
Il va de soi qu'il s'agit ici d'une hypothèse intéressante qu'il faut envisager, au même titre que n'importe quelle autre, mais elle ne doit pas demeurer la seule, car elle n'est certainement pas la meilleure, surtout depuis les avancés récents en matière de la physique quantique, de la physique des cordes, des trous noirs, des univers multiples, dits aussi parallèles (hypothèses en accord avec la physique proposées par Andrei D. SAKHAROV et Stephen W. HAWKING et de nombreux autres).
Encore ici, la distance étalon demeure, par convention établie, à moins de 150 mètres du témoin; au-delà de cette distance, nous parlons d'une Rencontre Éloignée du Troisième Type (RE III).
Exemples de RR3: Flatwoods en 1952 Quarouble en 1954 Chabeuil en 1954 Villas Boas en 1957 John Flaxton en 1963 Wilcox en 1964 Socorro en 1964
Sans engin: Normalement, les RR3 impliquent la présence d'un engin assimilé à l'ovni. Cependant il existe des cas qualifiés de RR3 mais où aucun engin n'est apperçu aux côtés du personnage.
Exemples de RR3 sans engin:
Houston en 1953
LES CAS DE DÉTECTION RADAR OU RADAR-OPTIQUE (RO)
Les cas Radar-Optique ou Radar-Visuels (Radar Visual), représentent dans le système de classement de Hynek un ovni observé simultanément à l'oeil nu et au radar, avec une bonne concordance entre les témoignages. Ces cas impliquent une "preuve" instrumentale de la présence d'ovnis, ainsi qu'une captation quantitative de leurs caractéristiques de vol. Ils sont relativement rares. Cependant les microfilms du projet Blue Book révèlent 29 de ces cas. La littérature ufologique en suggère bien plus.
Il existe deux (2) modes de détection largement connus dans le monde de l'aviation civile et militaire: le premier se dit mode primaire et le second, mode secondaire.Les cas de RV interviennent presque toujours la nuit. Visuellement, ils apparaissent généralement comme une source de lumière ponctuelle ou de forme vague, stationnaire ou se déplaçant à grande vitesse, avec une accélération anormale, des inversions de trajectoire, virages serrés (mais généralement pas "à angle droit").
Exemples d'ovnis radar et visuels:
Rapid City du 5 au 6 août 1953 Lakenheath/Bentwaters du 13 au 14 août 1956 le vol du RB-47 du 17 juillet 1957 Base aérienne de Kirtland le 4 novembre 1957 Vol AF 3532 du 28 janvier 1994
Le MODE PRIMAIRE
Maintenant utilisé par les Forces militaires, le mode primaire assure toutes les détections d'aéronefs qui survolent le pays, quels qu'ils soient et d'où qu'ils proviennent. Cela assure la protection du territoire.
De plus, signalons qu'il n'est pas nécessaire qu'un aéronef possède un transpondeur à bord pour que le radar puisse identifier et placer la présence de ce dernier sur l'écran radar.
Le MODE SECONDAIRE
Pratiquement tous les aéroports civils fonctionnent avec des radars couplés. C'est-à-dire que l'aéronef DOIT posséder à bord, une petite boîte électronique contenant toutes une série d'information relatives à ce dernier, soit sa provenance, sa destination, sa vitesse, son altitude de vol, son plan de vol, le nom de la compagnie qui l'opère, etc. et le radar au sol NE SIGNALERA QUE LES AVIONS POSSÉDANT LEDIT TRANSPONDEUR!
Ceci a pour effet de nettoyer l'écran radar de nombreux autres types d'aéronefs que les contrôleurs n'ont pas obligatoirement la responsabilité de gérer dans l'approche finale de la piste d'atterrissage, ce qui diminue d'autant les risques de tous ordres.
Par exemple, les hélicoptères privés ou les Cessna peuvent atterrir à vue sans obligatoirement être visibles sur les écrans radars. Les pilotes n'ont alors qu'à demander à la tour la permission d'atterrir, ce qui permet d'accélérer la gestion de la circulation aérienne aux heures de pointe.Le résultat d'une telle mesure fait en sorte que les OVNI ne sont pas munis de transpondeurs, et donc, deviennent invisibles de facto sur les radars des centres de contrôles aériens des grands aéroports, d'où l'inutilité pour le public de contacter le centre de contrôle afin d'obtenir une confirmation matérielle de leurs étranges observations dans le ciel.
Mais les centres militaires de Bagotville ou de North Bay (nom de code: ROCC-EAST), rattachés au NORAD à Cheyenne au Colorado, possèdent l'équipement pour suivre à la trace un OVNI dans tout l'espace aérien canadien. Et nous vous faisons grâce ici des satellites en orbite qui eux aussi sont mis à contribution. Mais le public n'a pas et n'aura jamais accès à ce type d'information jugé secret défense.
OVNI-ALERTE suggère plutôt aux témoins éventuels d'une manifestation d'un OVNI de prendre contact avec notre organisme, et de signaler l'observation via son site Internet.
Extension
On y ajoutera plus tard d'autres catégories, non explicitement approuvées par Hynek :
Rencontre Rapprochée du 4ème type (RR4):enlèvement du témoin ou autre contact direct, le(s) témoin(s) prétend(ent) avoir été enlevés par les occupants d'un OVNI. Il y a deux types de rencontre RR4 :
Dans une “RR4 de classe 1″, les victimes sont non consentantes et peuvent éprouver une déformation grave de la réalité, des trous de mémoire, des symptômes caractéristiques du traumatisme du rapt tels que la crainte et l'inquiétude, des effets physiologiques comme la paralysie, et une désorientation dans le temps et l'espace. Le cas de l'abduction Hill est le plus célèbre.
Les “RR4 classe 2″sont des événements qui sont techniquement qualifiés d'enlèvement. Il s'agit pourtant de cas où le témoin suit volontairement l'entité.
Rencontre Rapprochée du 5ème type (RR5) : le(s) témoin(s) prétend(ent) être entrés en communication avec les occupants d'un OVNI. Beaucoup d'affabulateurs de la secte New Age prétendent avoir vécu une RR5. Le mystificateur Claude Vorilhon, fondateur de la secte des Raéliens, prétend lui aussi avoir été contacté par des extra-terrestres.
Rencontre Rapprochée du 6ème type (RR6) : Un ou plusieurs témoins (ou animaux) sont tués par un OVNI ou ses occupants. Les cas de mutilations de bétails qui ne trouvent pas d'explications rationnelles sont souvent imputés à une RR6.
Cette classification reste celle encore aujourd'hui la plus utilisée.
Son proche collaborateur Jacques Vallée proposera plus tard un système plus sophistiqué.
Comme d'autres, la classification de Hynek peut parfois être interprêtée comme répertoriant des facettes différentes d'un même phénomène (par exemple la LN ne serait qu'une version éloignée d'une RR3 pour prendre les 2 extrêmes) alors que rien de permet de l'affirmer (plusieurs phénomènes différents peuvent produire ces classes d'observation différentes).
Kuettner, J. P.: Critique de The UFO Experience, A Scientific Inquiry de J. Allen Hynek, dans Astronautics and Aeronautics, journal de l'AIAA, novembre 1973. Home
Leur provenance et la raison de leur présence est de l'ordre de la conjecture ; mais le fait qu'ils soient ici sur cette planète est au-delà d'un doute raisonnable [Hynek]
Nous avons l'habitude de nous informer rapidement au sujet de tout problème scientifique ou technique qui nous intéresse par le biais de livres, journaux professionnels, et résumés de bibliothèques. Pas tant que cela si le problème est la question ovni ! Il est pratiquement impossible d'obtenir des informations de fond factuelles sur cette question sans y consacrer un effort plutôt consommateur en temps. La littérature contient quelques traîtrises scientifiques objectives. Elle consiste en des livres orientés, polémiques ou des observations qualitatives publiées partout sauf dans des journaux scientifiques. L'auteur du livre, The UFO Experience: A Scientific Inquiry, se réfère à cette situation lorsqu'il déclare dans sa préface que "un bon livre" sur les ovnis est nécessaire. Il devrait être honnête sans préjugés ; il devrait être factuel et aussi bien documenté que possible. A l'évidence il a tenté d'écrire un tel livre et il est possible qu'il y soit parvenu.
On pourrait se demander pourquoi Hynek a attendu si longtemps pour dire ce qu'il sait et pense. Après tout, en tant que professeur d'astronomie de la Northwestern University, il a été en relation directe avec l'étude sur les ovnis de l'U.S. Air Force en tant que conseiller scientifique pendant plus de 20 ans, et il en sait sans doute autant sur les ovnis que n'importe quel scientifique dans le monde. Dans son livre les raisons deviennent claires : lorsque Hynek accepte initialement son rôle de conseiller auprès de l'Air Force il décrit ses sentiments comme suit : N'était-ce pas une occasion en or de montrer au public comment... l'application de la logique impersonelle et neutre de la méthode scientifique... pourrait être utilisée pour montrer que les soucoupes volantes étaient les fruits de l'imagination ? On peut se souvenir de sa suggestion du "gaz de marais" comme une possibilité de l'origine de certaines observations. Le livre actuel, cependant, se conclut avec la phrase suivante : Lorsque viendra la solution longtemps attendue du problème ovni, je pense qu'elle ne se révèlera pas vraiment être la prochaine étape dans la marche de la science mais un extraordinaire et complètement inattendu saut quantique. Apparemment Hynek hésita à écrire un livre représentant un tel renversement de considération scientifique, et cela a put lui prendre 20 ans d'implication continue pour se convaincre lui-même que ce livre devrait être écrit. De telles circonstances donnent à son travail une significativité supplémentaire.
Ce livre consiste en 3 parties : 1 - Le phénomène ovni, 2 - Les données et le problème et 3 - Où aller à partir de là ? Le style assez sec de l'auteur et son soucis d'éviter le sensationalisme décevront sans doute les lecteurs recherchant chez l'auteur d'un livre sur les ovnis soit un merveilleux conteur d'histoires. La Partie I enterre définitivement de tels espoirs ; et, à mon avis, aurait pu être plus courte. Le coeur du livre la Partie II, malgré les efforts de l'auteur pour l'éviter, rend la lecture fascinante. Elle contient un condensé de l'information de base sur les catégories spécifiques des observations d'ovnis. C'est ce type de matériau qui a du mal à sortir dans la littérature existante à moins qu'un prenne sur lui de plonger dans 20000 rapports éparses.
Dans les 2 premières parties, Hynek évite avec soin de s'empêtrer avec les auteurs de livres quasi-scientifiques existant dans la litérrature sur les ovnis. Plutôt que d'ajouter aux argumentations échauffées, il ignore simplement la plupart d'entre elles et économise ses munitions pour quelques pillonnages d'artillerie lourde contre 2 cibles qu'il traite dans la Partie 3 - le projet sur les ovnis de l'Air Force et l'étude de l'Université du Colorado.
Hynek livre les catégories d'ovnis suivantes :
1. lumières nocturnes 2. disques diurnes 3. signalements radar et visuels 4. rencontres rapprochées du 1er type (pas d'interaction avec l'environnement) 5. rencontre rapprochée du 2nd type (effets physiques sur l'environnement), et 6. rencontre rapprochée du 3ème type (occupants).
Pour chacune de ces catégories Hynek sélectionne 5 à 12 cas pour une description détaillée. Il fut impliqué personellement dans l'enquête sur certains d'entre eux. Le critère de sélection utilisé par Hynekévalue l'"étrangeté" et la "probabilité," qu'il trace sur une matrice. L'évaluation de l'étrangeté (de 1 à 9) est appliquée après une "recherche des explication physiques possibles," les valeurs les plus grandes étant attribuées aux cas faisant "outrage au sens commun".
Bien plus difficile est l'affectation du coefficient de probabilité car il implique des facteurs subjectifs, dont la crédibilité des témoins. Des jugements doivent être faits sur la fiabilité et l'éducation d'une personne, son comportement lors d'une interview, etc. Hynek n'affecte pas de coefficient dépassant 3 à des rapports ne provenant que d'un seul rapporteur même s'il ou elle a une réputation très solide. En d'autres mots les témoins multiples constituent un prérequis pour un coefficient de haute probabilité.
Les catégories d'ovnis (1) à (5) mentionnées ci-dessus sont évidemment d'étrangeté croissante et on pourrait peut-être s'attendre à ce qu'elles correspondent à une crédibilité décroissante. Etonnamment, ce n'est pas le cas ; nombre des "rencontres rapprochées" portent les plus coefficients de probabilité, un fait noté par Hynek, et une raison pour lui de les traiter à égalité avec les autres catégories. Hynek note également que la "diffusion d'étrangeté" est réduite et qu'il y a un motif de répétabilité permettant une classification. On pourrait mettre en question l'évaluation subjective des coefficients d'étrangeté et de probabilité. En l'absence d'enregistrement et de lecture à partir d'instruments, cependant, on peut douter à juste titre que de meilleurs approches soient concevables aujourd'hui.
Après avoir discuté des cas qu'il sélectionne dans chaque catégorie de types d'ovnis, Hynek fournit des nombres moyens et medium d'observateurs par cas, leurs regroupements professionnels, et une description qualitative de "prototypes". Des extraits de cette dernière pourraient servir d'illustrations :
1. lumières nocturnes : La lumière nocturne typique est une lumière brillante, généralement non ponctuelle, de taille linéaire indéterminée et de couleur variable..., suivant une trajectoire non attribuable à un ballon, avion, ou tout autre objet naturel et donnant souvent l'apparence d'un action intelligente... En ce qui concerne les trajectoires et le comportement cinématique, malgré des exceptions défiant des explications par une physique normale, même en acceptant une large exagération et erreur de jugement, les mouvements rapportés des lumières nocturnes ne semblent généralement pas violer les lois physiques.
2. disques diurnes : Généralement brillant ou luisant..., jaunâtre, blanc ou métallique. Montrant dans la plupart des cas ce que nous décririons de manière anthropomorphique comme un mouvement dirigé "avec but", avec la capacité d'accélérer extrêmement rapidement. Aucun son bruyant... semble être associé aux disques diurnes.
3. Signalements radar et visuels (ce chapitre intéressant contient de nombreux rapports d'observations simultanées par des témoins occulaires et des radar ainsi que des estimations quantitatives de vitesse. Le prototype est décrit comme suit) : L'opérateur radar observe un blip sur son écran qui... ressemble au type de blip donné pour un grand avion, n'est pas le résultat d'un défaut de fonctionnement, et ne ressemble pas à des "phénomènes météo". Une observations visuelle est typiquement une lumière, ou éventuellement une formation de lumières particulièrement peu familières à l'observateur... Les vitesses impliquées sont invariablement élevées, mais des combinaisons de haute vitesse à un moment et de survol stationnaire à un haute ne sont pas rares. Des inversions de mouvement et virages serrés, des virages non brusques à 90 °, sont caractéristiques des cas Radar-Visuels.
Les observations sélectionnées dans ces 3 premières catégories se réfèrent toutes à des objets distants et sont signalées par un pourcentage relativement élevé d'observateurs techniquement éduqués (40 à 60 %). Le nombre moyen de témoins par cas varie de 3,5 à 5,0.
Les 3 catégories suivantes ("Rencontres Rapprochées") concernent les observations situées entre 20 et 500 pieds de distance. De l'opinion de l'auteur la possibilité d'erreur de perception est éloignée dans ces cas à moins que les observateur n'aient souffert de "folie temporaire". Hynek consacre presque 80 pages de son livre aux rencontres rapprochées ; et le lecteur pourrait bien sympathiser avec l'hésitation de l'auteur à présenter ces éléments bizarres. Ces récits de cas illustrent la déconcertation des observateurs et leur difficulté à décrire ce qu'ils ont vécu. Evidemment Hynek a décidé de présenter l'ensemble des aspects observés du phénomène ovni, plutôt que de s'arrêter à un point arbitraire où les choses deviennent trop étranges. La catégorie des "rencontres rapprochées sans effets physiques" montre un nombre moyen d'observateurs par cas de 3,5, dont 35 % sont techniquement compétent. Le prototype est décrit comme suit :
Luminescence brilliante, taille relativement petite (de l'ordre de dizaines plutôt que de centaines de pieds), généralement de forme ovale - parfois surmontée d'un dôme - absence d'ailes, roues, or autres protubérances conventionnelles, et capacité à rester stationnaire et à accélerer très rapidement à de hautes vitesses ... les trajectoires sont largement verticales lorsque les vitesses sont hautes, décollages à 45 ° ou plus semblent être la règle.
La catégorie suivante concerne les rencontres rapprochées avec effets physiques. Hynek liste comme les plus courantes globalement observées les interférences avec le démarrage d'automobiles, les phares et la radio lorsque l'objet est à relativement proche. Il décrit de nombreux exemples, dont 1 implique de 7 cas de mise hors-service de voitures distinctes avec rétablissement automatique intervenant dans les 2 h. Le nombre moyen de témoins par cas est de 4,0 dans ce groupe, mais le pourcentage d'observateur techniquement formés est inférieur à celui du groupe précédent (13 %).
Enfin, Hynek arrive au plus étrange aspect des phénomènes ovnis - aux rencontres rapprochées avec "occupants." Il défend sa décision de ne pas écarter les rencontres d'occupants par 2 arquments. D'abord, elles sont trop nombreuses (plus de 300); et ensuite, il considère qu'on ne peut subdiviser le phénomène ovni, en acceptant certaines parties et en rejetant d'autres. Néanmoins, après une description approfondie de ce groupe d'observations déroutantes, Hynek conclut qu'il préfère laisser reposer le problème ovni sur les prototypes des 5 premières catégories... en gardant toujours à l'esprit qu'il pourra être découvert que les cas humanoïdes sont la clé de du problème dans son ensemble. On doit lire ce chapitre pour comprendre le dilemne de l'auteur.
Dans la 3ème partie du livre, Hynek takes severe issue with l'étude sur les ovnis de l'Air Force ("Blue Book") et le projet de l'Université du Colorado (projet Condon), y compris son approbation par l'Académie Nationale des Sciences. Il retrace l'histoire et les approches prises par ces études et les tient pour responsables du discrédit et du ridicule dont le problème ovni a souffert dans la communauté scientifique et de l'ingéniérie. Son principal reproche à l'étude de l'Air Force est l'incompétence, that against the Condon study prejudice et l'absence de concept scientifique valide. Hynek fait la remarque importante qu'une observation ne devrait être définie comme ovni que si elle reste inexpliquées après un examen technique sévère, alors qu'à son avis l'étude Condon ne requiert que l'observateur l'ait trouvée inexplicable - induisant ainsi beaucoup d'effort dépensé sur des cas sans intérêt.
Dans son dernier chapitre, Hynek suggère un nouveau départ pour l'ensemble du problème ovni. Il recommande une approche statistique afin de définir les paramètres du phénomène. Cela implique un traitement informatisé des données et un accord international sur les formats et le codage. Il propose un "institut" pour l'étude du phénomène ovni qui éliminerait l'approche actuelle strictement privée. Il servirait de point focal national ou international pour la collecte des données et de rapports. Le périmètre d'un d'un institut dépendrait des fonds et du temps disponible pour son équipe.
The UFO Experience représente sans nul doute la meilleure et la plus objective des introductions disponibles sur le problème ovni. Certains lecteurs seront déçus de ne pas y trouver une véritable "enquête scientifique", comme le suggère le titre du livre. Mais une telle enquête nécessiterait des efforts multidisciplinaires et des ressources considerable non accessibles à un scientifique privé. Peut-être aurait-il été préférable que Hynek omette ce sous-titre. Egalement, le traitement du problème de probabilité en chapitre 7 me semble faible. Des survols mineurs dans le livre présentent quelques problèmes ; par exemple, le "tableau probabilité-étrangeté" ne portant aucune légende et semblant incohérent avec le texte en Annexe 1. Ces imperfections peuvent et seront sans nul doute corrigées dans les éditions à venir.
Je vois le livre de Hynek comme un travail courageux rédigé par un scientifique respecté qui admet avoir changé d'avis et considère présenter un problème scientifique important et non résolu. Il ne fait pas de doute que Hynek sera critiqué par ceux qui considère le problème ovni comme "non existant". Un lecteur objectif devrait trouver la richesse d'informations contenue dans ce livre difficile à ignorer. Le même may hold for the international scientific and engineering community. Le livre de Hynek, d'ailleurs, a été traduit en plusieurs langues.
Joachim P. Kuettner, Président, sous-comité ovni de l'AIAA
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )
Rare Cosmic Event: Watch The Super Blue Blood Moon Live Now
Rare Cosmic Event: Watch The Super Blue Blood Moon Live Now
Sky Gazers are you read? The Super Blue Blood Moon is happening right now, and NASA Television and the agency’s website will provide live coverage of the celestial spectacle.
If you don’t have a chance to witness in the sky, fear no more, as NASA has got you covered.
Hawaii and Alaska have the best seats, along with the Canadian Yukon, Asia, and Australia. The western United States, along with Russia, will also be able to enjoy the show.
In contrast, the Atlantic coast of the United States, Europe, most of Latin America and Africa will not be able to see the eclipse. Therefore, tune into NASA’s live stream of the event.
Image Credit: Shutterstock
If the weather conditions allow it, NASA’s broadcast will feature views from different vantage points located at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California; Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles; and the University of Arizona’s Mt. Lemmon SkyCenter Observatory.
This is your chance to witness extremely rare cosmic events: a supermoon, a blue moon, and a lunar eclipse at the same time.
A blue moon is the second full moon in a calendar month.
This time it happens to coincide with the perigee of the moon, the point of the orbit in which our satellite is closest to the Earth, which allows a larger and brighter vision than usual.
If you add to this a total eclipse, also called blood moon because of its reddish color, the show is something to remember.
NASA calls it the lunar trifecta, the first blood blue supermoon since 1982, a combination that will not be repeated until 2037.
The lunar eclipse occurs when the sun, the Earth, and the moon are perfectly aligned and the shadow of the planet is projected onto its satellite.
Scientists are ready to measure the sudden drop in temperature on the lunar surface.
During the event, which will last more than an hour, the temperature will drop to38 degrees (100 Fahrenheit), said scientist Noah Petro of the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Petro is in charge of the “Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter”, a spaceship that orbits the moon since 2009.
His team will take special precautions so that the probe does not cool during the eclipse.
Oh and… the moon will be located at a distance of 360,200 kilometers (223,820 miles) at the peak of the eclipse.
Startling and disturbing information relative to how sound can be used as a tool of control and manipulation can be found in the pages of a formerly classified U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency document dated March 1976. Its title: Biological Effects of Electromagnetic Radiation (Radiowaves and Microwaves) Eurasian Communist Countries (you can find it at this link). Written by Ronald L. Adams and Dr. R. A. Williams, of the U.S. Army (and specifically of the Medical Intelligence and Information Agency), it notes in part:
“The Eurasian Communist countries are actively involved in evaluation of the biological significance of radio-waves and microwaves. Most of the research being conducted involves animals or in vitro evaluations, but active programs of a retrospective nature designed to elucidate the effects on humans are also being conducted.”
Of deep concern to the United States military and the intelligence community, was the incredible revelation that the Soviets had developed technology that allowed them to beam “messages” into the minds of targeted individuals. Rather notably, the DIA and the Army concluded that such messages might direct a person to commit nothing less than suicide. Even if the person was not depressed, said Adams and Williams, the technology could be utilized to plunge them into sudden states of “…irritability, agitation, tension, drowsiness, sleeplessness, depression, anxiety, forgetfulness, and lack of concentration.”
The authors added: “Sounds and possibly even words which appear to be originating intra-cranially can be induced by signal modulation at very low average-power densities.” They concluded: “The Soviets will continue to investigate the nature of internal sound perception. Their research will include studies on perceptual distortion and other psycho-physiological effects. The results of these investigations could have military applications if the Soviets develop methods for disrupting or disturbing human behavior.”
When, in the mid-1980s, plans were formulated by the iron-fist regime of then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to base nuclear “Cruise” missiles at strategic military bases in the British Isles, it provoked massive demonstrations on the part of the general public – and particularly at a military establishment called Royal Air Force Greenham Common, a now-closed down installation in Berkshire, England.
As a result of the planned placement of missiles at Greenham Common, a large group of women peace-protesters set up camp outside the base. It wasn’t long, however, before many of the women began to experience a series of disturbing symptoms, including deep depression, overwhelming anxiety attacks, intense migraine-like headaches, alarming losses of short-term memory, and much more of a distinctly mind-destabilizing nature. As a direct result of this alarming and highly suspicious development, theories began to quickly develop and circulate to the effect that the women were being specifically targeted with electromagnetic weaponry, as part of an intensive effort to bring their demonstrations – which had generated a large amount of support – to an abrupt and permanent end.
Then, there’s the matter of New Mexico’s notorious “Taos Hum.” Live Science notes of the hum that it “seems to have first been reported in the early 1990s. Joe Mullins, a professor emeritus of engineering at the University of New Mexico, conducted research into the Taos Hum. Based on a survey of residents, about 2 percent of the general population was believed to be ‘hearers,’ those who claimed to detect the hum.” Those who were able to pick up the hum said it irritated them, provoked stress, and caused panic-attacks and insomnia.
In more recent years, such hums have been heard all around the world. In 2015, the U.K.’s Independent newspaper reported: “In Britain, the most famous example was the ‘Bristol hum’ that made the news in the late 1970s. One newspaper asked readers in the city: ‘Have you heard the Hum?’ and at least 800 people said they had.” Alarmingly, it was revealed that when the humming was at its absolute height, people were affected by intense migraines and even bloody noses. When the humming stopped, so did the side-effects. As for the specific sound, it was likened to a car engine which was “idling,” some distance away from the people affected.
In a 2016 article titled “A Maddening Sound,” writer Colin Dickey detailed a number of such examples, including this one: “Sue Taylor first started hearing it at night in 2009. A retired psychiatric nurse, Taylor lives in Roslin, Scotland, a small village seven miles outside of Edinburgh. ‘A thick, low hum,’ is how she described it, something ‘permeating the entire house,’ keeping her awake.”
Taylor’s initial thought was that perhaps the annoying – almost destabilizing – noise was coming from a factory close by. Maybe a generator. As a result, Taylor decided to do a bit of detective work, checking out the surrounding area, and even hanging out outside the homes of her friends and neighbors, in an effort to try and resolve the mystery. Unfortunately, and although the hum was clearly a real phenomenon, she failed to crack the mystery. Things proceeded to get worse: the hum plagued her during the night – to the extent that she even had hear ears examined by a doctor – who could find no problems at all. She began to suffer from a cross between vertigo and dizziness – to the point that she felt sick. Even the house itself felt as if it was shaking slightly.
In 2011, Andrew Liszewski wrote an article for Gizmodo with an eye-catching title: “Future Riot Shields Will Suffocate Protestors with Low Frequency Speakers.” Sci-fi, this was not. It was all too disturbingly real. Liszewski said: “It’s not the first crowd control tool to use sound waves, but Raytheon’s patent for a new type of riot shield that produces low frequency sound waves to disrupt the respiratory tract and hinder breathing, sounds a little scary.” Many might agree.
Are you tired of NASA, ESA, other space agencies, the military and most governments (does that cover just about everyone?) lying to you about what’s going on in space? Do you think you can do better? You probably can, if the discovery by one amateur astronomer recently is any indication. While listening for spy satellites (and using his real name – a brave fellow), he found a satellite that NASA lost contact with in 2005 and gave up for dead. Something switched it back on and now NASA is suddenly VERY interested in this astronomer’s findings.
On his blog, “Riddles in the Sky: A blog dedicated to observing, mostly classified, satellites,” Scott Tilley reveals that he was actually looking for ZUMA, the mysterious classified spacecraft that may or may not have been launched by SpaceX on January 7th – while SpaceX says it did its job and deployed the satellite, no communications seem to have been made with it … nor have there been any reports of it crashing. Theories range for it being a new stealth satellite that faked its own crash or its mission was brief and it destroyed itself.
On January 20th, Tilley found some unusual non-ZUMA data.
“I noticed a curve consistent with an satellite in High Earth Orbit (HEO) on 2275.905MHz, darn not ZUMA… This is not uncommon during these searches. So I set to work to identify the source. A quick identity scan using ‘strf’ (sat tools rf) revealed the signal to come from 2000-017A, 26113, called IMAGE.”
IMAGE before it was launched (credit: NASA)
IMAGE (Imager for Magnetopause to Aurora Global Exploration) was NASA’s first satellite dedicated to imaging the Earth’s magnetosphere. It was launched in March 2000 and operated flawlessly for over five years until it unexpectedly stopped on December 18, 2005. A Failure Review Board determined that a one-time event (NASA-speak for an unexplained glitch – aliens?) apparently tripped a power controller and turned it off (really?). The report concludes that something could reset the controller and bring the satellite back to life, but it didn’t say what. Gremlins? Aliens? A secret mission by SpaceX?
News of Tilley’s blog post quickly reached NASA and it began to carefully attempt to locate the signal and determine if it’s really IMAGE or something else. (Is anyone keeping track of things out there?) A statement from NASA explained:
“NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, has acquired time on the Deep Space Network (DSN) to focus on the source and determine whether the signal is indeed IMAGE. This process must take into consideration the vintage nature of the spacecraft, and includes locating appropriate software and commands to potentially operate the mission. We will share more information as it becomes available.”
And it surprisingly did. In another statement on January 29th, NASA confirmed the good news that the signal is indeed coming from an newly-awakened IMAGE … and the bad news that:
“The types of hardware and operating systems used in the IMAGE Mission Operations Center no longer exist, and other systems have been updated several versions beyond what they were at the time, requiring significant reverse-engineering.”
In other words, no one kept the floppy disks, ZIP drives or other antiquated media with the software on it to communicate with IMAGE. They’re probably now going through the list of retired engineers to see if anyone wants to come back and work on it. They should demand triple-pay at least.
Never give up
Once the software is updated, NASA will try to turn on the science payload again and see if anything still works. This could be great news since IMAGE was the last mission to study the global impact of magnetic storms.
If that happens, it would be a nice gesture if NASA let Scott Tilley peek into the secret room where the secret ZUMA files are being stored.
There are many facets of the UFO phenomenon, and many types of witnesses who have come forward with their own extraordinary tales. These often get lost in the deluge of such reports and indeed rantings, but sometimes there is a well-know and beloved celebrity who will come forward with their own accounts, theories, and experiences. These particular witnesses and spokespeople have a way of making people listen, somewhat reinvigorating the UFO debate in the process, and certainly one of the most vocal and well-known of these is none other than the popular Canadian-American actor, comedian, producer, screenwriter, musician and businessman Dan Ackroyd. Getting his start on the hit sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live and going on to star in such beloved classics as Ghostbusters, Aykroyd is a well-known name to many people. He also just happens to be a major proponent and researcher of UFOs with some truly bizarre tales to tell.
Dan Aykroyd has never been shy about his intense interest in UFOs, and this seems to be a fascination that reaches all the way back into his childhood. The actor was fist enamored with the phenomenon when he saw a photo of mysterious lights over Capitol Hill from all the way back in 1952, an incident in which fighter planes had apparently been scrambled to chase the fast-moving objects off. This interest was only strengthened when he saw the classic sci-fi film The Day the Earth Stood Still, which he saw as a perfectly plausible scenario. Aykroyd would have the first of his own many close encounters with UFOs in the mid-1980s in upstate New York, when he claims that he woke up in the middle of the night in a panic and told his wife, “They are calling me, I want to go outside.”
Dan Aykroyd
He claimed that he had had the irresistible compulsion to go outside, which he credits to voices in his head compelling him to do so. When he did go outside as instructed by the vices in his head he reported that he had seen a pink spiral over the Great Lakes area, and it would turn out that others had had the same urge to go outside at the same time and had seen the same thing.
Aykroyd would go on to become a fairly hard-core proponent of UFOs, and he would eventually make a documentary on his interests, called Dan Aykroyd Unplugged on UFOs, in 2005, and he even served for several years as the official Hollywood representative of the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), and he has accrued a vast knowledge of UFO research and lore over the years that would put most UFOlogists to shame. In April of 2010, Aykroyd appeared on the well-known TV show Larry King Live, where the topic was UFOs and Aykroyd appeared as a pro-UFO representative in the debate, among a panel of scientists who had been brought together to discuss the physicist Stephen Hawking’s assertion that any aliens coming from the stars would be certainly malevolent. Aykroyd shared some famous cases of UFO abductions, such as those of Travis Walton and Betty and Barney Hill, and on the show he stated:
They are here, science should accept that they are here and look how they have come from a billion years in the future or the next dimension or wherever they are coming from. They have abducted people.
Aykroyd has appeared on other shows about his UFO beliefs, such as a 2015 episode of The HuffPost Show with host Marc Lamont Hill, where the topic turned to the strange and he talked candidly about the U.S. Air Force’s UFO alleged cover-up and some details about his own personal UFO sightings. When asked if he truly believed in UFOs, Aykroyd answered:
I do, absolutely, and I’m not alone. I have seen four, and I can’t say that they are alien craft and neither can the Air Force. The Air Force has been very interested in this. They don’t deny the existence of these hyperdynamic, super aerodynamic craft. They don’t deny. Their anguish comes in that they can’t tell you. They want to tell you anything but that they are extraterrestrial. Any excuse at all, even if they are unknown or unsolved. The Air Force cannot just come out and admit that there are extraterrestrial beings far in advanced of our culture that have built these machines. They are very interested in what is going on, but like us, they don’t know. I believe that there are probably many species coming and going and that the Air Force is very interested, but they can’t come out and say. Because then you’re going to go, ‘well wait a minute, the parish priest, the cop on the street, the President — you don’t got the power. They’ve got the power!’ You’d have complete breakdown of society.
On the show, Aykroyd went on to give some further details into his own strange UFO sightings, saying:
Two specifically were definitely aerial constructs of some kind. One of them with a light, and one of them dull gray, and they were structures – one of them going very slow, one of them hovering over me. Then there were the two that my wife and friends and I saw – a high altitude sighting many years ago in Martha’s vineyard. Two flying side by side. They were at about 100,000 feet up, and they were going fast.
Aykroyd has also gone on and on about UFOs on his Facebook page, often referencing research and books and talking about his conspiratorial ideas about government cover-ups. He actively plugged the 2014 book The FBI-CIA-UFO Connection: The Hidden UFO Activities of USA Intelligence Agencies on his page, which goes over the vast research done on declassified documents by a physicist named Dr. Bruce Maccabee, who spent thirty-six years at the Naval Surface Warfare Center. Aykroyd would say in a Facebook post of the book thus:
Ex-Naval Surface Warfare employee and physicist Dr. Bruce Maccabee has assembled the most extensively and meticulously researched body of documentary evidence ever compiled on the U.S. government’s genuine interest in the UFO phenomena. The USAF has NEVER denied the existence of these super-performance aerodynamic vehicles. The Air Force’s continued anguish over PUBLIC disclosure is not due to the military’s genuinely admitted reality of these machines’ existence but due to the government’s struggle to categorize the phenomena as being ANYTHING but extra planetary in origin.
Aykroyd also continuously praises and supports the organization called Mutual UFO Network (Mufon), for which he served as a consultant for a few years, and of who which he has said:
Basically, [Mufon are] scientists from all kinds of disciplines that have formed this group to analyze what is real and what is a hoax. Now you could say every one of them is a fake – that footage of 200 whirling white dots in the sky, or the Phoenix Lights [a series of lights seen over Phoenix, Arizona, in 1997] – which 17,000 people saw – the Tinley Park sightings in Illinois, where whole suburbs saw these triangles and wedges go over at three miles an hour. Is it a mass hallucination? If so, why is it appearing on digital cameras and film? They’re coming and going like taxis.
Although Aykroyd takes this research very seriously and can seemingly talk about it nonstop, he is still known to go off the deep end from time to time, to the point that even avid UFO fans might take pause, but which although fringe nevertheless seem just as well thought out as any other theories out there. When asked about why he thinks UFOs are here he has said:
There’s that old theory that humankind and this planet were seen as the centre of the universe. That was thrown away – how could we be so presumptuous? Well, I subscribe to that. I think we are the centre of the universe and that is why they’re coming. They’re visiting because this is the planet that produced Picasso, the atom bomb, penicillin … there are so many advances in science, art and culture. They have technology better than ours, but they didn’t paint like Renoir, they don’t dance like Mick Jagger, they don’t write like Samuel Johnson or William Faulkner. They are envious of us. We have the most beautiful planet – the Rockies, the purple fields of the United States, the Lake District, the Pyrenees, the turquoise seas of the tropics. They don’t have that. They may have gelatinous pools and crystal mountains and they’ve got the technology to flip from planet to planet or dimension to dimension but, you know, Keith Richards didn’t come from there. I think there are possibly some hybrids here. I think many are here for good purposes and want to improve our planet but I think some are here for malevolent purposes. Probably extracting sperm and ova, or taking cow’s lips and anuses for delicacies, being cruel to animals, that kind of thing.
Out of all of this, one of Aykroyd’s more bizarre tales is an incident in which he says he was confronted by the Men in Black, as he was talking to the singer Britney Spears of all people. Just before the cancellation of his TV show Out There, Aykroyd claims that he stepped out of the studio to take a call from Spears, who he had starred beside as her father in the film Crossroads. Britney Spears had called him to ask him to appear on Aykroyd’s old show Saturday Night Live with her, and as he talked he says he noticed a mysterious black car pull up on a nearby street.
Out of the car purportedly stepped a “very tall,” pale man in a black suit, who gave him a “dirty look” before getting back into the vehicle and driving off. Oddly, the producers of the show Aykroyd was filming shortly after were told to stop shooting a show they were making about UFOs, specifically one in which they had been interviewing a Dr. Steven Greer, of the Disclosure Project, who was about to spill tons of testimony of UFO witnesses and supposed insider information. The show never made it to air. It is an odd account to be sure, and one wonders just what in the world was going on here.
It is clear that the comedy great and renowned actor Dan Aykroyd truly believes what he is saying and has the knowledge and conviction to back it up. He talks about it with such enthusiasm that it is difficult not to be somewhat drawn into his world. It may not mean that any of this is true, but it is curious how having some fame can bring one’s views to the masses and get people thinking. The UFO debate has many players, theories, and directions it can go, and when a well-known celebrity opens up in the topic it tends to have wide-ranging effects. Whether any of what Dan Aykroyd says is true or not, it gives us something to think about, and is one more voice out in a sea of voices on the immortal topic of the UFO phenomenon.
Space experts tracking China’s long-defunct Tiangong-1 space station as it makes its final plunge back to Earth say there’s nothing to worry about … the 18,000-pound piece of space junk will burn up in the atmosphere and only small fragments, if any at all, will survive reentry and hit the ground … probably in the ocean. Tell that to people in Brazil and Peru. On the afternoon of January 27th, residents of Acre in northwestern Brazil saw a bright object streak across the sky in broad daylight (6:30 pm local time). Many captured the object on video (here’s one) but no one reported getting any kind of warning beforehand nor any sort of explanation afterwards.
Meanwhile, just across the Peruvian border, residents of the Puno region in southeastern Peru got a better show … and a bigger scare. El Comercio reported that people in Loreto, San Antonio de Putina, Moho and other neighboring areas not only saw the bright object but heard a “loud roar.” Again, no warnings were given and no explanations were forthcoming from local or Peruvian government authorities.
However, Peruvians may have heard about the big meteor huntin Michigan that was paying $20,000 per kilo of meteor matter and decided to go treasure hunting. On the morning of the 28th, another loud roar was heard, but this time it was in the Larancahuani community where hunters found something that was not a meteor but was definitely from outer space.
Near a hole that appeared to be a small impact crater about 30 cm (1 foot) deep, they found (video here) a rounded metallic object measuring about one meter (39 inches) in diameter and 40 kg (88 pounds) in weight. The object had protuberances on the top and bottom, giving it a resemblance to a round top. Those brave enough to get close said it smelled of electric welding, which is the distinct odor of burnt metallic oxides – not surprising if the object just fell from space. Those even braver enough to touch the object said “a sound similar to that which comes from a gas balloon is felt.”
Word of the object spread quickly and representatives of the Center of Interests Aerospace of the FAP (Fuerza Aérea del Perú – the Peruvian Air Force) showed up, declared it to be the “tank of an inoperative satellite that could have origin Chinese, Russian or North American,” turned it over to the army and ordered the local police to block the area in case of radiation. Radiation? That’s not good news for those who thought it felt like a “gas balloon.”
Another explanation circulating among those looking for answers was that the object was a part of a tank from a Russian rocket launched on December 26, 2017. That would have been the strange launch from Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan of the Angolan satellite which Russia lost communications with for three days.
Not all residents of Peru and Brazil are satisfied with these explanations and we shouldn’t be either. The number of space launches has increased dramatically recently and incidents of falling space junk have gone up as well. If we can’t get sufficient warning of a falling 18,000 pound space station, what chance do we have with fuel tanks? Tell that to the people who get hit with the objects or are exposed to radiation or harmful chemicals.
Will we ever get sufficient warnings of falling space junk? Do the powers that be care?
Another staple of science fiction and horror movies may become a reality and could ruin any chance of humans landing a spacecraft – manned or otherwise – on the surface of Jupiter’s moon, Europa … one of the planetary bodies in the solar system that is considered capable of sustaining life forms. New research suggests that the surface of this moon is made of fine particles with a lot of air space in-between them. In other words, Europa appears to be covered with quicksand. Calling Indiana Jones!
Researcher at the Planetary Science Institute, led by senior scientist Robert Nelson, were studying the “photopolarimetric properties of bright particles that explain unusual negative polarization behavior at low phase angles observed for decades in association with atmosphereless bodies including asteroids 44 Nysa, 64 Angelina and the Galilean satellites Io, Europa and Ganymede” for a study published in Icarus.
In simpler terms, the polarization of light reflected from a solar system object depends on the reflective material and on the geometry of the surface. The angle from the Sun to Europa to an observer on Earth is called the “phase angle” and any polarization having greater than a 20 degree phase angle is considered positive. It’s lower in Europa’s case, giving it negative polarization. What this means in even simpler terms is that the light reflected off of Europa indicates that its surface material is some sort of extremely fine-grained particles (a fraction of a micron), like fine powdered snow, with void space between them above 95 percent. That combination of fine particles and loose density is the formula for outer space quicksand.
Is this bad news? Fans of The Princess Bride, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Blazing Saddles (movies with memorable quicksand scenes) and 1960s adventure movies (according to a survey by Slate, 3% of them showed someone sinking in quicksand or mud) know the answer. This will be bad news for the Europa Lander planned by NASA for a mission in 2024 … if this surface-skimming, photo-taking robot sinks, there won’t be a Doctor Jones or a fairy tale Giant to save it.
The good news is, science has proven that most movie quicksand is a myth … at least the part about getting sucked in over your head. It’s generally not that deep and you can get out by moving slowly or even by getting on your back and swimming. However, that’s quicksand on Earth. They don’t know yet what they’ll be dealing with on Europa nor if the surface is completely covered with it … that’s highly unlikely.
Quicksand on Europa adds another level of excitement to future missions to Europa … and a great plot line to sci-fi movies until we get there.
OOK IN ONS LAND MENSEN MEEGENOMEN DOOR BUITENAARDSEN ( VIDEO )
OOK IN ONS LAND MENSEN MEEGENOMEN DOOR BUITENAARDSEN ( VIDEO )
Wanneer mensen ooit zijn "meegenomen" door buitenaardsen staan ze vaak daarna heel anders in het leven dan een doorsnee burger die nog nooit iets vergelijkbaars heeft meegemaakt of gezien.
Overal ter wereld gebeurt dit, ook in ons land, en soms resulteert dit alles in een soort deur naar andere dimensies.
Het is de laatste tijd opmerkelijk stil met ervaringen op het gebied van UFO 's en aanverwante zaken in ons land. Niet alleen bij ons, maar wereldwijd lijken er minder waarnemingen te zijn dan de afgelopen jaren.
Ze zijn er daarentegen wel, zoals de volgende opname die enkele dagen geleden werd gemaakt boven een ranch in het Amerikaanse Texas:
Zoals we al vaker schreven, hebben sommige mensen meer UFO waarnemingen dan anderen.
Je hebt mensen die hun hele leven naar de lucht kijken en nooit iets zien, terwijl er anderen zijn die eigenlijk op permanente basis dingen zien en/of telepathisch contact hebben met buitenaardse entiteiten.
Twee van zulke mensen zijn oude bekenden die hier regelmatig voorbij zijn gekomen, Ronald Dekker en Suzan Aksoy.
In een eerder artikel schreven we het volgende over hen:
Naast onderzoek hebben Suzan en Ronald (ze deelden al eerder info met ons) ook zelf de nodige ervaringen, niet alleen met waarnemingen, maar ook lichamelijk.
Zo kwam Suzan er na regressiehypnose achter dat zij zelf als kind diverse keren is “meegenomen”.
Nu hebben ze de onderstaande documentaire gemaakt, Doorways.
Het neemt je mee langs de verschillende aspecten van niet alleen het UFO fenomeen, maar het laat je ook kennismaken met de talloze verschillende realiteiten waarmee wij te maken hebben.
Dat het mogelijk is “om verbinding te maken” met wezens die thuishoren in andere realiteiten en toch op een bepaalde manier onderdeel vormen van ons dagelijks leven.
Hoe alles energie is en dat wij energetische wezens zijn die op ieder moment hun eigen werkelijkheid scheppen, ongeacht of andere mensen ook die beleving hebben.
Bovenstaande is alweer enkele jaren geleden, ze zijn nog steeds heel actief, hebben nog steeds allerlei interessante ervaringen en/of waarnemingen en krijgen nu ook vanuit het buitenland belangstelling.
Het gevolg is het volgende recente interview waar ze vertellen hoe het allemaal begon en wat ze allemaal hebben waargenomen en meegemaakt.
Ook in ons land werd er via een programma van Fliemon enkele jaren geleden al aandacht besteed aan de bijzondere waarnemingen van Ronald en Suzan. Wij schreven daar toen het volgende over:
Navolgend een aantal beelden uit de uitzending van vanavond op Nederland 3 bij BNN Social Club. We zijn in gesprek met Filemon en in onderstaande foto laten we hem een beeld en video zien van een ruimteschip met buitenaardse inzittenden.
Filemon ziet vlekken zegt hij. Glaasje water?
Aan interesse ontbrak het gelukkig niet. Er is lang de tijd genomen door Filemon om overtuigd te raken. De conclusie met zulk overweldigend bewijs kan geen andere zijn dan dat het erkennen van het bestaan van UFO's en buitenaardsen nog net niet hip genoeg is.
Aangekomen in UFO stad Woerden spraken we ook uitgebreid met Ronald en Suzan, ervaringsdeskundigen op het gebied van UFO's. We waarderen het dat ze beiden bereid waren tijd vrij te maken voor deze opnamen.
Wij danken BNN hartelijk voor de aandacht voor dit onderwerp.
Ja, weet je, er komt nog best wat bij kijken, maar als je eenmaal weet hoe de vork in de steel zit,en hoe en waar je naar moet kijken is het geweldig als je het eenmaal ziet/doorhebt! Zo hebben we al heel wat beelden en foto's geanalyseerd, en we kunnen vertellen dat er zoveeeeeel soorten energieën/ buiten/binnenaardsen etc. zijn., " rassen" waar we ons geen voorstelling van kunnen maken!
Maar goed, we hebben dan ook het vertrouwen dat alles op zijn eigen tijd naar buiten zal komen. Mede door behulp van fijne andere lichtwerkers ; ) Wat ons ooit eens met een channeling is verteld van een ET die doorkwam is dat eenieder zijn instrument pas zou moeten bespelen, als het hele orkest meedoet, anders (zei hij), wordt je alleen maar gehoord door de buren! hahaha Konden we wel om lachen!
En ter afsluiting de door Suzan en Ronald gemaakte documentaire getiteld: Doorways.
UFO Drone Found Crippled In Field On Mountain Of Peru, Jan 27, 2018, UFO Sighting News.
UFO Drone Found Crippled In Field On Mountain Of Peru, Jan 27, 2018, UFO Sighting News.
Date of discovery: January27, 2018 Location of discovery: Laurancahuani, Peru This is an interesting discovery. A metal orb fell from the sky and landed in the mountains of Peru this week. Peru, being a hotbed of UFO activity compared to the rest of the world, leads us all to believe that this is a UFO drone. I agree with this theory. Governments always take these orbs away when they fall, with no clear explanation to what they are, or why they fell from nowhere. How can a UFO orb be harmed? Most likely it was one of two possibilities. One a military radar picked it up, some military radars interfere with the UFOs propulsion, leaving it crippled (you remember Roswell). The other possibility is a lighting strike when its shields are down. Scott C. Waring-Taiwan
On Saturday 27 at 18:30 in the afternoon this fireball was seen in the Peruvian sky fell in the community of Laurancahuani, province of Azángaro in Puno. When approaching the place, the witnesses said that they felt a smell of electrode welding or electric welding, when performing movement a common sound of gas balloon was heard. The sphere has a weight of 40 kilos approximately, its circumference is 2 meters and it has 1 meter height with 5 centimeters. The depth of the impact is 30 centimeters deep and a diameter of 29 centimeters.
One of the oldest UFOs that was recorded on video in the 1950s has brought a surprise at the end. The object in question appears similar and vibrates in the same way as the plane plates that were photographed by Billy Meier.
It was found out – after analysing the videos of Billy Meier – that the UFO’s vibration is equivalent to the magnetic field of the earth. Interestingly, the UFO becomes wholly stable and leaves. In the 1950’s, there was no known technology of a spacecraft equivalent to the magnetic field of the Earth and could manage to float in the air.
Well, if this technology is strange enough, nothing weirder than a spacecraft that can switch from solid to the plasma state and travel at the speed of light in the 1950s.
For the First Time – Images Show Aliens Inside A UFO
For the First Time – Images Show Aliens Inside A UFO
Unbelievable images have surfaced of what is thought by many an alien inside a real extraterrestrial flying craft.
The black and white images apparently show the inside of the UFO wherein you can see the cockpit with seating, control panel and among other things.
An apparent being wearing sunglasses can also be seen. It is said to be a real alien visitor.
Flying Disk Press first published pictures of the human-like alien on February 1.
The book titled UFO Contacts in Italy claims a flying saucer landed on the Adriatic Coast in Francavilla.
Two men reportedly took the photos. They were allegedly allowed into the spacecraft, according to author Dr Roberto Pinotti, 73.
Dr Pinotti said that the UFO had a diameter of 24 metres and the control cabin had 10 metres.
The unusual incidents are claimed to have happened in Italy in October 1957, but until now, the story has never made it out of the country.
Dr Pinotti said that much of the information in this book is being published for the very first time in English.
The book features a different variety of UFO and alien contact cases from Italy, and one of the strangest events is the one from 1957.
It is the only case that includes photographs of the inside of the unidentified flying object.
The now called “The Friendship case” started close to Pescara between 1956 and 1957.
A group of residents is believed to have been making periodic contacts with the human-like alien friends.
He added that these aliens built underground bases on Earth and the most important one in Italy would have been the central zone of the peninsula, near Pescara, along the Adriatic coast.
It is believed that the contact in the area lasted for 20 years.
Sceptics say the case and the pictures are just another hoaxes.
However, publisher Phillip Mantle came into defence saying that Roberto Pinotti is an author, an aerospace journalist, and top Italian scholar in ufology with a degree in sociology and politics at the University of Florence.
Mantle added that Dr Pinotti is the only alive founder of Centro Ufologico Nazionale in Italy, one of the oldest and authoritative private UFO study organisations.
The book UFO Contacts in Italy is scheduled to be published on the first day of February.
In the mid-80s, off southern Yonaguni, in Japan, some divers found amazing underwater stone structures which looked like stairs or balconies. Scientist like marine geologist Masaaki Kimura think these “pyramids” are man-made and that date back to thousand of years ago.
YONAGUMI PYRAMIDS ON TV
Story has been enhanced by History Channel (in the episode “Lost cities of the deep” of Ancient Discoveries series), by Bbc and by Discovery Channel, but the question remains: are they wildlife structures or were they created over the surface by a vanished civilization and then were flooded by ocean beacause of a volcanic eruption or an earthquake?
Yonaguni pyramids consist of a series of stone structures, comprising massive layers, as well as various pillars. They lie at a depth between 5 to 40 meters above the surface. The most remarkable structure was named “turtle” because of its similarity with such an animal.
THE CIRCULATION OF MARINE CURRENTS
Because of very strong marine currents, and a large population of hammerhead sharks, diving in these waters isn't fully safe, but this didn't prevent the area to become the most famous for diving in Japan.
Some scientists think that exactly the strong maring currents, jointly to the natural process of erosion, turned for millenia the ocean floor.
TOO MANY CORNERS AND STRAIGHT EDGES
Yonagumi pyramids would therefore be just part of a rock formation. Other experts continue to believe they were man-made, as would seem to indicate the huge number of corners and straight edges, as witness many photos taken over the years.
Whether this view proved to be correct, would arise louder a second question: why, fromwho and for what purpose were built Yonaguni pyramids. Before even gets the the mythical Atlantis, were they and ancient fortified complex, temples, or a mausoleum?
A soft robot developed by Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems is seen to the left of a coin. |Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems
Take two robots and call me in the morning.
That may well be a legitimate prescription for future medical patients, thanks to a new kind of radically miniaturized soft robot that can be swallowed, injected, or inserted under the skin. The robot can then move around inside the body to target specific tissues or deliver precise doses of medicine.
Researchers with Germany's Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems unveiled last week details of the tiny robot in a paper published in the journal Nature. Unofficially dubbed the millirobot, it's a flexible, fabric-like robot that can walk, swim, and even carry cargo, despite having no mechanical elements or batteries.
The secret is magnetism. The millirobot, which resembles a very small rectangle of paper about four millimeters in length, is made of an elastic polymer threaded through with magnetic particles. Using existing magnetic-resonance technology, such as an ultrasound machine, doctors can control the movement of the bot inside the human body.
That means the robot can potentially be deployed anywhere that physicians need to deliver a particular drug or other medical material — in the digestive tract, say, or even within the blood stream.
The soft millirobot climbs on the water meniscus by changing its body curvature and lands on the solid surface. Next, it encounters a large obstacle and traverses it fast and easily by jumping over it, and walks on the surface after landing. The dashed line shows the direction of the robot motion. Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems
“In the case of digestive or urinary systems, where the current robot could get in with its current size, the robot would be swallowed,” Sitti told Seeker. “For internal organ applications, we would deploy the robot through a small incision, like in the case of laparoscopy. In vascular system applications, we could inject it omto the blood vessels.”
While other ingestible robots have been developed, the millirobot has several advantages over other techniques, according to the research team. Most importantly, the robot is very versatile in its modes of locomotion. Thanks to its biologically inspired design, the millirobot can easily transition from swimming in a liquid to scooting over a solid surface.
“We looked at the physical mechanism of locomotion of soft-bodied caterpillars and jellyfishes and took inspiration from them,” Sitti said. “The result is that our millirobot is a mix of small-scale soft-bodied animals, such as a beetle larva, a caterpillar, a spermatozoid, and a jellyfish.”
Thanks to its biomimetic design, the millirobot has multiple ways to get around, Sitti said. In a video released with the research publication the millirobot is shown inching along like a worm, swimming like a manta ray, and carrying cargo by encircling small objects then rolling them into place.
“After the robot is deployed inside the body, it can be navigated using seven different locomotion methods to reach to the target disease area,” Sitti said. “Then, the robot can deliver drug locally in a controlled dose by using its shape-change control. This can remove possible side effects that some drugs could have and can also improve the drug delivery efficiency and amount control.”
Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems
Sitti and his research team have further plans for the millirobot, including possible cancer treatment options and a novel cauterization technique.
“As another medical use very soon, we could heat the robot in the target location remotely — using electromagnetic waves — and the heated robot could stop bleeding in a wound or kill cancer cells locally,” Sitti said.
The researchers hope that their soft robot will some day become a standard option for health care providers, offering a space-age option for non-invasive access to hard-to-reach places.
“Currently it is not possible to access many small regions inside the human body without surgery,” Sitti said. “But our target is to reach such regions non-invasively and conduct diagnostic and therapeutic operations with our soft robots.”
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30-01-2018
Incredible Similarities Between Ancient Gods In Unconnected Cultures Hint At Ancient Aliens
Incredible Similarities Between Ancient Gods In Unconnected Cultures Hint At Ancient Aliens
What if I told you that all ancient cultures were somehow connected to each other, thousands of years ago.
Have you ever wondered why there are so many similarities among ancient cultures around the globe? Mainstream scholars maintain how cultures in Africa, America, Europe, and Asia weren’t interconnected in ancient times.
Despite these claims, numerous archeological discoveries suggest otherwise.
Take for example ancient monuments scattered across the globe.
Numerous ancient sites in South America show uncanny similarities in design and construction to monuments erected halfway across the world, in Africa for example.
Are these similarities a mere coincidence?
Or is there a possibility that all of these ancient cultures were interconnected somehow.Is it possible, as some ancient astronaut theorists suggest, that an otherworldly entity influenced ancient civilizations around the globe?
How is it possible that the ancient Olmecs, Aztecs, Egyptians, and cultures as those in New Zealand share depictions of their gods—who came down from heaven—which are nearly identical?
Is this just another example of random cultural spread? Or is it possible there is more to it than we are willing to accept?
Ancient Olmecs and the La Venta Stele 19
A photo of La Venta Stela 19, the earliest known representation of the Feathered Serpent in Mesoamerica.
‘La Venta’ stele 19 offers the earliest known representation of the Feathered Serpent in Mesoamerica. The feathered serpent was known across ancient cultures in Mexico as either Kukulkan or Quetzalcoatl. This God is said to have arrived from the heavens, and brought great knowledge to ancient cultures.
La Venta is an ancient archaeological site that belonged to the ancient Olmec Civilization. Curiously, the Olmecs were one of the first civilizations to develop in the Americas.
Another depiction of a deity inside of what appears to be a machine?
‘La Venta’ stele 19 offers a curious representation of the feathered serpent: A humanoid figure sitting in some kind of ‘vehicle’ or ‘chair,’ as if manipulating some sort of device.
At first, this may not sound extraordinary or weird.
However, it becomes strange when you find nearly identical representations of gods, halfway around the world.
According to the Maori legend, the god Pourangahua flew on his magic ‘bird’ from his legendary dwelling Hawaiki to New Zealand.
Curiously, according to legend, this ancient god came from heaven, riding a ‘silver bird.’
In fact, if we take a look at one of the oldest Maori prayers we will find its attribution to the God Pourangahua.
“I come, and an unknown earth lies below my feet. I come, and a new heaven turns above me. I come on to this earth, and it is a peaceful resting-place for me. O spirit of the planets! The stranger humbly offers you his heart as nourishment.”
If we compare the depiction of the feathered serpent in ancient Mesoamerica folklore to the God Pourangahua, we find a mysterious connection: both are represented nearly identically.
How is this possible? A mere coincidence?
But there is more…
Let’s travel from ancient Maori legends to ancient Egypt.
Another ancient God depicted in a sort of flying ‘snake.
Image Credit: Pinterest.
There, we will find a mysterious representation of the ancient Egyptian God Hapi.
Referred to as the “father of the gods,” Hapi was the god of the annual flooding of the Nile in ancient Egyptian religion. This ancient Egyptian God symbolized fertility. This ancient Egyptian god also was usually given blue or green skin, which according to scholars represents the water.
Take a look at how he is sometimes depicted. Once again, we have a strange similarity to the feathered serpent in Mesoamerica, and the god Pourangahua, in ancient Maori folklore.
Back to Mesoamerica
Ancient alien theorists propose that it clearly depicts King Pakal in some sort of spaceship during takeoff, and they argue that his hands appear to be manipulating some sort of machinery.
We venture back to modern-day Mexico where we find another curious representation which has aroused the interest of ancient astronaut theorists: King Pakal.
The sarcophagus of king K’inich Janaab’ Pakal or more commonly known as King Pakal is one of the most talked about subjects when it comes to the ancient alien theory. The sarcophagus lid of this great Maya rulers has some pretty curious depictions.
Ancient alien theorists propose that it depicts King Pakal in some kind of spaceship during takeoff, and they argue that his hands appear to be manipulating some sort of machinery, his foot is located on a pedal while he is breathing through some sort of breathing apparatus. The theory about Pakal’s spaceship was first proposed by Erich von Däniken in his book Chariots of the Gods.
Once again, we see a depiction of a figure inside of some sort of machine.
Astronomers have created the first-ever detailed image of the surface of a giant star, about 530 light-years away and 350 times larger than our sun.
The different colors on the star’s surface correspond to varying temperatures. A star doesn’t have the same surface temperature throughout, and its surface provides our only clues to understand its internals. As temperatures rise and fall, the hotter, more fluid areas become brighter colors (such as white) and the cooler, more dense areas become darker colors (such as red).
An international team of astronomers has produced the first detailed image of the surface of a giant star – named Pi1 Gruis – that’s about 530 light-years from Earth in the constellation Grus (Latin for ‘crane’). It has about the same mass as our sun, but is 350 times larger and several thousand times as bright.
Pi1Gruis is a red giant, a star in the last major phase of life, the researchers said, and resembles what the sun will become at the end of its life in five billion years.
The imaging reveals a nearly circular, dust-free atmosphere with complex areas of moving material, known as convection cells or granules, according to a study published December 20, 2017 in the journal Nature. According to a statement from the researchers:
Convection, the transfer of heat due to the bulk movement of molecules within gases and liquids, plays a major role in astrophysical processes, such as energy transport, pulsation and winds.
The researchers found that the surface of Pi1 Gruis has just a few convective cells, or granules, that are each about 74.5 million miles (120 million km) across — about a quarter of the star’s diameter. Just one of these granules would extend from the sun to beyond Venus.
By comparison, the sun’s surface contains about two million convection cells, with typical diameters of just 930 miles (1,500 km). The vast size differences in the convection cells of these two stars can be explained in part by their varying surface gravities, said the researchers. Pi1 Gruis is just 1.5 times the mass of the sun but much larger, resulting in a much lower surface gravity and just a few, extremely large, granules.
This is the first time that we have such a giant star that is unambiguously imaged with that level of details. The reason is there’s a limit to the details we can see based on the size of the telescope used for the observations. For this paper, we used an interferometer. The light from several telescopes is combined to overcome the limit of each telescope, thus achieving a resolution equivalent to that of a much larger telescope.
Bottom line: An international team of astronomers have created the first-ever detailed image of the surface of a giant star, 350 times larger than our sun.
Blue-colored moons are rare. But folklore has defined two other sorts of Blue Moons, which are more commonly seen. The next one will be January 31, 2018.
Most Blue Moons are not blue in color. This photo of a moon among fast-moving clouds was created using special filters.
In recent years, people have been using the name Blue Moon for the second of two full moons in a single calendar month. An older definition says a Blue Moon is the third of four full moons in a single season. Someday, you might see an actual blue-colored moon. The term once in a blue moon used to mean something rare. Now that the rules for naming Blue Moons include several different possibilities, Blue Moons are pretty common! The next Blue Moon (second full moon in one calendar month) will be January 31, 2018. Follow the links below to learn more about Blue Moons:
Desert Blue Moon from our friend Priya Kumar in Oman, August 2012. Thank you, Priya!
Blue Moon as third full moon of four in a season.
The Maine Farmer’s Almanac defined a Blue Moon as an extra full moon that occurred in a season. One season – winter, spring, fall, summer – typically has three full moons. If a season has four full moons, then the third full moon may be called a Blue Moon.
There was a Blue Moon by this definition November 21, 2010. Another occurred August 20-21, 2013.
It last happened May 21, 2016.
The next seasonal Blue Moon (third of four full moons in one season) will take place May 18, 2019.
This photo was created using special blue filters, too.
In recent decades, many people have begun using the name Blue Moon to describe the second full moon of a calendar month. There was a full moon July 2, 2015. There was another full moon July 31, 2015. So the July 31, 2015, full moon was called a Blue Moon, according to this definition.
The time between one full moon and the next is close to the length of a calendar month. So the only time one month can have two full moons is when the first full moon happens in the first few days of the month. This happens every two to three years, so these sorts of Blue Moons come about that often.
The idea of a Blue Moon as the second full moon in a month stemmed from the March 1946 issue of Sky and Telescopemagazine, which contained an article called “Once in a Blue Moon” by James Hugh Pruett. Pruett was referring to the 1937 Maine Farmer’s Almanac, but he inadvertently simplified the definition. He wrote:
Seven times in 19 years there were — and still are — 13 full moons in a year. This gives 11 months with one full moon each and one with two. This second in a month, so I interpret it, was called Blue Moon.
Had James Hugh Pruett looked at the actual date of the 1937 Blue Moon, he would have found that it had occurred on August 21, 1937. Also, there were only 12 full moons in 1937. You need 13 full moons in one calendar year to have two full moons in one calendar month.
However, that fortuitous oversight gave birth to a new and perfectly understandable definition for Blue Moon.
EarthSky’s Deborah Byrd happened upon a copy of this old 1946 issue of Sky and Telescope in the stacks of the Peridier Library at the University of Texas Astronomy Department in the late 1970s. Afterward, she began using the term Blue Moon to describe the second full moon in a calendar month on the radio. Later, this definition of Blue Moon was also popularized by a book for children by Margot McLoon-Basta and Alice Sigel, called “Kids’ World Almanac of Records and Facts,” published in New York by World Almanac Publications in 1985. The second-full-moon-in-a-month definition was also used in the board game Trivial Pursuit.
Today, it has become part of folklore.
What most call a Blue Moon isn’t blue in color. It’s only Blue in name. This great moon photo is from EarthSky Facebook friend Rebecca Lacey in Cambridge, Idaho.
Which Blue Moon definition is better?
In recent years, a controversy has raged – mainly among purists – about which Blue Moon definition is better. The idea of a Blue Moon as the third of four in a season may be older than the idea of a Blue Moon as the second full moon in a month. Is it better? Is one definition right and the other wrong?
Opinions vary, but, remember, this is folklore. So we, the folk, get to decide. In the 21st century, both sorts of full moons have been called Blue.
There’s one kind of blue moon that is still rare. It’s very rare that you would see a blue-colored moon, although unusual sky conditions – certain-sized particles of dust or smoke – can create them.
Blue-colored moons aren’t predictable. So don’t be misled by the photo above. The sorts of moons people commonly call Blue Moons aren’t usually blue.
For more about truly blue-colored moons, click here.
Can there be two Blue Moons in a single calendar year?
Yes. It last happened in 1999. There were two full moons in January and two full moons in March and no full moon in February. So both January and March had Blue Moons.
The next year of double monthly blue moons is coming up in January and March, 2018 – and then, after that, in January and March, 2037.
Very rarely, a monthly Blue Moon (second of two full moons in one calendar month) and a seasonal Blue Moon (third of four full moons in one season) can occur in the same calendar year. But for this to happen, you need 13 full moons in one calendar year AND 13 full moons in between successive December solstices. This will next happen in the year 2048, when a monthly Blue Moon falls on January 31, and a seasonal Blue Moon on August 23.
Bottom line: A blue-colored moon is rare. But folklore has defined two different kinds of Blue Moons, and moons that are Blue by name have become pretty common. A Blue Moon can be the second full moon in a month. We had that sort of Blue Moon on July 31, 2015, and it will happen again on January 31, 2018. Or it can be the third of four full moons in a season. That’ll be May 18, 2019.
The Little Ripper Drone has gotten a good bit of publicity for its potential as a lifesaving drone. Yet, up until now, it really was all about potential.
Now, the lifeguard drone has lived up to the hype, saving two people stranded in rough seas off the coast of New South Wales state, Australia.
Two teenage boys who were caught 0.4 miles offshore at Lennox Head in a swell of nearly 9.8 ft., were able to grab hold of a floatation device after the Little Ripper dropped it from above.
Incredible aerial footage shows how it all went down. Watch it below:
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A new recipe for the search for extraterrestrial life
A new recipe for the search for extraterrestrial life
For most types of life in the universe, oxygen can be a deadly poison. But, strangely enough, it can greatly simplify the search for such a life for astrobiologists. Imagine that you get into a time machine that will not only be able to travel for billions of years, but also overcome light goals in outer space, and everything in order to find life in the universe. Where would you start the search? The recommendations of scientists can surprise you.
At first you will think that life can be similar to our familiar earthly life: grass, trees, frolicking animals at the watering place under the blue sky and the yellow sun. But this is the wrong course of thought. Astronomers conducting a census of the Milky Way planets tend to believe that most of life in the universe exists on worlds revolving around red dwarf stars that are smaller but more numerous than stars like our Sun. Partly because of this abundance, astronomers have to study them with all diligence. Take, for example, the red dwarf TRAPPIST-1, which is only 40 light years away from us. In 2017, astronomers discovered that around it revolve at least seven planets similar to the Earth. A lot of new observatories – led by star NASA, James Webb Space Telescope – will begin work in 2019 and will be able to get acquainted with the planets of the TRAPPIST-1 system, as well as many other planets in red dwarfs in search of life.
Meanwhile, no one knows for sure what you will find by visiting one of these strange worlds in your space-time machine, but if the planet looks like Earth, it is likely that you will find microbes rather than an attractive megafauna. The study, published January 24 in Science Advances, demonstrates that this curious fact can mean for the search for aliens. One of the authors of the work, David Katling, an atmospheric chemist from the University of Washington in Seattle, peers at the history of our planet to develop a new recipe for searching for unicellular life on distant worlds in the near future.
Now on Earth, most of life is microbial, and careful reading of the planet’s fossil and geochemical data shows that it has always been so. Organisms like animals and plants – as well as oxygen, which these plants produce in order for animals to breathe, are relatively new phenomena that have appeared over the past half a billion years. Prior to this, out of four billion years of the Earth’s history, our planet spent the first two billion years as a “muddy world” under the control of methane-fueled microbes, for which oxygen was not a life-giving gas, but a deadly poison. The development of photosynthetic cyanobacteria determined the fate of the next two billion years, and the “methanogenic” microbes were driven into dark places, where oxygen could not reach – underground caves, deep bogs and other gloomy territories in which they live until now. Cyanobacteria gradually greened our planet, slowly filled its atmosphere with oxygen and laid the foundation for the modern world. If you visited our planet in your time machine all these years, then nine times out of ten you would find only a unicellular alga life, and also risk suffocating in poor oxygen air.
This creates a challenge for scientists who hope to use the James Webb telescope (rather than the time machine) to find other worlds with life. Molecules in the atmosphere of the planet can absorb the transmitted light of stars, due to which light stains are formed, which astronomers can detect. The abundance of oxygen in the planet’s atmosphere is one of the most obvious pointers to a possible life, because creating it without biology is not very easy. According to astrobiologists, this highly reactive gas can be a “biosignature”, because in large concentrations it “out of balance” with the environment. Oxygen, as a rule, falls out of the air in the form of rust and other oxidations on metals, and does not hold in the gaseous state, so if there is a lot of it, something – perhaps photosynthetic life – must constantly replenish it. But if we take as an example our planet, astrobiologists admit that oxygen can be the last thing they find – genetics says that complex photosynthesis as a process of producing oxygen was invented by cyanobacteria as an unusual evolutionary innovation that was found only once throughout the long history of the earthly biosphere. Consequently, any hunter of life on other planets will see through the lens of the telescope, most likely an anoxic planet. What other biosignature can such a hunter look for?
Currently, the best way to find the answer is to return to our time machine. Only this time it will be a virtual computer model that plunges into the inaccessible depths of the anoxic past of the Earth (or the real alien world), exploring the possible chemistry of gases in the atmosphere and the ocean that could take place. Using data from old breeds and other models to select the best assumptions about the chemistry of the Earth’s environment three billion years ago, the computer can see obvious imbalances – possible biosignatures. Actually, this was done by Katling, working with Joshua Krissansen-Totton and Stephanie Olson of the University of California at Riverside.
Their “time machine” is a numerical approximation of the huge volume of air trapped in a large transparent box with an open ocean at the bottom of the box; The computer simply calculates how the gases contained in the box will react and mix with the passage of time. In the end, the interacting gases use all the “free energy” in the box and reach equilibrium – when the reaction requires additional energy from outside, as if the soda has run out. Comparing the cocktail of exhausted gases with a lively mixture locked in a box initially, scientists can accurately calculate how and when the atmosphere of the world has been in balance. This approach can reproduce the most obvious example of the atmospheric imbalance that exists in our planet – the presence of oxygen and traces of methane. Simple chemistry shows that these gases do not have to coexist for a long time, but on Earth they coexist, which makes it clear that something on our planet breathes and lives. But for an ancient Earth without oxygen, the model will demonstrate a completely different behavior.
“Our study gives an answer” to the question of how to find an anoxic life on an earth-type planet, says Katling. Most of life is simple – like microbes – and most of the planets have not yet reached the oxygen-rich stage. The combination of relatively common carbon dioxide and methane (in the absence of carbon monoxide) is a biosignature of such a world.
Crissansen-Totton explains in more detail: “The presence of methane and carbon dioxide at the same time is an unusual phenomenon, because carbon dioxide is the most oxidized state of carbon, and methane (consisting of a carbon atom bound to four hydrogen atoms) is the opposite. To produce these two extreme forms of oxidation in the atmosphere is simultaneously very difficult in the absence of life. ” A solid planet with an ocean and more than 0.1% of methane in the atmosphere should be considered as a potentially inhabited planet, scientists believe. And if atmospheric methane reaches a level of 1% or higher, then in this case the planet will not be “potentially”, but “most likely” inhabited. Jim Casting, an atmospheric chemist at the University of Pennsylvania, says that these results are “on the right track,” despite the fact that “the idea that methane can be a biosignature in an anoxic atmosphere is relatively old.” In addition, Katling and his co-authors have found out how their methane signature should behave and how to distinguish it from inanimate sources. According to their model, methane in the atmosphere of an anoxic planet of terrestrial type should usually react with carbon dioxide, which still hovers in the air, mix with nitrogen and water vapor, spilling rain in the form of a heavy mix. Further calculations showed that no abiotic (that is, inanimate) sources of methane on a solid planet can not produce enough gas to interfere with this process – whether volcanic gas contamination, chemical reactions in deep water vents and even asteroids fall. Only a living population of methane-eating bacteria can explain the gas. More importantly, even if the abiotic sources provide enough methane, they will almost inevitably produce a lot of carbon monoxide – a gas that is toxic to animals, but very much loved by many microbes. Together, methane and carbon dioxide, in the absence of carbon monoxide, on a solid planet with the ocean can very well be interpreted as a sign of life independent of oxygen. This is good news for astronomers. The telescope of James Webb will hardly be able to directly determine the presence of oxygen on any potentially inhabited planet that he sees during his mission. As your eyes can see visible light, but do not see radio or X-rays, Webb’s vision is tuned to the infrared spectrum – part of the spectrum that is ideal for studying ancient stars and galaxies, but poorly copes with oxygen absorption lines where they are scattered and sparse . Some scientists express fears that the search for life will have to be postponed until the appearance of other, more capable telescopes. But although Webb can not easily see oxygen, its infrared eyes can perfectly see signs of an anoxic life. The telescope is capable of simultaneously detecting methane, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide in the atmospheres of some planets near red dwarf stars. For example, in the TRAPPIST-1 system.
Still, Webb is unlikely to cope with the most important part of Cutling’s criteria – the determination of the relative amount of each gas – and will not be able to understand, for example, whether methane produces volcanoes or flickering microbes on a single planet. It is unlikely that Webb will find an anoxic biosphere on any planet under the red sun. Another thing is important. Life is more important to look for than oxygen.
UFO SIGHTINGS: A PEACEFUL UNION OR A BATTLEFIELD EARTH?
Photo by Artem Kovalev.
UFO SIGHTINGS: A PEACEFUL UNION OR A BATTLEFIELD EARTH?
Big government maintains that there are no such things as intelligent alien life forms, while evidence to the contrary abounds. There were 2,625 reported UFO sightings in 2000, 3,069 reported sightings in 2010 and 4,881 in 2017—all listed with the National UFO Reporting Center.
“Behind the scenes, high ranking Air Force officers are soberly concerned about UFOs. But through official secrecy and ridicule, many citizens are led to believe the unknown flying objects are nonsense.”
– Former head of the CIA Roscoe Hillenkoetter, 1960
Friend or Foe?
Considerable speculation exists as to what the future holds when humankind formally meets up with alien races. Who’s to say whether they will be friend or foe.
Here are some interesting facts on the history of UFO sightings from the first “official sighting” and the possibilities of what this all means:
June 1947
– Private pilot Kenneth Arnold makes the first post-War UFO sighting at Mt. Rainier in Washington State. Arnold reported seeing 9 disc-like objects moving at an estimated 1,200 miles an hour information flying “like a saucer would if you skipped it across the water.” From this incident, the term “flying saucers” was born.
July 1947
– The historic crash of a “saucer” outside Roswell, New Mexico, grabs the attention of Americans. Newspaper headlines announced the capture of a flying saucer by the army air force.
July 1952
– Over a period of two weeks, UFOs were sighted by air traffic controllers at Washington National airport and separately by an airline captain over the city of Washington, DC.
April 1966
– House Committee on Armed Services holds hearing on UFO evidence with an evident purpose of suppressing the subject in a highly controlled presentation. The request for the hearing had been initiated by the House Republican leader (and the future President) Gerald Ford.
1966
– Writer John G. Fuller publishes the book The Interrupted Journey giving the details of Betty and Barney Hill abduction by aliens. Excerpts of the book are published in Look Magazine. This is the first broad introduction to the general public of this phenomenon.
December 1969
– The US Air Force’s study of UFOs entitled “Project Blue Book” is closed down. Initiated in 1952, the summary of its seventeen-year investigation is aimed at further negating the existence of UFO phenomena.
November 1975
– While working in the White Mountains, Arizona logger Travis Walton claimed he was abducted by a UFO and underwent rigorous testing by aliens in their ship. His account was later made into the movie, Fire in the Sky (Paramount Pictures) based on Walton’s book, The Walton Experience.
Summer 1977
– NASA sent two unmanned space probes into space to explore the outer reaches of our solar system and onward from there to deep space. These were Voyager I (Sept. 5, 1977) and II (Aug 20, 1977). After 40 years, they are over 10 trillion miles from Earth and continue to send data back to NASA daily.
1977
– The first reported account of “crop circles phenomenon” is reported in Alaska near the town of Eagle. In December 1978 a full account of the discovery was published in an article entitled “UFOs Terrorize Alaska” complete with sketches of the UFO “base camp” in Ideal’s UFO Magazine, issue #4. It is the first of many such sightings brought to the attention of the general public.
December 1979
– Star Trek: The Motion Picture (Paramount Pictures) found Earth under attack by a foreign cloud called V’ger returning to its Creator which turns out to be one of the Voyager space probes returning home after being considerably enhanced by an electronics life form from deep space.
December 1980
– Unexplained lights and a UFO are observed in the Rendlesham Forest by US Air Force personnel stationed at the Woodbridge RAF Base located in Suffolk, England.
October 1982
– Battlefield Earth by L. Ron Hubbard, the first science fiction main-stream bestseller in two decades, is published. The novel is based on the premise of Earth in the year 3000, after having been overtaken by a ruthless alien race 1000 years earlier. The aliens learned of Earth and its valuable mineral resources from a probe they picked up in deep space that gave directions to Earth.
November 1989
– Linda Cortile is abducted through the window of her New York apartment, an event that is witnessed by several people from the Brooklyn Bridge.
July 1991
– Videos were taken of a disk sighted over Mexico City during an eclipse. The event was observed by multiple sources.
August 1993
– A Titan IV rocket exploded less than a minute after takeoff at a height of 100,000 feet. The official explanation blamed the loss on a rocket motor segment. However, Air Force Colonel Frank Sterling, the Titan IV program manager stated an Air Force video of the launch showed an unidentified object striking the Titan IV just before the explosion.
March 1997
– Multiple sightings of a “V” shaped cluster of lights above Nevada and Arizona. A CGI rendering of the object created by witness Tim Ley appeared in USA Today.
August 2012
– The Voyager 1 probe enters deep space with its message to the stars carried on a gold disc while in December 2014 Voyager 2 enters the “heliosheath”—the outermost layer of the heliosphere.
September 2016
– SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket being tested at Cape Canaveral in Florida exploded. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said the rocket’s explosion was “the most difficult and complex failure we have ever had in 14 years,” and he added his team was not ruling out the possibility of an Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) striking the Falcon 9.
October 2016
– New York Times bestselling author Jim Marrs, author of Alien Agenda notes in his booklet “Alien Invasion: Is Earth Prepared?”
“It has been noticed that every time a space launch is announced with some innocuous payload, such as parts for the space station or a communications satellite, the launch seems to go off without a hitch. Yet when there is a secret launch, usually only described as military in nature, these often explode or get lost.”
– The US Defense Department’s Advanced Threat Identification Program released a video of a 2004 encounter between two Navy F/A-18F fighter jets and a UFO near San Diego. Navy pilot Commander David Fravor said in an interview, “It accelerated like nothing I’ve ever seen.” He added he was “pretty weirded out.”
In a Rocky Mountain News interview after releasing Battlefield Earth, the author stated,
“Am I saying an alien invasion is possible? I am saying that the reader should decide. I just wrote the story. Regardless, it is the story of how mankind could survive, and why.”
10 Incredible UFO Sightings On Video! (2 Confirmed And 8 Unconfirmed) - A Look At Evidence Of The UFO Phenomenon
10 Incredible UFO Sightings On Video! (2 Confirmed And 8 Unconfirmed) - A Look At Evidence Of The UFO Phenomenon
This post contains 10 videos of UFO sightings. A collection of mainstream media reports on UFOs. Some thoughts on the UFO phenomenon and a debunking of Neil DeGrasse Tyson's random views on the subject.
Footage taken from a 30-minute live broadcast from yesterday has appears on alien websites amid claims it shows a startled astronaut as two or three unidentified object appear into view. Scott C Waring, editor of ufosightingsdaily.com, posted the footage on his website. He blogged: "When the Russian astronaut sees the two-three UFOs fly in front of him as he holds the GoPro camera, he totally loses it and fumbles to the right trying to pull away from the UFOs and keep his balance. "Also, notice the two brighter UFOs get frightened by his sudden movement and they both make a 135 degree sharp turn, and head downward.
Nasa sat 2 ufos! Close ups, afos? Wtf is this? Nasa Sat feed catches two objects, ufo? Cruising from north pole! Closeup! 2014 simulation?why? Great res very clear. Has windows? What is this?
Screenshots;
9. Another cigar shaped object caught by camera over Brazil...
A few mainstream news reports... CNN:Classified UFO documents released Nearly 130,000 pages of declassified Air Force files on UFO investigations and sightings are now available in one place online. UFO enthusiast John Greenewald compiled a database called the Project Blue Book Collection, containing nearly every declassified document from the Blue Book project.
CNN: Secretive program tracked UFOs for 5 years:The now-defunct secretive federal program designed to track unidentified flying objects is facing new scrutiny while some officials deem it a national security priority. CNN's Brian Todd reports.
FBI vault reveals UFO memo: CNN's Brian Todd reports on the most popular document in the FBI's digital reading room: a memo about a UFO sighting.
Ex-UFO program chief: We may not be alone:Luis Elizondo, a former military intelligence official who ran the Pentagon's secret UFO unit, says it is his personal view given all the evidence he's seen that we may not be alone.
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )
Après un Séisme à 7,9, des OVNI ont été observés en Alaska !
Après un Séisme à 7,9, des OVNI ont été observés en Alaska !
Des ufologues affirment que l’Alaska connaît une augmentation surprenante d’observations d’OVNI après que cette région ait subi ses pires tremblements de terre depuis une génération.
Cette présence inhabituelle d’objets volants non identifiés a suscité bon nombre d’inquiétudes. Certains sont persuadés que l’activité extraterrestre et les tremblements pourraient être liés.
Les théoriciens de la conspiration croient que l’Alaska est un endroit privilégié pour les OVNI puisque cet État possède une faible population et beaucoup de terres inhabitées.
Frank Hoogerbeets, basé aux Pays-Bas, prétend être capable de prédire quand les tremblements de terre vont se produire en se basant essentiellement sur les alignements des planètes au sein de notre système solaire.
M. Hoogerbeets explique : « Le tremblement de terre de magnitude 8 en Alaska est un signal d’alarme qu’une activité sismique de plus en plus importante arrive, surtout au cours de la première semaine de mars. »
La vidéo, qui nous intéresse présentement, nous montre des OVNI planer au-dessus de la neige en Alaska après avoir volé dans le ciel.
Un peu plus tôt, un puissant tremblement de terre a frappé une île du golfe d’Alaska, provoquant une menace de tsunami qui a poussé les résidents de cet État américain et ceux du long de la côte sud et de l’ouest du Canada à fuir.
Après quelques heures intenses, l’alerte au tsunami a été annulée, permettant aux gens de rentrer chez eux.
Aucun dégât important n’a été signalé, pas même sur l’île de Kodiak, la terre la plus proche de l’épicentre du séisme de magnitude 7,9.
Pour les habitants de Alaska habitués non seulement aux menaces de tsunami mais aussi aux exercices réguliers, l’alerte, survenue tôt le matin, a déclenché les alarmes de leurs téléphones mobiles et a quelque peu inquiété la population.
Les habitants ont, en effet, été alertés par l’arrivée possible d’un tsunami par un message téléphonique : « Alerte d’urgence. Danger de tsunami sur la côte. Aller sur les hauteurs ou déplacez-vous vers l’intérieur des terres. »
Le séisme de magnitude 7,9 a été enregistré dans l’océan Pacifique à 12h32, à environ 170 miles au sud-est de Kodiak, qui abrite l’une des plus grandes bases de la Garde côtière.
Ailleurs aux États-Unis, l’État de Washington, l’Oregon, la Californie et Hawaï étaient sous surveillance tsunami. Le dispositif a finalement été levé. Les dirigeants du Japon ont dit qu’il n’y avait pas eu de menace de tsunami chez eux.
Les gens ont rapporté sur les médias sociaux que le séisme avait été ressenti à des centaines de kilomètres, ainsi qu’à Anchorage.
Le chef des pompiers de l’Alaska, Eddie Athey, a déclaré que le séisme avait été ressenti comme un râle doux et qu’il a duré jusqu’à 90 secondes.
« Cela a duré assez longtemps pour que vous commenciez à vous dire : ‘J’espère que ça s’arrêtera bientôt parce que ça ne fait qu’empirer’. »
Le tremblement de terre a réveillé le lieutenant de police de Kodiak Tim Putney. Il estime que cela a tremblé pendant au moins 30 secondes :
« Je suis à Kodiak depuis 19 ans, c’est le plus fort et le plus durable tremblement de terre que j’ai jamais ressenti. »
Three-dimensional recordings like those carried by R2D2 in the Star Wars film are closer to reality than you’d think.
Examples of the colour and resolution quality of the images. Image credits Smalley et al., 2018, Nature.
Brigham Young University (BYU) professor and holography expert Daniel Smalley has wanted to recreate the scene ever since we first saw it. And it just goes to show that dreams come true, as a paper he recently published details the method he developed to do just that.
These are the droids you are looking for
“We refer to this colloquially as the Princess Leia project,” Smalley said. “Our group has a mission to take the 3D displays of science fiction and make them real. We have created a display that can do that.”
First of all, however, Professor Smalley notes that the image of Princess Leia we know and love from the film isn’t what people think it is — it’s not a hologram. A 3D image like that, one that floats in the air and can be viewed from every angle is called a volumetric image.
The difference between them is subtle but significant. A hologram scatters light only on a (2D) surface, and if you’re not looking at that surface from the right angle you won’t see the original (3D) image. A volumetric display, on the other hand, has little scattering surfaces spread throughout a 3D space — the same space occupied by the image — so no matter how you’re looking at it, you’re are also looking at the scatters. In short, this means a volumetric image can be seen from any angle and it would still be 3D.
Drawing on photophoretic optical trapping, Smalley and his team devised a free-space volumetric display platform that produces full-color, aerial volumetric images with 10-micron image points by persistence of vision. Since that’s probably really confusing, here’s the team explaining how their device works without all the technical terms:
“We’re using a laser beam to trap a particle, and then we can steer the laser beam around to move the particle and create the image,” said coauthor Erich Nygaard.
“This display is like a 3D printer for light,” Smalley said. “You’re actually printing an object in space with these little particles.”
To showcase their work, the team have 3D-light-printed a butterfly, a prism, the BYU logo, rings that wrap around an arm, and an individual in a lab coat crouched in a position similar to Princess Leia as she begins her projected message. While some of the previous work at BYU have related to volumetric imagery, Smalley’s team is the first to successfully merge color images and optical trapping.
The paper “A photophoretic-trap volumetric display” has been published in the journal Nature.
Scandal hit Mr Clinton asked Webster Hubbell, his associate attorney general, to find out all he could about two of the world's biggest conspiracy theories - that more people than Lee Harvey Oswald were involving in killing his predecessor John F Kennedy, and the US Government has covered up for years the fact that aliens have visited Earth.
According to his memoir Friends in High Places, Mr Hubbell hit a brick wall at every turn.
He was unable to find out anything more about the death of JFK.
Thousands of files made public by the CIA about the death late last year were not handed over.
And, while he was able to get the disclosure of some files on US interest in UFOs, there was no smoking gun evidence that aliens conspiracy theorists are seeking.
Mr Hubble concluded that a "secret government wing" holds all such data, that even the President is not privy to.
Getty
Bill Clinton tried to get to the truth of JFK and the UFO myth.
Mr Hubbell wrote that the two tasks given to him by Mr Clinton were to resolve the mysteries surrounding the murder of JFK and to get to the bottom of the understanding of the government on UFO sightings.
His conclusion of a secret government wing appears to tally with the claims of conspiracy theorists, like the Paradigm Research Group (PRG), which campaigns for alien disclosure that there are "unacknowledged special access projects" within the US government, that are not only top secret but not even admitted to.
However, Mr Hubbell was given some information on UFOs from the then CIA chief James Woolsey. Mr Woolsey revealed the agency had run two projects named 'Project SIGN' and 'Project SAUCER' to access whether if UFO sightings were a threat to national security.
The inquiries concluded there was no such threat.
In March 2016 Express.co.uk told how Bill and Hillary Clinton had long intrigued the UFO disclosure movement after making little publicised moves in the 1990s to bring about openness through secret meetings with late billionaire business tycoon Laurence Rockefeller, also an alien truth seeker.
It was understood the Rockefeller Initiative was unsuccessful, although neither of the Clintons have publicly spoken about it since.
Mr Hubble, who is the only member of camp Clinton to go public about the former president's attempts said: "Mr Clinton was left disappointed by the lack of information on the subject they received."
Mrs Clinton reignited the interest during her campaign for the White House in 2016, when she vowed to open up the UFO files if she got elected.
Her campaign manager John Podesta is also heavily involved and regularly tweets about the subject of disclosure.
Eindelijk onthult Elon Musk wanneer ’s werelds krachtigste draagraket voor het eerst de ruimte ingaat - HLN.be
Eindelijk onthult Elon Musk wanneer ’s werelds krachtigste draagraket voor het eerst de ruimte ingaat - HLN.be
Twitter Elon MuskDe Falcon Heavy in haar lanceerplatform.
WETENSCHAP & PLANEETWat is er al veel over geschreven en gezegd, over de superraket van SpaceX. De motoren van de Falcon Heavy werden vorige week al even getest, maar het blijft wachten op de lancering. Elon Musk brengt nu eindelijk duidelijkheid. ’s Werelds krachtigste raket wordt op 6 februari de ruimte ingejaagd - met aan boord zijn rode Tesla.
SpaceX en Elon Musk zitten al jaren op hete kolen, maar op 6 februari is het - eindelijk - zover: de eerste lancering van de Falcon Heavy. Het ruimtetuig had eigenlijk al zijn eerste testvluchten in 2013 en 2014 moeten ondergaan, maar die werden altijd uitgesteld. Ook in november vorig jaar bleef het krachtige broertje van de Falcon 9 aan de grond. De lancering zou vervolgens “ergens in januari” plaatsvinden, maar dat wordt nu dus februari.
Een behoorlijke vertraging dus, omdat SpaceX zich een beetje verslikt had in de ontwikkeling van de nieuwste raket. Liefst 27 motoren moeten tegelijkertijd ontbranden en dat blijkt een huzarenwerkje. Al komen we intussen een stapje dichter. Vorige week nog werden de motoren getest, mét succes. “De raket staat er nog”, klonk het daarna grappend bij Musk.
Wat de Heavy nu zo speciaal maakt? SpaceX heeft eerder al met zijn Falcon 9 de commerciële lanceermarkt op zijn kop gezet. Zijn sterkere broertje doet meer en wil de komende twee jaar ruimtetoeristen naar de maan en Mars laten vliegen. De nieuwste uitvinding kan bijgevolg meer gewicht de ruimte insturen door de twee extra stuwmotoren. En dat maakt het ook mogelijk grote, commerciële satellieten mee te sturen. De Falcon Heavy wordt zo de krachtigste raket sinds de maanraket Saturn V, die sinds 1973 niet meer heeft gevlogen. En heeft meer dan tweemaal de vrachtcapaciteit van de krachtigste raket op de huidige markt (voor de specialisten: de Delta IV Heavy, goed voor 28,8 ton). Volgens SpaceX kan hun tuig 63.800 kilo in een baan rond de Aarde tillen. Op een reis naar Mars zou dat 16.800 kilo zijn.
Met glas champagne
De lancering zal plaatsvinden op het Apollo 39A lanceerplatform op het Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Van dit historische platform werd ook Neil Armstrong naar de maan gestuurd.
Om alles extra feestelijk te maken, stuurt Musk zijn eigen rode Tesla Roadster uit 2009 mee die dan “zeker een miljard jaar” zal kunnen rondzweven in de ruimte. NASA heeft intussen ook tickets verkocht om het evenement ‘live’ te kunnen bijwonen, met glaasje champagne en bijpassende bril, voor het luttele bedrag van 158 euro.
EPADe Rode Tesla Roadster aan boord van de Falcon Heavy.
apSelfie van Scott Kelly uit het ruimtestation uit 2015.
WETENSCHAPBijna een jaar verbleef Scott Kelly in het ruimtestation ISS, terwijl zijn tweelingbroer achterbleef. Allemaal om te kijken wat het met een mens doet, een verblijf in de ruimte.
Je bent bijna een jaar van huis, twee bevoorradingsschepen exploderen, je schoonzus wordt neergeschoten, en je bent vooral vaak de wc aan het repareren. Voor ex-astronaut Scott Kelly (53) was het recordverblijf aan boord van ruimtestation ISS – van 27 maart 2015 tot 1 maart 2016 – toch een ervaring die alle verwachtingen te boven ging. “Toen ik 18 was, raakte ik gegrepen door het boek The right stuff van Tom Wolfe”, vertelt Kelly. “Vanaf dat moment wist ik dat ik astronaut wilde worden.” Net als zijn tweelingbroer Mark, ook astronaut, maakte Kelly vier ruimtevluchten. In totaal verbleef hij 520 dagen in de ruimte – het Amerikaanse record.
Aan het eind van zijn Europese promotietour voor zijn boek Een jaar in de ruimte- een combinatie van biografie en avonturenroman – is Kelly een dag op bezoek in het Nederlandse Space Expo in Noordwijk. “Wij inspireren een nieuwe generatie. Als we nooit op ontdekkingstocht waren gegaan, leefden we nu nog in de jungle.”
Photo NewsScott Kelly.
De Engelse titel van uw boek luidt Endurance, naar het schip van poolreiziger Ernest Shackleton. Maar een ruimtereis is toch veel minder gevaarlijk en avontuurlijk?
“Dat ligt er maar aan hoe je het bekijkt. Shackleton is mijn held. Maar zijn bemanning heeft alle tegenslagen overleefd. Dat kun je van de ruimtevaart niet zeggen. Bij de marine en bij NASA heb ik veel vrienden en collega’s verloren. Drie van de zeven slachtoffers van de ramp met de spaceshuttle Columbia in 2003 waren klasgenoten van me. Zelf ben je je natuurlijk ook altijd van die risico’s bewust. Maar inderdaad: aan boord ben ik nooit bang geweest, zelfs niet toen de bevoorrading even leek te stagneren. Je weet dat je in geval van nood altijd binnen een dag weer op de grond bent.”
Aan boord ben ik nooit bang geweest, zelfs niet toen de bevoorrading even leek te stagneren
Scott Kelly
Senator Gabrielle Giffords, de vrouw van uw broer Mark, werd in januari 2011 in Arizona neergeschoten, tijdens uw eerste ISS-missie. Wat zou er gebeurd zijn als Mark op dat moment in de ruimte was?
“Niets. Te kostbaar. Een ruimtemissie wordt alleen afgebroken bij een technische of medische calamiteit aan boord. Allemaal part of the deal. Je weet van tevoren dat je in een situatie terecht kunt komen waarin je geen afscheid kan nemen van geliefden. Gelukkig heeft Gabby het overleefd, maar het was wel een periode met zeer veel stress, vooral omdat je niet echt bij elkaar kunt zijn. Ook in die zin vergt een lange ruimtereis wel wat endurance – uithoudingsvermogen. Niet alleen van de astronaut, maar ook van partner en kinderen op aarde.”
APVoormalig Amerikaans president Barack Obama omhelst Mark Scott, tweelingsbroer van Scott en man van Senator Gabrielle Giffords die neergeschoten werd.
NASA’s ‘Twin Study’ behelsde onderzoek naar de invloed van langdurige gewichtloosheid door uw medische gegevens continu te vergelijken met die van uw tweelingbroer. Wat is daar uitgekomen?
“Dat ik knapper en slimmer ben dan Mark, haha. Maar serieus: het zal nog een paar jaar duren voordat alle resultaten bekend zijn. Wel werd ontdekt dat mijn telomeren, de uiteinden van chromosomen, tijdens de ruimtevlucht langer waren dan daarvoor en daarna. Precies andersom dan verwacht: telomeren worden korter naarmate je lichaam slijt. Interessant allemaal, maar ik verwacht niet dat dit soort onderzoek ooit invloed zal hebben op het bemanderuimtevaartprogramma. Ruimtevaart doe je niet omdat het makkelijk is, maar omdat het moeilijk is. Als het gemakkelijk zou zijn om de ruimte in te gaan, had ik er nooit voor gekozen.”
Astronauten die de aarde vanuit de ruimte zien, ervaren het overview effect: relativering van het menselijk handelen, gekoppeld aan een indringend besef van de kwetsbaarheid van de aarde. Is het moeilijk om dat gevoel vast te houden als je alweer bijna twee jaar terug bent?
“Helemaal niet. Onverschilligheid ten aanzien van klimaatverandering gaat me aan het hart, evenals tegenover oorlogs- en vluchtelingenproblematiek. Ik hoop dat ik kan helpen om die kwesties op de agenda te houden. Ik heb wel even overwogen om de politiek in te gaan, maar in het huidige Amerika bereik je daar alleen iets als je extremistische ideeën hebt of een aartsleugenaar bent.”
Hoe hoopt u dat het ruimtestation ISS over pakweg 50 jaar herinnerd zal worden?
“Misschien niet vanwege het wetenschappelijk onderzoek dat er is uitgevoerd, maar wel als de eerste permanent bewoonde buitenpost van de mensheid in de ruimte. ”Sinds november 2000, toen de eerste bemanning in het ruimtestation arriveerde, is er nooit meer een moment geweest dat alle mensen zich op aarde bevonden. Wat mij betreft zal zo’n moment er ook nooit meer komen. Als we het ISS in 2025 verlaten, hoop en verwacht ik dat er andere permanent bewoonde bestemmingen zijn – een ander ruimtestation of een maanbasis.”
‘Ooit gaan er mensen naar Mars. Niet omdat de aarde onleefbaar wordt of zo – dat is een slecht argument’
Scott Kelly
En wanneer komt nou eindelijk die one small step op Mars?
“Door de steeds wisselende regeringen valt het voor NASA niet mee om een langetermijnstrategie te ontwikkelen. Maar ooit gaan er mensen naar Mars. Niet omdat de aarde onleefbaar wordt of zo – dat is een slecht argument. Maar wel omdat we als mensheid precies die dingen willen doen die het allermoeilijkst zijn. Of ik een tip heb voor de eerste mensen die zo’n maandenlange reis gaan maken? Doe kalm aan en wees geduldig. Zorg dat je een plan hebt en houd daaraan vast. En bedenk: beter is meestal de vijand van goed genoeg.”
NASAScott Kelly (r.) naast zijn tweelingsbroer Mark Kelly (l.).
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Ronald en Suzan vertellen over de vele UFO-ervaringen die ze hebben gehad. Luister hier naar hun verhaal
Ronald en Suzan vertellen over de vele UFO-ervaringen die ze hebben gehad. Luister hier naar hun verhaal
Ronald Dekker en Suzan Aksoy zijn door Dan Hohlfeld van Talk is Cheap geïnterviewd over hun UFO-ervaringen.
De oplettende lezer zal het tweetal nog kennen van een item van RTV Rijnmond van enkele jaren geleden. De ervaren UFO-jagers hadden toen een onbekend vliegend object vastgelegd boven Spijkenisse dat vervormde in de lucht.
Passie
Volgens Ronald, die als vliegtuigbouwer voor Fokker werkte, en Suzan kan iedereen UFO’s waarnemen, mits mensen zich er maar serieus op instellen.
Enkele jaren geleden vloog er een metersgrote UFO over de woning van het stel. “We vonden het zo bijzonder wat we hebben mogen zien, dat het onderzoeken van het fenomeen eigenlijk een passie is geworden,” klonk het.
Te weinig aandacht
“We hebben dit al zo vaak mogen vastleggen en vinden dat hier te weinig aandacht aan wordt besteed, terwijl het toch iets heel bijzonders is,” aldus het stel.
Als je objecten goed dichtbij wilt halen moet je volgens Ronald de nodige spullen hebben. “Met wegwerpcamera’s lukt het niet meer, het gaat zo snel allemaal.”
Er is een geheime overheid die alle UFO-geheimen bewaart. Dit gebeurde er toen president Clinton toegang wilde
Er is een geheime overheid die alle UFO-geheimen bewaart. Dit gebeurde er toen president Clinton toegang wilde
Toen Bill Clinton president was gaf hij Webster Hubbell, zijn assistent-minister van Justitie, de opdracht om twee dingen uit te zoeken: wie JFK had vermoord en wat de overheid weet over UFO’s.
Hubbell vertelde de president dat de overheidsagentschappen die hij benaderde hem op alle mogelijke manieren dwarsboomden, meldt Salon.
Hij zei ook dat er een geheime overheid is die geheimen bewaart waar zelfs de president geen toegang tot heeft.
Zeer actief
In 1993, het jaar waarin Clinton in het Witte Huis kwam, werd de druk op de CIA steeds groter om toe te geven dat het onderzoek had gedaan naar UFO’s.
Uit geheime CIA-stukken bleek dat het agentschap zeer actief was op het gebied van UFO-onderzoek, grote hoeveelheden documenten over UFO’s had verzameld en de Amerikaanse president hier veel over kon vertellen.
Toch bleef de federale overheid volhouden dat er na het Roswellincident geen onderzoek was verricht.
Geheim materiaal
Al gelijk in 1993 ging Clinton gesprekken aan met miljardair Laurence Rockefeller, die resulteerden in het Rockefeller Initiative. Ze probeerden onder meer geheime overheidsdocumenten over UFO’s naar buiten te brengen.
Tijdens een vakantie in augustus 1995 op de Rockefeller Teton Ranch in Wyoming informeerde de 85-jarige miljardair de president over UFO’s.
Niemand weet exact wat er gezegd is, maar Clinton onderzocht indertijd hoe de overheid omging met geheim materiaal.
Niet bekend
In maart 1997 zagen duizenden Amerikanen de Phoenix Lights, die uitgebreide media-aandacht kregen.
De mysterieuze lichten werden onder meer gezien door toenmalig gouverneur van Arizona Fife Symington, die zei dat het geen conventionele vliegtuigen waren.
Het is nog altijd niet bekend wat mensen destijds hebben gezien.
Zeldzame super-blauwe-bloedmaan op komst. Lees er hier alles over
Zeldzame super-blauwe-bloedmaan op komst. Lees er hier alles over
Er is deze week een uitzonderlijk schouwspel te zien aan de hemel: de combinatie van een blauwe maan en een maansverduistering resulteert in de ochtend van 31 januari in een ‘super-blauwe-bloedmaan’.
Het gaat om een combinatie van drie fenomenen op exact hetzelfde moment: volle maan.
Ten eerste is er op 31 januari sprake van een supermaan, die we zien als de maan op haar dichtst mogelijke punt bij de aarde staat.
Helderder en groter
Om de 29 dagen heeft de maan een minimale afstand tot de aarde.
De maan toont zich dan helderder en groter dan normaal. De vorige supermaan was op 1 januari en de volgende zien we begin maart.
Blauwe maan duidt aan dat we twee keer een volle maan binnen één maand meemaken. Gemiddeld doet een blauwe maan zich om de twee tot drie jaar voor.
Oranjerode kleur
De laatste dateert van juli 2015 en toevallig kunnen we het dit jaar twee keer meemaken, in januari en in maart.
Ten derde dient zich de bloedmaan aan, waarbij de volle maan tussen de aarde en de zon in schuift. De maan verdwijnt achter de aarde en krijgt een oranjerode kleur.
150 jaar geleden
De maansverduistering aanstaande woensdag kunnen we in Nederland helaas niet zien omdat hij rond 14.00 uur plaatsvindt. Maar je kunt hier alles live volgen bij de NASA.
De laatste super-blauwe-bloedmaan dateert van 1866, iets meer dan 150 jaar geleden.
Fleet Of UFOs Shoot Past Our Sun On Jan 2018 In Spectacular NASA Image! UFO Sighting News.
Fleet Of UFOs Shoot Past Our Sun On Jan 2018 In Spectacular NASA Image! UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: January 25, 2018 Location of sighting: Earths Sun Streetcap1 of Youtube, recently discovered this photo of UFOs in the NASA/SOHO sun photos that are updated every few minutes. He found a fleet of UFOs shooting all in the same direction past our sun. NASA could not and will not ever respond to such inquiries about these UFOs, which only reinforces the fact that they are alien craft, and NASA wants to keep such knowledge secret. Scott C. Waring-Taiwan
Above and below are close ups of the UFOs, but with added shadow only.
Steven Greer: UFOs and the Government’s Secret Space Program
Steven Greer: UFOs and the Government’s Secret Space Program
Jesse Ventura and Brigida Santos discuss the history of the Space Race and modern day cooperation between the American and Russian space agencies.
Ufologist Doctor Steven Greer shares insights from his documentary, “Unacknowledged,” which explores evidence surrounding the Pentagon’s secret UFO program.
In 2017, US government officials finally acknowledged the existence of the black budget Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program.
Streams of stars infiltrate the Milky Way Galaxy, The Falcon Heavy finally roars into a test-fire, NASA honors the 17 fallen astronauts who gave their lives for space exploration, and the Super Blue Blood Moon Eclipse is set to bring a marvelous end to the month of January. These are some of the top stories this week from Space.com.
Photo Credit: SpaceX
1. Falcon Heavy roars
SpaceX's new megarocket performed a powerful engine test on Jan. 24, setting the stage for its first test flight in the coming months. From NASA's Launch Pad 39A, the Falcon Heavy rocket ignited its 27 engines at 12:30 p.m. EST (1730 GMT) for about ten seconds.
Google Lunar X Prize founder and chairman Peter Diamandis released a statement on Jan. 23 revealing none of the five finalists in their moon launch contest will make the March 31, 2018 deadline. The $30 million prize will go unclaimed.
3. NASA GOLD Mission On Track Despite Launch Anomaly
NASA's GOLD mission, which will investigate the boundary between Earth and space, is back on track after a launch anomaly saw the rocket carrying its host, the communications satellite SES-14, lose contact with Earth.
NASA honored the brave individuals who lost their lives in the advancement of space exploration with its Day of Remembrance on Jan. 25. A ceremony was held at Arlington National Cemetery to remember the anniversaries of the 1967 Apollo 1 fire, the 1986 explosion of the Challenger space shuttle and the 2003 loss of the Columbia space shuttle which collectively claimed the lives of 17 NASA astronauts.
On the morning of Jan. 25, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (BAS) revealed the hypothetical countdown to global Armageddon — the "Doomsday Clock" — is now just two minutes short of perilous midnight. BAS, an organization of science and policy experts, have not made this evaluation since 1953. "This danger looms at a time when there’s been a loss of trust in political institutions, in the media, in science, and in facts themselves, all of which exacerbate the difficulty in dealing with the real problems the world faces," said Lawrence Krauss, BAS Chair.
The commercial space company Rocket Lab revealed on Jan. 24 that it had released a geodesic sphere-shaped satellite, called "The Humanity Star," into orbit around Earth. The satellite is covered in 65 highly-reflective panels and is rapidly spinning, and according to the announcement, will glint brightly in the night sky as it reflects sunlight. It launched secretly from the company's private base in New Zealand.
Two NASA astronauts — Mark Vande Hei and Scott Tingle — performed a spacewalk over the course of more than 7 hours on Jan. 23. As they floated outside of the International Space Station, the astronauts swapped out two "hands" on a Canadarm2 robotic arm used to grab cargo spacecraft, but a software glitch caused them to run behind schedule.
8. 'Bone glue' space station experiment may help combat osteoporosis
A new experiment on the International Space Station is testing a potential method for countering bone loss on Earth and in orbit. The "bone glue" may help reverse the crippling disease osteoporosis, which affects more than 200 million people. In addition to repairing bone loss in humans living on Earth, astronauts may too benefit from the substance, known as Tetranite, since they can lose about 2 percent of their bone mass each month while in orbit.
Ursula K. Le Guin, a writer whose talents spanned many genres including fantasy, science fiction, essays and poetry, passed away on Jan. 22 at the age of 88. Le Guin wrote for more than five decades, and is particularly well-known for her "Earthsea" young adult fantasy book series and the novel "The Left Hand of Darkness." Several authors have acknowledged Le Guin's influence on their works, including Neil Gaiman and Ann Leckie.
The Dark Energy Survey (DES) project has discovered that remnants of nearby star clusters and galaxies have entered the Milky Way galaxy. DES is designed to figure out the nature of dark energy and dark matter in the universe, and its researchers are interested in the recently-found 11 star streams because they may offer insight about the dark matter halo of the Milky Way. The streams are ribbons of stars that are thought to once belong to other celestial bodies that ultimately got destroyed by Earth's home galaxy.
11. Super Blue Blood Moon Eclipse is a few days away
On Jan. 31, skywatchers in Hawaii, Alaska and western North America will catch a celestial event that has not been seen in more than 150 years! The Super Blue Blood Moon Eclipse will be a full moon featuring not one, not two, but three stunning effects: It will appear larger and brighter than normal, the lunar eclipse will make the surface of the moon appear red, and it's a 'once in a blue' moon because it's the second full moon of January!
See mysterious artifacts found in cave claimed as proof of visitations
(YouTube video screenshot)
New ancient artifacts discovered in a cave in Mexico are being claimed as evidence extraterrestrials visited Earth about 5,000 years ago.
The finds are weird and a little spooky, with sculptures portraying creatures with large eyes and elongated heads, similar to the popular depictions aliens seen in sci-fi movies. Some other artifacts portray spaceships flying from the Earth’s surface.
A YouTube video is going viral on social media:
The UFOmania channel has not provided any details regarding when and where these sculptures were found. However, it assures these sculptures are very popular among local residents who live near the caves in Mexico.
The video has convinced alien buffs and UFO enthusiasts, and they strongly believe this is solid proof to substantiate that aliens once roamed across our planet. As the video went viral on the internet, people started proposing new theories to explain the artifacts.
A sculptor reportedly found in a Mexican cave appears to show an alien mother and her children
“Incredible evidentiary support of the fact that extraterrestrials have been engaging the human race for a very long time!” posted a user named Jamie Campeau.
Another user named Nelio Anderson lashed out against the authorities for not learning more about the artifacts as they contradict established theories.
“It is disgusting how the scientific community refuses to look at any evidence that contradicts the established theory,” Anderson wrote. “They claim to be scientists but based on their notorious record of making out of place artifacts vanish it is clear that there is a political agenda present. A knowledge filter. As such it is not surprising to see the establishment attack archaeologists/anthropologists/paleontologist and geologists who had the courage and unbiased views to publish these finds.”
Of course, the images also look a lot like another form of extraterrestrial life: demons.
A stone features drawing which resemble spacecrafts
Many of the artefacts depict long faces with oval-shaped eyes
The supposedly ancient sculptures have sparked claims that aliens visited earth thousands of years ag
A reportedly ancient sculptor appears to show a humanoid holding a bowl
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Mysterieuze voorwerpen gevonden in Mexicaanse grot. Is dit bewijs voor het bestaan van aliens?
Mysterieuze voorwerpen gevonden in Mexicaanse grot. Is dit bewijs voor het bestaan van aliens?
Oude voorwerpen die in een grot in Mexico zijn gevonden zouden bewijzen dat de aarde zo’n 5000 jaar geleden is bezocht door buitenaardsen, meldt nieuwssite WND.
In de grot zijn onder meer beeldjes gevonden van wezens met grote ogen en vreemd gevormde hoofden. Andere voorwerpen tonen ruimteschepen die richting het aardoppervlak vliegen.
Beelden van de voorwerpen zijn op YouTube gezet door het kanaal UFOmania. Het kanaal weet niet precies te zeggen waar en wanneer de beelden zijn gevonden.
In strijd
Alienjagers zijn ervan overtuigd dat dit bewijs is voor het bestaan van aliens. Terwijl de beelden viraal gingen, kwamen internetgebruikers met de meest uiteenlopende theorieën.
“Ongelooflijk bewijs van het feit dat buitenaardsen al heel lang contact onderhouden met het menselijk ras,” schreef Jamie Campeau.
Nelio Anderson haalde fel uit naar de autoriteiten en vindt dat we hier meer over te weten moeten komen aangezien de beeldjes in strijd zijn met algemeen aanvaarde theorieën.
Politieke agenda
“Het is walgelijk hoe de wetenschappelijke gemeenschap weigert naar het bewijs te kijken, dat haaks staat op de algemeen geaccepteerde theorie,” schreef Anderson.
“Zij claimen wetenschappers te zijn, maar er is ook duidelijk sprake van een politieke agenda aangezien ze onwelgevallige voorwerpen steeds laten verdwijnen,” zei hij.
“Het is dan ook niet verrassend dat het establishment archeologen, antropologen, paleontologen en geologen aanvalt die het lef hebben om deze bevindingen te publiceren,” klonk het.
Details of the sightings have been reported to the National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC), based in the US, which investigates and records such sightings.
One incident happened at 12.45pm in Pasadena, California, when at least five "circular UFOs" were seen.
The unnamed witness said in a report to NUFORC: "My cousin went outside to throw away the trash after we finished eating breakfast.
"He then returns and tells everyone that their are UFO’s outside.
"I thought he was joking but his wife went outside to look first my wife followed and then my kids and I followed.
"I looked up and in the sky I saw shiny dots in the sky. I observed the objects and then returned inside to get my iPhone to document what I saw.
"We continued watching the objects for 15 minutes or so. Everyone else went back inside and I continued watching the UFOs."
The witness later saw a father and son, and showed them the objects in the sky.
He said: "I asked if they looked like drones. He replied, 'No Way'.
Getty
Groups of UFOs were seen over three US locations the same day.
My cousin went outside to throw away the trash after we finished eating breakfast. He then returns and tells everyone that their are UFO’s outside.
UFO witness
"I observed planes in the air and compared them to what I saw and the objects were much higher. "The objects seemed to hover and remain still. One was slowly moving as the others remained still.
"I was able to observe the UFO’s for close to an hour."
NUFORC said: "Seven observers witness a cluster of at least five tiny white objects that hovered almost motionless in a clear, cloudless sky, for approximately an hour.
"High-quality video footage of the event accompanied the written report.
"Our initial thought was that the objects might have been seagulls soaring in upwelling wind, but the objects do not appear to look, or behave, like birds."
Express.co.uk showed the video to Scott Brando, who runs debunking website Ufoofinterest.org.
He said he believes they were just a group of helium balloons that had been caught on the wind and were slowly rising away.
The second sighting was at 2.30pm, also on January 13, about 90 miles to the south in Carlsbad, California, when five oval or circular orbs were seen.
The witness was testing out new binoculars.
He wrote to NUFORC: "While I was scanning some edges of a few clouds and some contrails looking towards the west over the ocean around 2.30pm, I noticed one very outstanding whitish looking object, between egg and football shaped but sometimes looking more round and other times having more of a top shape.
Express.co.uk
The cases are being investigated by NUFORC, but Scott Brando says they were balloons and lanterns.
"I had to assume that possibly the changing viewing angle had something to do with shape change although at times the object seemed to either be vibrating or rotating.
"That object suddenly appeared and was very slowly moving towards the ocean and back nearly directly overhead just above where I live.
"As I continued watching I noticed another object moving very slowly, coming directly out of the setting sun direction and moving very slowly in direct horizontal line towards the first object in what looked like a collision course.
"These objects went from a white colour to sometimes a shimmering metallic or reflective mylar look but it wasn't solid looking when it began shimmering it seemed to flash as if it had multiple surfaces.
"As I continued to view the two objects I watched a third that seemed to drop down from above my focus to an altitude similar to the other two objects and north of them again the three manoeuvred back into a horizontal line with quite a bit of distance between each other.
"After that manoeuvre, they then broke the line and moved closer to form a triangular formation and slowly moved out towards the ocean and then back towards my viewing position.
"After watching these slow manoeuvres for some time I noticed a fourth and fifth object materialising or moving from very high in the sky down towards the other objects and as these other two became about the same size as the others they all formed another horizontal line from north to south, evenly spaced, and kept that formation for a short while."
Then, at around 8pm the same day more than 2,000 miles away in Hollywood, Florida, there was another sighting of "numerous orange lights above the coastline," by a law enforcement officer.
The witness said simply: "Numerous orange lights observed moving slowly above the ocean from north to south.
"All lights disappeared simultaneously."
NUFORC was also sent video.
It said: "NUFORC is attempting to determine what the wind direction and velocity were at the time of the sighting, in attempt to rule out the possibility that the lights may have been sky lanterns, or so-called 'Chinese' lanterns."
Chinese lanterns are often mistaken for UFOs as they drift in groups before disappearing as the internal flame goes out.
Mr Brando said the second sighting in Carlsbad was likely to be the same helium balloons travelling south.
He believes the objects seen in Florida were Chinese lanterns and unrelated.
Gloria Heather Dixon, alongside other researchers at the BUFORA, has investigated the area near Cricket St Thomas
Windwhistle Hill on the A30 is a hotbed for supernatural sightings, according to one UFO researcher.
Gloria Heather Dixon, from the British UFO Research Association (BUFORA), has uncovered many tales of "strange lights, sounds, figures and shapes, unusual and eerie phenomena" on the stretch of road between Crewkerne and Chard.
She has connected alleged UFO sightings on the mysterious hill, "named very aptly because of the winds whistling through the tall treetops", with the area's history of highwayman, smugglers, a dead witch and even the devil itself.
Mrs Dixon, alongside other researchers at the BUFORA, has investigated the area near Cricket St Thomas, delving into archives and interviewing those who claim to have witnessed strange goings-on.
Windwhistle Hill
Mrs Dixon wrote on the BUFORA website: "A book published in the late seventeenth century referred to a number of mystical reports made during the year 1662 by the people of Chard and Crewkerne.
"Reports of strange visions and incidents have continued to date and according to the literature during the seventeenth and eighteenth Century Windwhistle had a history of highwaymen and smugglers in this area.
"The A30 used to be a coaching route from London to the West Country and highwaymen could hide in the beech trees waiting for the carriages with their cargoes of valuables.
"It has been suggested that the Windwhistle Inn near the summit was the central point for these highwaymen, who would use the wells and caves all around the area to hide their treasures and also the bodies of those they had robbed. The story goes that some skeletons have been discovered in these hideouts."
She also notes that Alan Holt, in his book on East Somerset, comments that Windwhistle Hill itself is haunted by a witch, who was allegedly knocked down by a stage coach many decades ago.
However, her research focuses on one particular interview with a local mother, Kate Walker, who was travelling between Yeovil and Chard with her family when she experienced two strange sightings on the same stretch of road.
Windwhistle Hill
Mrs Dixon wrote: "As they came to the top of the hill Kate and her family all observed a huge orange light diffused by cloud, to their left-hand side and at the far end of Windwhistle Hill .
"It seemed to be right beside the road, not very high up, and was partially obscured by cloud, but they did not feel any alarm as there was a power station and pylons further along.
"However, as they drove nearer to the light, it was easier to observe and Kate states it was massive and totally static and very low and bright.
"She describes it as being cigar shaped and vast in size, maybe 200-300 feet, and she estimates the light to be approximately 800-1000 feet above them.
"As they got closer she noticed that the pub on the right hand side of the road, The Windwhistle Inn , was almost in total darkness, except for a light in a small upstairs window."
Mrs Dixon writes that Kate looked up again at the light, which by that time was almost on top of the family.
It is then said that Mrs Walker "lost" around half an hour, a space of time that was unaccounted for in her memory.
Mrs Dixon writes that just a few days after the "puzzling incident", the family encountered another altogether more chilling experience in virtually the same spot.
They are said to have seen two people in front of them, on the left hand verge, with one appearing to be lying down, and the other standing.
She wrote: "Their initial thoughts were that someone had been injured and went to slow down, when to their astonishment, the person standing took one step out in front of them..one foot remained on the grass verge at the roadside and other foot was right over the centre of the road.
"Kate described the figure as being abnormally tall with legs that were horrendously long and thin.
"Her husband swerved to the far side of the road, and around the figure, and they kept on driving and did not look back, they all agreed that there was no one who could possibly have legs that long."
Mrs Dixon also writes that fellow researcher Robert Moore conducted research into this particular area in order to establish whether similar cases have been documented, and he is said to have uncovered observations of unusual lights and an entity over a ten year period at Cricket Malherbie which is within 3km north west of Windwhistle Hill.
She also recounts four different reports in the Yeovil Weekly News .
One witness told of a strange incident experienced by her husband, grandson and herself in 1991, which involved what they perceived as a tall strange figure, which they claim was looking through the farm window followed a few days later by their observations of a 'saucer-shaped object.
Another witness tells of a similar experience to the Walker family on Windwhistle Hill in 1975, which happened to her mother and father.
A third witness tells of a strange experience on Windwhistle Hill whilst driving a lorry either in 1976 or 1977. He claims that his lorry went out of control as though by some "strange force". He felt as though the lorry was hovering over the road whilst he was experiencing this.
Finally, a fourth witness tells of how she and her husband observed a very large unidentified object, silver and shaped like a humming top, near Windwhistle Hill in November 1959. They watched it as though 'hypnotised' from about 23.00 to 09.00 hrs the next morning and for some reason felt unable to tell anyone.
Mrs Dixon writes: "It appears that there is a history of odd occurrences in this area and certainly Windwhistle Hill is steeped in the traditional folklore of strange lights, visions and figures with ghostly highwaymen and galloping horses.
"Tantalising stuff, but is there any substance to all of this? Well, none that can be evaluated in order to give any definitive answers."
In 1999, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would have required across-the-board cuts to most federal agencies and departments, including the Department of Education, which President Clinton learned about as he was about to meet with a delegation of educators. The budget cuts also meant that teachers would probably not be getting any raises, something that irked Clinton to the point where, in an impromptu and unscripted remark, he said, channeling Ronald Reagan’s famous statement, “If we were being attacked by space aliens, we wouldn’t be playing these kinds of games.” Funny how when Ronald Reagan said the same thing to the United Nations, folks commented that Reagan sure knew how to illustrate a point. When Clinton made his statement, Rush Limbaugh thundered into his microphone, “What’s he going to do, arrange one?”
Just three years earlier, while on a trip to Ireland where he was visiting a very troubled Belfast, Clinton read a letter he received from a child named Ryan, who had asked him about what he knew regarding stories of a UFO crash at Roswell, New Mexico. Clinton hadn’t come to talk about UFOs. He was trying to make a point regarding how children can be victimized by political violence. In front of his Belfast audience, Clinton said to Ryan, “No, as far as I know, an alien spacecraft did not crash in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947.” But then he added, to the delight of his audience, “and Ryan, if the United States Air Force did recover alien bodies, they didn’t tell me about it, either, and I want to know.”
Clinton did want to know, Webster Hubbell, Clinton’s associate attorney general, wrote in his own memoir. As AAG, Hubbell claimed that President Clinton asked him to find out all that he could about two things: who killed JFK and what the government knew about UFOs. He reported to the president after being stonewalled by the relevant agencies that there was a secret government that closely holds secrets to which the president doesn’t even have access.
However, in 1993, the year Clinton was inaugurated, and as pressure was mounting on the CIA to confirm that it had followed UFO stories, Director of Central Intelligence James Woolsey “ordered another review of all Agency files on UFOs. Using CIA records compiled from that review, the study he ordered traced CIA interest and involvement in the UFO controversy from the late 1940s to 1990.” The report reveals that despite official statements to the contrary regarding the government’s interest in what happened at Roswell, the air force did, in fact, open up an investigative unit, known first as Project SAUCER and then Project SIGN, to “collect, collate, evaluate, and distribute within the government all information relating to such sightings, on the premise that UFOs might be real and of national security concern.”
The CIA report reveals that the agency followed the air force investigations into UFOs, especially the invasion of Washington, D.C. airspace in 1952, and the reports of pilots and radar operators who said they were seeing images they could not identify and did not seem to represent conventional aircraft. The report continues to explain the nature of CIA involvement in UFO cases over the decades and, without making the point explicitly, implies that despite any official denials, and, moreover, very relevant to the background of George H. W. Bush, the agency was very active in UFO research, had compiled voluminous files on UFOs, and had much to share with any American president, should the DCI have reason to do so. The report must have been a real eye-opener to President Clinton, not so much because of what truths behind cases it revealed or did not reveal, but simply that the files that the president had dispatched Webster Hubbell to locate, files that Hubbell said had been kept from him, now, albeit sanitized, were available to him.
According to Jon Austin in the UK’s Express, as far back as Bill Clinton’s first term in office in 1993, Hillary Clinton was talking up UFOs with Laurence Rockefeller, who funded initiatives to research UFOs almost as a way to counter what the Condon Report had argued as well as making its own case for the study of the possibility of extraterrestrial visitations.
“From early 1993 the businessman began a lengthy approach to Bill Clinton for disclosure, including files held by the CIA, in what became the Rockefeller Initiative.” Further, Austin writes, “During the Clinton family seven-day vacation in August 1995 at the Rockefeller Teton Ranch outside of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, the 85-year-old billionaire privately briefed the President and First Lady on UFOs and his hopes.
“No one else knows exactly what was said, but at the time Mr. Clinton, who had a personal interest in UFOs and was frustrated at the lack of information he could glean on it, was carrying out a review of how the Government handled confidential material.” For a scientific review of the Laurence Rockefeller conference on UFOs at Pocantico Hills, the basis for the Rockefeller conclusions about the need to research the UFO phenomenon further, see Peter A. Sturrock’s analysis "The UFO Enigma," in which Rockefeller himself explains the purpose of his initiative.
The Clinton perspective on UFOs, however, took a dramatic turn in March 1997, the time of the Phoenix Lights, the arrival of the Hale-Bopp comet, and the Heaven’s Gate mass suicide, when President Clinton himself would become involved in the most media covered UFO appearance since the 1952 invasion over Washington, D.C.
The Phoenix Lights
On March 13, 1997, the stage was set for thousands of witnesses across the southwest scanning the sky for the appearance of the Hale-Bopp comet — for comet watchers, a once-in-a-lifetime event. But it wasn’t just a comet that residents of Phoenix saw on that warm March night. The story actually began before 8:30 p.m. when witnesses in Henderson, Nevada, at the Arizona border reported a strange sight, six orange lights in a triangular pattern slowly moving toward the southeast and making no sound except for what the observer said was the wind. About fifteen minutes later another witness, this time behind the wheel of his car, saw a formation of lights heading his way as he drove north. He headed home, retrieved binoculars, and kept watching the lights as they headed south and west towards Phoenix.
Within minutes [of these] sighting, folks just north of Phoenix began seeing the lights off in the distance to the north-northwest, heading their way. It passed right over private streets, possibly as low as 100-150 feet, and traveling slowly toward the south. Then it seemed to stop dead in the air. It hovered. Then it picked up motion and continued through the narrow valleys toward the outskirts of the city suburbs where more people, some on the roads, some standing on their balconies, spotted the object, which many people described as unearthly.
One of the witnesses was Arizona governor Fife Symington, who said in 2007 and on "UFO Hunters" that despite what he said at his faux news conference when he had his chief of staff dress up in an alien garb and show up as the explanation for the lights, Symington himself saw the 8:30 lights from his own backyard and said they were not a conventional craft because the object he saw flew too slowly for an airplane, did not have the thwapping sound of rotor blades like a helicopter, and was completely noiseless. A plane would have stalled at the speed it was moving, a helicopter would have shown distinct navigation lights and made a noise, especially at the low altitude at which it was flying, and the lights made the craft larger than a football field. Also, Symington said that as commander in chief of the Arizona National Guard and Air National Guard, he called Luke Air Force Base and was told no military craft were in the sky at 8:30 over Phoenix. Thus the lights were not confirmed as military by the Air National Guard.
About two hours after the first sighting of the lights, a second set of lights flew over the same area, causing even more confusion and frenzy than the first set. Were the 10:30 lights over Phoenix a different object, the same object returning, or flares from air force or National Guard planes scrambled to establish a conventional explanation for the 8:30 lights? At first, when the 10:30 lights appeared, residents called Sky Harbor air traffic control again and were told that no planes were picked up on radar. Residents also called Luke Air Force Base again and were told none of their planes were in the air. However, after the initial responses from Luke AFB, the air force said that the lights were ground illumination flares from a flight of A-10 Warthogs over the Goldwater test range. Months later, the Maryland Air National Guard announced that there were planes in the air on the night of March 13, 1997, from the 104th fighter squadron flying out of Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona as the unit that dropped LUU-2B/B ground illumination flares in an exercise over the Goldwater test range. CIA UFO consultant Dr. Bruce Maccabee conducted a triangulation analysis of the events and said that it was indeed likely that the second formation of lights were flares that could be seen even though they were many miles south of the Phoenix area at 10:30. However, photo analyst Jim Dilettoso of Arizona’s Village Labs said that after he had performed a spectral analysis of the lights, he determined that the colors of the lights were inconsistent with flares.
Witness and award-winning filmmaker Dr. Lynne Kitei has said that the 10:30 lights were not flares and that subsequent flare-dropping demonstrations by the air force to prove that flares were what people in Phoenix saw on the night of March 13, 1997, showed, again through an analysis of the aerial performance, the colors and the residue actually proved that what witnesses saw were not flares. The controversy over the nature of the lights still remains today.µ
“Winds must blow away a large fraction of the matter a black hole could eat,” researchers said.
Artist’s concept of a stellar-mass black hole (left) with its companion star. The hole’s gravity pulls gas away from the companion, and the gas forms what’s called an accretion disk around the hole. A black hole “wind” is driven off this disk.
New research provides the first evidence of strong winds from the disks surrounding stellar-mass black holes throughout “gorging” events, during which the holes are rapidly consuming mass. The researchers think the winds might act as a barrier, preventing the holes from consuming as much mass as they otherwise would. The results were published January 22, 2018, in the peer-reviewed journal Nature. Bailey Tetarenko is a University of Alberta Ph.D. student and lead author of the study.
She said:
Winds must blow away a large fraction of the matter a black hole could eat. In one of our models, the winds removed 80 per cent of the black hole’s potential meal.
Thus small black holes might have surprisingly large effects, as so much material being pushed away would afterwards interact with the rest of a black hole’s home galaxy.
Tetarenko is part of an international research team that examined several space-based data sources, going back to 1996. The team was looking for bright outbursts of X-ray emission, thought to occur when black holes suddenly and rapidly consume mass. Tetarenko’s professor and co-author Gregory Sivakoff, also of University of Alberta, told TorontoMetro:
When [Bailey] started showing us the results … I think our mouths started dropping. Because we realized that her results were getting at something very, very critical in our field
Oftentimes you’re nibbling at the edges of the field, but this is getting to the heart of our field.
The team saw evidence of consistent and strong winds surrounding black holes throughout outbursts. Until now, strong winds had only been seen in limited parts of these events.
They also observed that stellar-mass black holes can consume everything within a radius of about two to 100 miles (three to 150 km), depending on their size.
Stellar-mass black holes are much smaller than the supermassive black holes thought to lie at the centers of most galaxies. Small black holes have masses of perhaps 5 to several tens times that of our sun, while, for example, the supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way has an estimated four million solar masses.
Yet the small and large black holes might share certain behaviors, and thus Sivakoff said this research sheds light on big questions. He said:
Our galaxy seems to be a fairly typical galaxy. We know that there is a supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy.
And so it might mean that as we learn how in general black holes feed and affect their environment, we may be learning more about the specifics of how our supermassive black hole affected how our galaxy formed, and in the end … how we got here.
Bottom line: Researchers at University of Alberta have evidence that winds from the accretion disks surrounding stellar-mass black holes push away as much as 80 percent of the material the holes would otherwise consume.
NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this natural-color image on January 16, 2018. These straight-line cloud patterns are called ship tracks, and they’re formed via ships’ exhaust. This image is off the coast of Portugal, where ship traffic is high, and some of these tracks stretch hundreds of miles. The narrow ends of the clouds are youngest, while the broader, wavier ends are older. NASA explained how they form:
Some of the pollution particles generated by ships (especially sulfates) are soluble in water and serve as the seeds around which cloud droplets form. Clouds infused with ship exhaust have more and smaller droplets than unpolluted clouds. As a result, the light hitting the polluted clouds scatters in many directions, making them appear brighter and thicker than unpolluted marine clouds, which are typically seeded by larger, naturally occurring particles such as sea salt.
Scientists Use Ancient Vedic Sanskrit Texts To Teach Ethics To Artificial Intelligence
Scientists Use Ancient Vedic Sanskrit Texts To Teach Ethics To Artificial Intelligence
Vedas—which literally mean ‘knowledge’, in ancient Sanskrit—are referred to as the four oldest texts originating in the ancient Indian subcontinent. The basis of the Vedic religion comes prior to the Hindu religion. The oldest of the four, the Rigveda, was composed orally in Sanskrit in the middle of the second millennium BC.
Scholars believe there are four Vedas: the Rigveda, the Yajurveda, the Samaveda and the Atharvaveda.
Each Veda has been subclassified into four major text types – the Samhitas (mantras and benedictions), the Aranyakas (ancient texts on rituals, ceremonies, sacrifices and symbolic-sacrifices), the Brahmanas (commentaries on rituals, ceremonies and sacrifices), and the Upanishads (texts discussing meditation, philosophy and spiritual knowledge).
Hindus consider the Vedas to be apauruṣeya, which means “not of a man, superhuman” and “impersonal, authorless”.
The Vedas are ancient Sanskrit texts of Hinduism. Above: A page from the Atharvaveda.
Now, computer scientists are analyzing the sacred Indian texts an applying the methods of mathematical logic to achieve a key of standards by which they are able to teach Ethics to AI.
According to researchers from the Institute of Logic and Computation at TU Wien, a machine could be presented with a certain set of obligations and prohibitions, and follow certain rules to automatically determine if a certain type of behavior is acceptable or not: for example, a car without driver that should make ethical decisions in the event of an accident.
“The Vedas are a large body of ancient Sanskrit texts, some of which contain very clear moral statements – such as ‘one should not harm any living being’”, explains Agata Ciabattoni from the Institute of Logic and Computation at TU Wien. Ciabattoni is supervising the research project, in close collaboration with Elisa Freschi, Sanskritist from the Austrian Academy of Science. Their goal is to understand how ancient Vedas can help teach Ethics to AI.
Looking back at Ancient Civilizations to teach Artificial Intelligence
Scientists from TU Wien say there was a philosophical school in ancient called Mimamsa, which uses a rigorous approach to analyze the obligations and prohibitions mentioned in the Vedas.
For many centuries, the scholars of Mimamsa formulated rules to draw conclusions from the premises and to resolve apparent contradictions.
“This is closely related to what logicians like us are doing,” says Agata Ciabattoni. “We can formalize such rules in a language that computers can also understand.”
The Syena Sacrifice
Researchers point towards a dispute called the “Syena sacrifice”, a sacrifice in the Vedas aimed at killing enemies.
How can this be harmonized with the rule of not harming any living being?
“For a Hindu, the Vedas are absolutely correct, so there can be no contradiction,” says Agata Ciabattoni.
In the seventh century, Prabhakara, an Indian philosopher of the Mimamsa tradition, solved this problem by applying several rules of the Vedas in a logical, but rather complicated manner.
Several scholars refused to acknowledge that this reasoning was correct, and this dispute continued for centuries.
Therefore, Agata Ciabattoni and her team of researchers worked closely with ancient Sanskrit experts to translate the rules of Mimamsa and the Vedic laws into mathematical formulas, and they were able to show that Prabhakara had been right all along.
Given the prescriptions of the Vedas, the Prabhakaras logic was perfect, showing how mathematical logic is able to solve an old philosophical dispute.
“For us, this was a first proof of concept that we can really learn something new by linking Indology and formal logic”, says Ciabattoni. “But ultimately, we want to accomplish much more. We want to understand how to express with mathematical precision beneficial logics dealing with prohibitions and obligations.”
Understanding the ancient Vedas in order to teach machines
As noted by experts in the new study, vlassical logic deals with statements that are true or false, and provides rules that we can use to combine true statements, creating new statements that are also true.
This is how mathematics works: if we start with something true and follow a certain set of rules, the final result will therefore be true.
However, scientists at TU Wien say this kind of logic is not useful if we want to deal with ethics.
“When we deal with prohibitions and obligations, we are not interested in what is true or false, but in what we should or should not do,” concludes Ciabattoni.
“Therefore, a completely different kind of logic is needed, called deontic logic. Just like classical logic, it can be expressed as mathematical formulae which allow us to unequivocally determine whether or not a certain line of reasoning is correct.”
Featured image credit: Wikimedia Commons / Shutterstock
Researchers drilling into the Earth’s mantle have made an unexpected finding: analyzing rocks which came from 550 km below the surface, they discovered highly oxidized iron, similar to the rust we see on our planet’s surface.
Diamonds with garnet inclusions can form at depths down to 550 kilometers below the surface.
Image credits: Jeff W. Harris, University of Glasgow.
If there’s something you don’t expect to find kilometers beneath the surface, it’s rust. The oxidized iron was found as inclusions in diamonds and garnets coming from the deep mantle. Of course, researchers didn’t drill 550 km (the deepest borehole “only” went 12 km deep) but reaching the top of the mantle enables geoscientists to analyze rock samples that migrated from deeper parts.
It’s quite a unique opportunity, as geoscientists don’t know that much about how oxidation happens in the deep Earth — actually, they weren’t even sure whether it takes place at those depths in the first place.
“On Earth’s surface, where oxygen is plentiful, iron will oxidize to rust,” explained Thomas Stachel, professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Alberta, who co-authored the study. “In the Earth’s deep mantle, we should find iron in its less oxidized form, known as ferrous iron, or in its metal form. But what we found was the exact opposite–the deeper we go, the more oxidized iron we found.”
Most of us are familiar with oxidized iron through a process we commonly see on the surface: rust.
Image via Pixabay.
The discovery suggests that some oxidation does happen, even at those ungodly depths. Researchers believe the main culprit is molten carbonate, which was carried in sinking slabs of ancient seafloor. However, it’s hard to explain exactly how oxidation happened there in the first place. It’s counterintuitive and hard to explain why the deeper they went, the more oxidized iron they found. Nevertheless, it raises some intriguing possibilities.
“It’s exciting to find evidence of such profound oxidation taking place deep inside the Earth,” said Stachel, Canada Research Chair in diamonds.
Unfortunately, this study raises more questions than it answers. We know a lot about the carbon cycle on the Earth’s surface, but what happens in the mantle? This study seems to indicate that carbon can go down as far as 550 kilometers below the surface, where it interacts with the rocks and crystallizes as diamonds. But diamonds can migrate even deeper in the mantle. Does this mean, that the carbon cycle too extends this low? The study seems to suggest it, but if this is the case, then where does the oxygen come from, and how is the process different from what happens at the surface? Those are all questions to be answered by future research.
In December 2005, NASA lost contact with an important satellite which up until then had provided unprecedented insight into Earth’s magnetosphere. Engineers presumed the M.I.A. satellite was dead for the past 12 years but one amateur astronomers proved everyone wrong after he picked up the long-lost satellite’s signal.
NASA technicians inspecting
IMAGE. Credit: NASA.
Scott Tilley has an unusual hobby. In his free time, the man likes to follow the radio signals of spy satellites. Most recently, he was on the hunt for Zuma, a controversial satellite whose true nature the U.S. government has kept classified and which is believed to have failed at launch earlier this month. Some say the incident was just a ruse meant to keep Zuma under the public’s radar while it still actually operated as intended.
With his ears pricked up for Zuma, Tilley came across something totally unexpected. What he had picked up was the signal corresponding to NASA’s IMAGE satellite, the $150 million mission that suddenly stopped broadcasting after five years of service.
“Upon reviewing the data from January 20, 2018, I noticed a curve consistent with a satellite in High Earth Orbit (HEO) on 2275.905MHz, darn not ZUMA… This is not uncommon during these searches. So I set to work to identify the source,” Tilley wrotein a blog post.
“A quick identity scan using ‘strf’ (sat tools rf) revealed the signal to come from 2000-017A, 26113, called IMAGE.”
Credit: Scott Tilley.
News of the find soon traveled to the old IMAGE team, including to Patricia Reiff, a space plasma physicist at Rice University in Houston, Texas. Speaking to Science Mag, Reiff, who was co-investigator on the mission, said that “the odds are extremely good that it’s alive.” We’ll learn if this is the case next week when NASA and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory will attempt to contact IMAGE with their deep space radio antennas.
There are already some peculiar developments. For instance, scientists aren’t sure yet why IMAGE’s rotation rate has slowed, something which could impede communication.
Since it launched into Earth’s orbit in 2000 and up until communication broke off in 2005, the satellite provided invaluable information about Earth’s magnetic field. Its instruments recorded the activity of neutral particles ejected by collisions of atoms in the inner magnetosphere, revealing new insights about this region and its interactions with charged particles fired from the sun.
By the time IMAGE went dark, the satellite had been responsible for 37 “unique scientific discoveries.” In fact, its instruments have never been replaced by any other spacecraft so establishing a new comm-link could be incredibly useful for science — and what a thrilling thing that would be. At the end of the day, it just serves to show that hope is never lost.
“It is really invaluable for now-casting space weather and really understanding the global response of the magnetosphere to solar storms,” Reiff said.
An extremely rare celestial coincidence is sending us over the moon. The January 31st supermoon will feature a total lunar eclipse, as well as a blue moon — and this almost never happens.
A lunar trilogy
The 2011 supermoon as it is seen rising near the Lincoln Memorial.
Image Credits: NASA/Bill Ingalls.
A Supermoon is a Moon that is full when it is also at or near its closest point in its orbit around Earth. Basically, the moon is closer to the Earth which to us, seems like it’s getting bigger. It can be hard to see the change with our own eyes, but the odds are you’re going to see it larger and clearer than usual.
“The supermoons are a great opportunity for people to start looking at the Moon, not just that once but every chance they have!” says Noah Petro, a research scientist from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
Since this supermoon will be the second full moon of the month, it also earns the title of a blue moon. But without a doubt, the cherry on the cake is the lunar eclipse. With a totality visible from western North America across the Pacific to Eastern Asia, the eclipse will still be partially visible from other parts of the world. Here’s an interactive map of where you can see the eclipse and in what stage.
If you can’t watch it for some reason or another, rest assured — the Virtual Telescope project provides a live stream of the supermoon’s eclipse over Rome’s skyline.
“The lunar eclipse on January 31 will be visible during moonset. Folks in the Eastern United States, where the eclipse will be partial, will have to get up in the morning to see it,” notes Petro. “But it’s another great chance to watch the Moon.”
A screenshot from the interactive map.
The best time to see the supermoon is usually around moonrise. You can check your local moonrise time on this calendar. Meanwhile, the lunar eclipse will begin at 6:48am ET (11:48am UTC) and reach its maximum at 8:30am ET (1:30pm UTC). It could turn out to be a long night.
By your powers combined
It’s a rare event to have all these three events happen at the same time. The last time it happened was 152 years ago so if you do manage to spot it, make sure to take a photo or two. Bill Ingalls, NASA’s senior photographer and a fixture at NASA Headquarters has loads of good advice on how to shoot the event with a camera. If all you’ve got is a phone, you can still snap really good images. Be sure to set the focus exactly on the moon and increase the exposure slider to get the right balance.
Unlike the solar eclipse, the lunar eclipse isn’t dangerous to look at. You can look at it directly, without any glasses, without any worry whatsoever — except perhaps for a stiff neck.
ISS Commander Tells All About His UFO Sighting In Space!
ISS Commander Tells All About His UFO Sighting In Space!
Leroy Chiao, a commander of the International Space Station back in 2005, recently opened up and told all about his UFO sighting from space. They were 230 miles high up above the Earth, and traveling at a speed of around 17,000 miles per hour, when Chiao suddenly spotted a UFO. Chiao told the Huffington post:
“I saw some lights that seemed to be in a line and it was almost like an upside-down check mark, and I saw them fly by and thought it was awfully strange. It wasn’t just one, but a line of them strung out along the South American coast” (1)
“I’m sceptical of claims that we’ve been visited by aliens from another planet or other dimensions, but I don’t rule it out 100 percent. I have an open mind and I do believe there’s other life in the universe.”
A growing amount of evidence has emerged, especially within the past few years that has more people asking questions. For example, dozens of governments around the world have recently released previously classified UFO documents. Documents detail how governments have special departments to monitor the UFO phenomenon and obtain information. One example are the UFO files released by the United Kingdom back in June 2013, you can view those files here.
Documents also reveal that UFOs are constantly being tracked on ground radar, air radar, accompanied by visual conformation by military pilots who are scrambled to take a closer look…Ever notice how you see a UFO and then all of a sudden a military plane/Helicopter appears from out of nowhere?!
Agencies such as the NSA (National Surveillance Agency) have also done the same, you can view examples here , here and here (we have featured a Post on this!) It’s safe to assume that more “sensitive” documents remain classified, especially with the recent disclosure of the black budget and special access programs by Edward Snowden. You can read more about that here.
The Perfect UFO viewpoint….apparently!
Apart from all of the official documentation around proving the reality of UFOs (performing manoeuvres that defy our known laws of physics like starting and stopping on a dime), we’ve had incredible statements made by hundreds of very high ranking political and military personnel. Paul Heyller (picture below) Canada’s former Minister of National Defence recently said that there are “at least four known alien species that have been visiting Earth for thousands of years.” You can read more about that, and watch him make that statement here.
Paul Heyller one of the men in the know
This is a very minuscule amount of evidence regarding the UFO issue. The UFO phenomenon cannot really be denied anymore, for anybody who has looked into this subject,the evidence can be quite overwhelming. Coupled with this evidence are the experiences MANY people have all over the world involving UFOs, as well as purported extraterrestrial beings. It’s definitely one of the Hot Topics nowadays and one that is gaining some well deserved attention, as we move through 2014 and beyond. This is thanks to the efforts of researchers, whistle-blowers and more.
Chiao joins a long list of Astronauts that have openly spoken out about UFOs and their own individual experiences with them. Other astronauts of the past have made remarkable claims and comments about UFO’s and intelligent extra-terrestrial life. Below are a few of many examples. To view some of the best, officially documented UFO footage from the NASA STS-48 Discovery Space Shuttle, click here.
Please check out these IMPORTANT video clips below:
U.I.P Summary
When it comes to UFO evidence you cannot get anymore significant than Astronauts telling us about what they have seen up there in Space! Personally I feel that this is the real deal when it comes to the truth about UFO’s, as these guys put their whole reputation at stake by coming out with bold statements such as the above!
It also concerns me that so many ex members of NASA have died in strange circumstances over the last couple of years…It concerns me what could happen to any of these guys who dare tell us the truth about what they have seen in Space.
The world needs to wake up and listen to men like this in order to start grasping the fact that we are very much NOT alone and the ET’s are very much real and have been with us for a very long time! Ordinary folk like me and you trying to educate people about the UFO’s in the sky and life beyond Planet earth is an uphill struggle, but when role models such as these guys speak out, its time for Planet Earth to wake up and take note!
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )
UFO Ejects Multiple Objects, Filmed in Infrared, October 21, 2017 – Long Beach, California
UFO Ejects Multiple Objects, Filmed in Infrared, October 21, 2017 – Long Beach, California
Case File Information
TBV Investigations Case Number: 823710
Date of Event / Case File: 10/21/2017 Name of Witness: infamousfanclub
Case File Status: Unidentified, Possible Explanation Below
Background
The following was submitted to The Black Vault / TBV Investigations on December 20th, 2017. The witness described the encounter as the following:
“This sighting took place in my backyard in Long Beach CA, Carson Park to be specific. I spend many hours per week sky watching in the yard and have seen and recorded many UFOs there.
When I first spotted the UFO it looked very bright and was moving steadily across the sky. There were actually two objects at first when I spotted this bright orb. From a distance it looked larger than a plane and again very bright. I then grabbed the camera and started recording the object. When it became clear in the lens I realized it was a somewhat of an elongated object and it was glowing white. From here I just tried to keep the camera steady and record the UFO as smoothly as possible. After a minute or so things got very interesting once it released what looked like a triangular formation of orbs from it’s main body. As you can see in the footage the orbs were actually pretty large and held this formation very steady as they ejected from the main object.
Many UFO sightings I’ve had have been triangle formations so this to me was a confirmation that this was likely a UFO and a signal of communication. After the triangle formation disbanded I bungled the camera and lost track of it in the viewfinder. I then got it back in the lens and followed it in the sky for a few more minutes. Towards the end of the video on my last zoom in the UFO started ejecting what looked like tons of small spheres from it’s main body. I was very surprised to see and have never seen so many orbs come out of one object. The smaller orbs formed a trail going through the sky and seemed also take different formations. It’s important to note I could only see the small spheres through the infrared camera I could not see them with my naked eye. I did my best to keep the camera steady and film the event taking place. As the UFO crossed my hard it went behind a tree and I lost track of it in the camera. In the last few seconds though I could see the object was just above my head about to go behind this tree and it looked very large and very bright! I moved to the middle of the yard to try and record the object more but unfortunately couldn’t manage to get the UFO back in the lens. I could still see it but it was heading out of range.
My arm was also very tired since I’d been filming for about 9 minutes. So I decided that was good enough and watched it go out of view towards the ocean. To this day it’s the most interesting capture I’ve caught on film. We see many UFOs at our house but this was by far the most exceptional. I don’t believe it to be skydivers or a military exercise. For one thing my infrared camera is a high end unit that has a 1345 mm telephoto lens designed for long distance shooting. The camera can easily articulate planes, helicopters, or anything in the sky with great clarity. We would for sure have been able to see that this was a plane or helicopter if it was a conventional object. This UFO also looked like many of the orbs we see and record with the bright, plasma type quality to it. They look like they’re alive in this type of plasmatic form.
There wasn’t any sound from the UFO. I could hear other airplanes flying at higher altitudes while recording the object. I live near long beach airport and see planes flying by all day.”
The case was assigned to TBV Investigations team member Christopher Connelly for investigation.
The Analysis
Unfortunately, I am unable this object into a “shape” as throughout the video, it appears to be shifting, due to possible movement, camera angles or another reason yet to be identified.
The type of material the object was made of is impossible to determine, due to the film being in infrared.
Even though it is in infrared, it is impossible to get a heat signature from something at such a distance.
As the witness continues to watch the object, it appears to be moving slightly to the witness’ right. As the object is being filmed, it begins dropping smaller heat signatures, or other objects, as it moves along.
Much like the main object, it is hard to make out the shape of these objects being dropped but they do not appear to be falling in a regular pattern.
At one time, you can see a triangular formation of three heat signatures falling to earth. Eventually, it appears that the object disappears behind the cover of a tree and filming ends at that time.
Corresponding Cases
The following case was filmed by the Long Beach Police Department on December 25, 2004, which looks very similar. There is no context to the video, as it was found on YouTube, so it is hard to verify. But, it was uploaded in 2008, and appears to be very similar. The video can be found here:
Possible Explanations
Skydiving Team – Recreational or Military
I reached out to local skydiving companies in the local area, but they would not give me any information in regards to any of the jumps.
About a hour and a half away lies Camp Pendleton, which is host to various Marine Corps and Navy units but from my military experience, I doubt that they would fly 1.5 hours out to perform jumps over Long Beach.
Another thing is that when a military or civilian jump is occurring, the craft is usually moving at a decent speed and the jumpers are dropped at intervals, not in sporadic formations that are seen in the video. There are cases of Special Forces performing small team jumps or even HALO (High Altitude Low Oxygen) jump, but this doesn’t appear to be small teams.
I was unable to make out any sounds of the craft in the video and the witness states that there were none. I am unable to make any decision on the shape or color of the object due to the infrared and that this “jelly bean” shape may actually be its shape.
Conclusion
Due to the video, location of the sighting and the reoccurring sightings that have been reported with heavy supportive evidence, such as the object filmed by the Long Beach Police helicopter in ‘04 (see reference above), I have come to the conclusion that I am unable to identify this object using my range of scientific methods. I am unable to identify its origin as well.
The witness was baffled on seeing this strange anomaly and reported it to MUFON (Mutual UFO Network) an organisation which carries out researches on UFO and aliens. This instance is saved as case number 89729 by MUFON.
The witness informed the YouTube channel — UFOmania - The truth is out there, that he had never seen anything like this in his 60 years of outdoorsmanship.
Various photos of this bizarre object was captured by the spectator using his Canon digital 7140 lens. However, he wonders whether the object he saw was a military craft or not. It remains a mystery whether this amusing shape is a natural phenomenon or a cloaked secret military craft.
WATCH VIDEO:
YouTube/ UFOmania - The truth is out there
In another interesting case that has been reported to MUFON by an astronomer, a cigar-shaped object was observed in the M42 Orion nebula.
The astronomer was accumulating data about the nebula when he noticed a strange cylindrical object.
YouTube screenshot/ secureteam10
He was surprised to observe more of these unidentified objects while he captured more images of the nebula using an 8-inch astrograph Newtonian telescope. On close observation, these mysterious cylindrical objects appeared to be moving towards the right.
A consortium of extraterrestrial races conducting long term genetic engineering of humanity has been told to end its historic interference according to Secret Space Program insider Corey Goode. As a result of this, and related “galactic diplomacy” developments, he says that humanity is about to embark on a thousand years of uninterrupted peaceful development as a fully autonomous member of the galactic community.
Goode has just released an extensive update with his latest experiences involving extraterrestrials, Inner Earth entities and secret space programs in a joint article written with New York Times best selling author David Wilcock. While Goode’s update may read like a science fiction space opera, his Cosmic Disclosure Gaia TV interview series with Wilcock has generated hundreds of thousands of views, and a devoted following convinced of the veracity of his claims.
In my own research of Goode’s claims since March 2015, I have not found any evidence of fraud or deception. Instead there has been much circumstantial evidence supporting his claims which have been detailed in a number of articles, and more extensively in a 2015 book comprehensively examining his claims in light of such evidence along with corroborating witness testimony.
The most recent examples of circumstantial evidence concern Goode’s revelations of extensive underground facilities in the Moon where large bases had been secretly built. In 2017, scientists confirmed the existence of massive lava tubes in the Moon which could support large cities. The size of the Moon’s caverns were large enough to fit a large metropolitan city, as illustrated in the following diagram showing how Philadelphia could easily fit inside one of them.
The city of Philadelphia is shown inside a theoretical lunar lava tube. A Purdue University team of researchers explored whether lava tubes more than 1 kilometer wide could remain structurally stable on the moon. (Purdue University/courtesy of David Blair)
In his latest update, Goode discusses being taken into the Moon where he traveled through its network of lava tubes.
There is an extensive amount of information in Goode’s portion of the joint article which is over 10,000 words. Given the extensive material, I will focus on arguably the most significant event, which concerns what he was told about the extraterrestrial consortium, the “Super Federation”, being compelled to end its long term genetic experiments.
To read the other issues raised by Goode in his update, you can visit the latest post by Wilcock on his Divine Cosmos website. All quotes that follow are extracted from the joint Goode and Wilcock article.
Goode begins by describing how he was taken to a Super Federation meeting:
In one of these dream-state communications I was told that I should prepare for a series of meetings with the Super Federation and the “Council at Saturn” in the next few days.
On Saturday, December 16, 2017, at a little after 3:30 AM, a blue orb appeared in my room. I got up and put on the nice clothes that I had laid out next to my bed the night before….
I then faced the orb and indicated that I was ready to be transported.
Goode described being taken to a temporal anomaly near Jupiter housing a large diplomatic facility where the Super Federation conducts its regular Assembly. He has previously discussed participating in various roles as part of an Earth delegation in the Assembly.
In his update, Goode discussed his new role where he would address the entire Assembly as a spokesperson for the Sphere Being Alliance, a recently arrived group of higher density extraterrestrials (6th-9th) whose abilities and technologies far exceed those of the extraterrestrials running the long term genetic programs on Earth.
I was starting to get a bit shaky when I figured I would just get it over with. I thought to myself, “I am ready.” Immediately, Tear-Eir and the Golden Triangle Being were standing behind me, very much in the same manner as when they had first appeared with me in front of the SSP Alliance at the LOC.
Goode has previously described Tear-Eir as a 6th density being who has mentored him since 2013, and appointed him to play the critical role as the Sphere Being Alliance’s delegate at a meeting at Lunar Operations Command (LOC) in March 2015, before a consortium of human space programs called the Secret Space Program (SSP) Alliance.
Corey Goode as he appeared at LOC in March 2015.
Permission: Sphere Being Alliance.
Goode states that the process of appointing a normal citizen to represent the Sphere Being Alliance in diplomatic negotiations with the major space powers and extraterrestrial groups in a solar system has been repeatedly followed in our local stellar cluster of 52 star systems.
It appears that this diplomatic formula has been used to overcome the usual power disparity where the will of normal planetary citizens are ignored by planetary elites and their extraterrestrial patrons. Goode certainly appears to be a good choice for such delegate as he has a common touch that appeals to many watching his interviews.
Goode was chosen by the Sphere Being Alliance, to overcome this power disparity on Earth, and give the normal citizenry of our planet a voice in diplomatic negotiations concerning their future:
Tear-Eir addressed me and said “Repeat everything exactly as I communicate it to you,” to which I nodded in agreement. I then turned to the delegation once more and began to speak.
I then spoke the words “We greet you in the love and light of the one infinite creator” at which time both Tear-Eir and the Golden Triangle being put their palms forward and bowed. I mimicked what they did. I felt a very deliberate yet loving energy coming from Tear-Eir….
He was having me address groups of beings by both their name and where they came from. Tear-Eir began to discuss cosmic agreements over these programs that have been made and broken over oceans of time. It seems that each of the 52 stars in our local star cluster have gone through similar programs.
Tear-Eir then announced that the Super Federation as they knew it would soon be disbanded, as had been done in countless other star systems in accordance with cosmic Law.
Tear-Eir further stated that soon 2 more Guardian Races would come to replace the Blue Avians and Golden Triangle Beings. At that point, the new Guardians would guide the Super Federation through consolidating and closing down these programs.
Goode then described a vehement protest by the extraterrestrial races in the Assembly, who were then reminded of the superior technological power possessed by the Sphere Being Alliance (aka Guardian Group) that had been militarily exercised in previous past situations:
Tear-Eir then had me say “remember the Ponce System.” I had a flash of some sort of military conflict between a few of the Super Federation groups and a Guardian group that was enforcing a similar situation in a far-away star system, long ago.
The incident seemed significant to everyone present, except the Earth Delegation and myself. The delegates returned to their seats and waited for me to address them again.
What Goode just described appeared to be a veiled threat by the Sphere Being Alliance/Guardians that basically forced the Super Federation to accept the terms that had been laid before them. He went on:
Tear-Eir then had me state, “Humanity has had much to overcome. In this new phase, this council will soon disband.
“Humanity’s “Cosmic Family” will assist them in healing and guiding them through the management of their own genetic and spiritual growth.
“This council will attend to its members incarnated on Earth, until which time humanity requests that you remove them.
“Humanity will be offered an official seat at a new Super Federation Council.
“These Cosmic Family members will use their experiences as a part of these programs to help guide this council in further ongoing programs across this Galaxy.”
Soon after, “Gonzales”, a pseudonym for a U.S. Navy officer that has worked closely with Goode in his space encounters since 2015, spoke about the significance of the development:
He said “Do you know what this means?” I looked at him and said, “Humanity will not be controlled and experimented on by dozens of ET races who think they are gods?”
He smiled and said, “They are the gods from our myths…. But, yes. And it means that the Galactic Federation, which the Sphere Being Alliance is a part of, will now assist us with the Draco Empire.
“They will not remove them for us, but will provide support that allows us to clean up our own house. We will really only have to contend with the AI threat until the series of solar events clear them from the Sol System.”
Goode was next informed about a 1000 year galactic energy anomaly that will make possible an era of unprecedented human evolution and development:
I was shocked and said, “The Sphere Being Alliance is non-violent; how will they confront the reptilians?” He said, “I think we will have to watch that play out together. After the series of solar events, the Draco will be energetically expelled from this system.
“An incompatible energy will emanate from the Sun for about a thousand years.
“Many reptilians will try to remain hidden on Earth in temporal fields and within heavily shielded bases deep in the Earth, as they have for prior cycles.
“Humans will be responsible for rooting them out of their hiding places.
“During that time, the Draco will be unable to return to this system.” …
I asked, “Why for only a thousand years?” Gonzales looked at me and said, “Sounds Biblical, doesn’t it?
“The Earth is near a Super Gate. Those are quite special. The only alternative is to block their access to a system the super-gate is near. After Humanity has been through disclosure and the solar events, the reptilians will be of little threat.”
I asked “Who manages this energy field for the thousand-year period?”
He stated, “The thousand-year energy fields seem to be a natural part of the cosmic web’s cycles and energy flow.”
He stated that according to his info, this thousand-year cycle is “not something set up by Galactic Federation assets.”
Goode has not offered any hard evidence to support his claims. Aside from some circumstantial evidence and corroborating claims by insiders such as the recently deceased William Tompkins, Dr. Pete Peterson, and others known to David Wilcock, there appears little to corroborate his incredible claims.
The lack of hard evidence has led to some critics claiming Goode is a fraud, and even led to an extreme form of character assassination against him and his closest associates. However, a close examination of two of the most well-known critics shows they deliberately omitted and skewed important background data that supported Goode’s professional background. This doesn’t prove Goode’s testimony to be genuine, only that persistent efforts to discredit or debunk him fail to be persuasive.
Goode’s testimony is ground breaking and until there is clear evidence showing him misrepresenting or concocting events, he deserves to be taken seriously given the strong public interest in his case, and growing fan base. If his testimony is accurate, as I continue to believe is the case, then he may just have participated in major off-planet diplomatic meetings that directly impact humanity’s future, and ushers in an unprecedented 1000 year age of freedom from extraterrestrial interference.
Beinecke Manuscript GalleryEen pagina uit het Voynich Manuscript
WETENSCHAP & PLANEET Al eeuwenlang breken wetenschappers zich het hoofd over het Voynich Manuscript. De vreemde tekst dateert uit de 15e eeuw, maar veel meer is er niet over bekend. Niemand weet in welke taal het geschreven is, laat staan wat er precies instaat. Tot nu, want aan de universiteit van Alberta menen ze de code gekraakt te hebben met wat hulp van artificiële intelligentie.
Het Voynich Manuscript werd in 1912 ontdekt en vernoemd naar de Poolse boekhandelaar Wilfrid Voynich. Die kocht de tekst naar eigen zeggen tijdens een uitverkoop van de Collegio Romano in Italië. Het boek van 240 pagina’s verbaast sindsdien de wetenschappelijke wereld. Het staat vol handgeschreven tekst en lijkt een beetje op een encyclopedie, maar de precieze betekenis ervan blijft onduidelijk en ook de precieze afkomst is niet bekend. Zelfs het Bletchley Park Team, dat tijdens WOII de Enigma-code van de Nazi’s wist te ontcijferen, kreeg er kop noch staart aan.
Er zijn natuurlijk wel enkele theorieën over wie het manuscript precies geschreven heeft. De vele tekeningen van - voor zover bekend - onbestaande planten wijzen volgens complottheoretici op buitenaardse auteurs. Anderen geloven dan weer dat het een vervalsing is van Voynich en dat die het zelf geschreven heeft op eeuwenoud papier. Ten slotte bestaat er ook een theorie die de tekst toeschrijft aan Edward Kelley, een beruchte fraudeur uit de 16e eeuw. Die zou het gefabriceerd hebben en voor veel geld verkocht hebben aan keizer Rudolf II van het Heilige Roomse Rijk. Hoe dan ook, voor veel mensen bestaat het manuscript uit klinkklare onzin.
TwitterVoynich Manuscript
Hebreeuwse code
Maar volgens professor Greg Kondrak van de universiteit van Alberta heeft de tekst wel degelijk betekenis. Zijn team van computeranalisten ontwikkelde een universele vertalingssoftware en liet die los op het Voynich Manuscript. Het programma bepaalde dat het meer dan waarschijnlijk om Hebreeuws gaat: 80 procent van de woorden blijkt uit die taal afkomstig.”Dat is al erg verrassend”, aldus Kondrak. “En dit is pas de eerste stap, want nu moeten we nog uitvogelen hoe we het moeten ontcijferen.” De tekst is immers gecodeerd met behulp van alfagrama, wat betekent dat klinkers werden weggelaten en de medeklinkers door elkaar werden gehusseld.
Kondrak en zijn team werken nu aan een algoritme die de hele tekst moet vertalen. Ze wisten alvast de eerste zin te ontcijferen: ‘Ze heeft aanbevelingen gedaan aan de priester, de man van het huis en aan mij en mijn mensen.’ Er werden ook al woorden zoals ‘boer’, ‘licht’ en ‘lucht’ gevonden. Toegegeven, het is een erg vreemde manier om een manuscript te beginnen, maar de wetenschappers zijn ervan overtuigd dat ze op het juiste spoor zitten. “Het is een zin met grammatica én een betekenis. Dat heeft nog nooit iemand eruit kunnen halen.”
De prof wil nu ook andere experts betrekken bij het vertaalproces. “Een geschiedkundige die gespecialiseerd is in dat tijdperk en een goede kennis heeft van Hebreeuws zou heel wat kunnen doen met ons resultaat.”
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UFO Seen Over Washington Monument In Newly Released Photo, UFO Sighting News.
UFO Seen Over Washington Monument In Newly Released Photo, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: 8-4-2017 Location of sighting: Washington DC, USA Source: MUFON #89860 This UFO was caught at the Washington monument a four months ago, but reported today. A dark UFO was near the top of the monument when the photo was taken. These UFOs often move so fast that the human eye cannot see them, but the digital camera can capture them. This is not the first UFO near this monument. Another was seen on a very important day, Obamas inauguration, back in Jan of 2009. It was seen by CNN reporters as they were talking about the day, one noticed an object shoot past behind them at high speed. He asked the camera guy if he caught it and could run it back for them. He did, and a UFO similar to the one today was seen shooting over the monument at incredible speed. I will place the video at the bottom of this post to compare, but please make it full screen to see well. Scott C. Waring-Taiwan Eyewitness states:
Me and my family were in DC for a White House tour. We walked to the Lincoln memorial and I climbed the steps, the view from there is awesome, you can see the whole mall, so I decided to take some pictures. It was areound 11 am and I took about 3 pictures in a row of the Washington monument. At the time I didn't see anything but later that night, when I got home, I was looking through the pictures when I noticed something odd about one of them. The first picture was totally normal, but in the second one, on the right of the Washington memorial, I saw a little black disc shaped object just hovering next to it. I swiped to the 3rd picture to see if it was in that one too but it was gone. It must've disappeared quickly, as these pictures were taken within seconds of each other. I don't know the exact size of it but it must've been big if it showed up on my phone camera.
At first I assumed it was just a plane or a drone, but if I'm not mistaken, the skies above the mall and the monument are a strict no fly zone, as the capital and the White House are in close proximity. It's been on my mind for a while, I just want an explanation for it. I would've reported it sooner but I wasn't sure how.
Unknown Object Causes Mysterious Burning Crater Near Road In Mexico, Jan 2018, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Unknown Object Causes Mysterious Burning Crater Near Road In Mexico, Jan 2018, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Date of discovery: January 17, 2018
Location of discovery: Coahuila, Mexico
Something crashed near a road way in Mexico last week. Reported by Secureteam10 of Youtube, this video shows us the crater still smouldering from impact of an unknown object. The crater is 26 feet across according to reports, but what sits at the bottom of the crater has not been announced. We are still waiting for reports about what was found at the bottom. When this comes in, I will let you know immediately.
Silent Triangle UFO in the night sky filmed over Beausset, France
Silent Triangle UFO in the night sky filmed over Beausset, France
The following footage of a triangular craft has been recorded by a resident in Le Beausset in France on January 19, 2018.
The videographer states: I was in my garden, watching the sky as I often do. I saw two lights moving together very close to each other as I used to observe satellites there.
I thought it's not flashing so it's not a plane or a helicopter. There was no noise I could hear. It was not a satellite because the 2 lights are very low in altitude and my intuition tells me quickly take your phone and film.
I could not film very long because my gate is a little high and was locked.
When watching the video I realized the form I was filming and I thought it was strange. I was very excited and intrigued by what I was able to see and video. Source: www.mufon.com
Flying Saucer becomes visible in the sky over Jamaica
Flying Saucer becomes visible in the sky over Jamaica
A strange phenomenon appeared in the sky over St. Ann, Jamaica on January 25, 2018.
Stoney Vill, who has filmed the phenomenon, wonders what the strange ring of lights in the clouds could be.
The video shows sun rays shining from behind a cloud formation, but light from the sun seems to be bending around a disk at the top of the cloud
When zoomed in on the disk, it clearly shows the solid contours of a UFO, a cloaked flying saucer that became temporarily visible. (See video 0.06sec).
Sergio Canavero is adamant that human head transplants will work. In fact, he claims that he could complete such a transplant within a year, and he says that he has the science to back it up. But does he?
Towards the end of 2017, Canavero’s project made headlines when the Italian surgeon claimed that he had actually already performed the procedure, which he calls the “head anastomosis venture” or HEAVEN. Subsequent reports determined that no such procedure took place and that the work was completed on corpses — many neuroscientists question whether even that much was really done.
Most scientists question whether there has been enough scientific progress to allow Canavero to perform such an operation next fall in China, as he claims he will do. In fact, they question whether research will make head transplants a viable option even in the foreseeable future. Richard L. Harvey, Northwestern University associate professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, sums the current consensus: “At this point, it would not be possible to connect the brainstem to the spinal cord in such a way as to get function. So if this were done, the person would be a [quadriplegic],” he told Futurism. “We can’t even repair spinal cords in patients with spinal cord injury, so we certainly can’t do that [successfully perform a head transplant].”
But that doesn’t mean that we will never be able to do one.
Ralph Adolphs, Bren Professor of Psychology, Neuroscience, and Biology from the division of the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), doesn’t rule out the possibility that a head transplant could be successful in the distant future, although the procedure would have to overcome substantial challenges. “I don’t see any impossibility in principle, so it’s conceivable it can be done in the future — but it will happen in small steps first, like curing paralyzed people, and you’ll be sure to hear about it as all the problems required are solved,” he told Futurism.
While, for the time being, a head transplant remains out of reach, if science does advance enough to perform one successfully, it will raise an array of new, mind-boggling questions.
A Sound Mind and Body
For starters, what happens to the transplanted head in the new body? Because of the way that other parts of the body impact our neurology and the way that we think and act, would joining a head with a new body create a new person altogether or would the head retain its former consciousness unaltered?
With a human head transplant, the head would be introduced to a foreign microbiome through the new body. Would this affect how the person thinks?
“[D]ifferent gut bacteria may make you feel different, and therefore think a little differently, but they won’t directly make you think differently because all thinking happens in the brain, not the gut,” Adolphs said. “Different gut bacteria might make you more or less groggy or change your mood — just like if you had a cold or not. So I guess the answer is: slightly, and only indirectly, like how viruses or bacteria do when you have a cold.”
Assuming that a human head transplant could work, the patient would still need a significant period of recovery for brain activity to normalize. According to Adolphs, this recovery process would be two-fold. It would probably begin with the brain adapting to its new body. “Just like learning to ride a bicycle, you’ll need to learn how to walk and move your arms, and for that matter breathe and regulate your heartbeat,” he explained.
It would take several months for brain and body to integrate. However, “that means your brain will change,” Adolphs said. This change is comparable, on a smaller scale, to how people learn to play a musical instrument, and get better with practice — only in this case, it would be practicing to control a new body.
“[Y]ou would change as a person in a number of respects because of a massive reorganization in your brain as it learns to adapt to your new body […] There would be limits to this reorganization that depend, among other things, on age,” Adolphs added.
Felipe De Brigard, an assistant professor of psychology and neuroscience at the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience of Duke University’s Institute for Brain Sciences, has a more radical perspective on the issue. He told Futurism that “it is unlikely that all of our psychological traits are uniquely dependent upon the cells confined within our head — it is likely that many of our psychological traits are dependent upon the informational transactions between our brain and our bodies. As such, a change in body would likely alter some of those psychological traits.” De Brigard admitted, however, that it’s not clear as to what extent a “new body” could alter psychological traits.
Post transplant
Arthur Caplan, founding head of the medical ethics division at the NYU School of Medicine, told Futurism that what would come after a successful head transplant would be as traumatic as the surgery itself. “Putting a new head in a body is a guarantee of madness at best. The new mind-body integration would never work,” Caplan said.
He asserts that this will be the likely outcome, as the brain would be flooded with chemicals and signals from the body that are foreign and unfamiliar.
Harvey explains that, if not to outright madness, the person who’d come out of such a surgery would be the person who owned the head. “So in a real way it would be a body transplant, not a head transplant,” he said to Futurism.
Kai G. Zinn, Howard and Gwen Laurie Smits Professor of Biology at Caltech BBE, seems to disagree with this assessment. “If it could be done, the brain itself would be the same. But since it would be connected to a different body the person would be very different,” he said.
Though they may disagree on the specifics, scientists agree that a human head transplant would be a cognitive nightmare and that the person who’d come out of such a procedure would be that person who owned the head, but with very different, and possibly damaged, brain functions.
This article has been updated. A previous version did not mention Kai G. Zinn’s affiliation.
Dr. Michio Kaku is a theoretical physicist, futurist, and popular science communicator. He’s also the author of “Physics of the Impossible,” has hosted radio programs and television specials on the BBC, the Discovery Channel, the History Channel, and the Science Channel, and most notably, is a co-founder of string field theory (a branch of string theory).
While he also does speaking engagements, many who are familiar with Kaku’s work have the internet to thank. He’s a frequent face on the Big Think YouTube channel and uses social media to bring the complex web of physics to the public in an educational and entertaining way.
While Kaku does not have a time machine, his understanding of physics and our place in the universe has given him a unique perspective on our past, present, and ultimately, our future. To the latter point, he’s had plenty of interesting things to say. Here are some of Kaku’s predictions about the future.
In December of 2016, Kaku made several predictions about the future, projecting five, 10, and even as far as 20 years ahead. His predictions and statements are derived both from his knowledge as a physicist and his interest in studying what might, or could, be.
Dr. Kaku kicked off 2017 by reminding everyone about the importance of science to human prosperity, as well as the integral role simple curiosity plays in scientific advancement. This sentiment echoes the idea that many brilliant ideas begin because our curiosities have been piqued. As a result, we ask a question and in our attempts to answer it, make discoveries along the way.
As part of the National Geographic series Year Million, Kaku explored what human life might look like one million years from now. The series showcases the expertise and opinions of scientists, science fiction writers, futurists, and scholars. Together with these experts, Dr. Kaku images what might be in Year Million — that is, if humans survive that long.
Dr. Kaku has, at times, even questioned reality. Last year he wove physics observations and theories into a discussion about not only where we stand as humans in the universe, but what might we define as reality going forward.
Dr. Kaku’s predictions aren’t always theoretical, though. Last spring he used the instance of a nearby asteroid to discuss the possibility of asteroids greatly impacting life on Earth in the future.
More recently, Kaku made predictions about when we’ll confirm the existence of extraterrestrial life. His statements were in reference to a New York Times piece about a top-secret UFO program at the Pentagon. Kaku predicted we may not discover extraterrestrial life when or where we expect to, and that in such strange circumstances, it will be essential to keep an open mind. A sentiment that’s surely true for all areas of science.
Are UFOs chasing our jet fighters, as recent secret documents suggest? Maybe they are experimental hypersonic drones. Or maybe aliens from outer space? I keep an open mind.
From the potential destruction of Earth by an asteroid to the possibility of finally connecting with extraterrestrial life, Kaku’s predictions aren’t as wild as they may seem at first. They’re based on hard science and the most recent observations and understandings we have about our universe.
Kaku, nor anyone, can predict the future certainly. The best that he, or any of us, can do is take current information about science, the universe, and humanity, and figure out how all of these variables interact. Then, we can imagine a well-informed and comprehensive prediction about the future.
There is one thing Kaku is sure about, however: that climate change is a real threat to life on Earth, not just in terms of our future, but today. And that we can take action right now to make sure we reach that future, whatever it may hold.
Inside a cramped laboratory in Shanghai, China, physicist Ruxin Li and colleagues are breaking records with the most powerful pulses of light the world has ever seen. At the heart of their laser, called the Shanghai Superintense Ultrafast Laser Facility (SULF), is a single cylinder of titanium-doped sapphire about the width of a Frisbee. After kindling light in the crystal and shunting it through a system of lenses and mirrors, the SULF distills it into pulses of mind-boggling power. In 2016, it achieved an unprecedented 5.3 million billion watts, or petawatts (PW). The lights in Shanghai do not dim each time the laser fires, however. Although the pulses are extraordinarily powerful, they are also infinitesimally brief, lasting less than a trillionth of a second. The researchers are now upgrading their laser and hope to beat their own record by the end of this year with a 10-PW shot, which would pack more than 1000 times the power of all the world's electrical grids combined.
The group's ambitions don't end there. This year, Li and colleagues intend to start building a 100-PW laser known as the Station of Extreme Light (SEL). By 2023, it could be flinging pulses into a chamber 20 meters underground, subjecting targets to extremes of temperature and pressure not normally found on Earth, a boon to astrophysicists and materials scientists alike. The laser could also power demonstrations of a new way to accelerate particles for use in medicine and high-energy physics. But most alluring, Li says, would be showing that light could tear electrons and their antimatter counterparts, positrons, from empty space—a phenomenon known as "breaking the vacuum." It would be a striking illustration that matter and energy are interchangeable, as Albert Einstein's famous E=mc2 equation states. Although nuclear weapons attest to the conversion of matter into immense amounts of heat and light, doing the reverse is not so easy. But Li says the SEL is up to the task. "That would be very exciting," he says. "It would mean you could generate something from nothing."
The Chinese group is "definitely leading the way" to 100 PW, says Philip Bucksbaum, an atomic physicist at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. But there is plenty of competition. In the next few years, 10-PW devices should switch on in Romania and the Czech Republic as part of Europe's Extreme Light Infrastructure, although the project recently put off its goal of building a 100-PW-scale device. Physicists in Russia have drawn up a design for a 180-PW laser known as the Exawatt Center for Extreme Light Studies (XCELS), while Japanese researchers have put forward proposals for a 30-PW device.
Largely missing from the fray are U.S. scientists, who have fallen behind in the race to high powers, according to a study published last month by a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine group that was chaired by Bucksbaum. The study calls on the Department of Energy to plan for at least one high-power laser facility, and that gives hope to researchers at the University of Rochester in New York, who are developing plans for a 75-PW laser, the Optical Parametric Amplifier Line (OPAL). It would take advantage of beamlines at OMEGA-EP, one of the country's most powerful lasers. "The [Academies] report is encouraging," says Jonathan Zuegel, who heads the OPAL.
Invented in 1960, lasers use an external "pump," such as a flash lamp, to excite electrons within the atoms of a lasing material—usually a gas, crystal, or semiconductor. When one of these excited electrons falls back to its original state it emits a photon, which in turn stimulates another electron to emit a photon, and so on. Unlike the spreading beams of a flashlight, the photons in a laser emerge in a tightly packed stream at specific wavelengths.
Because power equals energy divided by time, there are basically two ways to maximize it: Either boost the energy of your laser, or shorten the duration of its pulses. In the 1970s, researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California focused on the former, boosting laser energy by routing beams through additional lasing crystals made of glass doped with neodymium. Beams above a certain intensity, however, can damage the amplifiers. To avoid this, LLNL had to make the amplifiers ever larger, many tens of centimeters in diameter. But in 1983, Gerard Mourou, now at the École Polytechnique near Paris, and his colleagues made a breakthrough. He realized that a short laser pulse could be stretched in time—thereby making it less intense—by a diffraction grating that spreads the pulse into its component colors. After being safely amplified to higher energies, the light could be recompressed with a second grating. The end result: a more powerful pulse and an intact amplifier.
This "chirped-pulse amplification" has become a staple of high-power lasers. In 1996, it enabled LLNL researchers to generate the world's first petawatt pulse with the Nova laser. Since then, LLNL has pushed to higher energies in pursuit of laser-driven fusion. The lab's National Ignition Facility (NIF) creates pulses with a mammoth 1.8 megajoules of energy in an effort to heat tiny capsules of hydrogen to fusion temperatures. However, those pulses are comparatively long and they still generate only about 1 PW of power.
To get to higher powers, scientists have turned to the time domain: packing the energy of a pulse into ever-shorter durations. One approach is to amplify the light in titanium-doped sapphire crystals, which produce light with a large spread of frequencies. In a mirrored laser chamber, those pulses bounce back and forth, and the individual frequency components can be made to cancel each other out over most of their pulse length, while reinforcing each other in a fleeting pulse just a few tens of femtoseconds long. Pump those pulses with a few hundred joules of energy and you get 10 PW of peak power. That's how the SULF and other sapphire-based lasers can break power records with equipment that fits in a large room and costs just tens of millions of dollars, whereas NIF costs $3.5 billion and needs a building 10 stories high that covers the area of three U.S. football fields.
Raising pulse power by another order of magnitude, from 10 PW to 100 PW, will require more wizardry. One approach is to boost the energy of the pulse from hundreds to thousands of joules. But titanium-sapphire lasers struggle to achieve those energies because the big crystals needed for damage-free amplification tend to lase at right angles to the beam—thereby sapping energy from the pulses. So scientists at the SEL, XCELS, and OPAL are pinning their hopes on what are known as optical parametric amplifiers. These take a pulse stretched out by an optical grating and send it into an artificial "nonlinear" crystal, in which the energy of a second, "pump" beam can be channeled into the pulse. Recompressing the resulting high-energy pulse raises its power.
To approach 100 PW, one option is to combine several such pulses—four 30-PW pulses in the case of the SEL and a dozen 15-PW pulses at the XCELS. But precisely overlapping pulses just tens of femtoseconds long will be "very, very difficult," says LLNL laser physicist Constantin Haefner. They could be thrown off course by even the smallest vibration or change in temperature, he argues. The OPAL, in contrast, will attempt to generate 75 PW using a single beam.
Mourou envisions a different route to 100 PW: adding a second round of pulse compression. He proposes using thin plastic films to broaden the spectrum of 10-PW laser pulses, then squeezing the pulses to as little as a couple of femtoseconds to boost their power to about 100 PW.
Once the laser builders summon the power, another challenge will loom: bringing the beams to a singularly tight focus. Many scientists care more about intensity—the power per unit area—than the total number of petawatts. Achieve a sharper focus, and the intensity goes up. If a 100-PW pulse can be focused to a spot measuring just 3 micrometers across, as Li is planning for the SEL, the intensity in that tiny area will be an astonishing 1024 watts per square centimeter (W/cm2)—some 25 orders of magnitude, or 10 trillion trillion times, more intense than the sunlight striking Earth.
Those intensities will open the possibility of breaking the vacuum. According to the theory of quantum electrodynamics (QED), which describes how electromagnetic fields interact with matter, the vacuum is not as empty as classical physics would have us believe. Over extremely short time scales, pairs of electrons and positrons, their antimatter counterparts, flicker into existence, born of quantum mechanical uncertainty. Because of their mutual attraction, they annihilate each another almost as soon as they form.
But a very intense laser could, in principle, separate the particles before they collide. Like any electromagnetic wave, a laser beam contains an electric field that whips back and forth. As the beam's intensity rises, so, too, does the strength of its electric field. At intensities around 1024 W/cm2, the field would be strong enough to start to break the mutual attraction between some of the electron-positron pairs, says Alexander Sergeev, former director of the Russian Academy of Sciences's (RAS's) Institute of Applied Physics (IAP) in Nizhny Novgorod and now president of RAS. The laser field would then shake the particles, causing them to emit electromagnetic waves—in this case, gamma rays. The gamma rays would, in turn, generate new electron-positron pairs, and so on, resulting in an avalanche of particles and radiation that could be detected. "This will be completely new physics," Sergeev says. He adds that the gamma ray photons would be energetic enough to push atomic nuclei into excited states, ushering in a new branch of physics known as "nuclear photonics"—the use of intense light to control nuclear processes.
Amplifiers for the University of Rochester's OMEGA-EP, lit up by flash lamps, could drive a U.S. high-power laser.
UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER LABORATORY FOR LASER ENERGETICS/EUGENE KOWALUK
One way to break the vacuum would be to simply focus a single laser beam onto an empty spot inside a vacuum chamber. But colliding two beams makes it easier, because this jacks up the momentum needed to generate the mass for electrons and positrons. The SEL would collide photons indirectly. First, the pulses would eject electrons from a helium gas target. Other photons from the laser beam would ricochet off the electrons and be boosted into high-energy gamma rays. Some of these in turn would collide with optical photons from the beam.
Documenting these head-on photon collisions would itself be a major scientific achievement. Whereas classical physics insists that two light beams will pass right through each other untouched, some of the earliest predictions of QED stipulate that converging photons occasionally scatter off one another. "The predictions go back to the early 1930s," says Tom Heinzl, a theoretical physicist at Plymouth University in the United Kingdom. "It would be good if we could confirm them experimentally."
Besides making lasers more powerful, researchers also want to make them shoot faster. The flash lamps that pump the initial energy into many lasers must be cooled for minutes or hours between shots, making it hard to carry out research that relies on plenty of data, such as investigating whether, very occasionally, photons transform into particles of the mysterious dark matter thought to make up much of the universe's mass. "Chances are you would need a lot of shots to see that," says Manuel Hegelich, a physicist at the University of Texas in Austin.
A higher repetition rate is also key to using a high-power laser to drive beams of particles. In one scheme, an intense beam would transform a metal target into a plasma, liberating electrons that, in turn, would eject protons from nuclei on the metal's surface. Doctors could use those proton pulses to destroy cancers—and a higher firing rate would make it easier to administer the treatment in small, individual doses.
Physicists, for their part, dream of particle accelerators powered by rapid-fire laser pulses. When an intense laser pulse strikes a plasma of electrons and positive ions, it shoves the lighter electrons forward, separating the charges and creating a secondary electric field that pulls the ions along behind the light like water in the wake of a speedboat. This "laser wakefield acceleration" can accelerate charged particles to high energies in the space of a millimeter or two, compared with many meters for conventional accelerators. Electrons thus accelerated could be wiggled by magnets to create a so-called free-electron laser (FEL), which generates exceptionally bright and brief flashes of x-rays that can illuminate short-lived chemical and biological phenomena. A laser-powered FEL could be far more compact and cheaper than those powered by conventional accelerators.
In the long term, electrons accelerated by high-repetition PW pulses could slash the cost of particle physicists' dream machine: a 30-kilometer-long electron-positron collider that would be a successor to the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, the European particle physics laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland. A device based on a 100-PW laser could be at least 10 times shorter and cheaper than the roughly $10 billion machine now envisaged, says Stuart Mangles, a plasma physicist at Imperial College London.
Both the linear collider and rapid-fire FELs would need thousands, if not millions, of shots per second, well beyond current technology. One possibility, being investigated by Mourou and colleagues, is to try to combine the output of thousands of quick-firing fiber amplifiers, which don't need to be pumped with flash tubes. Another option is to replace the flash tubes with diode lasers, which are expensive, but could get cheaper with mass production.
For the moment, however, Li's group in China and its U.S. and Russian counterparts are concentrating on power. Efim Khazanov, a laser physicist at IAP, says the XCELS could be up and running by about 2026—assuming the government agrees to the cost: roughly 12 billion rubles (about $200 million). The OPAL, meanwhile, would be a relative bargain at between $50 million and $100 million, Zuegel says.
But the first laser to rip open the vacuum is likely to be the SEL, in China. An international committee of scientists last July described the laser's conceptual design as "unambiguous and convincing," and Li hopes to get government approval for funding—about $100 million—early this year. Li says other countries need not feel left in the shadows as the world's most powerful laser turns on, because the SEL will operate as an international user facility. Zuegel says he doesn't "like being second," but acknowledges that the Chinese group is in a strong position. "China has plenty of bucks," he says. "And it has a lot of really smart people. It is still catching up on a lot of the technology, but it's catching up fast."
Filer’s Files #4 – 2018 President Ford and UFOs - PART I
On January 22, 2018 triangle over Claremont, California
Filer’s Files #4 – 2018 President Ford and UFOs - PART I
In special reports, this week’s files cover: President Ford’s Interest in UFOs, UFO Hits SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket, Do Not Kill, December UFO Reports
Unidentified Aerial Phenomena sightings were reported over Alabama, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, and West Virginia.
Unidentified Aerial Phenomena sightings were reported over Australia, Canada, France, Russia, and England in the United Kingdom.
The Filer Research Institute feels the scientific study of UFOs is for the benefit of humankind and is an important endeavor. The US Air Force investigated UFOs publicly for more than twenty years under Project Blue Book; and I continue this advanced research. I believe the God of the universe has spread life throughout the cosmos and UFO’s are visiting us in ever-increasing numbers.
Major George A. Filer III
New Jersey State Director
MUFON Eastern Region Director
Www.nationalUFOcenter.com. Now receiving 3 million hits a month
Forward these files to your friends and neighbors.
Special Projects
President Ford Interest in UFOs
“I strongly recommend that there be a committee investigation of the UFO phenomena. I think we owe it to the people to establish credibility regarding UFOs and to produce the greatest possible enlightenment on this subject.” Republican House Minority Leader of Congress, 1966
I wrote President Ford and asked about his interest in UFOs. He stated, “During my public career while in Congress, as Vice President and as President he made various requests about UFOs. The official authorities always denied the UFO allegations. As a result I have no information that may be helpful to you. President Gerald Ford
UFO Hits SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket
Last year after NASA SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket disintegrated on Cape Canaveral, billionaire CEO of Space X Elon Musk Twitted “We have not ruled that a UFO hitting the Space X Falcon 9 rocket“. This never before seen Kryan channel exclusive high definition video is best to watch on big screen TV. Here you can clearly see SpaceX rocket disintegrates shortly after the launch from Cape Canaveral NASA platform after UFO hitting it. Our source in NASA said that all 3 times a top secret package for an American astronaut eyes only is sent to International Space Station….an Alien Extraterrestrial Object prevents its delivery. NASA official said that he has not sufficient clearance to know what exactly is in the package launched to ISS by Space X Falcon 9 rocket but every time its delivery is prevented by UFO. Controlled Chaos no percussion – Supernatural Haunting by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/…) Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-…
Rock Star Tom DeLonge UFO Disclosure
It has been confirmed through Wikileaks that a partial UFO disclosure initiative was being prepared through rock Star
Tom DeLonge, who is being helped by two retired USAF Generals along with senior corporate officials such as the head of Lockheed Martin’s Skunkworks. The plan is to release information about the USAF/DIA/NSA/NRO space program with Earth orbiting space stations and antigravity TR-3B spacecraft capable of limited interplanetary operations. Partial disclosure would be designed to hide the existence of more advanced craft.
Among the piles of information exposed by WikiLeaks was the extensive email chain between DeLonge and Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta. The Wall Street Journal reported that the rocker wrote to Podesta vaguely about their shared interest of intellectual life and greater government disclosure. Furthermore, DeLonge revealed that he had been working with former Air Force Major General William N. McCasland to help the rocker assemble his UFO advisory team. In an email from 2015, DeLonge told Podesta that he would like to introduce him to two officials who “were in charge of most fragile divisions, as it relates to Classified Science and DOD topics.”
DeLonge states, “We believe there are transformative discoveries within our reach that will revolutionize the human experience, but they can only be accomplished through the unrestricted support of breakthrough research, discovery and innovation.”
Tom DeLonge is the co-founder, President and interim CEO of To The Stars Academy of the Arts and Science. As President of the company’s subsidiary, To The Stars Inc., since 2015, he was primarily engaged within the entertainment sector. His career spans over two decades, selling over 25 million records worldwide with the bands he co-founded, Blink182 and Angels & Airwaves.
The Stars Academy of Arts & Science has mobilized a team of the most experienced, connected and passionately curious minds from the US intelligence community, including the CIA and Department of Defense, that have been operating under the shadows of top-secrecy for decades. The team members all share a common thread of frustration and determination to disrupt the status quo, wanting to use their expertise and credibility to bring transformative science and engineering out of the shadows and collaborate with global citizens to apply that knowledge in a way that benefits humanity.
Luis Elizondo is Director of Global Security & Special Programs and a career intelligence officer whose experience includes working with the U.S. Army, the Department of Defense, the National Counterintelligence Executive, and the Director of National Intelligence. As a former Special Agent In-Charge, Luis conducted and supervised highly sensitive espionage and terrorism investigations around the world. For nearly the last decade, Luis also ran a sensitive aerospace threat identification program focusing on unidentified aerial technologies. Luis’ academic background includes Microbiology, Immunology and Parasitology.
Elizondo states, “Our vision is to collect, triage, and partition signature data, utilizing forensic and scientific methodology, into a central database that can be used to shed light on anomalies, trends, and patterns.” We believe these data, when analyzed rigorously, could lead to a better understanding of our reality, including some of the most fascinating and mysterious phenomena in the universe. In turn, our vision is to involve the public with the discovery of revolutionary breakthroughs in science and technology.There is sufficient credible evidence of unidentified aerial phenomena that proves exotic technologies exist that could revolutionize the human experience.
Footage in the videos was captured by advanced sensor tracking technology in separate U.S. Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jets. In the 34-second “Gimbal” (the name likely a reference to the UAP’s free-tilting movement), astonished pilots can be heard talking excitedly about an oval-shaped craft spotted at an altitude close to 25,000 feet. The object has no distinguishable flight surfaces or exhaust plume, and its flight seems to defy the known laws of physics. In the under-1:30 video “FLIR1” (to footage captured by the F/A-18’s Forward Looking Infrared System), an unknown object is seen at 24,000 feet. The footage, which has no sound, shows the object hovering with no exhaust plume, displaying extreme maneuverability and sudden acceleration that cannot be achieved by any known aircraft. These are two of several official videos obtained by TTS Academy that serve as credible proof of the physics of advanced flight. Thanks to https://coi.tothestarsacademy.com/?mc_cid=9d2eafad39&mc_eid=803135646dhere
DO NOT KILL
Of all commandments in my opinion not killing is the most important. Interestingly extraterrestrials often promise abductees and contactees that when they take over on Earth killing of all kinds will stop and there will be no more wars or crime. The aliens indicate we are barbaric in our killing of innocents that includes animals and various life forms. Let’s assume the promise is correct and that ET technology may be able to change the minds of killers, world leaders who start wars and stop abortions.
In 2014, 652,639 legal induced abortions were reported to Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Throughout the US which is down from almost a million in previous years.
In order to justify its half-billion dollars in annual taxpayer funding, Planned Parenthood performed 323,999 abortions in 2014, according to the organization and took in a total revenue was US $1.3 billion. Planned Parenthood performed more abortions in 2015 (328,348) compared to the previous year. Despite the declining number of Planned Parenthood clinics, clients, and services, the abortion giant continues to receive half a billion dollars from U.S. taxpayers each year.
Based on these calculations, in all likelihood, Planned Parenthood provided prenatal services to barely 1,500 pregnant women. Think about that – 328,000 babies killed, 1,500 babies helped.
Total legal abortions since 1973 to January 2017 were: 59,115,995. The pro-life marches against 60 Million deaths were barely covered by the news while woman’s marches were covered extensively by virtually every major news media multiple times. It has been estimated that since 1973 Black women have had about 15 million abortions. Michael Novak had calculated “Since the number of current living Blacks (in the U.S.) is 31 million, the missing 10 million represents an enormous loss, for without abortion, America’s Black community would now number 41 million Caucasian abortions are estimated at 40 million deaths.
Hitler had six million Jews, and more than five million non-Jews murdered under the Nazi regime. Among them were Gypsies, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, and blacks.
Auto accidents in 2016 killed 40,200 in figures released by the National Safety Council.
Spikes in gun violence in major cities like Chicago, newly released data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found in 2016, there were more than 38,000 gun-related deaths in the U.S. Much of the killing revolves around drug gang wars.
The National Drug Threat Assessment provides a yearly assessment of the many challenges local communities face related to drug abuse and drug trafficking. Drug poisoning deaths are the leading cause of injury death in the United States; they are currently at their highest ever recorded level and, every year since 2011, have outnumbered deaths by firearms, motor vehicle crashes, suicide, and homicide.
2017 DEA Drug Threat Report: has been made public and Mexico is the greatest heroin source with most illegal drugs coming across our border with Mexico from 6 major drug cartels. The 182 page comprehensive report covers twenty sections. Heroin-involved overdose deaths more than quadrupled between 2010 and 2015, with the most recent data indicating that heroin was involved in 12,989 American deaths in 2015 increasing to about 2000 deaths per year to about 17,000 in 2017..Note: .I have yet to see our National TV fake news mention this
Mexican cartels remain the greatest criminal drug threat in the United States. The cartels are the principal wholesale drug sources for domestic gangs responsible for street-level distribution in virtually every city in the US. The Sinaloa Cartel maintains the most expansive footprint in the United States while the Jalisco New Generation Cartel has increased its presence across the United States.
Mexico’s drug wars have claimed more than 80,000 lives between 2006 and 2015, according to analyst estimates in the 2015 Congressional Research Service report. Beheadings, mass executions, public hangings and torture — it’s all part of the massive drug war next door. Fierce rivalries between Mexico’s drug cartels have wreaked havoc on the lives of civilians who have nothing to do with the drug trade. Bystanders, people who refused to join cartels, migrants, journalists and government officials have been killed. Mexican Cartels control the drug trade making an estimated 29 billion dollars profit per year enabling them to buy off politicians and key members of the news. Many US politicians show their opposition to building a wall that would slow the drug trade and help stop the slaughter.
Mexico is the provider of 70 % of the heroin to the United States, followed by Colombia to a much lesser degree.
Mexican-based transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) dominate the supply and wholesale distribution of most illicit drugs in the United States. About 70% of all illicit drugs consumed in the United States are trafficked through Mexico, TCOs, and have expanded their control over the drug-trafficking conducted by criminal street gangs in their respective territories. Zetas: Juan Gerardo Treviño-Chávez is leading the cartel.
Mexican TCOs maintain the greatest drug trafficking impudence in the United States, with continued signs of growth and expansion. By controlling lucrative smuggling corridors, primarily across the Southwest Border, Mexican TCOs export significant quantities of heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, marijuana, and fentanyl into the U.S. annually. Once these illicit drugs are smuggled into the U.S., they are delivered to user markets through transportation routes and distribution cells that are managed or influenced by Mexican TCOs. Illegal immigrants are often forced to bring drugs into the US by the Mexican Cartels that control the border. Over the past several years, Mexican TCOs have expanded their sphere of influence into numerous regions of the United States.
The most significant illicit drug threat posed to the US is by Mexican TCOs grown heroin, which dominate the wholesale supply of crystal methamphetamine, cocaine, Mexican-grown marijuana, and heroin.
A veritable war on drugs has erupted in Mexico with the Calderon government attempting to rid the country of organized crime. Drug violence within Mexico recorded 29,168 murders in 2017. The fighting between the Cartels and the Mexican government continues at a high rate spilling into US cities. The billions of dollars in profits are laundered in American Banks such as Wachovia Bank that laundered 379 Billion Dollars over several years. These profits are used to pay off or threaten politicians and the news to keep the flow of drugs coming.
Heroin poses a serious public health and safety threat to the United States. Overdose deaths, already at high levels, continue to rise. The increased mixing of heroin with analogues of the highly-potent synthetic opioid fentanyl and other synthetic opioids has exacerbated this situation. Fentanyl is increasingly mixed with diluents and sold as heroin, often with no heroin present in the product. Fentanyl also continues to be made more widely available in the form of counterfeit prescription pills marketed for illicit street sales.
Most Significant Mexican TCOs Currently Active in the United States
. As of 2016, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) assesses the following six Mexican TCOs, as controlling the drug trafficking t on the U.S:
The Mexican Cartels have drug distribution cells in cities across the U S that report directly to TCO leaders in Mexico.
Heroin poses a serious public health and safety threat to the United States. Overdose deaths, already exceed a thousand+ young Americans per month. The increasing adulteration of heroin with analogues of the highly-potent synthetic opioid fentanyl and other synthetic opioids has exacerbated this situation. Poppy cultivation and heroin production levels in Mexico, the primary source of heroin for the U.S. market, continue to increase. The heroin supply in white powder markets in the eastern U.S, is highly pure, inexpensive, and increasingly adulterated with fentanyl. While the size of the heroin user population is smaller than other major drugs, heroin is highly deadly to its users.
The Drug poisoning of Americans continues to increase with no help from the news media or city governments. Heroin availability has expanded to unprecedented levels in recent years making heroin available at low cost • Drug overdose is the leading cause of accidental death in the US in 2016 , with 52,404 deaths, increasing to 64,000 in 2017+ Additionally, many killings and robberies are tied to the desperate need for money to buy the drugs. By the end of his presidency on January 20, 2017, Barack Obama had exercised his constitutional power to grant executive clemency—that is, “pardon, to 1,927 individuals most of whom were convicted of federal drug crimes.
Many illegal immigrants are forced to bring in heroin and illegal drugs by the Mexican Cartels to various American cities as payment for being allowed to enter the US. Mexican cartels remain the greatest criminal drug threat in the United States. The cartels are the principal wholesale drug sources for domestic gangs responsible for street-level distribution. Many politicians are supporting the drug trade by refusing to allow the police who capture drug criminals to report to ICE. The Sinaloa Cartel maintains the most expansive footprint in the United States while the Jalisco New Generation Cartel has increased its presence across the United States.
In comparison the U.S. first invaded Afghanistan on October 7, 2001, as part of Operation Enduring Freedom. US military deaths over sixteen years of fighting in the War in Afghanistan as of October 2017 have now reached.1,834 about ten deaths per month as the result of hostile action. The Mexican drug war not covered by the news media kills thousands of young people each month. Perhaps we are fighting the wrong war? Thanks to http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2017/11/2017-drug-threat-reportrcq-leads.html
The United States is at war with numerous advisories who are setting fires and conducting sabotage. Wildfires are costing billions of dollars in damage with thousands of burned homes. Wind speeds were only 30 to 42 MPH as the multiple PS&G lines started to come down allegedly starting the fires. Downed power lines normally do not start fires. An illegal Mexican alien was arrested for starting fires Fabian Gonzalez, who immigration officials said has been returned twice to Mexico, told deputies he set a fire in Maxwell Farms Park in Sonoma where 10,000 homes and structures were burned and 44 killed. He is charged with one felony count of arson, stated Sgt. Spencer Crum but not the major fire. The 2017 California wildfire season is the most destructive one on record, which saw a total of 9,133fires that burned 1,381,405 acres (5,590.35 km2), according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
The news media is not satisfactorily covering various slaughters and sabotage. Multiple witnesses claim firing was coming from multiple windows in hotels in Las Vegas on October 2, 2017. Stephen Paddock is blamed for the massacre of 58 people from his
Mandalay Bay room shown at far left. Two windows in separate rooms in the hotel had their windows broken out suggesting more shooters. Multiple witnesses and video shows a helicopter landing on the hotel roof immediately after the shooting stopped and armed personnel jumping in above the floors controlled by Saudi Arabia. Do not expect the news to provide the truth about key stories. Watch the news and count how many killings they cover in each city each day essentially honoring the killers. Almost every advertisement pushes some drug or potions that will allegedly heal your problems. Seldom is any news report patriotic or encouraging high moral standards. The six corporations that collectively control U.S. media today are Time Warner, Walt Disney, Viacom, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., CBS Corporation and NBC Universal. these gigantic media corporations do not exist to objectively tell the truth to the American people. Rather, the primary purpose of their existence is to make money.
These gigantic media corporations are not going to do anything to threaten their relationships with their biggest advertisers, the largest pharmaceutical companies that literally spend billions on advertising. One way or another these gigantic media corporations are always going to express the ideological viewpoints of their owners. The percentage of married households with children has plummeted from 44.3 percent to 20.2 percent since 1960, while the actual number – now 23.6 million – has stayed flat,
Fortunately, an increasing number of Americans are starting to wake up and are realizing that the mainstream media should not be trusted. According to a new poll just released by Gallup, the number of Americans that have little to no trust in the mainstream media (57%) is at an all-time high. All the national news I watch is against building a wall or stopping the drug cartels. Why does the news carry thousands of exciting stories of shootings and killings. Then every policeman who shoots someone in the line of duty is shown repeatedly shooting an alleged unarmed man for years. Much of the news is designed to divide America and incite riots. In cities such as Chicago, roving packs of young people are “mob robbing” local businesses, randomly assaulting tourists and shoppers and are even pulling people out of vehicles. The young watching the news are learning that the news will glorify their acts of violence and blame the police.
While politicians have spent several trillion dollars on foreign wars, they’ve distracted us from the very real threat that can be found in our own homes, targeting our families. In 1997, the United States became one of only two developed countries on the planet that made it legal for pharmaceutical companies to advertise drugs directly to consumers, including children. Since then prescription drug addiction and prescription drug overdoses have quadrupled. We now have a generation of young adults who grew up with a drug dealer living in their homes 24/7 – the television, magazines and internet pushing pills as a solution to every imaginable condition.
Opioids can include both prescription drugs such as hydrocodone or oxycodone as well as illegal drugs like heroin or street fentanyl which are much cheaper. An estimated 2.1 million people were addicted to heroin or prescription painkillers last year, a number that has remained fairly constant since 2011. The number of people who had fatal overdoses related to heroin has skyrocketed from 2,089 in 2002 to an estimated 13,219 in 2016 — a 533% jump
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, drug overdoses are the leading cause of accidental death in America, killing more people than guns or car accidents.
It’s a trend that doesn’t appear to be reversing course. The CDC estimates that there were more than 52,000 overdose deaths for 2016 and projects that number to climb 38% to over 71,000 in 2017.. In fact, the number of overdose deaths related to merely fentanyl is expected to more than double, from an estimated 9,945 in 2016 to 20,145 in 2017, the CDC says.
The CDC is also seeing a trend in overdose deaths related to cocaine, which have increased steadily from over 4,000 in 2009 to over 6,700 in 2015. The agency expects that number to rise to over 6,900 in 2016 and then to make a 52% jump to almost 11,000 in 2017.The number of heroin users in the United States jumped from 404,000 in 2002 to 948,000 in 2016, a 135% increase. But even more striking: The number of people who had fatal overdoses related to heroin has skyrocketed from 2,089 in 2002 to an estimated 13,219 in 2016 — a 533% jump.
Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Tom Price said more American lives are lost to drugs than were lost in Vietnam. The US military saw 58,000 casualties during Vietnam; this year, drug overdose deaths are expected to reach an all-time high of 71,600.
“This is unacceptable,” said Price, who was part of a panel that released the latest findings from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s 2016 National Survey on Drug Use and Health on Thursday.
The discrepancy between increased overdoses and steady use levels has public health officials concerned about just how potent the Mexican illegal drugs are becoming.
“What’s in today’s drug supply is really terrifying,” said Richard Baum, acting director of the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy who is also part of the panel releasing the new report.
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), drug overdoses are the leading cause of accidental death in America, killing more people than guns or car accidents.
Opioids continue to be the drivers for these overdoses, including both legally prescribed prescription painkillers as well as illegal drugs. In fact, the number of overdose deaths related to Mexican fentanyl is expected to more than double, from an estimated 9,945 in 2016 to 20,145 in 2017, the CDC says.
The CDC is also seeing a trend in overdose deaths related to cocaine, which have increased steadily from over 4,000 in 2009 to over 6,700 in 2015. The agency expects that number to rise to over 6,900 in 2016 and then to make a 52% jump to almost 11,000 cocaine-related deaths this year. Kolodny said. Nov 22, 2017 – Mexican drug cartel super-labs, and an ongoing prescription painkiller boom, are set to drive up overdose death rates in California by 50 percent; the average purity of methamphetamine has climbed from 39 to almost 93 percent; and the average purity of Fentanyl has risen from 5 percent to 90 percent.
All forms of opioid use caused the death of 64,000 Americans last year.
Most of the fentanyl is being smuggled from Mexico into the country “through the porous border” by foot, by car, and even by “catapults.” … Many of the people dying of drug overdoses don’t realize they were ingesting powerful painkiller, which may be 50 times more potent than it used to be.
My Coroner friend tells me almost all the deaths he investigates are youngsters in their twenties with syringes in their arms with an overdose of deadly Mexican drug. What they could handle two weeks ago kills them.
There is some good news, the U.S. convicted nearly 500 human traffickers and 1,200 gang members, and helped our international allies arrest about 4,000 MS-13 members. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement also arrested and charged hundreds of people suspected with contributing to the ongoing opioid crisis.
UFO Monthly Statistical MUFON Report – for December 2017:
CMS continues to amass sighting reports from around the globe. In December 2017 there were 740 sightings reported to MUFON through CMS from the following countries. United States 507, Canada 59, United Kingdom 43, Germany 25, Australia 13, Puerto Rico 9, and France 8.
National UFO Reporting Center had 483 reports in December.
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Filer’s Files #4 – 2018 President Ford and UFOs - PART II
Filer’s Files #4 – 2018 President Ford and UFOs - PART II
UFO Sightings in the United States
Alabama Triangle
Somerville— On January 16, 2018, at 9:05 PM, my girlfriend and I had pulled into her driveway and I noticed a very bright flickering light in the southeastern part of the sky about two miles away. We noticed it stopped flickering in the same spot for another minute or two. It started to move in our direction very quickly. My girlfriend was kind of freaking out as it got closer and flew over the neighbor’s house right in front of us. We could only see the three lights it had giving it a triangular shape. It had a white and red blinking light as well. It moved very quietly making little sound. It was only 200 feet above us. No pilot would fly that low in this mountainous area at night. That is insane . It continued northwest and flew over dodging the mountain itself by making slight turns and may have landed on that mountain. It had red flashing light similar to the ones on real planes. This plane can quietly create an extreme amount of light from miles away, fly very low, maneuver through mountains at night. I have a video showing the object flying by. It was close enough to shoot with a BB gun and it really wasn’t that big. I t can’t really explain what it really was.
Note:The craft is quite likely an airplane. Give that it was close and silent it could have been a secret military craft. Thanks to William Puckett, Director Http://www.UFOsnw.com
California Object
Claremont Trails— I went hiking on January 22, 2018 at about 10:30am I was on the west side of the Mountain/Trails (facing Los Angeles) when I noticed a shiny object in the sky. The sun would reflect off it from time to time. At first I thought it could be a drone at a distance or a silver type of weather balloon but upon closer inspection I realized it was big and metallic. It was hovering/floating around in the same area for a little while. I grabbed an Samsung Camera which has 35 X Optimization and snapped a few pictures. Once I snapped a few good pics I realized the object was shaped more like a triangle like the letter A. Eventually, It started to move east in a floating erratic style. I eventually lost sight of it as it went over the mountains. The object definitely felt like it was out of this world. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Colorado Lights
Morrison–A triangular set of three lights were observed for approximately 30 seconds to 1 minute before vanishing on January 17, 2018..
They were captured on video. They appeared to remain motionless,. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Florida Light
Lakeland — Me and my husband were walking out of Wal-Mart and I noticed a full moon so that attracted me to look at the moon on October 21, 2018. I then noticed a bright object around the clouds moving in a triangular pattern in and around the clouds under the moon. At first I thought it could be a reflection from lights but then thought it was way to high for a reflection from lights. I then saw the object move and decided to take pictures. It really looked like a space ship. I figured it could be a plane but planes don’t maneuver like this object did. It finally went behind the clouds and we didn’t see it anymore. We then left the parking lot. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Georgia Light
Warner Robbins — This will be the third UFO I’ve reported since October. My sister who was aware of my previous sightings, was keeping an eye in the sky on January 18, 2018 and saw the same object. She called and told us to look outside and there it was. The same bright light everyone else has seen, only mine was tainted slightly by a street light.
After the light started to fade I was able to see what looked like the silhouette of a triangle. I couldn’t get video in time so I snapped a quick photo. My husband who is active duty military also saw it just as it took off fast. Never seen anything like it. Soon after fighters were launched and there was an odd military jet I’ve never seen flying low over head. I noticed what looked like fighters circling the airspace. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Missouri Lights
St, Peters— Went outside to let my dog have a potty break, and heard a sound. Turned around and saw a triangular shaped craft moving fairly quickly on January 20, 2018.. I pulled out my phone I opened the camera/video app as quickly as possible and then magnified the image capture as much as I could. It sounded sort of like a jet, but I’ve never witnessed a craft with that sort of shape before. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Nevada Lights
Las Vegas — I was standing on sidewalk of Frank Sinatra Drive facing south when I noticed a plane making a chemtrail that was thicker and whiter than usual. I followed it until it was just right above me, when I noticed what appeared to look like a bunch of balloons above the planes path. I realized that were very shiny, metallic layer on them and that they were perfect spheres, and that they were the same size of the plane flying by with the chemtrail, but higher up. The objects were in a mass group with the spheres in the front and pill-like objects towards the rear. The plane with the trail, was traveling northeast while the objects were in perfect line.. I was overwhelmed at the time but managed to capture some photos. Thanks to MUFON CMS
New Jersey Diamond
Waterford Works — I was on my rear deck taking pics of this odd object during sunset on January 20. 2018. ..Never saw anything like it in 60 years of outdoorsmanship. 3… Military craft? I don’t know. That’s why I’m giving it over to you. 4… Bewildered 6… sunset So looking for your ideas on this??? I NEVER saw anything like this. Taken with my Cannon Digital 70-140 lens if that is of help..CMS
Pennsylvania Disc
Telford— I took many photos with a Sony cyber shot WiFi camera of a beautiful sunset so I took advantage of the scenery with flash on and off on January 20, 2018. . When I got home to post like normal I noticed a spot in almost all pictures during a ten minute period, during that period geese in a v formation flew by and clouds went by but this object was unmoved, no matter my ever changing angles. I looked at these photos closer on a new computer and cannot deny there is definitely a hovering object in the shots. To further check out the photos I over exposed some and the clouds disappear but it shows up even more defined. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Tennessee Orbs
Springfield— Was taking pictures of the sun because the shape looked different than usual and noticed this object in several of them on December 13, 2017. Plus another shadow of what looks like the sun reflecting off the clouds. Obviously this ufo was moving as the appearance of the smaller outer balls on the larger ufo ball was changing. This same object was seen back in 2014 in Virginia and also somewhere else both day and night photos and videos which were uploaded to Youtube, one on witness101 (mine), another on ufov2012. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Texas Light
Galveston — On Christmas morning around 8:30 am, my husband and I were driving down Seawall Blvd. and stopped facing the pier, I got out and take pictures of the sunrise with my apple iPhone. Later that evening when I was reviewing the, I noticed the greenish orb on 3 of the pictures. It was moving eastward and upward when compared to the clouds. When I enlarge the object, I am able to see a grid pattern and what is either windows or some type of white orbs docked on it. I do notice in the succeeding pictures the white lights or orbs seems to be moving around the green object and are not stationary. Neither of us saw this large object with our eyes. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Washington Lights
Seattle to Las Vegas — About 3:40 pm,–on January 11,-2018, in-flight on Spirit Airlines I was taking scenery pictures on the mostly clear, late afternoon, although there was intermittent cloud cover below. Suddenly I briefly saw an object coming our way much closer than other aircraft. I thought it had to be an airplane coming too close, but I never saw what looked like an aircraft. I quickly got a few pictures without focusing. It went by and I was wondering, what did I just see? It may have come from Area 51… We touched down in Las Vegas 35 minutes after seeing the object. Thanks to MUFON CMS
West Virginia Orb
Charleston,. 2. look outside car window 3. “it’s weird”, “I am going to take a picture of it” 4. It’s ring like as it flies across the sky. 5. I just took the picture. didn’t thought too much about it. 6. it went behind a cloud.
Thanks to MUFON CMS
Worldwide UFO Sightings
Australia Bright Light
Mount Mackay National Park–The event happened while I was living in a small converted garage with a friend.. I got into bed to go to sleep about 9:30 pm, but could not fall asleep was because I was afraid! I had the distinct feeling of being watched! I immediately sat up in bed and could clearly see Mount Mackay, and silhouetted against the night sky. I saw a lone bright star above the mountain that was way too bright to be a star. It was illuminating the hillside forest and intensity of the full moon. “That’s not a star, that’s a UFO…” To my astonishment, the object immediately moved to the left and down at a constant speed. I am convinced it had been monitoring me and my thoughts. The object disappeared behind the mountain. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Canada Lights
Camarillo– At 6:20 pm, on December 22, /2017 an aircraft split into two dragging an unknown device behind it . The device was emitting concentric circle smoke rings and it’s smoke trail looked as if it was multi colored and had its own light source. Thanks to UFOINFO Joe Romano.
Etobicoke — I was on my balcony with a friend on our 5th floor looking out and saw a bright red bulb moving towards us , on January 20, 2018. It was high up travelling NE. We live close to the airport and overhead planes are frequent however never this shape, brightness, or color. We continued to watch it come closer overhead when we noticed a second orb-sphere travelling behind the first. Then came a third, and fourth. In total more than 10 passed over us silently pulsating red then bright white, then red. moving at a steady pace. After the 6th orb I ran in to get the phone to capture a video.. Thanks to MUFON CMS
France Lights
Rognac –Seen on December 22, 2017, around 7:30 pm, while I was walking my dog, 4 orange balls rise from behind the hill of the city where I am staying.
I was immediately struck by their luminosity, their perfect alignment, one behind the other, at a perfectly equal distance also intrigued me a lot!
Without a sudden movement, they traveled a few meters before melting into the sky and disappearing completely. Attached, one of the pictures taken that day, or 3 balls are still visible, one of them having already disappeared. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Russia Orb
The video was shot using a video surveillance camera, at night through a window. The field of view of the video camera was about 60 degrees, with the video stream of 20 frames per second. The sky was clear and the stars were visible on the video. The UFO moved south through the zenith, the video camera facing south. A bright white light in the form of a sphere was captured. The flight speed is too high for a satellite and too slow for the meteor if we assume that the object was in orbit. Thanks to MUFON CMS
UK/England Orbs
Tandragee — I was going out to the garage to sort out my laundry when I seen one very bright sphere in the sky just above the local milking parlor on April 17, 2017. I stood and looked when another one appeared to the right of it. I ran and got my 19 year old daughter and partner, When they came out a 3rd one appeared again to the right of the first two. I got my phone and took a video but it didn’t pick them up.
I took a photo about 5 minutes later the second disappeared then the first. I zoomed in the two white spheres appeared. Thanks to MUFON CMS
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The satellite image is of a strange circular piece of land in Argentina, which conspiracists think is a hiding place for a massive UFO.
And these so-called believers are not the only ones to be baffled by this area of the capital city, Buenos Aires.
The Ojo de la Tierra also has members of the scientific community confused because it is a small island that is perfectly round.
The disc of land measuring 118 metres in diameter also rotates by itself – something that has led perplexed experts to describe it as a phenomenon unlike nothing else.
GETTY
PROOF: It is claimed the Ojo de la Tierra is proof of aliens
GOOGLE MAPS
MYSTERY: Ojo de la Tierra is a mysterious rotating island in Argentina
“The shape is large and circular, big enough to fit a 100 meter UFO through it”
Ufologist
And now so-called “truthers” are saying the reason it cannot be explained is because it’s extraterrestrial.
The island – located at coordinates 34 ° 15'07.8'S 58 ° 49'47.4 “W – it is claimed is actually a spaceship.
Scott C. Waring on website UFO Sighting Daily said of the natural phenomenon: “Argentina has an overabundance of UFO sightings compared to the rest of the world and I believe this is how aliens try to hide this particular entrance to their base.
“The shape is large and circular, big enough to fit a 100 meter UFO through it.
“The water below this floating island needs to be dove [sic] into and explored.”
Just days ago, ufologists claimed Google Maps provided further proof of aliens.
Future concept of Alien expedition by artist Alex Ries
It was a clear summer afternoon in Lake Tahoe, California in the late 70's when I saw my first UFO. The rough-hewn cigar-shaped craft hovered for a long period of time at a distance over the lake. It was so obvious that all of my neighbors joined me on the street watching it until it suddenly disappeared. Despite over a dozen witnesses, it was never reported, most people keep UFO experiences to themselves for fear of being labeled crazy. According to the National UFO Reporting Center, there were over 4,881 reported sightings in the United States in 2017, imagine how many were not reported.
What was once a subject of clandestine conversation has now become an international fascination with tourists visiting famed sighting areas and governments from around the world organizing extensive exploration. Even the U.S. Pentagon admitted it ran a secret program to investigate sightings by military pilots of countless unidentified flying objects. The Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program officially ended six years ago, but many believe the program is still active.
My fascination with the unknown compelled me to explore unique areas from around the world where visitors can discover the mysteries of the universe, as well as be entertained by historical sightings. Here are my 8 favorite locations for your own out of this world experience.
Cascade Travel
Alien landscape in Chile
CHILE
Chile is often mentioned as the country with the highest recorded number of UFO sightings. Due to its low humidity, high altitude ridges, and clear skies with little pollution, Chile has become a favorite among UFO-seekers from around the world.
The country has even launched the CEFAA (Committee for Studies of Anomalous Aerial Phenomena (CEFAA), a government body which investigates UAPs (Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon) under the control of the Chilean Air Force.
Located in the Atacama Desert of Chile, ESO’s Paranal Observatory is one of the best astronomical observing sites in the world and is the flagship location for Europes ground-based astronomy. It contains several major telescopes including the Very Large Telescope, the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy, and the VLT Survey Telescope.
The ESO Hotel and La Residencia adjacent to Paranal Observatory provide accommodation for staff and media only. Tourists are not allowed to stay overnight. In order to visit the observatory, it is a two-hour drive from Cerro Moreno airport and opens on weekends only with an advance reservation.
ALMA Observatory is the most ambitious radio observatory on Earth. Unlike optic telescopes, radio telescopes are designed to capture radio waves emitted by sources in space. This is a segment of the electromagnetic spectrum that allows researchers to take a closer look at the Universe. ALMA has 66 antennas: fifty-four 12-meter diameter antennas and twelve 7-meter diameter antennas.
It is open every Saturday and Sunday to members of the public who want to visit its facilities located in northern Chile (30 miles from San Pedro de Atacama). Visitors get to see the ALMA Operations Support Facility (OSF), where ALMA personnel work and where you can observe the control room, laboratories, and the antenna transporter. The area of Chajnantor Plateau (where the massive number of antennas are located) are not open to visitors.
San Clemente, Chile is considered to be the unofficial UFO capital of the world. Researchers say that hundreds of UFO sightings have been reported there, as much as one per week. So popular is the area that the Chilean tourism board established an official UFO trail in 2008. The 19-mile trail runs through the Andes mountains covering sights where close encounters have been reported. Included in the experience are Colbún Lake, which has proved popular with UFOs because of its high mineral content, along with various areas highlighting historic sightings. But the trail's must-see location is El Enladrillado, a huge, bizarre flat area formed by 200 perfectly cut volcanic blocks that were reportedly laid by ancient civilizations. It takes four hours to get to the location on horseback and is believed by many to be a landing pad for extraterrestrials.
Elqui Domos Astronomical Hotel is a small 10-year-old hotel located in the heart of the Elqui Valley, a narrow valley stretched in between the Andes Mountains. The hotel is equipped with a restaurant, an astronomical observatory, an outdoor pool and 11 air-conditioned and centrally-heated rooms. The rooms are divided into 7 geodesic domes and 4 observatory-style cabins.
The domes have a private bathroom, a living room on the first floor and a bed on a mezzanine floor, from where you can uncover the roof of the domes and search the skies.
The Elqui Valley is well known for its perfectly clear skies and nice weather, as well as for its great potential for UFO spotting and studying astronomy.
Take this excursion on horseback to the Andes along the trails of the local cowboys, an adventure that will take you through a natural and wild landscape under a perfect blue sky and along the Cochiguaz river. You will be accompanied by a trained guide who will educate you on the skies using a 12" telescope while sitting around a campfire and drinking pisco sours.
The next morning is a trip to the scientific observatory of Cerro Tololo, which includes a visit to the observatory’s facilities and a guided tour introducing the research done at the complex. That evening check-in to a hotel in Vicuña before a night tour to the observatory.
David Goddard (Getty Images)
Crop circles adorn wheat fields near Wiltshire, England
Mysterious patterns have appeared in the fields of Wiltshire, just one mile from the equally bizarre Stonehenge. Many sightings have occurred here including a large disc-shaped object hovering above the site. The prehistoric monument includes a ring of massive stones dating back to around 3100 BC and is listed as a World Heritage site. Supporters of the theory that ancient aliens built the landmark also consider the area a landing pad for spaceships or a location marker for extraterrestrials.
Sign for Little A'Le'Inn and flying saucer near Area 51. (Getty Images)
AREA 51, NEVADA (S4 Papoose Mountain Facility)
This U.S. military installation is located almost 100 miles north of Las Vegas and is commonly known to UFO conspiracy theorists as a location the U.S. government refused to acknowledge. They believe that the area is a storage facility for the examination of a crashed alien spacecraft including its occupants both living and dead as well as materials recovered at Roswell. They also believe the area is used to manufacture aircraft based on alien technology.
Some UFOlogists are now claiming a secret underground facility has been discovered in the base of the Papoose Mountains, in Lincoln County, Nevada, where recovered alien space crafts and extraterrestrial beings are kept hidden away and no longer at Area 51.
This tour takes you to locations near the famed Area 51, departing from Las Vegas for nighttime explorations. Area 51 is a highly classified remote detachment of Edwards Air Force Base so visitors are limited on how close they can get.
Sedona, Arizona is one of America's most popular destinations for spotting U.F.O.s. Nightly tours go out with visitors equipped with night vision glasses, binoculars, and telescopes. The amount of activity recorded is staggering including reported sightings of; Orbs, portals, aliens, and even Bigfoots all within the high desert.
The mysterious Bradshaw Ranch also draws numerous tourists. Located deep within the national forest, it is reported to have been confiscated by the U.S. Government because it housed one of the most powerful inter-dimensional portals on the planet. Visitors are not allowed in the National Forest at night, but several tour operators will take you there and stay until dusk. According to accounts, it’s in the last hour of twilight when many of these phenomena take place. There are even more outrageous reports of a top-secret underground base at the ranch as well as an elaborate tunnel system, possibly used by both extraterrestrials and the U.S. military.
This tour begins with a two-hour meditation walk starting at the Amitabha Stupa, Sedona’s most spiritual vortex. Guides will take you through a guided meditation and even offer a paranormal video tour. After sunset, you can visit a well known hot spot of UFO activity where the company guarantees sightings of UFO’s, using special night vision goggles.
UFOs are not an uncommon sight in Wycliffe Well. They are known to appear at the beginning of the dry season, from May to October. Wycliffe Well is located in the Northern Territory along the Stuart Highway between Alice Springs and Tennant Creek and considers itself the UFO capital of Australia. Wycliffe Well is said to be one of the top five UFO hotspots in the world and guarantees a sighting every couple of days. Visitors can stay in cabins at the Wycliffe Well Holiday Park located 236 miles from Alice Springs.
Ural Mountains Perm Anomalous Zone (Shutterstock)
M TRIANGLE, RUSSIA
This famous Perm Anomalous Zone is located in a remote area near the Ural Mountains in Russia. The M Triangle is one of the most mysterious places in the world and was discovered in the 1980s. Reports of watches that stop, and bright glowing and colored lightning appearing in the sky. Ufologists consider this a sign of underground fractures where strong energy emits. This wave duct for electromagnetic energy usually results in color, sound, and other phenomena.
The village of Molyobka sits on the border of the Perm and Sverdlovsk regions. Opposite the village, on the left bank of the Sylva River, is the famous Molyobka Triangle. When Perm geologist Emil Bachurin found a circular, 206-foot impression in the snow in the 80's, the location quickly became a location for enthusiasts to explore Yetis, UFOs, shining spheres, and plasmoids.
The area is currently developing a UFO park, and local businesses are building hotels and observatories for tourists as well as installing gravity meters, infrared cameras, and magnetic-field sensors. UFO tourism is also popular in nearby Tolyatti, where visitors can see some of the world’s largest crop circles.
Contact in the Desert
Joshua Tree Sunset
JOSHUA TREE, CALIFORNIA
Joshua Tree is on 29 Palms Highway, about a three-hour drive from LAX. The area is known to have many underground waterways all featuring a high mineral content. Joshua Tree National Park was once home to 300 mines and includes a unique white crystal quartz hill behind Giant Rock. Visitors often go searching for the hidden alien base that is rumored to be located somewhere beneath the expansive desert.
UFOlogists believe that Joshua Tree sits on the 33rd North parallel just like Roswell. The research behind the 33rd North parallel provides the location for the most UFO sightings.
Dr. Steven Greer is a controversial UFOlogist who founded the Center for the Study of Extraterrestrial Intelligence (CSETI) and the Disclosure Project, which seeks the disclosure of allegedly suppressed UFO information. Each week-long expedition is limited to about 25 and includes an intensive training program with Dr. Greer. At night the group meets under the stars for 4-5 hours to make contact using Greer's CE-5 Contact Protocols. During the intensive training program, visitors learn how to make contact with ET civilizations and how to really become an Ambassador to the Universe.
For the past five years, UFO researchers ranging from professionals to fans converge on the California High Desert for a long weekend of lectures and workshops on the unexplained. The Woodstock of UFOlogy is a weekend of education into the Science of UFOs & Extraterrestrial Life, Ancient Aliens, Human Origins, Crop Circles, Government Disclosure, UFO Sightings and Interplanetary Living.
Roswell UFO Festival
UFO Festival in Roswell
ROSWELL, NEW MEXICO
Roswell has been at the heart of the UFO scene since July 1947 when the military announced it had found the remains of a crashed UFO in the desert nearby. Ever since the legendary Roswell UFO crash of July 1947 alien conspiracy theorists have claimed the remains of a flying saucer, and even dead aliens, were secretly taken into storage.
Visits to the crash sites are difficult to navigate deep in the desert, so many tourists visit the Roswell Spacewalk and the International UFO Museum and Research Center.
Every Fourth of July weekend the city of Roswell organizes the UFO Festival, a celebration of all things extraterrestrial. Thousands of people meet on Main Street for the Comic-Con of UFO devotees. Costume contests, and a long weekend of lectures and book signings put on by Roswell’s International UFO Museum.
PROFESSIONAL ALIEN EXPLORATION
Aside from the numerous tourist locations around the world, the scientific community is ramping up efforts to discover the unknown and to hopefully make contact with extraterrestrials. The following are the top satellite and research programs that are currently active with a few offering tourists to visit their facilities.
A planned space telescope for NASA's Explorers program, designed to search for exoplanets using the transit method is planned to launch in March 2018. The conclusion is that Europa or Enceladus are both possible life planets as well as the discovery of Kepler-452b. It is the first near-Earth-size world to be found in the habitable zone of a star that is similar to our sun. And, in 2015, NASA announced strong evidence that liquid water flows intermittently on present-day Mars.
The James Webb Space Telescope is a large infrared telescope with a 6.5-meter primary mirror. The telescope will be launched on an Ariane 5 rocket from French Guiana in Spring 2019 and will study the formation of solar systems capable of supporting life on planets like Earth.
NExSS) is a NASA research coordination network dedicated to the study of planetary habitability. The goals of NExSS are to investigate the diversity of exoplanets and to learn how their history, geology, and climate interact to create the conditions for life.
Project Breakthrough Co-Founders Mark Zuckerberg (L) and Yuri Milner
Billionaire Yuri Milner, physicist Stephen Hawking, and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg have launched the $100 million Breakthrough Listen program. The program is focused on astronomical observations in search of evidence of intelligent life beyond Earth. It is by far the most comprehensive search ever undertaken for artificial radio and optical signals encompassing a complete survey of the 1,000,000 nearest stars, the plane and center of our galaxy, and the 100 nearest galaxies.
The CNES French Space Agency service is funded by the French government. Its mission is to collect reports of UFO or UAP (Unidentified Aerospace Phenomena) sightings that have occurred over the French territory, to provide an explanation when possible, and to answer questions from the public.
SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence is located in Mountain View, California and seeks evidence of life in the universe by looking for some signature of its technology. More than 90 scientists work at the Institute looking for life beyond Earth. The Allen Telescope is sometimes available for tours and is located 350 miles North of the Institute.
UC Santa Cruz and UC Berkeley have given the Lick Observatory's 40-inch Nickel Telescope a new pulse-detection system capable of finding laser beacons from civilizations many light-years away. The automated planet finder (APF) is the world's first robotic telescope capable of detecting rocky planets that might support life in other solar systems. Located one hour from San Jose in the Santa Clara Valley, visitors are allowed inside the dome of the36-inch great refractor Thursday-Sunday.
Operated by the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii. A strange oblong asteroid named Oumuamua was recently detected by Pan-STARRS through its collection of telescopes perched high above the Hawaiian island of Maui. The SETI Institute began scanning Oumuamua with its Allen Telescope Array on Nov. 23, 2017. So far, they have spent 60 hours checking for transmissions over a wide range of frequencies. Another SETI project, Breakthrough Listen, will soon devote 10 hours to investigating Oumuamua using a large antenna in West Virginia.
Chinas five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST), is located in a rural part of China’s Guizhou province and will be used to try to solve some of the universe’s biggest mysteries. One of its primary missions is to detect communication signals or messages from alien civilizations.
Last December, The New York Times broke the story about a secret Pentagon program that searches for UFOs. The Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program was a pet project of Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat and then-Senate majority leader. The program ran from 2007 to 2012 and cost $22 million.
It was funded by “black money,” the term used for classified Pentagon programs. This explains why the project wasn’t public until this year because a public debate on the Senate floor wasn’t required in order to fund it. This story sounds less like reality, and more like an episode of The X-Files – the iconic 90s series which is currently airing its 11th and final season.
The Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program gave most of the money to Reid’s billionaire friend Robert Bigelow, who runs an aerospace research company that has worked with NASA. Since Bigelow was already a billionaire, the obvious question is: why can’t he couldn’t fund his own program?
Government Has a Long-Running Love Affair with UFO Hunting
The relationship between UFO searching and the US government is not new. It started in 1948 with a program by the United States Air Force called Project Sign, then it changed its name to Project Grudge. Then, in 1953, it became Project Blue Book for the next two decades. The program had two goals: to determine if UFOs were a threat to national security and to scientifically analyze UFO-related data.
This hopefully will be the end of Martian hunting season at the taxpayers' expense
In 1968, theCondon Report was published by the University of Colorado UFO Project, a group funded by the United States Air Force from 1966 to 1968 with the objective of studying unidentified flying objects under the direction of physicist Edward Condon. This was the result of researching the UFO files of Project Blue Book and from the civilian UFO groups and investigating sightings reported during the life of the Project.
The conclusions of the Cordon Report were that UFOs are not a threat to national security, that unidentified sightings didn’t represent technological developments or principles beyond the range of modern science, and that there is no way to determine if UFOs are of extraterrestrial origin.
In 1970, Project Blue Book came to an end, but that didn’t mean the government stopped funding the search for aliens. The SETI Institute, a non-profit organization founded in 1984, received funding from the government, but it stopped after the criticism as a waste of money without any relevant objective by two Democratic Senators, William Proxmire of Wisconsin and Richard Bryan of Nevada. But this was just the direct funding because it still received money from governmental institutions like NASA in the form of research grants.
Someone could argue that $22 million for a program is not that much money. That being said, as Bryan put it when shutting down the budget of the SETI Institute: “This hopefully will be the end of Martian hunting season at the taxpayers' expense.” But it wasn’t.
Do We Really Want Government Doing This?
Searching for UFOs is just not the government’s business
The American government has wasted money on silly things like birdwatching, changing sand in beaches, and funding a clown school in Argentina. However, the real clowns are the politicians that love to empty the pockets of the taxpayers. UFO searches sound like a more imaginative way to waste money, but it’s still not a legitimate government function.
Besides, could we trust that if a government actually solves the UFO mystery, they would reveal it? It seems doubtful, given their love for secrecy. Plus, if UFOs really are of extraterrestrial origin, would we want to have politicians being the first to speak with an alien race?
Aliens are going to have a bad first impression of us if the first humans they meet are government bureaucrats. Plus, politicians tend to be hawkish, so if they are first to contact an extraterrestrial civilization, the risk of war increases. Searching for UFOs is just not the government’s business. We all would be better off if we leave that task to the private sector.
They are all mysterious, for one thing — eye-catchingly weird, yet still just hazy outlines that let the imagination run wild. All have recently generated headlines as possible signs of life and intelligence beyond Earth, of some mind-bogglingly advanced alien culture revealing its existence at last to our relatively primitive and planetbound civilization. Yet their most salient shared trait so far is the certainty they provoke in most scientists, who insist these developments represent nothing so sensational. Ask a savvy astronomer or physicist about any of these oddities, and they will tell you, as they have time and time before: It’s not aliens. In fact, it’s never aliens.
Far from being close-minded killjoys, most scientists in the “never aliens” camp desperately want to be convinced otherwise. Their default skeptical stance is a prophylactic against the wiles of wishful thinking, a dare to true believers to provide extraordinary evidence in support of extraordinary claims. What is really extraordinary, the skeptics say, is not so much the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligence but rather the notion that its existence nearby or visitation of Earth could be something easily unnoticed or overlooked. If aliens are out there — or even right here—in abundance, particularly ones wildly advanced beyond our state, why would incontrovertible proof of that reality be so annoyingly elusive?
To put it more succinctly, as the nuclear physicist Enrico Fermi did more than a half century ago, “Where are they?” Given a 10-billion-year-old galaxy filled with stars and planets, and an Earth less than half that age, Fermi guessed we are unlikely to be the first technological culture on the galactic stage. If just one spacefaring civilization predated our own in the Milky Way, he calculated, even moving at a very languorous pace it should have had more than enough time to visit, explore and colonize every planetary system in the galaxy.
Ever since, practitioners of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) have been brainstorming about why we do not encounter glaringly obvious signposts of an interstellar diaspora: Maybe there are nigh-universal bottlenecks in the odds for the emergence of life, intelligence or high technology, and we are indeed alone. Maybe we are not alone at all, but interstellar travel is so hard that everyone just stays home. Maybe we are being quarantined, and UFOs are dronelike documentarians recording an intergalactic Planet Earth miniseries. Maybe our galaxy is bursting at the seams with alien civilizations, and we simply have not looked hard enough—presuming we are capable of properly looking at all. Even the know-it-alls in the “never aliens” crowd would concede the diversity of possible answers to Fermi’s question says more about our ignorance than our knowledge.
One of Fermi’s SETI-pioneering peers, the physicist Freeman Dyson, once summarized the situation thus: “Our imaginings about the ways that aliens might make themselves detectable are always like stories of black cats in a dark room. If there are any real aliens, they are likely to behave in ways that we never imagined.” Even so, he added, “the failure of one guess does not mean that we should stop looking”—particularly because whatever may keep our skies alien-free would likely keep the rest of the universe free of star-trekking humans as well. Contemplating Fermi’s question is a way of exploring pathways to our possible futures. Finding aliens—or coming up empty in our searches—has profound implications for our own ultimate cosmic fate.
That is something to keep in mind while considering the latest near-hits (or near-misses), detailed below, in the ongoing search for cosmic company.
Dust busts "alien megastructures"
Discovered in archival data from NASA’s Kepler space telescope in 2015 by the Louisiana State University astronomer Tabetha Boyajian, the extreme episodic dimming of “Tabby’s Star,” or “Boyajian’s Star,” inspired speculations it was being engulfed by starlight-absorbing “alien megastructures” (think: a solar power plant the size of a solar system). Those speculations helped Boyajian and colleagues launch a successful Kickstarter project that raised funding for further scrutiny of the star, an effort that jumped into overdrive in May 2017, when the star began another dimming episode. But instead of revealing aliens, those observations—and others from telescopes around the world—found the culprit is probably clouds of submicron-scale dust around the star.
“If these dips were caused by solid, opaque objects, you’d expect them to block light equally at all colors. But we saw that the dips were deeper in blue [light] than they were in the red, which indicates that something more transparent, like dust, is crossing in front of the star,” Boyajian says. “How do we know it’s not solar panels absorbing blue light more efficiently than red light? Well, we don’t, but we do know dust is all over the universe in many different places, and what we now see is what we’d generally expect from dust.” The result mirrors that of another team led by the University of Arizona astronomer Huan Meng, which also flagged dust as the likely cause of the star’s odd behavior in October 2017.
Even so, Jason Wright, an astronomer at The Pennsylvania State University who collaborates with Boyajian on studies of the star, cautions that much more work is needed as dust is not the only remaining explanation. Other possibilities—such as intrinsic fluctuations in the star’s luminosity or even a black hole with a cold and dusty debris disk drifting across our interstellar line of sight—could also still fit the data. In theory, Wright says, even the “aliens” hypothesis is still on the table—although only if their megastructures are improbably adept at mimicking “boring old dust.”
“You don’t want to immediately cry ‘aliens’ like a boy crying wolf every time you see something and don’t understand it,” Wright says. “But with Tabby’s Star that’s not what has happened—she and her team have spent years trying to solve what is a legitimate astrophysical mystery.” The upside of all the public attention, Wright says, is that it has lured many astronomers to work on Tabby’s Star “precisely because all the ‘aliens’ talk annoyed them, and they wanted to find a natural explanation.”
Eavesdropping on 'Oumuamua
Astronomers spotted the sizeable object now called ‘Oumuamua (Hawaiian for “first messenger”) streaking by Earth last October. They determined by its speed and trajectory it had dive-bombed past our sun from the depths of interstellar space, perhaps after cruising through the void for billions of years. Theorists had long predicted icy comets cast away from other stars would someday be detected passing through our solar system, yet ‘Oumuamua did not act like a comet at all—despite passing blisteringly close to the sun, it never sprouted a cometlike tail of evaporating ice. It did not look like a comet either, appearing under telescopic scrutiny to be shaped like a half-kilometer-long needle—a form unknown among natural solar system objects but often favored by starships in science fiction. Perhaps, some SETI enthusiasts thought, ‘Oumuamua was an active or derelict probe from another civilization.
But when SETI-minded astronomers targeted the object with two exquisitely sensitive radio telescopes to eavesdrop for any artificial transmissions, they detected nothing. Other teams using large telescopes discovered ‘Oumuamua’s surface was a very particular shade of red, the same color that common carbon-rich molecules turn after prolonged exposure to harsh radiation.
The most likely conclusion? Despite its strange shape, trajectory and lack of a tail, ‘Oumuamua is just a comet after all, its ice locked away beneath a tarlike crust hardened and desiccated by eons of bombardment by cosmic rays. Its radio silence adds to a handful of other SETI false alarms in recent years.
“We accept that these things being artificial is really the lowest-probability possibility for what they are—our past work guides us in that,” says Andrew Siemion, director of the Berkeley SETI Research Center and leader of one team tuning into ‘Oumuamua. “All of these are going to be natural—until one turns out not to be.”
Clandestine close encounters
Late last year The New York Times published a story about a small, secretive program run by the Department of Defense to study new reports from the armed services about encounters with UFOs. The project was officially canceled in 2012, leading its former head to resign and join a private, for-profit company — To the Stars Academy of Arts & Science(TTSA) — dedicated to declassifying and studying the Pentagon’s batches of UFO-related material. The Times story included two short videos of separate UFO encounters captured by aircraft-mounted infrared cameras, and hinted at the existence of a third that has yet to be released. In the first video, from an encounter off the coast of San Diego in 2004, a fighter jet tracks a lozenge-shaped something that seems to zoom off at incredible speed, apparently without generating exhaust plumes or a sonic boom. In the second video, captured by a different fighter jet under undisclosed circumstances, an object surrounded by a “glowing aura” seems to fly tilted against heavy headwinds in defiance of known principles of aerodynamics, accompanied by audible exclamations from the fighter jet’s crew.
Steve Justice, TTSA's aerospace division director and former Lockheed Martin engineer who worked on advanced top secret aircraft for the latter company’s storied “Skunk Works” division, speculates that in both cases such incredible feats of flight could be due to the objects possessing some sort of warp drive. Such an (entirely theoretical) device would somehow allow an object to change mass and inertia at will, and potentially to travel faster than light by “altering the spacetime metric” around itself. Whether aliens are behind the fighter jet encounters is, to him, somewhat immaterial.
“I’m not really interested in the ‘who’ or the ‘what,’ but I’m really interested in the ‘how,’” Justice says. “How could you make a machine fly like that? To remove the effects of aerodynamics, I’d want to create a volume around myself where I was insulated from them, where I could change my orientation without changing direction, where I could accelerate without generating shock waves. Right now when an airplane pulls its nose up in forward flight, it climbs; when it breaks the sound barrier, it makes a sonic boom. But that’s not what we see here.”
Keep watching the skies
Skeptics reviewing the videos obtained by TTSA have postulated more prosaic explanations, while bemoaning both the lack of data due to pernicious state secrecy as well as the organization’s potentially problematic profit-seeking motives. (According to the TTSA Web site, a minimum investment of $200 buys you membership in the organization and finances research into “exotic technologies” associated with UFOs that could lead to “revolutionary breakthroughs in propulsion, energy and communication.”) Perhaps the speeding “lozenge” was a new type of missile, launched from a submarine as part of some earthly power’s clandestine technology test. And maybe the tilting, aura-sheathed object was actually a distant conventional aircraft distorted by image-processing firmware and autotracking sensors within the fighter jet’s gun camera.
This latter possibility Justice acknowledges as “entirely plausible”—save for the obvious urgency in the voices of experienced military pilots as they speak of associated radar tracking, which is not shown on the gun camera’s feed. “Maybe it could have been some set of physical and optical aberrations,” Justice says. “But when I put it in context of all the information in the video, that’s less likely to me.”
Of course, military pilots aren’t the only ones with extensive experience looking at objects in the sky—and the equipment to record what they see. Astronomers have that, too—yet they never seem to ever catch UFOs in the viewfinders of their telescopes. Similarly, the increasingly global ubiquity of smartphones should presumably boost the numbers and quality of UFO encounters captured on video (as they have done for rocket launches), but the flood of eerie footage has yet to materialize.
That raises a red flag for Bruce Macintosh, an astronomer at Stanford University. “In general, interesting physical phenomena are only barely significant when first detected. Then, as technology progresses, those detections become more significant,” he says. “But UFO detections have remained marginal for decades; they’ve just gone from being blurry shapes on film cameras to blurry shapes on the digital infrared sensors of fighter jet gun cameras. This, in spite of the fact that the world’s total imaging capacity has expanded by several orders of magnitude in the past 20 years.” To remain so vexingly residual, he says, UFOs would have to become more elusive in lockstep with our increasing ability to detect them—something no natural process would be expected to do.
Hypothetical aliens with advanced technology could do that, of course. “But then you have to ask why they would choose to remain marginally undetectable rather than just being undetectable,” Macintosh says. “Unless they’re taunting us, it’s hard to come up with a coherent explanation.”
Except, of course, for the obvious one: It’s never aliens. Until, perhaps, it is.
An old native American legend describes the existence of thirteen ancient crystal skulls, the size of human skulls, with moveable jaws that were said to speak or sing. The legend tells that these crystal skulls contain important information about some of the great mysteries of life and the universe. They contain knowledge about the past history of our species on this planet, and information about mankind’s true purpose and future destiny.
The Cherokee version of the legend says that there were originally twelve planets in the universe inhabited by human life and that there was one skull for each of these planets, together with a thirteenth skull which was vital to reconnecting all of these worlds.
The legend also says that one day, at a time of great need, all of these crystal skulls will be rediscovered and brought back together to reveal their information vital to the very survival of the human race. But the legend also warns that when that time arrives mankind must first be sufficiently developed, suitably evolved both morally and spiritually, so as not to abuse this great knowledge.
When we first heard this legend, whilst visiting the ancient Mayan ruins of Tikal in Guatemala, we considered it merely a colourful story, until we found out that a real crystal skull had actually been discovered on an archaeological dig in Central America, way back in the 1920’s.
The Mitchell-Hedges Crystal Skull
Frederick Mitchell-Hedges (1882-1959) was your archetypal British adventurer-explorer; a member of the Maya Committee of the British Museum and a real Indiana-Jones type character determined to make his mark in the twilight years of the British Empire. He was of the opinion that the cradle of civilisation lay not in the Middle East, as is commonly supposed, but instead he was convinced that Atlantis was a real civilisation which had disappeared after some natural catastrophe. He believed that the remnants of this Atlantean civilisation could still be found somewhere in Central America, and he was determined to prove it.
To this end, he gathered together a party of explorers who set sail from Liverpool in 1924 bound for British Honduras (now Belize). One day, deep in the jungle, his party stumbled upon some mounds of stone overgrown with moss and foliage, and suffocated by roots and vines. So they set fire to the undergrowth. When the fire had subsided the ruins of a once great city emerged from the flames.
It was a place known to the local Mayans as ‘Lubaantun’ or ‘The City of Fallen Stones’, and it was in this lost city that Mitchell Hedges’ adopted daughter Anna found a magnificent and perfect crystal skull, buried beneath an altar in the ruins of one of the great temple-pyramids. The Mayan helpers on the dig went wild with joy on the emergence of the skull. They seemed to recognise it. They kissed the ground crying, placed it on an altar, and performed ceremonial rituals and dances around it.
But what was this mysterious object and did it have anything to do with the ancient legend?
In a lost city in a remote jungle, located in what is now Belize, Central America, Anna Mitchell Hedge found this magnificent and perfect crystal skull, buried beneath an altar in the ruins of a great temple-pyramid.
The crystal skull is a mystery as profound as the Pyramids of Egypt, the Sphinx, the Nasca Lines of Peru, or Stonehenge. Ever since its original discovery the crystal skull has been the source of much archaeological controversy – nobody seems to know quite how old it really is, how it was made, what it was used for, and where it originally came from. All that is known for sure is that ever since it emerged from the temple ruins, the most incredible claims have been made about the crystal skull and there have been a whole host of reports of strange and unusual phenomena surrounding the skull.
As mentioned above, Anna Mitchell-Hedges is the woman who first uncovered the crystal skull as a teenager back in the 1920’s. Although the crystal skull was found on what most archaeologists consider to be a Mayan site, Anna Mitchell-Hedges and many others like her believe that it is actually much older than this, and that it belonged to some mysterious pre-Mayan civilisation that has now long since disappeared from this Earth.
The crystal skull has been valued at several millions of dollars, but it is far more than just an expensive and exotic ancient artefact. For, over the years, people have reported all kinds of strange and unusual experiences in the skull’s presence. In particular, it is said to have incredible ‘psychic’ and ‘healing’ powers. According to Anna Mitchell-Hedges, who passed away at the age of 100 in 2007, it is thanks to the ‘healing power’ of the skull that kept her alive. She said that all through her life the skull kept her in good health and happiness. The skull, she said, ‘protected’ her and ‘communicated’ with her all through her long life, and she is not the only person to have reported such experiences.
Anna allowed many visitors into her home and she accumulated hundreds of letters from the many people who came to her house to sit with the skull and who claim to have been ‘healed by the skull’ or that it somehow ‘communicated’ with them. Many of those who have spent time alone with the skull claim to have seen or heard things in its presence. Many say they have seen a gentle glow, like an aura, extending around the skull, or that they have heard sounds, like the soft chanting of human voices, emanating from it, such that it has now earned the title ‘the talking’ or ‘singing skull’, just as in the old legend.
Others claim to have seen things inside the skull. When they have sat with the skull for a long time it has started to present them with images, almost like watching a bit of cinema film. Hundreds of visitors attest to having seen incredible images from the past or the future deep inside its crystalline structure. The reports include images of ancient sacred sites, with ceremonies being performed beneath great pyramids. Others say they have seen whole periods of planetary history with great shifting of continents, the rising of sea levels and destruction of land masses, and geological cataclysm on a global scale. One of the most commonly reported images is considered by many to be the holographic image of a UFO appearing within the crystal skull – and this has even been photographed! This image in particular has led many to suggest that perhaps the crystal skull has some kind of strange unearthly origin?
But, just as the ancient legend suggests, this is not the only crystal skull to be discovered. Several other crystal skulls have since come to light. All are of mysterious origin and all are surrounded by claims of strange or unusual phenomena and tales of inexplicable, paranormal powers.
Max, the ‘Talking’ Crystal Skull
A woman named Joann Parks, who lives in Houston, Texas, also has a crystal skull. She, too, claims that her crystal skull has the power to heal and can communicate with her telepathically. The story of how Joann Parks came into possession of her crystal skull starts with a very sad story. In 1978 Joann’s eldest daughter, Diana, was diagnosed as having bone cancer and the conventional medical doctors gave her only three months to live. Joann turned to the help of a Tibetan Lama and healer named Norbu Chen. This man owned a crystal skull, and with the help of this healer and his crystal skull, her daughter managed to live for a further three years. When her daughter eventually died, the healer gave Joann the crystal skull, telling her nothing about it except that he had originally received it from a Guatemalan shaman and that one day Joann would understand it and know what it was for.
Not knowing what to do with it, Joann put the crystal skull in a box in the bedroom closet. A few years later the skull started to appear in her dreams. Then it started “speaking to her,” saying that it wanted out of the closet. She tried to ignore this ‘voice’ but it started “talking to her” at all times of day, saying “You must let me out of this closet. I am important to mankind,” and “I will be remembered.” Joanne thought she was losing her mind and even spoke to her family doctor about it, but the voice just wouldn’t go away, and so she eventually found herself sitting in the bedroom closet “talking to this lump of rock” and telling it to go away, saying “Just leave me alone skull!” She slammed the skull away in a case and pushed it to the back of the wardrobe, but as she ran back down the stairs the skull kept talking to her. “It was very persistent,” explained Joann and it was determined that I take it out of the closet and “tell mankind” of its existence. It even added that, “By the way, my name isn’t skull, it’s Max!” And since that time Joann has been showing the skull all over the United States where she says “Max has now spoken to and healed many people.”
The skull had also told Joanne that it came many thousands of years ago from a civilisation far in advance of our own, and from a dimension different from our own, and that one day soon this is something mankind would understand!
What can we learn from the other crystal skulls that have now been discovered? Recently a massive crystal skull turned up at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington under very sad and mysterious circumstances. It had been sent through the post by an anonymous donor whom it transpired had taken his own life, apparently on account of the ‘curse’ the skull had brought on him since it came into his possession.
The British Museum also has a crystal skull which is kept in The Museum of Mankind, just off Piccadilly Circus, in London. Like the Mitchell-Hedges specimen, this skull is made from highly transparent crystal and displays an incredible degree of anatomical accuracy. This skull has been in the museum’s possession since 1898 and is reported by staff to have been seen moving around by itself in its sealed glass case. The museum’s cleaners are said to be so frightened of this skull that it has to be covered by a cloth before they will go anywhere near it. Where did this skull come from?
The British Museum have always considered their skull to be of Aztec origin. The note accompanying the Smithsonian skull also said that it had once belonged to the mighty Aztecs of Central America. Anna Mitchell-Hedges and Joann Parks said their skulls are at least as old as the ancient Mayan civilisation of Central America, if not far older and perhaps of extraterrestrial origin.
The ancient Aztec and Mayan people built up highly developed civilisations in an incredibly short period of time. These civilisations appeared as if from nowhere and the Mayan civilisation, just as suddenly, mysteriously disappeared.
Many archaeologists are baffled as to where they got their advanced knowledge from and why they suddenly disappeared. All the evidence that remains of this civilisation suggests they were great watchers of the skies and the heavenly bodies. They were great scientists, mathematicians and astronomers. They had a complex calendar based on the movements of the planets and the stars and which they used to predict the future. They were able to predict eclipses, even ones they could not see and that were happening elsewhere in the world. They even managed to accurately predict eclipses that have happened recently – over a thousand years after their own civilisation mysteriously disappeared.
Some researchers claim the Mayan records say their people came from Atlantis and their ancestors before that ‘came from the stars’. The Mayan civilisation was also obsessed with the image of the skull, which made up an important part of their sacred, divinatory calendar.
Modern Fakes?
Many archaeologists, however, unable to explain the strange phenomena associated with the crystal skulls, claim they are simply ‘modern fakes’. So how old are the crystal skulls and where did they really come from? Are they modern, Aztec, Mayan, or did they come from some other civilisation altogether?
In an attempt to try to answer these questions, Anna Mitchell-Hedges loaned her skull to one of the world’s leading computer companies, Hewlett-Packard, for rigorous scientific testing. The scientists in their crystal laboratories were completely unable to determine the age of the skull, as crystal cannot be carbon-dated. But what surprised the scientists was that both the skull and its detachable lower jawbone were made from the same massive piece of pure, natural rock crystal. As crystal is only slightly softer than diamond, this finding was truly incredible.
The scientists concluded that even with modern diamond-tipped power tools, it would have been impossible to carve such an object without it shattering. At first they thought the skull must have been made by hand using sand and water to slowly abrade the material over several generations – a process they estimated must have taken around “300 man-years of effort!” But soon they were forced to revise even this conclusion. For when the skull was examined under intense magnification the scientists were in for an even bigger surprise – they were completely unable to find any evidence of tools having been used to make the skull at all! A fact which led one member of the team to comment: “This skull shouldn’t even exist!”
The crystal skull challenged all conventional opinion. Here was an object that simply defied explanation. It showed no evidence of any existing technology used in its construction, no evidence of tool markings either ancient or modern. But the scientists at Hewlett-Packard said they were simply not prepared to countenance the only alternative explanation – that the skull had not even been made by humans.
The scientists other interesting discovery was that the skull had been made from precisely the same type of quartz now used in modern electronic equipment. Modern science has established that among the unusual properties of quartz crystal is its ability to hold under control electrical energy and to oscillate at a constant and precise frequency. In other words, the crystal skull is able to hold electrical energy – potentially a form of information – and send out vibrating impulses – or waves of energy information. This is why quartz crystal is used for the ‘brain cells’ of electronic equipment such as watches and computers. The silicon crystal chip inside a computer, for instance, is where the information is actually stored. This finding raised the distinct possibility that the crystal skulls are in fact some kind of information storage system, just as the ancient legend suggests. But what might that information be, and where do the crystal skulls really come from?
The Legend of the Crystal Skulls
Native Americans have long believed in the power of quartz crystal. They refer to quartz crystals as “the brain cells of Mother Earth” and have traditionally used them for healing. The crystal skulls have long been a part of Native American teachings but until now they have been forbidden to speak about them. Now, they say, the time has come for them to speak out about these amazing artefacts and to reveal their secret knowledge.
Professor Paula Gunn-Allen of the University of California is of Laguno Pueblo origin. She specialises in Native American literature and is well versed in the mythology and oral history of Native America. According to her the crystal skulls were created by beings “who are not humans like we are.” She says the crystal skulls were designed specifically for the purpose of communication with extraterrestrial life. As she explains, “What they are is transceivers – devices to help us communicate with the other quadrants of the galaxy.” She said that we might think of them “as like telephones” that get you connected with Galactic Central and enable you to stay in touch with “civilisations beyond our littie bitty modern world.”
Native American medicine woman Jamie Sams says that “the crystal skulls contain information about our own ancestors, about our own past and our own future that will very soon change the whole way we see ourselves, our world, and our true place in the universe.”
According to Metis Cherokee medicine man Harley Swiftdeer, the full version of the legend of the crystal skulls says that there were originally twelve planets in the universe inhabited by human life; that there was one skull for each of these planets, and a thirteenth skull which was vital to finally reconnecting all of these worlds. According to Harley Swiftdeer and other native Americans, the crystal skulls were brought to this Earth as “gifts from the gods” – brought long ago by these beings from elsewhere in the universe.
These crystal skulls contained the wisdom necessary to found civilisation on this Earth and when all thirteen crystal skulls are brought back together again, we will have finally found the key to reconnecting with our brothers and sisters elsewhere in this beautiful universe.
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CHRIS MORTON & CERI LOUISE THOMAS are independent television producers who specialise in making films with a philosophical, spiritual or environmental emphasis. Their highly-acclaimed documentary ‘The Mystery of the Crystal Skulls’ has been shown around the world. They are also the authors of the best selling book, The Mystery of the Crystal Skulls.
Ancient—draft—manuscript of the Bible found, reveals shocking details
Ancient—draft—manuscript of the Bible found, reveals shocking details
Some argue that this ancient manuscript proves how the Bible is in fact a work of fiction. The King James Bible was created after King James I ordered 47 translators to produce an ‘authorized’ version of the Bible that would support the English Church over Puritan influence in earlier texts.
Kept hidden away for centuries among ancient manuscripts lodged in the Cambridge college remain an ancient manuscript which turned out to be the EARLIEST known DRAFT of the King James Bible—arguably the most widely read work of literature in the English language.
But why does this matter so much? Well, the Bible is a compilation of ancient early texts and translations, and this ancient manuscript shows how one of the translators in charge of translating the King James Bible—Samuel Ward—made several drafts and corrections—based on earlier versions of the Bible—in order to obtain the King James Bible.
Author Samuel Ward was one of a team of seven men in Cambridge who worked on the translation of the King James Bible.
The manuscript was discovered by American scholar Jeffrey Miller who came across some 70 handwritten papers believed to date back between 1604 and 1608 in ancient archives, containing biblical commentary, with Greek and Hebrew notes. The manuscript had eluded researchers in the past because it was mislabeled—remaining undetected and without any study for centuries.
Miller argues how the discovery of the manuscript will help fill in gaps that will allow us to better understand how the bible—which was published d in 1611—came to be.
“There was a kind of thunderstruck, leap-out-of-the-bathtub moment,” Miller, told the New York Times in an interview.
“But then comes the laborious process of making sure you are correct.”
The King James Bible is the English translation of the Christian Bible made for the Church of England which begun in 1604 and was completed in 1611. The books of the King James Version contain the 39 books of the Old Testament, as well as intertestamental section containing 14 books of the Apocrypha, and the 27 books that make up the New Testament.
The KJB is the result of 7 translators working in teams working in London, Oxford, and Cambridge. King James I ordered them to produce an ‘authorized’ version of the Bible that would support the English Church over Puritan influence in earlier texts.
Many authors argue that entire sections of the original texts of the Bible were cut out from the ‘finished product’ and notable people and events were entirely omitted from the finished text.
Writing about the discovery, Miller— from Montclair State University in New Jersey—indicates how Ward’s ‘draft’ “helps to reveal about one of the 17th century’s most extraordinary cultural achievements.”
“It points the way to a fuller, more complex understanding than ever before of the process by which the KJB, the most widely read work in English of all time, came to be,” added Miller.
Discoveries like these raise questions on how much translators influenced the final product and whether or not, the King James Bible is today an ancient text based on the actual truth and events that occurred thousands of years ago.
New Study Claims Life May Have Existed On Earth More Than 4 Billion Years Ago
New Study Claims Life May Have Existed On Earth More Than 4 Billion Years Ago
According to a new scientific study, life may have existed on Earth more than 4.6 Billion years ago, during the so-called Hadean Era.
Scientists believe that soon after our planet formed, it was a hellish world with an unstable crust, bombarded by alien objects which caused the temperature of the Earth to rise extremely.
Despite the fact that Earth went through hellish early years, a new study claims that life may have survived somehow.
Scientists have estimated the direct effects caused by the ‘intense bombardment’ during the Hadean era and discovered that even the harshest scenarios were not enough to render our planet completely sterile.
Scientists have found that heavy bombardment from space rock would have certainly heated the subsurface region of the planet, but despite this, would still have remained habitable for microbial life.
Image Credit: Shutterstock.
The Study, which will be published in the Journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters, written by scientists from the Southwest Research Institute in Colorado, takes a look at the habitability just below the surface of the Earth during the Hadean and early Archean eons.
Scientists investigated the upper few kilometers of earth’s subsurfacee environment, taking into consideration the discoveries made by an earlier study on the thermal evolution of the planets crust.
Scientists have found that heavy bombardment from space rock would have certainly heated the subsurface region of the planet, but despite this, would still have remained habitable for microbial life. Furthermore, scientists found that the subsurface habitable zone on Earth would have eventually grown across two eons, as fewer and fewer space rocks impacted Earth.
Researchers were only able to discover a worldwide sterilization scenario when they simulated more impacts occurring over shorter periods of time. Scientists found that asteroid and comet collision may have caused dramatic changes to our planet by melting Earth’s sheets and altering its surface.
However, researchers say that even in this scenario life on Earth may have been able to emerge.
Surprising discoveries
For a long time have numerous scientists maintained that life could not have existed on earth before 3.9 billion years ago, but the new findings support previous studies which indicate that a biosphere may have been present some 4.4 billion years ago, reports ScienceNews.
“Even in the Hadean, melt sheets have little effect on habitability because cooling times are short compared to resurfacing intervals, allowing subsurface biospheres to be locally re-established by groundwater infiltration between major impacts,” the authors wrote in the study.
“Therefore, the subsurface is always habitable somewhere, and production of global steam or silicate-vapor atmospheres are the only remaining avenues to early surface sterilization by bombardment.”
While our planet looked quite differently billions of years ago, for microbial life beneath the surface “an average day in the Hadean did not spell doom,” lead author Robert Grimm told ScienceNews.
Featured image credit:Scientists have long thought that Earth was a sterile hellscape during its earliest eon (illustrated), due to asteroid bombardment. But the heat from those impacts wasn’t too much for life to exist, new research indicates.
Onze planeet trilde sinds het begin van dit jaar al minstens 3 keer met een kracht van meer dan 7 op de schaal van Richter. Ter vergelijking: vorig jaar waren er 7 aardbevingen met een magnitude van 7 op meer op een heel jaar tijd. Drie dergelijk zware aardbevingen op korte tijd heeft de aandacht van wetenschappers gewekt. Zij voorspellen dat er dit jaar bijna dubbel zoveel aardbevingen kunnen zijn dan vorig jaar.
Een paar dagen geleden trilde de aarde hevig voor de kust van Alaska. Diezelfde dag was er ook al een aardbeving in Jakarta. Eerder deze maand vielen er al doden door een aardbeving in Peru. En ook Mexico werd al opgeschrikt door bevende ondergrond, net als Honduras. Japan werd getroffen door een aardbeving met een magnitude van 6.2.
Zowel in Honduras, Alaska en Peru ging het om een aardbeving met een kracht van meer dan 7 op de schaal van Richter.
Die frequentie en die hevigheid is volgens geologen geen toeval. Zij zeggen dat er een sterk verband is tussen de snelheid waarmee de aarde roteert en de seismische activiteit. Sinds 2011 draait onze Aarde een héél klein beetje trager om z’n as dan normaal. Daar hebben we zelf niks van gemerkt, want het gaat om slechts een paar duizendsten van een seconde. Toch kan die minieme fluctuatie leiden tot een intense activiteit die onder de grond.
Professor Roger Bilham van de Universiteit van Colorado en Rebecca Bendick van de Universiteit van Montana onderzochten dat fenomeen. Afgelopen maand nog presenteerden ze hun onderzoek tijdens de jaarlijkse meeting van de Geological Society in de VS. Uit hun onderzoek bleek dat in de laatste historische periodes waarin er een verhoogde seismische activiteit was en er ongeveer dubbel zoveel aardbevingen waren, onze planeet in de jaren daar voorafgaand telkens iets trager rond haar as draaide. “De Aarde geeft ons eigenlijk een waarschuwing met dat trager draaien voor toekomstige aardbevingen”, zegt Bilham. “De gevolgtrekking is duidelijk. In 2018 zullen we een significant toegenomen aantal van zware aardbevingen zien.”
De aardbevingen op onze planeet in 2017FOTO: PHOENIX7777/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
Waar de Aarde zal beven , dat is moeilijk te voorspellen. Maar Bilham zegt wel dat uit het verleden is gebleken dat de meeste aardbevingen die plaatshebben na die tragere rotatie, vooral in tropische regio’s voorkomen. Sowieso komen aardbevingen vooral voor in de buurt van de grenzen tussen tektonische platen. In Azië en Latijns-Amerika zijn het vooral landen die in de zogenaamde ‘Ring van Vuur’ liggen die veel met bevingen geconfronteerd worden. Zo zijn wetenschappers ervan overtuigd dat er sowieso nog heel zware bevingen zitten aan te komen voor onder andere Japan, Nieuw-Zeeland en andere landen die in de ‘Ring van Vuur’ liggen. Daarnaast gaan onderzoekers ook uit van een bijzonder grote aardbeving die de Verenigde Staten, vooral de westkust, zal treffen, een die een kracht heeft tussen 8.7 en 9.2 op de schaal van Richter. Over die ‘ergste natuurramp in de geschiedenis van de VS’ wordt al jaren gesproken. De Amerikaanse staat Californië werd vorige week op één dag drie keer getroffen door (lichte) bevingen. Maar het is onmogelijk te zeggen of dit een voorbode is van die gevreesde ‘mega-aardbeving’.
Risicogebieden in Europa zijn Italië, Griekenland en Turkije, die vlakbij de grens tussen de Afrikaanse en Euraziatische tektonische plaat liggen. Volgens het Wereld Risico Rapport van het UNU-EHS (De VN-Universiteit voor Milieu en Menselijke Veiligheid) behoren Turkije en Griekenland tot de Europese landen waar het risico op een natuurramp, zoals een aardbeving dus, vrij hoog is. In 2011 nog kwamen 604 mensen om het leven na een aardbeving in Turkije. Een dikke 10 jaar eerder, in 1999, stierven meer dan 17.000 mensen na een aardbeving met een kracht van 7.6 in Izmit in Turkije.
Het risico op een natuurramp in België is volgens het rapport vrij laag. In het geval van ons land zou het dan bijvoorbeeld om overstromingen en stijgende zeeniveau gaan. Voor zware aardbevingen hoeven we in ons land dus niet te vrezen.
Wanneer?
Maar nog moeilijker dan te voorspellen waar de aarde zal beven, is voorspellen wanneer dat zal zijn. Op korte termijn valt zoiets nauwelijks te voorspellen. Al kunnen meerdere kleine bevingen wel een grotere aankondigen. Zo waren er in 2009 meerdere kleine bevingen in de regio rond L’Aquila, in Italië. Uiteindelijk werden al die kleintjes gevolgd door een heel zware aardbeving. Zes Italiaanse wetenschappers die hadden aangegeven dat het risico op een grote beving in de stad klein was na de meerdere kleine beving, werden trouwens veroordeeld tot 6 jaar cel. Bij de aardbeving in L’Aquila kwamen 309 mensen om het leven. De schade van de beving liep in de miljoenen{
Onze planeet trilde sinds het begin van dit jaar al minstens 3 keer met een kracht van meer dan 7 op de schaal van Richter. Ter vergelijking: vorig jaar waren er 7 aardbevingen met een magnitude van 7 op meer op een heel jaar tijd. Drie dergelijk zware aardbevingen op korte tijd heeft de aandacht van wetenschappers gewekt. Zij voorspellen dat er dit jaar bijna dubbel zoveel aardbevingen kunnen zijn dan vorig jaar.
Een paar dagen geleden trilde de aarde hevig voor de kust van Alaska. Diezelfde dag was er ook al een aardbeving in Jakarta. Eerder deze maand vielen er al doden door een aardbeving in Peru. En ook Mexico werd al opgeschrikt door bevende ondergrond, net als Honduras. Japan werd getroffen door een aardbeving met een magnitude van 6.2.
Zowel in Honduras, Alaska en Peru ging het om een aardbeving met een kracht van meer dan 7 op de schaal van Richter.
Die frequentie en die hevigheid is volgens geologen geen toeval. Zij zeggen dat er een sterk verband is tussen de snelheid waarmee de aarde roteert en de seismische activiteit. Sinds 2011 draait onze Aarde een héél klein beetje trager om z’n as dan normaal. Daar hebben we zelf niks van gemerkt, want het gaat om slechts een paar duizendsten van een seconde. Toch kan die minieme fluctuatie leiden tot een intense activiteit die onder de grond.
Professor Roger Bilham van de Universiteit van Colorado en Rebecca Bendick van de Universiteit van Montana onderzochten dat fenomeen. Afgelopen maand nog presenteerden ze hun onderzoek tijdens de jaarlijkse meeting van de Geological Society in de VS. Uit hun onderzoek bleek dat in de laatste historische periodes waarin er een verhoogde seismische activiteit was en er ongeveer dubbel zoveel aardbevingen waren, onze planeet in de jaren daar voorafgaand telkens iets trager rond haar as draaide. “De Aarde geeft ons eigenlijk een waarschuwing met dat trager draaien voor toekomstige aardbevingen”, zegt Bilham. “De gevolgtrekking is duidelijk. In 2018 zullen we een significant toegenomen aantal van zware aardbevingen zien.”
De aardbevingen op onze planeet in 2017FOTO: PHOENIX7777/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
Waar de Aarde zal beven , dat is moeilijk te voorspellen. Maar Bilham zegt wel dat uit het verleden is gebleken dat de meeste aardbevingen die plaatshebben na die tragere rotatie, vooral in tropische regio’s voorkomen. Sowieso komen aardbevingen vooral voor in de buurt van de grenzen tussen tektonische platen. In Azië en Latijns-Amerika zijn het vooral landen die in de zogenaamde ‘Ring van Vuur’ liggen die veel met bevingen geconfronteerd worden. Zo zijn wetenschappers ervan overtuigd dat er sowieso nog heel zware bevingen zitten aan te komen voor onder andere Japan, Nieuw-Zeeland en andere landen die in de ‘Ring van Vuur’ liggen. Daarnaast gaan onderzoekers ook uit van een bijzonder grote aardbeving die de Verenigde Staten, vooral de westkust, zal treffen, een die een kracht heeft tussen 8.7 en 9.2 op de schaal van Richter. Over die ‘ergste natuurramp in de geschiedenis van de VS’ wordt al jaren gesproken. De Amerikaanse staat Californië werd vorige week op één dag drie keer getroffen door (lichte) bevingen. Maar het is onmogelijk te zeggen of dit een voorbode is van die gevreesde ‘mega-aardbeving’.
Risicogebieden in Europa zijn Italië, Griekenland en Turkije, die vlakbij de grens tussen de Afrikaanse en Euraziatische tektonische plaat liggen. Volgens het Wereld Risico Rapport van het UNU-EHS (De VN-Universiteit voor Milieu en Menselijke Veiligheid) behoren Turkije en Griekenland tot de Europese landen waar het risico op een natuurramp, zoals een aardbeving dus, vrij hoog is. In 2011 nog kwamen 604 mensen om het leven na een aardbeving in Turkije. Een dikke 10 jaar eerder, in 1999, stierven meer dan 17.000 mensen na een aardbeving met een kracht van 7.6 in Izmit in Turkije.
Het risico op een natuurramp in België is volgens het rapport vrij laag. In het geval van ons land zou het dan bijvoorbeeld om overstromingen en stijgende zeeniveau gaan. Voor zware aardbevingen hoeven we in ons land dus niet te vrezen.
Wanneer?
Maar nog moeilijker dan te voorspellen waar de aarde zal beven, is voorspellen wanneer dat zal zijn. Op korte termijn valt zoiets nauwelijks te voorspellen. Al kunnen meerdere kleine bevingen wel een grotere aankondigen. Zo waren er in 2009 meerdere kleine bevingen in de regio rond L’Aquila, in Italië. Uiteindelijk werden al die kleintjes gevolgd door een heel zware aardbeving. Zes Italiaanse wetenschappers die hadden aangegeven dat het risico op een grote beving in de stad klein was na de meerdere kleine beving, werden trouwens veroordeeld tot 6 jaar cel. Bij de aardbeving in L’Aquila kwamen 309 mensen om het leven. De schade van de beving liep in de miljoenen.
Les spéculations du crash d’un OVNI ont pris le devant de la scène à la suite de mystérieuses images montrant un trou fumant découvert sur le bord d’une autoroute très fréquentée.
Les autorités enquêtent toujours sur ce qu’elles ont découvert. Le clip montre une brume épaisse qui remplit l’air au-dessus d’un trou noir.
Le cratère mesure huit mètres de large et de profondeur, on peut voir une grande quantité de fumée s’en échappée, ce qui suggère que l’événement mystérieux venait tout juste de se produire.
Il y avait des gens sur les lieux peu de temps après l’incident, mais il n’y avait pas encore de preuves pour expliquer ce qui s’était réellement passé.
On a laissé entendre qu’un OVNI ou une météorite qui s’écrasait sur la Terre aurait pu être la cause du trou noir.
Cet étrange événement s’est produit le 17 janvier au Mexique et a été téléchargé sur YouTube le lendemain.
La vidéo originale a accumulé des milliers de vues et a été partagée sur plusieurs autres médias.
Les téléspectateurs se sont empressés de suggérer ce que cela pouvait être.
Un commentaire dit qu’il ressemblait à un OVNI qui a atterri et décollé, laissant un cratère.
Cependant, d’autres ont suggéré qu’il s’agissait d’un trou brûlant utilisé pour jeter les ordures. Ils ont expliqué qu’il ressemblait à un trou de combustion et qu’il n’y avait aucun impact sur la terre puisqu’il n’y avait pas de débris.
Les gangs peuvent aussi avoir utilisé le trou pour brûler de la drogue, des armes et des corps.
D’autres croyaient que les observations accrues de météores récemment pouvaient être liées au cratère.
Roswell Incident Of The Soviet Union: The Dalnegorsk UFO Crash
Roswell Incident Of The Soviet Union: The Dalnegorsk UFO Crash
An alleged UFO crash in Russia also known as the Roswell Incident of the Soviet Union occurred on January 29, 1986, at 7:55 pm in Dalnegorsk, small mining town in Primorsky Krai, Far East of Russia.
That cold January day an orange-reddish sphere flew over this town from the southeast, crossed part of Dalnegorsk, and crashed at the Izvestkovaya (Lime) Mountain; also known as Height or Hill 611, because of its size. The object flew noiselessly and parallel to the ground. Its shape was described of being near perfectly round with no projections, wings or windows and its color was similar to that of burnished stainless steel.
V. Kandakov, an eyewitness, recalled that the speed of alleged UFO was close to 15 meters per hour. The object ascended and descended slowly and its glow heated up each time it rose. On reaching Hill 611, the object jerked and fell like a rock. Other witnesses reported about bumps and jumps and also a weak thump. The object burned at the cliff’s edge for almost an hour.
Descriptions of the descent to Hill 611 differ from witness to witness. Some stated the object clearly crashed, fell in an uncontrolled manner, crashing into Hill 611 in a flash of light (possible explosion). Others claimed it varied in altitude above the hill, giving off light of different intensities as it gained and lost altitude (like pilot trying to regain control of ship) prior to the crash.
About 3 days after the crash a group of scientists led by Valery Dvuzhilni, Head of the Far Eastern Committee for Anomalous Phenomena, found the the probable crash site on Hill 611. It was reported to be approximately 3m square and reports indicate the ground within the site had been charred due to exposure to very high temperatures. The rocks at the impact site were covered with a black film and remains of a burned tree were found within the landing ground.
Sketches made by one the crash witnesses
Analyses of Recovered Objects
Various evidence of “alien remains/activity” were reported to be found. Surrounding rocks had deposits of a “silver metal” which was determined to be common lead. There are also reports (unconfirmed) of other materials being recovered including an “alien mesh” (possible part of the crashed UFO’s construction) containing high levels of gold and other rare terrestrial elements.
Dvuzhilni claimed he received a report from the IZMIRAN Institute of Earth magnetism, ionosphere and radiowaves propagation (the Leningrad branch). This institute was involved in the secret Soviet UFO research program from 1978 to 1991 (SETKA AN). They conducted analyses of lead balls from Height 611. The conclusions arrived to by scientists were as follows: the balls were made on Earth, but the lead was not from Dalnegorsk deposit, but from the Kholodnensky deposit, in the North Baikal region. Source: Visota 611: zagadki ostayuts, article by A. Lyakhov, published by Sostialisticheskaya industriya, issue dated July 9, 1989; Inopanetyane dobivayut nash svinets, article by N. Ostrovskaya, published in Komsomolskaya Pravda, issue dated June 9, 2003.
Dvuzhilni was certain that the alien probe that crashed on Height 611 was capable of using metals from Earth deposits for its repair needs.
Metal objects recovered from the crash scene
More anomalies in the area
Furthermore numerous anomalies were reposted in the area of Hill 611: according to an article in the Soviet digest Tainy XX Veka (Moscow, 1990, CP Vsya Moskva Publishing House). Even photos taken at the site, when developed, failed to show the hill, but did clearly show other locations. Members of an expedition to the site reported later that their flashlights stopped working at the same time. They checked the flashlights upon returning home, and discovered burned wires.
Eight days after the UFO crash at Hill 611, on February 8, 1986, at 8:30 p.m., two more yellowish spheres flew from the north, in the southward direction. Reaching the site of the crash, they circled it four times, then turned back to the north and flew away. Then on November 28, 1987 (Saturday night, 11:24 p.m.), 32 flying objects had appeared from nowhere. There were hundreds of witnesses, including the military and civilians.
FIERY MYTH Scientists have long thought that Earth was a sterile hellscape during its earliest eon (illustrated), due to asteroid bombardment. But the heat from those impacts wasn’t too much for life to exist, new research indicates.
DAN DURDA/SOUTHWEST RESEARCH INSTITUTE
Maybe Earth’s early years weren’t so hellish after all.
Asteroid strikes repeatedly bombarded the planet during its first eon, but the heat released by those hits wasn’t as sterilizing as once thought, new research suggests. Simulations indicate that after the first few hundred million years of bombardment, the heat from the impacts had dissipated enough that 10 to 75 percent of the top kilometer of the subsurface was habitable for mesophiles — microbes that live in temperatures of 20° to 50° Celsius. If so, the planet may have been habitable much earlier than previously believed.
Earth’s earliest eon, the Hadean, spans the period from about 4.6 billion years ago, when the planet was born, to 4 billion years ago. The name, for the Greek god of the underworld, reflects the original conception of the age: dark and hellish and inhospitable to life. But little direct evidence of Hadean asteroid impacts still exists, limiting scientists’ understanding of how those collisions affected the planet’s habitability.
“There has been an assumption that the Hadean was mostly an uninteresting slag heap until the sky stopped falling and life could take hold,” says Stephen Mojzsis, a geologist at the University of Colorado Boulder. That’s not to say that all of the Hadean was pleasant; the first 150 million years of Earth’s history, which included the giant whack that formed the moon, were pretty dramatic. But after that, things settled down considerably, says Mojzsis, who was not an author of the new study.
QUIET INTERVAL A new study suggests that the planet was mostly peaceful after the first 150 million years of its existence (illustrated). Rather than repeatedly sterilizing the planet, the intense heat from asteroid impacts dissipated relatively rapidly, the researchers suggest. As a result, habitable zones in the subsurface of the planet grew larger over the next billion years.
DAN DURDA/SOUTHWEST RESEARCH INSTITUTE
In the new study, geophysicist Robert Grimm and planetary scientist Simone Marchi, both of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo., estimated how hot it would have been just a few kilometers beneath the planet’s surface during the Hadean. The scientists used an estimated rate of asteroid bombardment, as well as how much heat the projectiles would have added to the subsurface and how much that heat would have dissipated over time to simulate how hot it got — and whether microbial life could have withstood those conditions. The research built on earlier work, including Marchi’s 2014 finding that asteroid impacts became smaller and less frequent with time (SN: 8/23/14, p. 13).
Asteroid impacts did heat the subsurface, according to the simulations, but even the heaviest bombardment scenarios were not intense enough to sterilize the planet, the researchers report March 1 in Earth and Planetary Science Letters. And if the rate of bombardment did decrease as the eon progressed, the heat the asteroids delivered to Earth’s subsurface would also have had time to dissipate. As a result, that habitable zone would have increased over time.
A Late Heavy Bombardment, if it occurred, would have been tougher for the microbes, because the heat wouldn’t have had time to dissipate with such a rapid barrage. But that just would have meant the habitable zone didn’t increase, the team reports; mesophiles could still have inhabited at least 20 percent of the top kilometer of subsurface.
Mojzsis says he’s come to similar conclusions in his own work. “For a long time people said, with absolutely no data, that there could be no biosphere before 3.9 billion years ago,” he says. But “after the solar system settled down, the biosphere could have started on Earth 4.4 billion years ago.”
That’s not to say that there was definitely life, Grimm notes. Although the heat from impacts may not have been a limiting factor for life, asteroid bombardment introduced numerous other challenges, affecting the climate, surface or even convection of the mantle. Still, the picture of Earth’s earliest days is undergoing a sea change. As Grimm says, “An average day in the Hadean did not spell doom.”
Has AI Cracked The Code In The ‘World’s Most Mysterious Book’ The Voynich Manuscript?
Has AI Cracked The Code In The ‘World’s Most Mysterious Book’ The Voynich Manuscript?
Has the mysterious Voynich Manuscript finally been deciphered?
Greg Kondrak, a specialist of the Laboratory of Artificial Intelligence of the University of Alberta (Canada), believes that he has found clues to solve the mystery of Voynich’s manuscript, written with an undecipherable code in the fifteenth century.
The Voynich Manuscript is an ancient book, of unknown contents, written by an anonymous author in an unidentified alphabet and an incomprehensible language.
Although it is not known when it was written, according to carbon 14 tests, the parchment on which it is written was manufactured between 1404 and 1438.
The Voynich Manuscript gets its name thanks to a Lithuanian specialist in ancient books Wilfrid M. Voynich (1865-1930), who acquired it in 1912.
It is currently listed as item MS 408 in the Beinecke Library of rare books and manuscripts of Yale University.
The ancient manuscript has been the object of intense studies by numerous professional and amateur cryptographers, including leading American and British specialists in code cracking of World War II.
The Voynich Manuscript is one of the most mysterious ancient manuscripts ever found.
So far, no one has managed to decipher a single word written in the manuscript. This succession of failures has turned the manuscript into the Holy Grail of historical cryptography, but at the same time, it has fueled the hypothesis that the book is nothing more than an elaborate deception, a random sequence of symbols without any meaning.
However, Kondrak has resorted to the help of artificial intelligence programs capable of correctly identifying a language up to 97% of the time and, after analyzing the manuscript, has suggested its language resembles Hebrew, reports CTV News.
Earlier studies have suggested that the enigmatic manuscript was written in a form of Arabic writing.
Thus, the approximate translation of the first sentence of the book would be: “she made recommendations to the priest, to the man of the house, to me and to the people”.
Although other experts have not shown much enthusiasm for his work because he uses computer technologies, this researcher recognizes that people who master Hebrew are needed to make sense of the syntax and intention of the words.
“That was surprising, said Dr. Kondrak, “and just saying ‘this is Hebrew’ is the first step. The next step is how do we decipher it.”
Kondrak and his team made use of statistical algorithms which are believed to be 97 percent accurate when translating the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights into 380 languages.
After having searched for seeking Hebrew scholars to validate their findings, the scientists turned to Google Translate.
“It came up with a sentence that is grammatical, and you can interpret it,’ said Dr. Kondrak, ‘she made recommendations to the priest, man of the house and me and people. It’s a kind of strange sentence to start a manuscript but it definitely makes sense,” he said.
However, Kondrak notes that without experts in ancient Hebrew, the entire manuscript and its meaning will remain a mystery.
“We use human language to communicate with other humans, but computers don’t understand this language because it’s designed for people.”
It is believed that the ancient manuscript includes references to ‘farmer’, ‘light’, ‘air’ and ‘fire’.
“There are so many ambiguous meanings that we don’t even realize,” said Dr. Kondrak.
Kondrak explains that there is a lot of work to be done, and deciphering the entire manuscript will need more than just feeding the manuscript to AI, as it requires human input to make sense and syntax.
Kondrak explains: “Somebody with very good knowledge of Hebrew and who’s a historian at the same time could take this evidence and follow this kind of clue.”
Jupiter’s moon Europa is an ocean world beneath an icy crust, and scientists want to land a spacecraft there. But a new study indicates a surface less dense than freshly fallen snow.
Space scientists have every reason to be fascinated with Jupiter’s moon Europa, and, in 2017, NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) announced they are planning a joint mission to land there. As the video above explains, this little moon is thought to have a liquid ocean submerged beneath an icy crust. Scientists believe it could host extraterrestrial life. But Europa’s surface is much more alien than any we’ve ever visited. With its extremely thin atmosphere, low gravity – and a surface temperature of some -350 degrees F. (–176 °C.) – Europa might not be kind to a landing spacecraft. The moon’s surface might be unexpectedly hard. Or – as evidenced by a study from the Planetary Science Institute announced on January 24, 2018 – Europa’s surface might be so porous that any craft trying to land would simply sink.
The study – published in the peer-reviewed journal Icarus – comes from scientist Robert Nelson. If you’re a student of space history, its results might sound familiar. Nelson pointed out in his statement:
Of course, before the landing of the Luna 2 robotic spacecraft in 1959, there was concern that the moon might be covered in low density dust into which any future astronauts might sink.
Now Europa is the source of a similar scariness, with Nelson’s study showing that Europa’s surface could be as much as 95 percent porous.
The puzzling, fascinating surface of Jupiter’s icy moon Europa. This color composite is made from images taken by NASA’s Galileo spacecraft in the late 1990s.
Image via NASA/JPL-Caltech/SETI Institute.
Nelson’s study of Europa is part of a group of studies he has conducted of both asteroids (44 Nysa, 64 Angelina) and jovian moons (Io, Europa, Ganymede). He conducts his studies via photopolarimetry, the measurement of the intensity and polarization of reflected light.
Observations were made using a photopolarimeter located at Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut, California.
According to Nelson, the observations can be explained by extremely fine-grained particles on Europa’s surface with a porosity less than about 95 percent. This corresponds to material that would be less dense than freshly fallen snow, raising questions about risks of sinking for a future Europa lander.
Brown ridges crisscross Europa, indicating the possibility of liquid welling up from below. This suggests an active geology and raises questions about possible life on Europa.
Image via NASA/PLAN-PIA01641.
A mission to land on Europa is challenging in other ways. For example, Europa — along with the three other Galilean moons (Io, Ganymede and Callisto) — orbits within Jupiter’s radiation belts. A spacecraft trying to orbit Europa would be quickly fried.
That’s why NASA’s upcoming Europa Clipper mission is designed to orbit Jupiter, not Europa. It’ll sweep in and out of the radiation belts for a period of several earthly years, making flyby observations of Europa each time it passes near this jovian moon. Its observations will help answer questions about what might happen to future spacecraft attempting to land on Europa.
The video below has more about the upcoming flyby mission, Europa Clipper, set for launch around 2022-2025.
Bottom line: A recent study via the Planetary Science Institute indicates that the surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa might be as much as 95 percent porous – less dense than freshly fallen snow – so that a future lander might sink.
Over 26 Feet Smoking Crater Sparks Speculation a UFO May Have Crashed Into Earth
Over 26 Feet Smoking Crater Sparks Speculation a UFO May Have Crashed Into Earth
Speculation of a UFO crash into Earth has taken centre stage after footage has surfaced showing a mysterious burning pit found at the side of a busy motorway.
Authorities are still investigating what they have discovered. The clip shows a thick mist that fills the air from a black hole.
The crater was measured eight metres wide and deep and can be seen smoking heavily, which suggests that the mysterious event had just taken place recently.
There were people on the scene soon after the incident had occurred but no evidence yet to explain what actually took place.
There were suggestions that a UFO or a meteor crashing into Earth may have been the cause the black hole.
The strange event happened on January 17 in Mexico and uploaded to YouTube the next day.
The original video has racked up thousands of views and being shared on several other channels.
Viewers were quick to suggest what it could be.
One comment said that it looked like a UFO landed and took off, leaving a crater.
However, others disagreed saying that it was a burning hole used to dispose rubbish. They explained that it looked like a burning hole and no impact on the earth as there was no debris.
Gangs may have also used the holes to burn drugs, weapons, and bodies.
Others believed that the increased sightings of meteors recently could be linked to the crater.
Television and Radio Star Snaps A Photo Of A UFO In The Eye Of A Storm
Television and Radio Star Snaps A Photo Of A UFO In The Eye Of A Storm
A radio and television presenter managed to take a picture of incredible clouds brewing in the distance and later noticed what online users believed a UFO in the eye of the storm.
Fernando Figoni is well known for his hosting of music events and media broadcasts. He is from La Plata, capital of Buenos Aires, Argentina.
While at work, Figoni went to the roof of the building to watch the approaching storm in the city. He snapped some pictures and later reviewed them. To his surprise, he spotted something in the sky that he could not identify.
He noticed a bright flying saucer in the middle of the black clouds.
He posted the photos on the social media. Internet users were fast to offer their opinion.
Claudia Bengochea, Natalia Padilla and Pablo Hormiga believe it is a UFO as they think that Fernando would not publish something fake.
Lucas Gaston Aguirre claimed he took a picture the same to what Fernando had taken.
Is this Google Maps sighting proof that aliens are real? Is this a UFO landing?
Is this Google Maps sighting proof that aliens are real? Is this a UFO landing?
GOOGLE MAPS allows people to explore the earth from their bedroom. Now, alien enthusiasts believe they have found proof of aliens on earth in Argentina. They claim the Ojo de la Tierra could be a hiding spot for a UFO.
Google Maps: Is this sighting proof aliens are real? Is this a UFO?
Google Maps sighting proof aliens are real? Is this a UFO?
It also rotates on its own axis, a strange discovery for scientists which has so far gone unexplained.
Located at coordinates 34 ° 15'07.8'S 58 ° 49'47.4 “W, some are claiming this may well be an alien structure.
Scott C. Waring on website UFO Sighting Daily said of the natural phenomenon: “Argentina has an overabundance of UFO sightings compared to the rest of the world and I believe this is how aliens try to hide this particular entrance to their base.
“The shape is large and circular, big enough to fit a 100 meter UFO through it.
GOOGLE MAPS
Google Maps: Alien enthusiasts believe they have found proof of aliens on earth in Argentina
“The water below this floating island needs to be dove into and explored.” [sic]
What is El Ojo de la Tierra?
El Ojo de la Tierra can be found between Campana and Zárate.
A kick starter was founded by a man named Ricardi Petroni to discover the truth behind the strange natural phenomena.
However, only US$ 9,698 of the $50,000 was raised by 157 backers, and so the funding was unsuccessful.
GETTY
Google Maps: Strange circular piece of land could be a UFO hiding place for aliens
Another Google Maps sighting has been claimed by some to be proof of aliens.
Google Maps and Google Earth have unveiled two striking similarities between a site in Japan and an era of landmass on Mars.
The coincidence has even caused some to claim that aliens exist, and have something to do with the two similar shapes.
Google Mars allowed users to view the surface of the red planet, and eagle-eyed users spotted this coincidence.
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Pentagon UFO: Claim 'alien disclosure a false flag to induce MARTIAL LAW’
Pentagon UFO: Claim 'alien disclosure a false flag to induce MARTIAL LAW’
THE world headline-grabbing release of a video of a seemingly inexplicable UFO by the US Pentagon may have been part of a cunning plan to bring in martial law, according to alien conspiracy theorists.
UFO truth seekers celebrated an historic milestone last month after it emerged the Department of Defense had run a top secret unit investigating the threat posed by UFOs until 2012.
Footage filmed by a US Navy pilot of an apparent UFO said to "defy the laws of physics", which was investigated by the department, was also released, leading to claims from some that "we are not alone”.
The footage was from the "Nimitz UFO" incident off the coast of San Diego in November 2004, when a whole naval crew are said to have seen a series of bizarre white tic tac-shaped crafts.
However, some in the UFO community remain suspicious at the motives of the government behind the release of the information.
Alien truth have called for "disclosure" - the release of all alien and UFO-related files to be released.
And many saw last month's revelations as a stepping stone towards this.
Former US military insoder Chris Mellon reveals the Pentagon UFO files.
A frequently voiced suspicion was that the government might be laying the groundwork to present extraterrestrials as the next threat to national security, requiring further increases in military spending and curtailments of civil liberties."
Ptleader.com
Many believe that aliens, not only exist, but are secretly living in bases on earth and the US government covers it up in return for flying saucer technology.
However, some members of the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) remain suspicious.
MUFON is the world's largest organisation dedicated to UFO research and holds a global database of UFO sightings reported to it.
A theory was raised at the latest meeting of the MUFON Washington branch on Saturday.
Ptleader.com reported: "Those who attended were far from feeling credulous or validated by the New York Times’ coverage, and instead expressed concerns that this seeming bombshell of disclosure might merely represent an even deeper conspiracy by the government.
"They freely exchanged theories about the possible nature of UFOs, as well as what might motivate the mainstream press and government to release such a story.
"A frequently voiced suspicion was that the government might be laying the groundwork to present extraterrestrials as the next threat to national security, requiring further increases in military spending and curtailments of civil liberties."
Martial law is the introduction of direct military control of civilian functions of government, especially in response to a temporary emergency such as invasion or major disaster, or in an occupied territory.
It can be used by governments to enforce their rule over the public.
One woman at the talks said the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II was an "example of how such fears of aliens have been used against the populace”.
A retired MUFON military member said: "The powers that be are so far removed from the rest of us that they think the United States would fall apart if we disclosed that these things exist, and that they’ve been here for years.
“The only people who would really have to worry would be the power elites in politics and religion.”
Famous US UFO campaigner Dr Steven Greer tweeted in response to last month's news: "Note that the recent NY Times story is couched from a threat office of the Pentagon.
"This a clear ramp up to False Flag FAKE disclosure designed to prepare people for a threat from outer space- so the War Mongers and War Profiteers have a new , bigger enemy. BEWARE."
However, Al Thompson, a field investigator for the branch called for less focus on unconfirmed conspiracy theories.
He said: “Why do we need conspiracy theories? Because the answers are unknown. We’re operating in a vacuum, because the government isn’t telling us anything, but even if they did, we wouldn’t necessarily believe them.
"That being said, no one came here because we believe that any one of us has the definitive answer.”
Physicists from Brigham Young Univeristy may have just created the best technology for projecting 3D images, but they're not calling these images a hologram. It's still in its earliest stages, but once perfected, its applications could be varied.
NOT A HOLOGRAM
For many sci-fi fans, a truly working hologram is Princess Leia asking Obi Wan Kenobi for help. While that’s clearly science fiction, a projected image that one can observe from all angles may have just become the only hope for authentic 3D projections.
This is the subject of a new study published in the journal Nature, detailing how a team of physicists led by Daniel Smalley from the Brigham Young University (BYU) in Provo, Utah, have managed to project moving 3D images viewable at any angle.
Smalley doesn’t call it a hologram, however. “This is doing something that a hologram can never do — giving you an all-round view, a Princess Leia-style display — because it’s not a hologram,” he told Nature News. An actual hologram, as it exists today, is an image projection coming from a source limited to a particular angle. It can’t be viewed perfectly from all sides.
What Smalley’s team developed is a technique they call volumetric display, where a single particle of a plant fiber called cellulose is trapped and heated evenly using forces from near-invisible laser beams. To illuminate the particle as it moves through space, pushed and pulled by the beams forces, a second set of lasers project visible light onto it.
As the name suggests, the projected image appears to have more volume to it, without the need for headgears or other such devices. “In simple terms, we’re using a laser beam to trap a particle, and then we can steer the laser beam around to move the particle and create the image,” undergrad coauthor Erich Nygaard explained in a BYU press release.
3D PROJECTIONS
The extent of how the technique works is still limited to smaller images. Because of the limited way human eyes can see images, when the particles move faster than a rate of 10 per second, what’s seen is a solid line. This can be made to appear like it’s moving by changing the images even faster. Smalley’s team successfully demonstrated it by projecting the static outline of a butterfly, as well as a moving spiral line drawing. Larger images can also be projected if they are still, or moving slowly.
One of Smalley’s students, wearing a lab coat and posed like Princess Leia. Image Credit: Smalley et al., Nature
Admittedly, the technology is still in its very early stages, despite having borrowed from and improved on other similar 3D projections’ systems. For instance, to make more realistic images, Smalley’s team will need to figure out a way to make the particles move faster. “If we make as much progress in the next four years as we made in the last, I think we will be successful making a display of useful size,” Smalley told Nature.
Holography and other 3D-projection technologies are new, and as such their applications are still rather limited. One can imagine how volumetric display — once perfected — could potentially be used to improve entertainment and gaming in the same way virtual and augmented reality devices are trying to do. It could also be used in military training exercises, to simulate battles scenes in 3D.
And perhaps it could be used to send messages across a galaxy far, far away. As Smalley pointed out: “We’re providing a method to make a volumetric image that can create the images we imagine we’ll have in the future.”
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NASA's GOLD Instrument, SES-14 Satellite on Track After Launch Anomaly
NASA's GOLD Instrument, SES-14 Satellite on Track After Launch Anomaly
By Sarah Lewin, Space.com Associate Editor
The SES-14 communications satellite, shown here in an artist's illustration, successfully deployed after its launch on an Ariane 5 rocket on Jan. 25, 2018, despite Arianespace losing contact with the rocket's second stage. NASA's atmosphere-watching GOLD mission is flying along with SES-14.
Credit: Chris Meaney/NASA/CIL
The satellite company SES confirmed that its SES-14 communications satellite, which hosts an upper-atmosphere-observation mission from NASA, will be able to reach its final orbit just four weeks late after a launch anomaly saw the rocket lose contact with Earth last night (Jan. 26).
Although Arianespace was unable to communicate with the Ariane 5 second stage carrying SES-14 and another satellite, Al Yah 3, into orbit, the satellites were still successfully released — and each got in contact with its respective control center, Arianespace representatives said. The Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk (GOLD) instrument was NASA's first-ever science mission to fly as a hosted payload on a commercial satellite, NASA researchers have said.
SES representatives said in a statement today that the company is now setting up a new orbit-raising plan, which will take SES-14 and GOLD to their final orbit four weeks after this was scheduled to happen; the satellite was slated to take four and a half weeks to maneuver into its high orbit using electric propulsion.
Once they reach its final geostationary orbit, SES-14 and GOLD will remain in position above one spot on Earth as they circle and the planet turns. This will let SES-14 support communications for Latin America, the Caribbean, North America and the North Atlantic region, SES said, and it will give GOLD an ideal vantage point to monitor the rapid flux of the upper atmosphere at the border between Earth and space.
"SES confirms that the spacecraft is in good health, all subsystems on board are nominal and the satellite is expected to meet the designed lifetime," SES representatives said.
Email Sarah Lewin at slewin@space.com or follow her @SarahExplains.
Strange Mysteries and Unexplained Stuff | Discover the mysteries of the world .
In a place you would hardly expect, just one hour north of New York City, lies the site of one of the most widely observed and yet most unexplainable set of UFO sightings ever seen. The place is the Hudson Valley, and the story of its strange UFO started on New Years Eve, 1982.
The Hudson UFO mystery
A few minutes before midnight, a retired police officer was out in his backyard in Kent, New York when he observed a group of strange lights off to the south. They were colored red, green and white. At first the former officer thought they belonged to a jet aircraft in trouble, but as the object passed over his house at a height he estimated to be about 500 feet, he realized it was moving much too slowly for a jet and made too little noise. Just a distant humming sound. As he watched, he decided the the lights, which appeared as a “V” shape, were connected by a dark, triangular fuselage.
What the former officer had seen would be observed many times in the Hudson Valley area over the next few years by hundreds of different witnesses: A “V” shaped set of multicolored lights moving slowly and silently across the sky. On March 26th, 1983, a front-page story in the Westchester-Rockland Daily Item proclaimed:
HUNDREDS CLAIM TO HAVE SEEN UFO
The article, which told of sightings of a triangular UFO on Marth 24th, got the attention of a group of UFO researchers in the Valley associated with Dr. J Allen Hynek, founder of the Center for UFO Studies. The group started an investigation of the phenomena which was later documented as a book, Night Siege: The Hudson Valley UFO Sightings, authored by Dr. Hynek and Philip J. Imbrogno, with the help of Bob Pratt.
The group opened up a UFO hotline and received over 300 calls from people that had seen the UFO on the night of March 24th alone. One witness cited in the book reported that it had moved up the Taconic Parkway in “sort of a Z pattern.” He described the object as being triangular in shape with thirty to forty colored lights along the back edge. The object, he stated, was huge, “If there is such a thing as a flying city, this was a flying city.”
The object apparently cruised over the community of Yorktown that evening too where the police switchboard became so jammed with reports, officials became concerned that they would be unable to take emergency calls.
On the Taconic parkway people pulled over to watch the object as it moved slowly on its path. One observer estimated it was “as large as an aircraft carrier.”
The UFO researchers estimated that over 5,000 people had seen the object over a period of five years from 1982 through 1986. Often the UFO seemed to glide over large areas causing dozens of sightings in one night. It was never spotted during the day.
Most reports came from people who seemed to be reliable witnesses. As the authors put it “ordinary people who have seen something extraordinary.” The UFO was seen not just over the Hudson Valley, but as far east as New Haven, Connecticut and as far north as Brookfield, Connecticut.
While most reports described the UFO moving at a very slow speed, hovering, or turning slowly like a wheel, a few reports described the object as suddenly zooming away at fantastic speeds, or just disappearing. In some accounts the shape varied so that the lights appeared as more of a circle than a “V”. Often the color and arrangement of the lights changed as the viewers watched. In a few cases reports arrived that put the object at two distant locations at the same time suggesting there might be more than one of them.
One of the most striking reports that the group gathered was from guards at the Indian Point Nuclear Plant. The UFO apparently hovered over an active nuclear reactor for some minutes coming as close to the reactor dome as thirty feet. The security supervisor even considered ordering guards to shoot it down. One guard described it as being the length of three football fields.
Strange things
The object also seemed to be interested in bodies of water. One observer watched the UFO over Croton Falls Reservoir where it seemed to use a red beam to probe the surface.
The researchers knew that when investigated most UFO reports turn into reports of IFOs: Identified Flying Objects. Often they turn out to be planes, balloons, satellites, or even the planet Venus. They did find evidence that some of the reports of the “V” shape may have been a group of small planes flying out of the Stormville Airport. The pilots seemed to have been flying their planes in a formation in a deliberate attempt at a UFO hoax.
The plane hoax only cleared up a small number of reports, however. Most observers reported that the lights moved together as a solid object. Others could see the body of the UFO between the lights. None of the observers who had seen both the planes and the object thought they were the same phenomenon.
There are few good explanations for most of the Hudson Valley sightings. The only object that moves slowly through the air and hovers almost silently is a blimp. Researchers contacted all blimp operators in the area and could find no matches between the blimp schedules and the UFO reports. It was widely speculated at the time that object was a formation of ultralight planes. This seems unlikely as the UFO was nearly silent, could hover, and carried tremendously bright lights, all things ultralight aircraft are incapable of doing.
The Hudson Valley UFO remains a mystery even today. If you decide to take a trip to the Hudson Valley to try and see the strange UFO for yourself, you may want to stay at one of the excellent local bed and breakfast Inns. One, the Burlingham Inn, has decided to take advantage of the strange nighttime phenomena by featuring a UFO Bed & Breakfast. They welcome UFO watchers and list UFO sighting as one of the activities for which the Inn is especially well located.
‘Super Blue Blood Moon’ Will Force NASA to Shut Down Lunar Spacecraft Instruments
‘Super Blue Blood Moon’ Will Force NASA to Shut Down Lunar Spacecraft Instruments
The combination of a supermoon, a blue moon, and a full lunar eclipse on January 31 means NASA scientists will temporarily turn off instruments aboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Here’s why.
While skywatchers in North America, Asia, and Europe watch a bigger-than-usual lunar eclipse on January 31, NASA engineers will shut down the instruments aboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO).
Eclipses put a strain on the spacecraft because it uses the sun for power. If the moon is in the Earth's shadow, sunlight can't reach it and LRO switches to batter power, principal investigator Noah Petro told Seeker. The LRO team is a veteran group at keeping the spacecraft safe, as total lunar eclipses have occurred seven times since the orbiter’s launch in 2009.
"We did a small [engine] burn to put us in an as optimal position as possible — to be able to keep the spacecraft in illumination for as long as we could. In other words, we did a small tweak to minimize the time we were in shadow," Petro said. As with past eclipses, the team will also "preheat" the spacecraft before it goes into the eclipse, so it's warmer and there is less strain on the instruments.
While LRO has seen many other eclipses, the eclipse, know as "super blue blood moon eclipse," is a rare combination of several phenomena.
Stages of the January 31, 2018 “super blue blood moon” (weather permitting) are depicted in Pacific Time with “moonset” times for major cities across the US, which affect how much of the event viewers will see. While viewers along the East Coast will see only the initial stages of the eclipse before moonset, those in the West and Hawaii will see most or all of the lunar eclipse phases before dawn. NASA
A "supermoon," occurs when the moon is full and is at its closest approach to Earth in its 29 1/2-day elliptical orbit around the planet. Supermoons are 14 percent larger and 30 percent brighter than the moon at its furthest distance from Earth, according to NASA.
When two full moons occur in a single month, the second event is called a "blue moon." It has no special astronomical significance, but blue moons are still interesting because they occur only once every 2 1/2 years.
A lunar eclipse happens when the Earth passes between the moon and the sun, and the shadow of Earth falls across the moon's surface. Partial and full eclipses are possible. A full eclipse occurs when the moon is fully covered in shadow — which will happen January 31. The combined light of all of Earth's sunrises and sunsets creates a ruddy glow on the moon's surface. Some people call this the "blood moon."
An illustration of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter NASA
Petro said shut down LRO’s instruments is just an extra precaution to ensure the 8-year-old spacecraft remains safe during the event. During past eclipses, however, LRO continued to collect data.
The spacecraft is designed to take high-resolution pictures of the moon: It's even seen the Apollo landing sites where astronauts undertook moonwalks in the 1960s and 1970s. Other instruments probe lunar ice reserves. LRO data recently helped to identify underground pits of polar ice, which might provide future moon missions with water. And LRO's Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment (DLRE) looks at regolith — aka soil — temperatures.
During a few eclipses, LRO engineers left Diviner on to see what it could find. Normally, the instrument examines temperatures in the top layer of soil — approximately a few tens of centimeters. During an eclipse, however, only the layer just below the surface — about 1 cm to 2 cm — changes temperature rapidly. So eclipses provide a rare opportunity for Diviner to focus its observations on soil just below the surface.
Global map showing areas of the world that will experience (weather permitting) the January 31, 2018 “super blue blood moon.” The eclipse will be visible before sunrise on January 31 for those in North America, Alaska, and Hawaii. For those in the Middle East, Asia, eastern Russia, Australia, and New Zealand, the “super blue blood moon” can be seen during moonrise the morning of the 31st. NASA
Diviner focuses, whenever possible, on the moon’s youngest craters. Investigators are interested in the lumpiness of the regolith: What is the size of grains of soil near the surface, or is the soil rocky or fine-grained soil? Petro said this is important because "it gives us a better understanding of how impacts modify the surface."
That's not only exciting for moon science, but solar system science in general, Petro said. There are all sorts of "airless" bodies around the solar system covered with craters. Examples include the planet Mercury, dwarf planets Ceres and Pluto, and asteroids such as Vesta. Learning about soil grain size on the moon can help scientists better understand how regolith works on these other worlds.
While NASA will shut down Diviner during the eclipse, Petro said the regolith science will continue. He is in talks with two astronomers in Hawaii who will monitor the regolith temperatures from the ground using infrared instruments.
There are seven instruments aboard LRO and they remain in good health, according to Petro. The spacecraft is currently slated to end operations in 2019, but Petro and his team are preparing a proposal to extend LRO's mission by another three years.
Petro said LRO's mission to the moon has already yielded interesting long-term science, such as how often craters appear on the surface. That's why he's an advocate for keeping the mission running as long as possible.
"It's really a new era for studying the moon," Petro said. "With this long baseline of observations, we're able to see how the moon changes."
Jupiter Moon Europa's Possibly Porous Surface Could Doom a Lander
Jupiter Moon Europa's Possibly Porous Surface Could Doom a Lander
By Mike Wall, Space.com Senior Writer
This enhanced-color view shows a swath of Jupiter’s moon Europa that's 217 miles wide by 466 miles long (350 by 750 kilometers). New research suggests that Europa's surface could be 95 percent porous, meaning a probe might sink if it landed there.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SETI Institute
Putting a lander down on Jupiter's potentially life-supporting moon Europacould be even trickier than engineers had thought.
Europa's surface may be extremely porous, so any probe that touches down there might run the risk of sinking into a sort of extraterrestrial quicksand, a new study suggests.
In the lab, study team members measured the reflectance properties of various configurations of aluminum oxide powder — a good analog, they said, for the material on the surface of bright, airless bodies such as Europa, which harbors an ocean of liquid water beneath its icy shell. [Jupiter's Icy Moon Europa in Pictures]
They found that powder composed of very small particles with lots of space between them — material less dense than freshly fallen snow, team members said — shared several key reflectance characteristics with the actual Europan surface.
But the new study is far from the last word on the subject, study team members said.
"Of course, before the landing of the Luna 2 robotic spacecraft in 1959, there was concern that the moon might be covered in low-density dust into which any future astronauts might sink," lead author Robert Nelson, a senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, said in a statement. "However, we must keep in mind that remote visible-wavelength observations of objects like Europa are only probing the outermost microns of the surface."
NASA has Europa in its sights: The agency is developing a flyby mission to the icy moon, which is expected to launch sometime in the 2020s. This probe, known as Europa Clipper, will study the satellite's buried ocean and assess its habitability using a variety of instruments.
Congress has also instructed NASA to get a lander down on Europa. The agency's current thinking calls for launching a surface probe separate from Clipper.
The new study appears in the March 1 issue of the journal Icarus.
Simple math shows how many space aliens may be out there
Simple math shows how many space aliens may be out there
The nearest aliens are probably thousands of light-years away.
cosmin4000
For those who say you imagine house extraterrestrial beings exist, I doubt your mates will probably be stunned. In a universe aglow with 2 trillion galaxies, you would be supremely conceited to assume that Earth on my own hosts artful creatures. One 2015 ballot confirmed that 54 p.c of American citizens really feel assured that clever extraterrestrial beings are in the market.
Possibly that optimism comes from science fiction. In any case, if there are not any extraterrestrials, there is not a lot of a challenge for the Starship Endeavor or task openings for Vulcans. Fiction apart, many scientists agree that the cosmos is without a doubt sprinkled — in all probability liberally sprinkled — with lifestyles. Even sentient lifestyles.
However are we able to say the rest about that sprinkling? Are we able to danger a bet as to how shut the closest extraterrestrial beings may well be?
That is an unsure trade however no longer a brand new one. In 1961 astronomer Frank Drake devised a easy equation for estimating the collection of “technically energetic” societies in our galaxy. That bit of simple math is referred to as the Drake Equation, and it is frequently stated to be the second one most renowned system in science (the primary being Einstein’s E = mc2).
For those who glance up the system on-line, you’ll be able to see that it takes under consideration the chances that there are liveable planets round different stars, the chance that lifestyles will stand up, and the chance that biology will from time to time evolve to supply artful beings. However even with out wrestling with the Drake Equation, we will use an identical reasoning to gauge the plentitude of alien societies and the way shut the Klingons may well be.
We begin with contemporary analysis appearing that one in six stars hosts a planet hospitable to lifestyles. No, no longer one in 1,000,000. One in six. So let’s take that quantity and run with it. Subsequent we need to make a couple of assumptions. Specifically, if you got 1,000,000 Earth-size worlds, what fraction do you assume would ever beget technically refined population?
Existence on our planet started temporarily: random chemical process in 350 million trillion gallons of ocean water spawned a reproducing molecule inside a couple of hundred million years. So perhaps biology does not want a lot of a goad to get began. I do not believe it is unreasonable to determine that no less than part of all planets appropriate for lifestyles in truth produce it.
Intelligence is much less sure. The dinosaurs have been a excellent design however did not do smartly at school. However let’s assume that one in 100 biology-encrusted planets sooner or later coughs up some considering beings. And, as in step with Frank Drake, let’s additionally think that any Klingons in the market proceed to hang around for 10,000 years sooner than self-destructing (nuclear battle, any person?) or assembly another woeful finish.
Aliens in a mathscape
Similar
Do the mathematics, and you’ll be able to to find that one in 100 million superstar programs has technically adept population. That isn’t a lot other than the fraction of jackpot tickets on this week’s Powerball lottery.
So how shut are the closest signaling extraterrestrials? If we are going to pay excellent cash to fan the flames of the warp power and talk over with some bumpy-headed extraterrestrial beings, how a long way do we need to shuttle? Neatly, the typical distance between stars in our a part of the galaxy is four.2 light-years (the gap to Proxima Centauri). This is, for each and every dice of house that is four.2 light-years on a facet, you’ll be able to to find (on moderate) one superstar. Now consider a larger field, 2,000 light-years on a facet. It’s going to comprise 100 million superstar packing containers, and one refined civilization.
Via this tough and in a position calculation, the closest extraterrestrial beings are most likely between one and two thousand light-years away. In different phrases, no nearer than the 3 vivid stars of Orion’s Belt. Certain, alien neighbors may well be farther — or nearer. However this order-of-magnitude estimate tells us that they are no longer subsequent door. They have not heard our information reviews, and they are probably not to have any incentive to talk over with. They only have no idea we are right here.
Via the way in which, we most likely don’t seem to be going to talk over with them both. Nowadays’s quickest rockets would take no less than 20 million years to get there, during which time you are going to be awfully uninterested in on-board pretzels.
Sure, the extraterrestrial beings are most likely round, and 10,000 societies may just inhabit our galaxy (to not point out the ones different galaxies!) They are no longer shut. However they could also be discoverable. That is why we proceed to go looking the sky for radio alerts introduced into the ether way back through our cosmic brethren.
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Triton: Neptune's Odd Moon
Triton: Neptune's Odd Moon
By Elizabeth Howell, Space.com Contributor
The crescent planet Neptune and its crescent moon Triton, as seen by NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft in 1989.
Credit: Voyager 2, NASA
Triton is the largest of Neptune's moons. Discovered in 1846 by British astronomer William Lassell — just weeks after Neptune itself was found — the moon showed some strange characteristics as astronomers learned more about it.
To NASA's knowledge, Triton is the only moon in the solar system that orbits in a direction opposite to the rotation of its planet. Additionally, its surface is a study of contrasts, with smooth plains appearing to be right next to cratered surfaces.
No spacecraft has gone to Neptune since the 1980s, but telescopes are capturing new data on Triton from the ground. A notable recent find was discovering seasons on the moon, using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile.
Renewed interest in Triton began shortly after the New Horizons mission flew past Pluto in 2015. NASA released the best high-resolution map of Triton to date in 2014 in anticipation of the flyby, because it is believed that Triton and Pluto could share a similar history. They are of similar size, have nitrogen in their atmospheres and also icy surfaces.
Discovery and flyby
Triton was found on Oct. 10, 1846, just 17 days after French astronomer Alexis Bouvard discovered Neptune. According to NASA, Triton was known simply as "the satellite of Neptune" until 1949, when a second moon (Nereid) was found. All of Neptune's moons, according to International Astronomical Union guidelines, are named after Roman or Greek mythological characters associated with Neptune, Poseidon or oceans.
Astronomers had to wait well over a century to see Triton as more than a dot, however. In 1977, NASA sent two Voyager probes on a one-way trip through the outer solar system, taking advantage of a rare planetary alignment that allowed them to move from one location to the next without using a lot of fuel. Voyager 2 flew by Neptune and its system on Aug. 25, 1989.
Among the spacecraft's most stunning finds: icy volcanism is likely taking place on Triton's surface. Voyager 2 took pictures of "several geyser-like volcanic vents that were apparently spewing nitrogen gas laced with extremely fine, dark particles," according to NASA. The agency estimates the particles go as high as 5 miles (8 kilometers) before flowing downwind and striking the surface.
It also appears that a large portion of the surface has melted. NASA said the melting was probably due to tidal heating that began when Neptune captured Triton, which could have left the satellite liquid for at least 1 billion years.
Discoveries after Voyager 2
Although no spacecraft will go by Neptune's system in the near future, computer models and higher-resolution telescopes on Earth are providing new information about Triton's history and environment. (NASA has also released new pictures of Triton from Voyager 2 at least as late as 2009.)
In 2010, long-range infrared observations with the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope revealed that the thin atmosphere of Triton changes with the seasons. At the time the VLT looked at the planet, it was summer in the southern hemisphere, where the sun's warmth thickened the atmosphere.
This color photo of Neptune's largest moon Triton was obtained by NASA's Voyager 2 probe on Aug. 24, 1989, from 330,000 miles away. The resolution is about 6.2 miles, sufficient to begin to show topographic detail.
Credit: NASA/JPL
New models of Neptune could also provide insights on Triton, such as one released in 2015 that looks at the gas giant's magnetosphere. The magnetic field appears to be particularly pronounced on one side, according to Voyager 2 data and the model, and scientists next want to figure out how this field could interact with Triton.
Other information about Triton's history could come from studying small bodies in the solar system, such as Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. The Rosetta spacecraft gathered data that showed molecular nitrogen on the comet's surface in 2015. From that information, scientists are trying to figure out where the nitrogen came from and how it compares to other bodies with nitrogen in the solar system, such as Triton and Pluto.
Astrobiologists are also considering that Triton could have water under its icy surface. "I think it is extremely likely that a subsurface ammonia-rich ocean exists in Triton," said the University of Maryland's Saswata Hier-Majumder in a 2012 Astrobiology Magazine article republished on Space.com. "[But] there are a number of uncertainties in our knowledge of Triton's interior and past, which makes it difficult to predict with absolute certainty."
One example: because no one is quite sure of the size of Triton's rocky core, that creates difficulty with calculating the amount of heating produced by the decay of radioactive isotopes, also known as radiogenic heating. More heating would increase the size of the ocean.
Flinging aside moons
In 2006, a model published in Nature suggested Triton was originally a member of a binary system that orbited the sun. During a close encounter with the planet, Neptune pulled Triton away from its companion. Researchers in 2017 also postulated that Triton was likely a double-object system, similar to dwarf planet Pluto and its large moon, Charon. In the Astronomical Journal, the authors also noted that when Neptune's gravity captured Triton, the secondary body escaped. Triton survived only because Neptune's system was bereft of a large moon. If there had been a moon moving in a normal (forward) orbit around Neptune, its gravitational influence meant Triton instead would have fallen into Neptune.
The authors also said their research showed that Triton played an important role in the formation of Neptune's system. Some models suggest that Neptune used to have other moons orbiting it. Then, when Triton was captured long ago, some of these moons were propelled into the planet and others were thrown out of orbit.
There are some other indications of chaos in Neptune's system, including the outlying moon Nereid. The moon has an extremely stretched-out orbit around Neptune and takes 360 Earth-days to make a single orbit. In addition, some of these smaller moons around Neptune may have been absorbed into Triton itself. "If we want to look for the primordial Neptunian satellites, my best guess would be to look inside Triton," lead author Raluca Rufu, a doctoral student at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, told Space.com by email in December 2017.
UFO MOEDERSCHIP CLOAK GAAT MIS EN WORDT ONTDEKT ( VIDEO )
UFO MOEDERSCHIP CLOAK GAAT MIS EN WORDT ONTDEKT ( VIDEO )
UFO's en dan vooral de grotere moederschepen weten zich vaak uitstekend te verbergen in grote wolken zodat niemand merkt dat ze aanwezig zijn.
Soms gaat het mis en verliezen ze even tijdelijk hun dekking, zoals dit gebeurde in Jamaica.
Voor het gros van de mensheid klinkt het nog altijd ongelooflijk dat grote (buitenaarde) ruimteschepen zich op aarde bevinden, vaak pal onder onze neus, zonder dat iemand iets ziet.
Normaal zie je ze niet omdat ze eruit zien als wolken en dan ook vaak in een heldere lucht waar op dat moment helemaal geen wolken thuis horen. Maar, soms gaat het mis, zoals enkele dagen geleden in Jamaica, toen de zon achter een wolk ervoor zorgde dat een groot moederschip even heel duidelijk zichtbaar werd. Het schijnt dat bij bepaalde momenten op de dag (zonsopkomst en -ondergang) de condities het beste zijn om zich te verbergen/cloaken en bij afwijkende omstandigheden, zoals waarchijnlijkonverwacht in Jamaica, is dat een stuk lastiger.
Als je wat verder inzoomt op het object dan zie je duidelijk de solide contouren van een een cloaked ruimteschip. Met de beste wil van de wereld is dit niet te verklaren als onderdeel van een wolk.
De volgende korte video-opname van deze gebeurtenis werd op 25 januari 2018 gemaakt boven St. Ann op Jamaica.
Watch: 5000-year-old Artifacts discovered in Mexico cave confirm presence of alien life (Video+)
Watch: 5000-year-old Artifacts discovered in Mexico cave confirm presence of alien life (Video+)
Alien enthusiasts have spotted spooky artifacts and weird sculptures near a mysterious cave in Mexico. According to reports, the artifacts are nearly 5000 years old. Some sculptures have abnormally large eyes and protruding head that do not represent any species ever lived on Earth.
Alien life and UFO sightings were the buzz words in the year 2017 and the trend isn’t cooling down in the year 2018 as alien hunters have come yet another evidence to prove the existence of extraterrestrial life. Unlike previous claims that suggest aliens live on distant planets, the new theory proves that alien creature visited earth in the past.
Alien enthusiasts have spotted spooky artifacts and weird sculptures near a mysterious cave in Mexico. According to reports, the artifacts are nearly 5000 years old. Some sculptures have abnormally large eyes and protruding head that do not represent any species ever lived on Earth. Conspiracy theorists believe that these strange artifacts belong to aliens that visited Earth several thousand years ago; either alien made these artifacts and sculptures during their stay on our planet or humans made them as a evidence of aliens.
Youtuber UFOmania has also made a video that shows different sculptures and artifacts unearthed in Mexico. The stunning video soon went viral on social media receiving thousands of views and shares. After the release of the video, alien buffs are convinced that extraterrestrial creatures once roamed on earth.
“Incredible evidentiary support of the fact that extraterrestrials have been engaging the human race for a very long time!” posted a user named Jamie Campeau.
Another user named Nelio Anderson lashed out against the authorities for not learning more about these artifacts as they contradict with the established theories.
“It is disgusting how the scientific community refuses to look at any evidence that contradicts the established theory. They claim to be scientists but based on their notorious record of making out of place artifacts vanish it is clear that there is a political agenda present. A knowledge filter. As such it is not surprising to see the establishment attack archeologists/anthropologists/paleontologist and geologists who had the courage and unbiased views to publish these finds,” posted Nelio Anderson.
Wetenschappers ontdekken waarom gletsjers Groenland smelten. De reden is niet wat je zou denken
Wetenschappers ontdekken waarom gletsjers Groenland smelten. De reden is niet wat je zou denken
Onderzoekers hebben voor het eerst aangetoond dat gletsjers op Groenland smelten als gevolg van warmte die uit het binnenste van de aarde ontsnapt.
Door deze warmte uit de aarde beginnen de gletsjers langzaam maar zeker richting de zee te glijden.
“In het noordoosten van Groenland bevinden zich verschillende geisers waar het water temperaturen van 60 graden Celsius bereikt,” zei hoofdonderzoeker Soren Rysgaard van de Universiteit van Aarhus in Denemarken.
Glijden
“Er is veel ondergrondse geothermische activiteit in het gebied,” voegde hij toe.
Op het moment dat warmte vrijkomt onder een fjord, bereikt die warmte ook de onderste delen van de gletsjers.
Dit betekent dat de gletsjers van onderen smelten en dus gemakkelijker over het terrein glijden terwijl ze zich richting de zee verplaatsen.
Geen twijfel
“Er is geen twijfel over mogelijk dat de warmte uit het binnenste van de aarde de verplaatsing van het ijs beïnvloedt,” zei professor Rysgaard.
“We denken dat onder een groot deel van de ijskap in het noordoosten van Groenland warmte uit de aarde ontsnapt,” vervolgde hij.
Het onderzoek is verschenen in het gerenommeerde blad Scientific Reports.
Record
Afgelopen jaar werden in de zomer boven westelijk Groenland temperaturen tot -36 graden Celsius gemeten. Op de Groenlandse ijskap werd in juli een temperatuur van -33 graden gemeten.
“Niet eerder was het in juli in Groenland zo koud!” schreef weerman Jan Visser toen. “Het record stond op -30,7 graden in 1982.”
De hoeveelheden sneeuw waren al sinds het najaar van 2016 ruimschoots boven normaal, voegde hij toe.
NA TERUGTREKKENDE OCEANEN, NU VLOEDGOLVEN ZONDER REDEN ( VIDEO )
NA TERUGTREKKENDE OCEANEN, NU VLOEDGOLVEN ZONDER REDEN ( VIDEO )
Uit de praktijk is bekend dat oceanen zich vlak voor een tsunami ver terugtrekken, maar nu gebeurt dit zonder dat die vloedgolf volgt.
Tsunami's zijn enorme vloedgolven en deze doen zich nu volkomen onverwacht voor zonder dat er een aanleiding voor is zoals bijvoorbeeld een aardbeving.
Het is nog steeds hetzelfde verhaal waar we iedere keer tegenaan lopen. Er gebeurt ergens iets op deze wereld, men bericht erover en dat wat er gebeurt, wordt beschouwd als een op zichzelf staand incident.
Het is pas wanneer je een aantal zaken met elkaar in verband brengt, dat er zorgwekkende patronen ontstaan waaruit blijkt dat er grote onzichtbare krachten werkzaam zijn op deze aarde. Er gebeuren op dit moment verschillende dingen waar niemand een verklaring voor heeft, want de normale logica die in dit soort situaties altijd wordt toegepast, werkt niet langer.
Enkele dagen geleden gebeurde het volgende in Mexico:
Shannon Christensen was met haar partner Dylan op vakantie in Mexico en genoot regelmatig van wandelingen langs het prachtige strand. Op de volgende foto's zie je Christina en het strand waar ze bijna om het leven kwam.
Enkele dagen ging ze rond middernacht met Dylan nog even voor een wandeling langs het verlaten strand, toen ze plotseling werd meegenomen door een enorme golf die volkomen vanuit het niets verscheen. Voor ze besefte wat er was gebeurd, lag ze in het water en dreigde te verdrinken.
Het gebeurde zo snel dat ze geen tijd had om te schreeuwen en Dylan die iets verderop met zijn rug naar haar toe stond, had niet gemerkt dat Shannon was verdwenen.
Het weer was kalm die avond, geen storm en in een tijdsbestek van enkele seconden veranderde de vriendelijk kabbelende zee in een enorme golf die zo sterk was dat hij Shannon meesleurde. Op het moment dat het gebeurde, stond ze tot aan haar enkels in het water.
Ze heeft al met al ongeveer een uur in het water gelegen en deed haar uiterste best om niet in paniek te raken en haar energie zoveel mogelijk te sparen. Hoewel ze een geoefend zwemster is, had ze toch grote moeite om niet in paniek te raken. Ze zag alleen water en enorm hoge golven.
Het lukte haar uiteindelijk om ongeveer een kilometer verderop weer aan land te komen en was dolblij uiteraard dat ze het zand van het strand weer onder haar voeten kon voelen.
Afgelopen zondag gebeurde er iets vergelijkbaars in het Zuid Afrikaanse Durban en dit keer overleefde het slachtoffer, een 7-jarig meisje, de gebeurtenis niet.
De zee was die dag aardig wild, maar ook daar eigenlijk vanuit het niets een soort monstergolf die het meisje van de pier sleurde waar ze met haar moeder aan het wandelen was. Ze werd al snel uit het water gehaald, maar ondanks reanimatiepogingen heeft het kind dit helaas niet overleefd.
Sommigen spreken zelfs van een mini tsunami en er was wederom geen enkele aanleiding voor een golf die wordt omschreven als: The wave which washed the girl into the rough seas was described as a “monster wave” and a freak wave.
Een golf die niet wordt verwacht, waar geen aanleiding voor is en die als uit het niets verschijnt.
Dit soort gebeurtenissen zijn precies het tegenovergestelde van datgene wat recent gebeurde, zoals we schreven in een eerder artikel:
Op 9 januari was er een zeer krachtige 7.6 aardbeving in het Caraïbisch gebied; één van de meest krachtige aardbevingen ooit in die regio en hoewel er een tsunami waarschuwing werd afgegeven, kwam deze gelukkig niet.
Echter, de dagen daarvoor deed zich een vreemd verschijnsel voor met betrekking tot het water van de oceaan op twee verschillende plaatsen. Op beide locaties trok het water van de oceaan zich abnormaal ver terug en op de volgende afbeelding zie je dat de ene locatie op gelijke afstand ten noorden van de aardbeving ligt als de andere ten zuiden ervan.
Vanuit Florida komen berichten dat het water zich heel ver terugtrok op verschillende dagen en ook op variërende plekken, eigenlijk vanaf 3 januari tot net voor de aardbeving.
Ook voor de kust van Ecuador deed zich het merkwaardige verschijnsel voor op 5 januari, waarbij het water van de oceaan zich heel ver terugtrok, op een manier zoals je dat ziet voorafgaand aan een tsunami. Maar, er was absoluut geen sprake van een tsunami.
De volgende video gaat wat dieper in op de gebeurtenissen en de maker ontdekt dat er vóór de aardbeving nog een aantal plekken waren waar vreemde dingen gebeurden met water. Alsof er een grote onzichtbare kracht enorme watermassa's zomaar kan verplaatsen.
Ongetwijfeld zal weerman Gerrit Hiemstra er een verklaring voor kunnen bedenken, maar de rest van de wereld kan dat niet en de maker van onderstaande video komt dan ook tot de conclusie dat er een grote onzichtbare kracht aan het werk is.
Verder wordt er melding gemaakt van boeien in de oceaan die grote op- een neerwaartse bewegingen maken zonder enige aanleiding en ook komen er nu berichten dat er zich een onverwachte vloedgolf voordeed in Ecuador zoals te zien in de video hieronder.
Al deze gebeurtenissen zullen door de mainstream media nooit met elkaar in verband worden gebracht en wanneer je ze allemaal als afzonderlijke en niet gerelateerde zaken bekijkt, dan zie je ook nooit het grotere beeld.
UFO Over Outback In Australia Shows Classic Disk Shape, Nov 2017, Photos, UFO Sighting News.
UFO Over Outback In Australia Shows Classic Disk Shape, Nov 2017, Photos, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: November 18, 2017
Location of sighting: Faulconbridge, Australia
Source: MUFON #89836
This dark UFO was seen over the Australian outback, which believe it or not, is a hotbed of UFO activity. I get lots of comments from people in Australia saying its common place to see a UFO in the outback. This is a great photo of one of those Australian catches. The tilt of the craft shows that it was in motion when the photo was taken. Often disks need to tilt to change directions, but this doesn't apply to all UFOs.
Scott C. Waring
Eyewitness states:
The UFO came from the bushes hovered for a few seconds before taking off into the sky in a southerly direction. The photo was taken by the observer and her family while taking photos from their back porch that looks onto the sassafras gully in NSW. All witnesses to the event wish to remain anonymous.
White UFO Tracked By Eyewitnesses Over Brisbane, Australia During The Day, Jan 20, 2018, UFO Sighting News.
White UFO Tracked By Eyewitnesses Over Brisbane, Australia During The Day, Jan 20, 2018, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: January 20, 2018 Location of sighting: Brisbane, Australia Source: MUFON #89833 Here is another report just in from down under. This is a semi-transparent UFO, which means its cloaked, but visible because of the angle of light of the sun and the eyewitness. You can see the bottom of the craft is the brightest, but the sun is above, so this is not a reflection. The UFO is whitish blue. Its shaped almost like the Russian space capsule the brings astronauts back to Earth, except for the short arms around its top. So cool the eyewitness was watching it, yet, the UFO was watching them back. Scott C. Waring Eyewitness states:
Further past the Ibis I noticed an orb/ball hovering still in the sky that then started to move from south to north - it occasionally slowed to a stop before starting to move again in a reasonaably straight line. It was traveling very slowly and nothing like the plane I saw a few minutes earlier. I asked my wife to keep watch while I went indoors and got my binoculars and digital camera. I took some photos on full optical and digital zoom that are not particularly clear due to the distance and reflection off the object. Through the binoculars however I could see that the object was a solid ball but could not ascertain the size as I had nothing to compare it to. I would guess it was maybe 1 meter or so in diameter as it was definitely not as big as an aircraft but larger than the Ibis (they have an average wingspan of 110 - 123cm). Eventually the object moved in a large arc to the west before going behind a cloud. The cloud dissipated and the object was gone - I had been watching the whole time and it did not re-appear from the cloud but just vanished. I initially thought it may have been a satellite as I had observed them before but when it changed direction and came to a stand still I ruled that out (though I am no expert on satellites and their movement).
Nick Pope believes metal from UFOs has been recovered by the US.
In December the New York Times revealed details of a top-secret Department of Defense (DoD) prorgamme to investigate any threat from UFOs that ended in 2012.
The report about the DoD £16 million Advance Aerial Threat Identification Programme (AATIP) also astonishingly claimed that the material, that was said to be “unknown to science” following tests, was stored in buildings modified by a private aerospace company which was paid huge amounts of money by the DoD to research the phenomenon and look after the “metal alloys.”
The AATIP was run by military intelligence official, Luis Elizondo, on the fifth floor of the Pentagon’s C wing.
Mr Elizondo resigned to form UFO research group To The Stars Academy with former Blink 182 singer Tom DeLonge.
The bulk of the money went to Bigelow Aerospace in Las Vegas, run by billionaire US businessman Robert Bigelow, who is also working with NASA to create a new expandable spacecraft.
However, no images have surfaced of the alleged material, nor have any details of where it was found, or any reports of tests carried out on it.
Ralph Blumenthal, one of the reporters who worked on the story, later clarified: "They have, as we reported in the paper, some material from these objects that is being studied so that scientists can find what accounts for their amazing properties, this technology of these objects, whatever they are.
"It's some kind of compound that they don't recognise.
"We printed as much as we were able to verify. Can't go beyond that."
After a number of claims about the accuracy of the report emerged, Nick Pope, who previously investigated the potential threat posed by UFOs for the British MoD, came forward to back the report's claims.
Although his enquiries in the 1990s revealed no such threat existed, and no metals were found in the UK, he is convinced mystery metal is being stored in the US.
There are recovered "materials", the full details of which have yet to be disclosed.
Nick Pope
Speaking exclusively to Express.co.uk, he said: "The recent revelations about the Pentagon's UFO project are all true.
"The project existed and was funded to the tune of $22 million.
"Some of the personnel involved with this project came to believe some of the objects were extraterrestrial.
"There are recovered "materials", the full details of which have yet to be disclosed."
We asked Mr Pope how he could be so certain that the metals existed and were in storage.
He said: "As to how we know these alloys exist, there are two points.
"Firstly, Luis Elizondo has clearly told the New York Times and others about this aspect of the AATIP project.
"Secondly, the original New York Times article on December 16 states that the paper saw contracts relating to the project, maybe as a result of Freedom of Information Act requests, but possibly as a result of material having been passed to them by Luis Elizondo or by someone else associated with the project.
"The implication in the New York Times article is that the alloys were mentioned in one of these contracts, which would have had to have contained some breakdown of how the money was going to be spent.
"A specific expense seems to have been the modification of some Bigelow Aerospace buildings to store these alloys and other UFO-related materials."
He described the New York Times fact-checking process as "meticulous."
He added: "They were obviously very, very sure about this aspect of the story.
"As I've said previously, there are various tests that can be done on alloys, and clearly these tests will have been done.
"The results will be known. It's just a question of whether the fact that these tests were done for AATIP but carried out by Bigelow Aerospace is sufficient to keep the results outside the scope of the US Freedom of Information Act.
"We don't know how these alloys and other materials were obtained.
"We're told they relate to UFOs, and if they come from some sort of military encounter, this is potentially very significant.
"However, we also know that Bigelow Aerospace acquired all sorts of UFO-related materials from civilian UFO research groups such as the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON).
Mr Pope said: "Imagine a scenario where a farmer sees a UFO over his cow pasture, and later found some bits of metal in the field.
"He assumes - maybe wrongly - that it's connected with the sighting, and gives it to a UFO investigator.
"Subsequently, it's acquired by Bigelow Aerospace and ends up as part of the AATIP project.
"If this is the sort of way in which these materials became part of the AATIP project, then they might not be exotic or significant at all."
Richard Sachleben, a retired chemist and member of the American Chemical Society's panel of experts, is not convinced.
He told Live Science. "My opinion? That's quite impossible.
"There are databases of all known phases [of metal], including alloys.
"There are no alloys that are sitting in some warehouse that we cannot figure out what they are.
"In fact, it's pretty simple, and any reasonably good metallurgical grad student can do it for you."
May Nyman, a professor in the Oregon State University Department of Chemistry, said the databases include straightforward techniques for identifying metal alloys.
He said If an unknown alloy appeared, it would be relatively simple to figure out what it was made of.
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Aliens exist, but we simply do not see them?
Aliens exist, but we simply do not see them?
Just over 80 years ago, humanity first began broadcasting radio and television signals with sufficient force to leave the Earth’s atmosphere and move deeper into the interstellar space. If someone living in a distant star system is vigilantly watching these signals, he will not only be able to catch them, but also immediately identifies their sender as a reasonable species. In 1960, Frank Drake was the first to suggest such signals coming from other star systems using large radio trays, which led to SETI’s initiative: the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. But over the past half-century, we have developed far more effective means of communication for the entire globe than radio and television signals. Does this mean that the search for aliens in the electromagnetic spectrum no longer makes sense?
This question is, of course, unusually speculative, but it gives us an opportunity to look at our own technical progress and consider how it could take place elsewhere in the universe. In the end, if someone from a society in which they communicate with the signals of drums and fires, finds himself deep in the forest, he can come to the conclusion that there is no intelligent life around. But give him a phone and he can contact his relatives. Our conclusions can be as biased as the methods that we apply.
The mechanism of electricity began to be understood only in the late 18th century, thanks to the works of Ben Franklin. The power of electricity began to feed our wires and other devices only in the 19th century, and the phenomena of classical electromagnetics began to be understood only in the second half of this century. The first transmissions of electromagnetic signals took place only in 1895, and radio broadcasting brought us to the interstellar medium only by the 1930s. The speed of light is also very limited: if our radio signals travel through interstellar space only 80 years, it means that only civilizations within a radius of 80 light years can catch these signals and only civilizations within a radius of 40 light-years can catch the signal and send back the answer that today would have come. If the Fermi paradox poses the question “where is everyone?”, The answer is “not within a radius of 40 light years from us.” But what can this say about intelligent life in the universe? Never mind. Although there may be hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy and about two trillion galaxies in the observed universe, there are less than 1,000 stars within 40 light-years from Earth. In addition, electromagnetic signals that leave the Earth in interstellar space, decrease, but do not increase. Television and radio signals are increasingly transmitted through cables or transmitted through a satellite, rather than the broadcast towers on Earth. A century will pass, and, most likely, the signals that we sent throughout the 20th century, will cease to leave the Earth at all. Perhaps the alien civilization will conclude that this blue, water planet with life has reached a certain stage of development, and then it was destroyed, and the signals stopped sending. In other words, to draw conclusions about what is and what is not, according to the specific form of the electromagnetic signal, is a completely erroneous strategy. If we looked at the Earth from a close distance in visible light, we would undoubtedly decide that it is inhabited: the glow of cities at night is an unmistakable sign of activity. But such light pollution is a relatively new phenomenon. We constantly learn and invest money, effort and time to get rid of it. There is no reason to believe that by the end of the 21st century the Earth will look the same as it is now, and not as it looked billions of years before: a dark, sometimes shone with light, thunderstorms or volcanoes.
But if you look for no electromagnetic signals, then what? Everything in the universe is limited by the speed of light, and any signal created on another planet must somehow manifest itself so that we can notice it. These signals fall into four categories: Electromagnetic signals including any form of light of any wavelength that could indicate the presence of an intelligent life Gravitational wave signals, which – in case of belonging to a reasonable life – we can detect a sufficiently sensitive equipment from anywhere in the universe Neutrino signals – which, though extremely dispersed at great distances – could become an unmistakable sign under certain conditions Finally, macroscopic space probes, robotic, computerized, autonomous or inhabited, which approach the Earth Surprisingly, our fantastic imagination is focused almost exclusively on the fourth possibility, which is least likely. When you think about the huge distances between stars, about how many stars have potentially inhabited planets (or even satellites), and how much resources you need to physically send a space probe from one planet to another planet, from another star, this method of communication seems completely insane . It is much easier to build a detector that could explore different regions of the sky and find signals that will absolutely indicate the existence of intelligent life.
From the point of view of the electromagnetic spectrum, we know how our living world reacts to the seasons. In winter and summer our planet “shines” differently. Together with the change of times, colors change in different parts of our planet. Having a fairly large telescope (or array of telescopes), one could see the individual signs of our civilization: cities, satellites, airplanes and so on. But perhaps the best thing we could find is changes in the natural environment that correspond to what only intelligent civilization would create. We have not done this yet, but, perhaps, large-scale modifications of the planet – that’s what we should look for. Do not forget that the civilization that we will find is unlikely to be a technological baby, like us. If it survived and survived all catastrophes, it will be tens or hundreds of thousands of years older and more advanced than us. Just remember how we were just 200 years ago. Perhaps, as our technology of gravitational waves becomes sufficiently developed to detect the first signals of the universe, we will begin to reveal more subtle manifestations of activity in space. Perhaps we will be able to identify a planet with tens of thousands of satellites in orbit along its unique gravitational-waveprint. Now this area is very young, so it has a long way to go. But these signals do not disappear as electromagnetic signals do, and there is no way to hide them. Perhaps in a hundred or two years it will be our main tool for exploring outer space.
But there is another option. What source of energy will be used by a sufficiently developed civilization? Maybe nuclear. It is more likely that this will be the synthesis energy, a special type of synthesis that differs from that which occurs in the nuclei of stars, and emits a very, very specific neutrino signature as a by-product. And these neutrinos will directly indicate that energy is born not in the natural, but in the technogenic process. If we can predict what kind of signature it is, understand it, build a detector for it and measure it, we can find a civilization that works on nuclear fusion anywhere, and we do not have to worry whether it transmits radio signals or not. As long as it generates energy, we can find it.
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New Fossil Found Places Modern Humans in Western Asia 195,000 years ago
New Fossil Found Places Modern Humans in Western Asia 195,000 years ago
Long before the ancestors of living people today entered Eurasia 60,000 years ago, other Homo sapiens groups had already occupied parts of the continent. Fossil finds have already recently established that early modern humans settled in the Levant and East Asia by 120,000 years ago, but a new discovery is further eroding the pre-existing consensus model.
Scientists have confirmed the presence of an archaic Homo sapiens jaw fragment and a significant number of skilfully worked stone tools present at the Misliya Cave site, one of Mt Carmel’s many caves. The article published on the research project, Israelifossils are the oldest modern humans ever found outside of Africa,appeared in the science journal Nature. This story has initiated a wave of worldwide media attention. The archaeological site is situated just a few kilometres away from the Skhul cave, which has previously produced modern human remains dated at 80,000–120,000-year-old. The new find was so much older than the team spent several years ensuring all possible checks were done to validate the find and assign it to the correct species, in this instance archaic Homo sapiens. After considerable analysis, the jaw fragment was dated at 177,000–194,000 years ago.
“We called it ‘Searching for the Origins of the Earliest Modern Humans’. This was what we were looking for,” says Mina Weinstein-Evron, an archaeologist at the University of Haifa in Israel.
A close-up view of the teeth on the newly reported fossil. They’re a little on the big side, but within modern human range, researchers say.
(Supplied: Israel Hershkovitz, Tel Aviv University)
It is usually thought that early modern humans in the Levant and the Middle East were unable to expand beyond this region into Eurasia, dying out by some unknown mechanism, the assumption being that they had flowed out from Africa. There is no solid evidence to say these groups did indeed emerge from Africa of course. With recent confirmation that the Chinese Dali Skull is that of an archaic Homo sapiens individual (from 260,000 years ago), we must keep a degree of scepticism regarding the mainstream scientists’ assumptions on the geographic origins of this population.
Professor Hiscock, an archaeologist from the University of Sydney, has raised the question of whether this individual was an ancestor of living humans and also commented on the claim that these early modern humans were unable to expand beyond the Levant.
“If that’s true, why did they die out and why were our ancestors able to move out when these people didn’t, given that they’re anatomically the same as us?” he said.
Human origins are a rather murky business, there is no definitive narrative to this story beyond a few fixed points between which lines can potentially be drawn in multiple (at times conflicting) directions. The first thing anyone that follows palaeoanthropology should recognise is that the entire subject is dependent not so much on archaeological and genetic evidence as it is on accurate interpretations and sensible assumptions. There is currently no sample of Homo sapiens DNA older than 45,000 years, and the fossil record for archaic Homo sapiens is sparse. This means any favoured human origins hypothesis can change rapidly on the turn of a trowel.
This incredibly ancient human bone further erodes the waning recent out of Africa model, not only were early modern human populations living beyond Africa 120,000 years ago but that they had already colonised western Eurasia almost 200,000 years. This date from Israel is virtually contemporary with those of the oldest early modern human remains found in East Africa, at 160,000 – 195,000 years of age (the Omo and Herto Skulls).
This latest announcement comes hot on the heels of several other ‘problematic’ findings, including a new status for China’s Dali Skull, now identified as being that of a 260,000-year-old archaic Homo sapiens. The other major upset for existing models involved the detection of an interbreeding event between Neanderthals and archaic Homo sapiens which occurred somewhere in Eurasia around 270,000 years ago, emerging from the study of a Neanderthal bone at the Hohlenstein-Stadel archaeological site in Germany. The Hohlenstein-Stadel genetic study was published by Nature in late 2016, under the title Deeply divergent archaic mitochondrial genome provides lower time boundary for African gene flow into Neanderthals.
When we factor in additional discoveries of potential early Homo sapiens populations living at Jebel Irhoud in Morocco around 300,000 years ago and others in China at dates closely matching those of the Dali skull, we begin to recognise Homo sapiens as a highly mobile and widespread species even from their very earliest appearance in the fossil record. It is time to completely abandon any romantic idea of a human genesis in an Eden-like human enclave somewhere in East Africa around 200,000 years ago.
“The fossil could indicate that Israel and the rest of the Arabian Peninsula were part of a larger region in which H. sapiens evolved”, says John Shea, an archaeologist at Stony Brook University in New York.
Perhaps the most intriguing implication of these very early modern human population in the Levant is that we no longer require a migration 120,000 years ago to explain fossils from that later period. It may well be that these more recent human populations were the descendants of the former archaic Homo sapiens present across the continent. Perhaps it is time for us to be more sceptical of claims involving additional migrations out of Africa and consider other interpretations of the available evidence.
Two rocks that crashed to Earth from space in 1998 are the 1st meteorites found to contain both liquid water and a mix of complex organic compounds such as hydrocarbons and amino acids.
Two space rocks, which separately crashed to Earth in 1998 after spending billions of years in our solar system’s asteroid belt, share something in common: the ingredients for life. That’s according to a study published January 10, 2018, in the journal Science Advances.
The study scientists analyzed the chemical makeup within tiny blue and purple salt crystals sampled from these meteorites. They said that the two meteorites are the first ever found to contain a mix of complex organic compounds such as hydrocarbons and amino acids, as well as microscopic traces of liquid water believed to date back to the infancy of our solar system – about 4.5 billion years ago.
The researchers also found evidence for the pair’s past intermingling and likely parents – including Ceres, a dwarf planet that’s the largest object in the asteroid belt, and the asteroid Hebe, a major source of meteorites that fall on Earth.
A blue crystal recovered from a meteorite that fell near Morocco in 1998. The scale bar represents 200 microns (millionths of a meter). Image via Berkeley Lab.
Queenie Chan is a planetary scientist and postdoctoral research associate at The Open University in the U.K. and the study’s lead author. Chan said in a statement:
This is really the first time we have found abundant organic matter also associated with liquid water that is really crucial to the origin of life and the origin of complex organic compounds in space.
We’re looking at the organic ingredients that can lead to the origin of life including the amino acids needed to form proteins.
These boys were playing basketball when a meteorite burrowed into the asphalt just yards away from their game on March 22, 1998. The meteorite has been found to contain traces of liquid water and amino acids. Image via Berkeley Lab.
Chan said the similarity of the crystals found in the meteorites – one of which smashed into the ground near a children’s basketball game in Texas in March 1998 and the other which hit near Morocco in August 1998 – suggest that their asteroid hosts may have crossed paths and mixed materials.
There are also structural clues of an impact – perhaps by a small asteroid fragment impacting a larger asteroid, Chan said, which opens up many possibilities for how organic matter may be passed from one host to another in space. Chan said:
Things are not as simple as we thought they were.
Ceres, a dwarf planet in the asteroid belt pictured here in this false-color image, may be the source of organic matter found in two meteorites that crashed to Earth in 1998.
There are also clues, Chan said, based on the organic chemistry and space observations, that the crystals may have originally been seeded by ice- or water-spewing volcanic activity on Ceres.
Everything leads to the conclusion that the origin of life is really possible elsewhere. There is a great range of organic compounds within these meteorites, including a very primitive type of organics that likely represent the early solar system’s organic composition.
Bottom line: New study says two meteorites are the first found to contain both liquid water and a mix of complex organic compounds.
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Scientists Have Come Up With A New Technique That Could Reveal Hidden Alien Life
Scientists Have Come Up With A New Technique That Could Reveal Hidden Alien Life
A new ‘atmospheric disequilibrium’ could aid researchers in detecting alien life on distant planets in the cosmos.
According to a new study by scientists from the University of Washington, a simple approach to look for life might be more promising than just searching for oxygen.
New technique could reveal hidden alien life. Scientists ...
The recently published study offers a revolutionary new recipe that could help astronomers find evidence whether or not a distant planet may harbor life.
“This idea of looking for atmospheric oxygen as a biosignature has been around for a long time. And it’s a good strategy — it’s very hard to make much oxygen without life,” said corresponding author Joshua Krissansen-Totton, a UW doctoral student in Earth and space sciences. “But we don’t want to put all our eggs in one basket. Even if life is common in the cosmos, we have no idea if it will be life that makes oxygen. The biochemistry of oxygen production is very complex and could be quite rare.”
The new technique has experts looking for a gas mixture that includes abundant methane and carbon dioxide but lacks carbon monoxide.
To come up with the new technique, scientists from the University of Washington looked back at the history of life on Earth and searched for times when Earth’s atmosphere had a mixture of gases that were out of equilibrium, which could only be present if there were living organisms on Earth.
Researchers note in the article that life’s ability to produce vast amounts of oxygen can be traced back relatively recently, to one-eighth of Earth’s history.
This is why scientists decided to look back further and identified a new combination of gasses that may help scientists find traces of life on other planets: methane plus carbon dioxide, minus carbon monoxide.
We need to look for fairly abundant methane and carbon dioxide in a world that has liquid water at its surface and find an absence of carbon monoxide.
Image Credit: Shutterstock
“We need to look for fairly abundant methane and carbon dioxide on a world that has liquid water at its surface, and find an absence of carbon monoxide,” said co-author David Catling, a UW professor of Earth and space sciences.
“Our study shows that this combination would be a compelling sign of life. What’s exciting is that our suggestion is doable, and may lead to the historic discovery of an extraterrestrial biosphere in the not-too-distant future.”
The new study offers a revolutionary new way by which scientists can hunt for aliens.
The paper looks at different ways a planet can produce methane, and scientists take into consideration asteroid impacts, outgassing from the planet’s interior, reactions of rocks and water, discovering that it would be extremely difficult to produce methane on rocky, Earth-like planets without the presence of living organisms.
Researchers note that if methane and carbon dioxide are detected together on a planet, and without the presence of carbon monoxide, then that is a chemical imbalance that suggests there is life.
“Carbon monoxide is a gas that would be readily eaten by microbes,” Krissansen-Totton said. “So, if carbon monoxide were abundant, that would be a clue that perhaps you’re looking at a planet that doesn’t have biology.”
Undeniable Proof Of UFOs? Check Out A Footage Of A UFO Taking Off From The Moon
Undeniable Proof Of UFOs? Check Out A Footage Of A UFO Taking Off From The Moon
YouTube has become a video repository for UFO videos, collections of images edited as videos showing inexplicable discoveries on both the Moon, Mars and other places in the solar system.
The video-uploading Social Network has quickly lost control of what is posted on the site as hundreds of thousands of people record and upload videos of strange events they say are proof of aliens and UFOS.
Regrettably, while there may be quite a few videos which are actually the real deal and offer proof of the existence of UFOs, there is a huge amount of fake videos posted on YouTube, most of them being the product of Computer Generated images (CGI).
Now a new video uploaded to YouTube has made headlines around the world after a man from Mexico called Diego Alves uploaded a very peculiar clip on his YouTube channel.
Since then, it has gained much popularity and has been reposted to several other YouTube accounts.
The ‘controversial video’ seems to show what everyone wants to see: A UFO taking off from the Moon, and shooting into space.
It must be the real deal, right?
Users rushed to comment on the video: “That UFO looks like it’s coming from a hole out of the moon. This is a great video.”
And another added: “Something is Coming, I can feel it.”
A third comment claimed: “That is the best UFO footage I have ever seen.
But hold your horses, not all is as it appears.
UFO debunkers quickly spotted that Mr. Aviles’ Facebook page was filled with CGI content (very talented he is) and that he was a graphic artist who has made a host of stunning CGI videos.
While the video may be undoubtedly awesome, and while it appears to clearly show a mystery object shooting off from the surface of the moon at great speed, the truth is that the man who uploaded the Video, Diego Aviles is a graphic artist who has made a host of stunning CGI videos.
The video is a product of two parts: the moon filmed from a telescope and a small object that was added afterward making it appear as if it was taking off from the moon, and shooting into outer space.
Earth’s moon is a mysterious place. Yes, and there are many things on the surface which are hard to explain. Dr. Robert Jastrow, the first president of NASA’s Commission of Lunar Exploration called the moon “the Rosetta Stone of the planets.” And yes, there are several theories that suggest the moon is both a massive alien base or has numerous bases on its surface whose origin remains a mystery. In July of 1970, two Russian scientists, Mikhail Vasin and Alexander Shcherbakov, published an article in the Soviet journal Sputnik called “Is the Moon the Creation of Alien Intelligence?” The theory proposed by the two experts offers arguments that would explain the countless enigmas surrounding the moon and its creation.
The Russian scientific duo proposed the theory that Earth’s Moon is not a natural satellite, but a planetoid that was literally hollowed out eons ago in the far reaches of the universe by super advanced intelligent beings possessing a technology far superior to ours, even today.
Anyhow, while there are numerous interesting theories worth pursuing in terms of Aliens and UFO’s, videos like the one uploaded to Mr. Avila’s YouTube channel damage serious UFO investigations.
Nouvelle vidéo récemment publiée qui nous montrerait un groupe de treize ovni survolant l’océan.
Ces nouvelles images auraient été filmées par des gardes-côtes, il n’y a que peu d’information sur cette séquence. Sur les images que l’on peut voir des objets très lumineux de couleur vive, presque rouge. Ces anomalies se trouvent au-dessus de la mer. Les ovni semblent se positionner en plusieurs petits groupes. Ils volent assez près de la mer et semblent assez éloignés du bateau. Ils ne donnent pas l’impression de se déplacer, ils sont peut-être en vol stationnaire mais difficile à dire.
Les images sont malheureusement très secouées, la vidéo a été prise à partir d’un hors-bord qui se déplaçait rapidement en s’éloignant. On ne peut pas vraiment voir la forme des appareils étant donné la distance importante qui les sépare de la caméra. On est trop loin pour voir le moindre détail et de vraiment savoir de quoi nous sommes en présence.
On manque clairement d’information sur cette affaire. On ne connaît ni la position ni la date où les images ont été filmées. Comme dans beaucoup de vidéo de ce type, ce manque d’élément ne va pas en sa faveur. Les objets sont un peu trop loin pour pouvoir savoir de quoi il s’agit, il pourrait s’agir de lanterne japonaise ou bien de drone. Il pourrait aussi s’agir d’incrustation, mais je doute que ce soit le cas dans cette nouvelle affaire. Nous pourrions aussi être en présence de leurs qui auraient été largué par un avion. On peut aussi penser à une formation d’engin extraterrestre, mais on manque vraiment de détail. La couleur de ces objets fait tout de même plus penser à des lanternes japonaises. La qualité des images étant assez mauvaise, il est assez difficile de conclure.
The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has once again moved the symbolic "Doomsday Clock" 30 seconds closer to midnight. The clock now sits at "two minutes to midnight."
RISING TENSIONS
For the second year in a row, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has moved the symbolic “Doomsday Clock” thirty seconds closer to midnight. The clock, which exists to show how close humanity is to annihilation, is now uncomfortably sitting at “two minutes to midnight,” matching the closest the it has ever come to the zero hour in its entire 71-years of existence. The last time the clock was in this position was when the United States and the Soviet Union performed test detonations of hydrogen bombs.
Rachel Bronson, president of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists spoke to reporters directly citing “the failure of President Trump and other world leaders to deal with looming threats of nuclear war and climate change.” The panel points to the Trump’s administration’s loosening of the country’s policies on nuclear weapons use and development as a signal that the President intends to follow up his rhetoric with dangerous actions.
The panel also is concerned with the state of nuclear programs in Pakistan, India, Russia, and North Korea, and respective leaders’ responses to ratcheting up tensions. The statement included other factors like Trump’s resistance to supporting any deals that would lead to monitoring of Iran’s nuclear program, as well as China’s claims to territory in the South China Sea.
According to the Bulletin, an increasingly fractured response to climate change is the last crucial factor that is pushing the clock’s hand towards the end of humanity. The threats posed by climate change make the Doomsday Clock tick since 2007, when the Bulletin described them as “nearly as dire” as the threat of nuclear weapons.
TURN BACK THE CLOCK
Even for a symbolic exercise like the Doomsday Clock, the return to a time of fear as dire as the Cold War is unsettling. And what’s remarkable, never before this level of global risk has been so closely tied to the words and actions of a single man.
In an op-ed penned for the Washington Post last year, when the clock was moved to 2.30 minutes to midnight, Lawrence M. Krauss and retired Navy Rear Adm. David Titley said, “Never before has the Bulletin decided to advance the clock largely because of the statements of a single person. But when that person is the new president of the United States, his words matter.”
It has gotten to the point where experts and lawmakers are discussing restricting the President’s powers to use nuclear weapons. Foreign relations experts Jeffrey Bader and Jonathan D. Pollack would welcome new rules stripping Trump of the ability to launch a nuclear strike on his own authority.
Even if such a resolution ever made it through a Congress controlled by the President’s own party, that just addresses one of the troubling players in this dangerous powder keg of global affairs. It will take much more skillful diplomacy to turn the tide away from the possibility of a global arms race of the likes of the Cold War.
The world’s response to climate change must also seek a renewed cohesion if we hope turn back the steady trend of which the Doomsday Clock is just a headline-grabbing indicator. One important step would be for the United States to rethink the resolutionto move away from the Paris Agreement and defund important scientific research.
Alien and human contact (Representational picture)Pixabay
Fernando Figoni, a TV host well known for conducting music shows in Argentina recently captured a startling image which features a UFO in the eye of a storm. According to media reports, Figoni captured this photo from a building's roof to see a brooding storm quickly approaching the city.
Initially, the TV host captured the picture of the storm, but further analysis of the images helped him to find a UFO hurling across the storm clouds. The UFO literally resembles a flying saucer which we have seen in sci-fi movies. As Fernando Figoni is a reputed figure, UFO buffs believe that the image is not faked, and this is an authentic sign of alien life.
Figoni soon posted the images on his Facebook page, and it went viral in no time. In his post, Figoni assured that the strange object which he filmed was not a plane. The images soon reached the fingertips of conspiracy theorists and they strongly claimed that it is an alien UFO came from deep space. The object is bright, and it seems the extra-terrestrials have switched on the lights of the saucer to enhance vision during the storm.
NO ERA UN AVION, NO ERA UNA BOLSA A ESA DISTANCIA, TRES FOTOS DISTINTAS EL MISMO OBJETO BRILLANTE SE VIO EN DISTINTOS BARRIOS
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After some hours, Figoni posted another image on his Facebook featuring a UFO, and he claimed that this photo was sent by one of his friends. The image features a UFO flying in front of a passenger plane. However, this image does not seem so authentic, and people suspect that CGI has been used to generate it.
'WHAT is it?' TV star stunned after taking THIS eerie photo of 'UFO' in the eye of a storm
'WHAT is it?' TV star stunned after taking THIS eerie photo of 'UFO' in the eye of a storm
A TV and radio presenter took a photograph of dramatic clouds brewing in the distance and later spotted what internet users said was a UFO in the eye of the storm.
CEN
Fernando Figoni's Twitter followers greeted the news with glee
Fernando Figoni from La Plata, capital of Argentina's Buenos Aires province, is well known for his media broadcasts and hosting of music events.
One day at work, Figoni decided to go to the building's roof and watch the brooding storm that was approaching the city.
The presenter took some photos and when he reviewed them later on he saw something in the sky that was... unidentifiable.
In the middle of the black clouds is what appears to be a bright flying saucer.
Rocket Lab founder and CEO Peter Beck next to the mirror-covered sphere his company sent into Earth’s orbit.
Credit: Rocket
An up-and-coming aerospace company from New Zealand made history last week when it deployed what can only be classed as a giant disco ball, of all things, into Earth’s low orbit. The flashing strobe was launched with Electron — a two-stage orbital launch vehicle developed over the last decade by Rocket Lab — alongside a less artistic payload comprised of two commercial satellites.
Turning the planet into a huge planet
Rocket Lab says that the art project called Humanity Star, which was launched on January 21, should now be the brightest object in the night sky. Although it’s now visible between latitudes between 46° north and 46° south, people in mainland United States will eventually be able to see the cosmic disco ball with the naked eye. In time, the object’s orbit will tilt and, provided that the observer and the orbiting strobe are perfectly aligned, almost the entire world will be able to see Humanity Star at night and dawn. Such favorable conditions will occur from March onward.
“No matter where you are in the world, or what is happening in your life, everyone will be able to see the Humanity Star in the night sky,” Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck said in a statement. “For us to thrive and survive, we need to make big decisions in the context of humanity as a whole, not in the context of individuals, organizations or even nations. …We must come together as a species to solve the really big issues like climate change and resource shortages.”
The carbon-fiber geodesic sphere is a little over a meter (3.3 ft) in diameter and is covered in 65 highly reflective panels. Because of its 90-minute polar orbit, the satellite will also be visible to a lot of people.
Humanity Star is designed to be visible to everyone on Earth.
Credit: Rocket Lab.
The New Zealand engineers also took space junk into consideration. Instead of launching new litter into space, the team behind the iridium sphere were careful to set it on a nine-month orbit that will eventually return it to the atmosphere where the satellite will disintegrate. For the curious, there’s a tracking app on the Humanity Star website which you can use to make it easier to spot the sphere.
Of course, Humanity Star isn’t the only man-made object orbiting the Earth which is visible to the naked eye. A classic example is the International Space Station (ISS), which is the size of a football field and whose extended solar panels shine brightly in the sun. Humanity Star, however, flies at a far lower orbit and is essentially covered in mirrors, making it more visible than the ISS.
This was Rocket Lab’s debut orbital flight. Beyond launching a weird art project, Rocket Lab achieved some more practical milestones like performing the first liftoff in New Zealand or the Southern Hemisphere, for that matter.
Not everyone is excited about parading ‘art’ through Earth’s orbit, however. On Twitter, various astronomers expressed their disappointment and concerns. Some, people like Ian Griffin, an astrophotographer and the director of New Zealand’s Otago Museum, even went as far as calling it an “act of environmental vandalism”.
Four Chinese volunteers spent 200 days in a simulated space lab in Beijing, breaking the record for the longest stay in a self-sustaining cabin. They had no input from the outside world, grew their own food, and handled their own waste.
Four volunteers lived in the sealed lab to simulate a long-term space mission with no input from the outside world.
Image credits: China National Space Administration.
China’s lunar base plans are becoming more and more serious, but before they actually send astronauts there, they want to know how they can handle the rough conditions on the moon — so they set up a “virtual” base, here on Earth. They called it the Lunar Palace.
The Lunar Palace has two plant modules where pretend astronauts can grow and harvest their own food, as well as a living cabin with living facilities. The cabin is basically a 42 square meter area (450 square feet) containing four sleeping cubicles, a common room, a bathroom, a waste treatment, and even a room for growing animals.
The main focus of the experiment was to see how the Bioregenerative Life Support System (BLSS) functions over a longer period of time in a lunar-like environment. Within the BLSS, humans, animals, plants, and microorganisms are expected to co-exist together safely. Astronauts grow their own food in the form of experimental crops, and they also manage their own waste.
Of course, a secondary objective of the study was to see how the volunteers would withstand the psychological stress of being isolated in such a small cabin.
The four volunteers were biomedicine students from Beihang University, and they handled the situation quite well, the module’s chief designer Liu Hong told Xinhua. As if the entire experience wasn’t challenging enough, the lab hosting the experiment experienced unexpected blackouts. This “challenged the system as well as the psychological status of the volunteers, but they withstood the test,” Liu said.
Not much else has currently been disclosed about the experiments and the mental state of the participants.
It’s not the first time such an experiment was carried out at the Lunar Palace. A successful 105-day trial was carried out in 2014. However, this type of experiment has been going on for a long time, since the Soviets had three people spend 180 days in a similarly closed ecosystem in the early 1970s.
In recent years, China has spent tremendous sums to advance its space program, and the results are showing.
Ultimately, China wants to build its own moon base within a decade, potentially in a partnership with the European Union. The Chinese Space Program is one of the world’s most active, advanced, and successful. Aside from the moon base, they want to establish a crewed space station (much like the International Space Station), send an unmanned rover to Mars, and exploit the Earth-Moon space for industrial development — namely, developing space-based solar powered satellites that would beam energy back to Earth.
Four Chinese volunteers spent 200 days in a simulated space lab in Beijing, breaking the record for the longest stay in a self-sustaining cabin. They had no input from the outside world, grew their own food, and handled their own waste.
Four volunteers lived in the sealed lab to simulate a long-term space mission with no input from the outside world.
Image credits: China National Space Administration.
China’s lunar base plans are becoming more and more serious, but before they actually send astronauts there, they want to know how they can handle the rough conditions on the moon — so they set up a “virtual” base, here on Earth. They called it the Lunar Palace.
The Lunar Palace has two plant modules where pretend astronauts can grow and harvest their own food, as well as a living cabin with living facilities. The cabin is basically a 42 square meter area (450 square feet) containing four sleeping cubicles, a common room, a bathroom, a waste treatment, and even a room for growing animals.
The main focus of the experiment was to see how the Bioregenerative Life Support System (BLSS) functions over a longer period of time in a lunar-like environment. Within the BLSS, humans, animals, plants, and microorganisms are expected to co-exist together safely. Astronauts grow their own food in the form of experimental crops, and they also manage their own waste.
Of course, a secondary objective of the study was to see how the volunteers would withstand the psychological stress of being isolated in such a small cabin.
The four volunteers were biomedicine students from Beihang University, and they handled the situation quite well, the module’s chief designer Liu Hong told Xinhua. As if the entire experience wasn’t challenging enough, the lab hosting the experiment experienced unexpected blackouts. This “challenged the system as well as the psychological status of the volunteers, but they withstood the test,” Liu said.
Not much else has currently been disclosed about the experiments and the mental state of the participants.
It’s not the first time such an experiment was carried out at the Lunar Palace. A successful 105-day trial was carried out in 2014. However, this type of experiment has been going on for a long time, since the Soviets had three people spend 180 days in a similarly closed ecosystem in the early 1970s.
In recent years, China has spent tremendous sums to advance its space program, and the results are showing.
Ultimately, China wants to build its own moon base within a decade, potentially in a partnership with the European Union. The Chinese Space Program is one of the world’s most active, advanced, and successful. Aside from the moon base, they want to establish a crewed space station (much like the International Space Station), send an unmanned rover to Mars, and exploit the Earth-Moon space for industrial development — namely, developing space-based solar powered satellites that would beam energy back to Earth.
When someone says they plan to “break the vacuum,” this probably means they’re a parent about to attempt to clean a room normally occupied by a teenager … unless they’re a laser physicist. Then it means they’re getting ready to use a laser to rip a hole in empty space and pull out the matter/antimatter combo of electrons and positrons. Isn’t ripping holes in space the job of the Large Hadron Collider? Regardless of who is doing the ripping, is this a good idea?
As with many sci-fi-to-real-life stories these days (see “Cloning monkeys”), this news comes out of China, where physicist Ruxin Li is leading a team at the Shanghai Superintense Ultrafast Laser Facility (is “superintense ultrafast” redundant or scary or both?) in developing a laser that will create the world’s most powerful light pulses. How powerful? The team has already built a record-breaking laser that distills light into pulses measuring 5.3 million billion watts or petawatts. They’re nearing completion of a 10 petawatt laser that is 1,000 times more powerful than the world’s electrical grids … combined. And they’re just five years away from a machine with the doomsday-ish name of the Station of Extreme Light that will be capable of pulses reaching 100 petawatts.
What do they plan to point the Station of Extreme Light at? As usual, the researchers have a noble cause (also called a ‘cover story’) and a sinister one. The ‘good’ purpose of building a cylinder of sapphire coated with titanium capable of shooting a 100 petawatt laser that can create temperatures never seen on Earth is to help develop new medicines.
Once that’s done, the fun starts. Aiming the Station of Extreme Light at a space vacuum will ‘break the vacuum’ and prove Albert Einstein’s E=mc2 in the reverse direction by creating matter (in this case, electrons and their antimatter counterparts – positrons) from energy. Or, as Li puts it:
“It would mean you could generate something from nothing.”
What could possibly go wrong?
That probably depends on where you aim the Station of Extreme Light. China is working on lasers to put in orbit and disintegrate space junk, debris and perhaps dangerous asteroids. The U.S. Department of Energy is developing ground lasers to knock out drones. In its non-weapon form, the Station of Extreme Light is a particle accelerator that is, unlike the Large Hadron Collider, inexpensive, small and easy to build. That could put the LHC out of business … and potentially put that power in the hands of entities whose purposes may not be as noble as those of government – OK, that’s debatable but we’ve got to believe that someone will control this power. Remember, it’s just the opposite of nuclear power’s matter-to-energy side of Einstein’s theory … and we know how that worked out.
One last thing to think about. China is leading the research in these vacuum-ripping lasers and Russia is not far behind. The U.S. is.
“It would mean you could generate something from nothing.”
Is it time to stop dreaming of phasers and ripping holes and start working on harnessing the power of lasers for something other than a weapon?
Gary Trevino, a man from South Texas recently shot a spectacular UFO video which has now gone viral on social media platforms. The video was captured on Wednesday, January 24, and it features several UFOs appearing in the sky and blinking mysteriously. According to reports, Gary was working in an oil field in Catarina when the bizarre incident occurred. Without wasting time, he captured the eerie incident on his camera.
After shooting the video of the UFO cluster on Wednesday night, Gary Trevino soon posted it on his Facebook page and asked everyone to explain the bizarre incident.
"Can someone explain what the hell did we just seen here at gates ranch in Catarina tx. To all the non-ufo believers," posted Gary Trevino.
The video soon went viral, and as of now, it has been watched more than 1,90,000 times on Facebook. After watching the video, several people put forward various theories explaining the sighting.
Many people claimed that the lights may have come out from US Air Force's secret planes, but the theory was debunked by alien buffs, as no airplane can move erratically in such a weird manner.
"I have seen this exact same orbs before. You're not the only one how exciting someone finally caught it on video," commented a Facebook user named Francisco Osornio.
Another user named Dusty Rees put forward a different theory stating that the weird object witnessed by Gary is nothing but a weather balloon. "What you have witnessed is a weather balloon blown of course by and high winds. The lights are simply reflections from solar flares and swamp gas blah blah blah and stuff...," commented Rees.
Even though many skeptics are not ready to believe these objects as UFOs, alien buffs are quite convinced that Gary has shot the visuals of alien spaceships which are from deep space.
What has come down through history as the “Maury Island Incident” remains a matter of investigation, speculation and debate through the retelling of the story in pop culture, investigations and beer-fueled discussions.
The story of the “Maury Island Incident” often arises on Tacoma Ghost Tours. Photo credit: Steve Dunkelberger
“I talk about it all the time,” Tacoma Ghost Toursoperator Andrew Hansen said, noting that while some walking tour attendees sometimes know tidbits of the legend, he tries to tell just what is known rather than what is believed. “I try to stick with as many of the facts as I can.”
That can be a tough job since the conspiracy-filled tale makes for a great story that raises more questions than answers.
The most common retelling of the story has it that Howard Dahl was captaining a boat on the afternoon of June 21, 1947. He was searching the waters for floating logs that he could salvage from the water and sell to the local mills that lined Tacoma’s tideflats. It was an otherwise normal day, when he and his son spotted six flying discs in the sky. Two reportedly collided, damaging one of them. It began to sputter and emit smoke. Chunks of the craft fell from the sky, either splashing in the water or peppering the deck of his salvage boat. Dahl’s son Charles was burned by the falling bits of metal, and his dog was reportedly struck and killed. The mysterious aircraft then flew away and disappeared.
Flying saucers were all the rage between 1945 and about 1965, even the fodder of floats in the Daffodil Parade through Tacoma. Photo courtesy: Tacoma Public Library
There were other local “sightings” of flying saucers that summer as well. A businessman and avid pilot Kenneth Arnold, for example, then told a story of his own saucer sighting. He reportedly saw nine saucers while flying around Mount Rainier. Stories of flying saucer sightings were in the news, both mainstream newspapers and pulp publications, all with varying degrees of conspiracy and coverup with little evidence to support their claims.
In the story of the sightings by Dahl and Arnold, federal investigators interviewed the two, collected samples of the “saucer slag” the damaged disc had dropped onto Dahl’s boat and left with a warning against telling their stories anymore. Their accounts were later retold in Gray Barker‘s book “They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers,” and gave rise to the term “men In black” in mainstream culture as a reference to secretive government agents setting out to hide evidence and coverup alien encounters because Dahl stated the investigators wore the standard “G-man” black suits.
“Paris in Orbit” was the theme of a rollerskating dance party in 1959 at the Tacoma Roller Bowl along South Tacoma Way.
Photo courtesy: Tacoma Public Library
Further fueling the fire of conspiracy was “the fact” that the investigators would later die in a plane crash while transporting the evidence for analysis at Hamilton Field in California. As fate would have it, the crash outside of Kelso was the first plane disaster of the newly formed Air Force, following its separation from the Army to be its own branch of military service.
Here’s where the story begins to fall apart, however. No damage to Dahl’s boat could be found. His son showed no sign of injuries. No evidence that a dog even existed was ever found. The fragments of the saucer that were reportedly recovered were traced back to the nearby copper smelter. The mysterious “men in black” could have easily been investigators calling the whole thing a hoax and warning against Crisman and Dahl retelling the story or face fraud charges for wasting their time. Cap that with the fact that the story wasn’t widely known until after the more famous “Roswell Incident” in New Mexico made national news a few weeks later.
Maybe it is just a coincidence that there is an artwork in the shape of a saucer that overlooks the Winthrop Hotel. Photo credit: Steve Dunkelberger
To make the story even weirder, Crisman would later be questioned about him being one of the men on the “grassy knoll” at John F. Kennedy’s assassination. He would later reinvent himself as “Dr. Jon Gold,” an ultra-rightwing talk show host on KAYE Radio that aired in Tacoma in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
“We referred to it as radio hate,” former Tacoma Mayor and president of the Tacoma Historical Society Bill Baarsma said of Crisman’s style of radio commentary. “Everything was ‘fake news’ that promoted conspiracy theories about local government and secret deals that were based on secret sources and tips rather than facts and logic.”
What actually happened in 1947 remains a matter of speculation and research to this day. Facts are few and stories are plenty, but whatever the case the Maury Island proves to provide colorful characters, tales of missing evidence and a twist of fantasy wrapped around truth – all the making of a great mystery that will never be solved.
Triad Theater Will Screen ‘The Maury Island Incident’ About Mysterious Happenings Just North of Tacoma Above Puget Sound
By Nisqually Valley News
A "Man in Black" appears at the door of one of the men who reported a UFO encounter in the movie "The Maury Island Incident."
Photos COUTESY "The Maury Island Incident"
The award-winning UFO-based film titled “The Maury Island Incident” will screen starting at 7 p.m. Friday, Feb. 2.
The setting for The Maury Island Incident is on Puget Sound just north of Tacoma. The film tells the forgotten, tragic story taken directly from declassified FBI documents of Harold Dahl’s June 21, 1947 UFO sighting near Maury Island, and explores the origins of the iconic “Men in Black” within a conspiratorial mythology set during the “summer of saucers” in 1947, all leading to involvement by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.
The Maury Island UFO sighting on July 21, 1947 occurred just three days before the sighting of nine UFOs over Mount Rainier by Kenneth Arnold on June 24, 1947, and a month before the reported Roswell UFO crash in New Mexico (July 4, 1947). That sighting over Mount Rainier is when the phrase “unidentified flying saucer” was first coined, and 70 years later was the impetus for last summer’s first-ever Yelm UFO Fest.
The Maury Island Incident Director Scott Schaefer (he has worked on such shows as Bill Nye the Science Guy, The Arsenio Hall Show and Seattle’s Almost Live) and screenwriter Steve Edmiston (Crimes of the Past, the Periphery Project, Vol. 1, A Relative Thing and The Day My Parents Became Cool) will screen their multiple award-winning film, The Maury Island Incident, and provide a live presentation titled “J. Edgar Hoover’s Flying Discs: Why the Maury Island Incident Is the Seminal Event in Modern Popular Culture Relating to UFOs, Conspiracies, and Cover Ups.”
The filmmakers will take questions and discuss their upcoming projects, including a possible movie retelling the Mount Rainier UFO incident.
The Maury Island Incident’s honors/awards include: 2015 UFO Congress Best Short Film; Big Island Film Festival Opening Night Gala; Washington Film Works Innovative Lab Competitive Grant; Gig Harbor Film Festival Best Short; and Seattle Int’l Film Festival World Premiere. The film was adapted into a web series distributed on Hulu and other independent film outlets.
To celebrate the 70th Anniversary of the “Summer of the Saucers,” the film was celebrated in 2017 with a resolution on the floor of the Washington state Senate for its contribution to the history and popular culture of Washington state, and featured at the Washington State Historical Museum.
Cameron Jayne, director of Yelm’s Triad Theater, and key Yelm UFO Fest organizer, said she is excited about the film showing and is anticipating it being shown again at this year’s festival, along with possibly other films of that genre.
For more information and tickets to The Maury Island Incident contact the Triad Theater at
As an example of the fact that UFOs and ufology are a world-wide phenomenon, the redoubtable Philip Mantle and Flying Disk Press (one of the very few publishers still keeping the public informed about the history of ufology) takes us to what has to be the golden age of subject. This time the revelations come from Roberto Pinotti and the files of ‘Centro Ufologico Nazionale’ (CUN) the leading Italian society who still investigates the phenomenon. Translated from the Italian language, this book is volume one in a series that, in this case, covers the years from 1907 until 1978 and 1958 was especially productive.
The book, which is profusely illustrated with some remarkable images, is an absolute treasure trove of information and the reader can open it at any page and is guaranteed to find something of interest. That said, rather that outright examples of visitations from ETs, the vast majority of examples presented here appear to be ‘high strangeness’ encounters rather than anything else, which are of course still valid and perhaps even more interesting, but not proof of anything extraterrestrial. In fact the book takes a ‘no questions asked’ approach and a refreshingly literalist view of the subject and has obviously been compiled and written by a true believer.
Italian UFO Researcher and Author Robert Pinotti
The author was a friend of, and collaborated with the late Gordon Creighton who was the long time editor of the UK’s Flying Saucer Review (FSR) and his influence becomes clear as one reads the book. Some of the images are astonishing and there are a few of what is claimed to be the inside of a UFO (pages 96 & 97) which also show the pilot who is human looking and is wearing what look like wrap-round sunglasses. There is also a report of analysis carried out on metallic residue left at a landing site, and surprisingly the residue comprises only earthly constituents in various proportions. This is encouraging if, for no other reason, than it seems the elements in the periodic table are universal. There is no doubt that for the dedicated ufologist this book is an essential part of their library and deserved to be read and if anyone is interested the CUN website is:
The book is now available on Amazon in paperback and kindle. You can contact the author and the publisher via the FLYING DISK PRESS blog at: http://flyingdiskpress.blogspot.co.uk/
Claims of UFOs surrounded Basingstoke after five mystery lights were recorded on video appearing to fly in formation above the town.
The unnamed man said that he and a colleague noticed the lights in the sky while at work.
In a witness report to MUFON, he said he went outside with a workmate to get something out of the van, and saw one light slowly moving around the back of a building.
Then another one became visible to them from behind the building at a constant distance. Seconds later, another three came to view as if they were already there but were not lit up.
The witness said that after around a minute, they started to swing around slowly and turned around 220 degrees.
After another around a minute, two lights got further away. One stopped, and one appeared to carry on barely being a visible light source.
At this point, he said, they seemed to swing around again in formation.
To get a better view, they decided to run back inside the building and get into the roof.
Unfortunately, they could not see anything because of the fog. They decided to run back down, but those mysterious objects were nowhere to be found.
He said they did not hear noise and see flashing lights, ruling out helicopters and civilian aircraft.
He also ruled out searchlights shining up from the ground as they could clearly see the surface area of the lights getting wider as it shone down, which could entail that the light source was in the sky.
The sighting reportedly lasted around 30 minutes, and the witness had managed to take roughly four minutes of video.
WETENSCHAP & PLANEETWetenschappers hebben de tijd op de symbolische ‘Doemdagklok’ met 30 seconden vooruit gezet, naar 23:58 uur. Daarmee zijn we volgens hen amper nog twee symbolische minuten verwijderd van “het einde van de wereld”.
De klok, die in gebruik is sinds 1947, is een metafoor die aangeeft hoe dicht we staan bij de vernietiging van de aarde. Een groep wetenschappers en nucleaire experts die zich gezamenlijk het ‘Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ noemen, komen op regelmatige basis samen om de tijd op de Doemdagklok te bespreken.
“Met grote bezorgdheid passen we de Doemdagklok vanaf vandaag aan,” zegt Rachel Bronson, voorzitter en CEO van het Bulletin: “Het is nu twee minuten voor middernacht”.
EPALawrence Krauss en Robert Rosner maken deel uit van het Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
De Doemdagklok staat even dicht bij middernacht als in 1953, toen de vrees om de Koude Oorlog mogelijk op haar hoogtepunt was.
Lawrence Krauss en Robert Rosner
Nucleaire en klimaatbedreigingen
De organisatie doet de nieuwe aanpassing omdat “president Trump en andere wereldleiders er niet in slagen om de op de loer liggende bedreigingen van een nucleaire oorlog en de klimaatverandering aan te pakken,” luidt het.
“De wereld is nu niet alleen gevaarlijker dan een jaar geleden: het is van Wereldoorlog II geleden dat de situatie nog zo dreigend was,” schrijven Lawrence M. Krauss en Robert Rosner, twee medewerkers van het Bulletin in The Washington Post. “De Doemdagklok staat in feite even dicht bij middernacht als in 1953, toen de vrees om de Koude Oorlog mogelijk op haar hoogtepunt was.”
De oplopende spanningen tussen de VS en Noord-Korea dragen volgens de wetenschappers bij tot de aanpassing van de Doemdagklok. “Zeggen dat de nucleaire toestand van de wereld schrijnend is, is een onderschatting van het gevaar en de hoogdringendheid,” zeggen Kraus en Rosner.
EPA
Nog slechter dan een jaar geleden
Vorig jaar stelden de wetenschappers de klok nog met een halve minuut bij, van 23:57 naar 23:57:30. “De waarschijnlijkheid van een globale catastrofe is erg hoog en de acties die nodig zijn om de risico’s op een ramp te verkleinen moeten erg dringend genomen worden,” stelde het Bulletin toen.
De eerste keer dat de Doemdagklok werd bijgesteld na haar ingebruikname in 1947, was twee jaar later, nadat de Sovjet-Unie met succes haar eerste atoombom testte. Toen schoof de wijzer van de klok van 23:53 uur naar 23:57 uur.
Het gebeurde nog maar één keer dat het alarmpeil even hoog stond als vandaag: in 1953 gaf de klok aan dat het twee voor twaalf was nadat zowel de VS als de Sovjet-Unie succesvolle proeven met kernbommen hielden binnen een tijdsspanne van amper zes maanden.
In 1991 leek de wereld er het best voor te staan, toen stond de wijzer op 17 minuten voor middernacht.
Nooit eerder heeft het Bulletin beslist om de klok vooruit te zetten voornamelijk omwille van de stellingen van slechts één persoon. Maar wanneer die persoon de nieuwe president is van de Verenigde Staten, dan doen zijn woorden ertoe.
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
Verkiezing van Trump
“Telkens wanneer de klok wordt aangepast, beantwoorden we twee vragen,” zei Rachel Bronson vorig jaar in een interview: “Is de wereld veiliger? Of loopt ze een groter risico dan een jaar geleden? En is het veiliger of een groter risico dan ooit eerder in de geschiedenis van de klok?”
Met de aanpassing vragen de wetenschappers aandacht voor wereldwijde crises die volgens hen het bestaan van de mensheid in gevaar brengen. Daarbij richten de wetenschappers de aandacht op de beschikbaarheid van kernwapens en de bereidheid van de wereld om ze te gebruiken. De laatste jaren brengen ze ook de dreigende klimaatverandering mee in rekening.
De organisatie haalde vorig jaar ook de verkiezing van Donald Trump aan als een belangrijke factor, “omdat hij beloofd heeft de vooruiting op beide fronten (kernwapens en klimaatverandering, red.) te verhinderen,” schreven twee leden van het Bulletin vorig jaar. “Nooit eerder heeft het Bulletin beslist om de klok vooruit te zetten voornamelijk omwille van de stellingen van slechts één persoon. Maar wanneer die persoon de nieuwe president is van de Verenigde Staten, dan doen zijn woorden ertoe.”
Het is nu de tijd voor wereldburgers om dringende maatregelen te eisen. Het is tijd om de Doemdagklok terug te draaien.
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
Symbolisch
Het Bulletin beklemtoont dat de klok symbolisch is en enkel dient als “dringende waarschuwing voor globaal gevaar”.
“We hopen dat de bijstelling van deze klok geïnterpreteerd zal worden zoals ze bedoeld is: als een dringende waarschuwing voor globaal gevaar. De tijd voor wereldleiders om het op de loer liggende nucleaire gevaar en de voortdurende opmars van de klimaatverandering aan te pakken, is al lang voorbij. Het is nu de tijd voor wereldburgers om dringende maatregelen te eisen. Het is tijd om de Doemdagklok terug te draaien,” stellen ze.
Rocket LabDe discobol die de sterrenhemel sinds vorige week helderder maakt
WETENSCHAP & PLANEETWie vorige nacht even tijd nam om naar de sterrenhemel te kijken, zal opgemerkt hebben dat er een nieuwe, heldere ster waar te nemen is. De ster werd vorige zaterdag de ruimte ingestuurd door het particuliere ruimtevaartbedrijf Rocket Lab en is momenteel het helderste object aan de hemel. De lancering van de ster lokt kritiek uit bij astronomen van over de hele wereld en blijft niet zonder gevolgen.
Het nieuwe ruimtevaartbedrijf Rocket Lab breidde onze sterrenhemel vorige vrijdag een beetje uit. De start-up lanceerde toen in alle stilte een raket in een baan rond de aarde. Dat deed het vanop een schapenboerderij op het schiereiland Mahia in Nieuw-Zeeland.
De lancering zorgde voor veel gejubel en trots in Nieuw-Zeeland. Peter Black, oprichter en CEO van het opkomende Rocket Lab, sprak van een bijna ongeëvenaarde stap in de commerciële verkenning van de ruimte.
Discobal
Wat er zo spectaculair is aan de raket, is dat ze naast de klassieke conventionele raketten ook de ‘Humanity Star’ draagt. Die nagemaakte ster bestaat uit een drie meter brede bol en is gemaakt van koolstofvezel. Verder is ze uitgerust met 65 sterk reflecterende panelen en draagt ze daardoor de bijnaam ‘discobal’.
Volgens het bedrijf zal de bol de stralen van de zon naar de aarde weerspiegelen en een knipperlicht creëren dat overal ter wereld zichtbaar is. Er wordt zelfs verwacht dat hijvoor negen maanden lang het helderste object aan de sterrenhemel zal zijn en pas zijn helderheid zal verliezen wanneer hij opnieuw de aardse atmosfeer bereikt.
Volgens Rocket Lab moet de ster een herinnering zijn aan onze kwetsbare plek in het universum. Black voegt daar aan toe dat de bol harmonie en een gedeelde ervaring voor iedereen op de wereld zal creëren.
Lichtvervuiling
Toch blijkt de functie van de spectaculaire uitvinding niet geheel rozengeur en maneschijn. Omdat het hun onderzoek belemmert, vormt lichtvervuiling nu al een enorm probleem voor astronomen. De introductie van een glinsterende discobal in de ruimte wordt dan ook niet overal toegejuicht.
Over de hele wereld uiten astronomen zich op zowel gefundeerde als minder diplomatieke manieren over de Humanity Star. Zo vertelde professor Richard Easter aan The Guardian dat Rocket Lab onbedoeld zijn beroep bijzonder zwaar getroffen heeft en ook zijn collega’s winden er op Twitter geen doekjes om.
Wat er nu gaat gebeuren met de lichtgevende discobal in de ruimte en of hij al dan niet verwijderd zal worden, is nog niet duidelijk. Voor wie de bol nog zou willen waarnemen kan op een online map steeds contoleren waar de bol zich precies bevindt en in welke richting moet worden gekeken om hem goed waar te nemen.
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Flying Saucer becomes visible in the sky over Jamaica
Flying Saucer becomes visible in the sky over Jamaica
A strange phenomenon appeared in the sky over St. Ann, Jamaica on January 25, 2018.
Stoney Vill, who has filmed the phenomenon, wonders what the strange ring of lights in the clouds could be.
The video shows sun rays shining from behind a cloud formation, but light from the sun seems to be bending around a disk at the top of the cloud
When zoomed in on the disk, it clearly shows the solid contours of a UFO, a cloaked flying saucer that became temporarily visible. (See video 0.06sec).
When astronomers noticed a strange light pattern coming from a distant star, many speculated this was evidence of an advanced alien civilization.
The discovery of not only life, but intelligent life outside of Earth would have far reaching implications for not only science, but society as a whole.
LSU Department of Physics & Astronomy assistant professor Tabetha Boyajian recently disproved a theory that the dimming of Tabby’s Star—named after Boyajian—was caused by an alien megastructure.
When scientists analyzed the light patterns coming from the star, known as KIC 8462852, many were hopeful that the sporadic dimming and brightening of the star was the sign of an advanced alien civilization. Much to the dismay of many scientists and astronomers, this was not the case.
Boyajian created a Kickstarter campaign in May 2016 to fund a private telescope array to continue observing the star after the Kepler Space Telescope stopped doing so. Boyajian said the Kickstarter aimed to secure time with the Las Cumbres Observatory in Goleta, California.
To Boyajian’s surprise, the Kickstarter raised more than $100,000 from over 1,700 backers. It was particularly surprising because there was no precedent for this type of Kickstarter campaign.
“I attribute it to luck,” Boyajian said. “This is kind of the first one of its kind to do something like that. This was a way for people who had a couple extra bucks to contribute to science, which we thought was really cool.”
Using the money from Kickstarter, Boyajian and her team were able to observe the star from March 2016 through December 2017. During this time, the star’s light dimmed four times. Backers of the Kickstarter campaign named these events — Elsie, Celeste, Brae and Angkor.
The names for Skara Brae and Angkor come from two lost cities. Boyajian said these names are fitting, as the star is more than 1,000 light years away. Therefore, the events witnessed happened more than 1,000 years ago.
However, while observing the star, Boyajian and her team realized the dimming could not have been caused by the alien megastructure once theorized.
“If you have a planet crossing in front of a star, it will block out a little bit of its light, and it will do that periodically,” Boyajian said. “The biggest planet out there is a Jupiter-sized planet. If Jupiter crosses in front of a star, it will make at most a 1 percent drop in the star’s light.”
These two concepts proved that a planet was not causing the dimming.
“What we see for this star is not regularly occurring drops in brightness,” Boyajian said. “We see very large drops, up to 22 percent. The object, whatever it was, was very, very massive.
The megastructure theory fell apart when Boyajian and her team noticed that blue light was being dimmed a lot more than red light during the dimming instances. Boyajian said an opaque object, such as a planet or alien megastructure, blocks all wavelengths of light equally. Dust, however, is better at blocking blue light than it is at red light.
‘WE’RE NOT READY TO MEET ALIENS’: HUMANS ARE TOO STUPID AND RELIGIOUS TO COPE WITH EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL LIFE, CLAIMS EXPERT
‘WE’RE NOT READY TO MEET ALIENS’: HUMANS ARE TOO STUPID AND RELIGIOUS TO COPE WITH EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL LIFE, CLAIMS EXPERT
A professor from Spain says we’re not ready to meet extraterrestrial life
Gabriel De la Torre surveyed 116 students from the US, Italy and Spain
He found that many had a lack of knowledge in a number of areas
They also had religious beliefs that would make finding ET a ‘big shock’
We also focus too much on daily problems than bigger things like Earth
He concludes we need to improve our ‘global consciousness’
Finding extraterrestrial signals has been dreamed about for decades.
But a researcher from the University of Cádiz in Spain says we shouldn’t be looking – because we’re not ready to meet aliens.
Gabriel De la Torre revealed to MailOnline how his survey of students showed the general level of ignorance and influence of religion would leave us shocked if we made first contact.
A study by Professor Gabriel De la Torre from the University of Cádiz in Spain claims that we’re not ready to make first contact. He claims we’re not prepared mentally or ethically to meet beings unlike ourselves and we should try to improve our ‘global consciousness’
Since 1984 the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (Seti) Institute has been looking for signs of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe.
To date nothing has been found, although the search continues unabated.
Members of the project are now going further by sending out messages from Earth (Active Seti) to try and contact other lifeforms.
But De la Torre, a professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Cádiz and participant in previous projects such as Esa’s Mars 500 (a simulated mission to Mars on Earth), has carried out a study that he claims indicates we are not ready to make contact.
In the study he sent a questionnaire to 116 students in Spain, the US and Italy.
De la Torre tells MailOnline he used students because they ‘will be the future politicians, scientists, the people in charge, so I wanted to know what their knowledge was.’
THE RESULTS AT A GLANCE
Of the 116 students…
72.8% believe that demons and angels exist.
33.7% don’t think humans are the origin of global warming.
82.1% think it is important to have a space agency.
71.4% think the military should have the main role in the event of contact with an alien civilisation.
80% believe if we find aliens more advanced than us they will try to conquer us.
78% believe there is a chance we’ve been visited by aliens in the past.
The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (Seti) Institute was established in 1984. Since then it has used a number of observatories around the world, like the Allen Telescope Array (pictured), to try and find alien signals from another world, but so far nothing has been found.
The questions were split into five sections: religious beliefs, the environment, space-related knowledge, their daily activities and their opinions on life issues.
‘In all those areas I defined a different type of question based on other studies that I think related to Seti research,’ De la Torre says.
These included questions such as how likely they thought life was to exist on other planets, what year man first walked on the moon and what the largest planet in the solar system is.
The results were somewhat disconcerting for De la Torre. For example only 82 per cent of the students knew the first moon landing was in 1969.
‘The conclusions were that scientific knowledge, especially the knowledge related to space among college students, is not good,’ he continues.
‘So I think space agencies should increase education efforts.’
Another conclusion by De la Torre was that religious beliefs seem to be very strong in general.
While not necessarily a problem, he says this may influence the opinions of people facing major events in future such as making first contact.
On 16 November 1974 the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico (pictured) was used to send out a signal called the Arecibo message, a ‘calling card’ from Earth to potential alien races. However De la Torre says we shouldn’t perform ‘Active Seti’ like this as we aren’t ready to make contact
But ultimately it is our lack of appreciation for our own planet and our place in the universe that would be our downfall, he says.
‘We’re not ready to talk to extraterrestrials because global consciousness is not developed enough in the population,’ he concludes.
‘People have daily life problems and the government doesn’t pay attention to global issues like the planet and the environment.
‘That makes us a species too focused on daily life problems, we don’t have an awareness of our surroundings.
‘It’s like when a meteor falls in some place on the planet, it’s big news. But that’s a regular real possibility.
‘If we have a more global consciousness about our situation on the planet, how fragile the planet is, maybe that’s a step in the evolution of our consciousness as a species.
‘There could be other intelligent life out there and it could be really different from us physically, mentally, socially and even morally.
‘They could maybe not even be biological, they could be robots.
‘Right now I don’t think as a species we are ready.
‘Of course some people are ready, but as a species I think it would be a big shock.’
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NASA's Bold Plan to Save Earth From Killer Asteroids - Alien UFO Sightings
NASA's Bold Plan to Save Earth From Killer Asteroids - Alien UFO Sightings
Just beyond Earth’s home in the solar system, about 94 million miles from the Sun, a coal-black asteroid slowly rotates as it orbits our star. It’s about 1,650 feet across, with a slight bulge around the middle, like a spinning top. Its low density means it’s not solid, but instead it’s likely a crumbly pile of carbon-rich rocks held together by gravity.
The asteroid is called Bennu, and every six years, its egg-shaped orbital path brings it just 185,000 miles from Earth — roughly 53,000 miles closer than our moon. In about 200 years, there’s a 1-in-2,700 chance it could sail close enough for Earth’s gravity to reel it in. That would be very bad.
The impact would excavate a crater nearly three miles wide and 1,500 feet deep. Locations three miles away would be buried under 50 feet of rock raining down. It would trigger a 6.7-magnitude earthquake. But the real damage would come from the air burst, caused by the meteor hurtling through the atmosphere, which could collapse buildings and tear down trees up to 30 miles away.
Luckily for us, asteroids the size of Bennu, and giant asteroids like the one that helped kill the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, don’t cross Earth’s path often. But smaller ones doallthetime. They enter our atmosphere as meteors, where many blow up in mid-air; some make their way to the ground or sea. The good news is that we’re getting better at finding them — but we’re still unprepared if one does make its way to Earth.
A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket carrying the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft lifts off from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Sept. 8 in Florida. Osiris-Rex will travel to asteroid Bennu, collect ground samples, then haul them back to Earth.
John Raoux / AP
Partly to help with this, a NASA spacecraft called OSIRIS-REx is on its way to Bennu, where it will collect several pounds of asteroid samples and return them to Earth. By baking those samples and melting them down, scientists will learn what the asteroid is like, how the solar system’s rocky worlds were made, and how to protect Earth from these errant rocks — whether by pushing them away, breaking them up, or using the sun’s warmth to nudge them a different direction.
In that way, Bennu may become the asteroid that saves us all.
NASA is on an asteroid binge these days. Earlier in January, the space agency announced it is planning two more missions to these solar system crumbs over the next few years. The Lucy spacecraft will fly to Jupiter and study its Trojan asteroids, which trail behind the giant planet. The Psyche mission will travel to an iron asteroid thought to be a leftover planetary core, whose mantle and crust were lost to time and fiery collisions.
These explorations will provide planetary scientists with a wealth of new information, says Bill Bottke, who studies asteroids at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio.
“Locked in asteroids are stories that are telling us what was going on when the planets formed, when the solar nebula was still around,” he says. What processes does it take to form a planet?”
Fortunately, asteroid studies also tell us what it takes to wreck a planet.
This artist’s rendering shows the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft collecting a sample from the asteroid Bennu using a mechanical arm to touch the asteroid’s surface.
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Via AP
As Bennu whirls around its axis, its inky surface absorbs sunlight like asphalt on a hot day. As it rotates into the dark, that warmth radiates into space and it cools down again. This temperature change gives the asteroid a tiny nudge, called the Yarkovsky effect, which over time will change its orbit.
One of OSIRIS-REx’s main goals is to measure this phenomenon, says Daniel Scheeres, an astronomer at the University of Colorado who works on the project.
“After the mission, we should be able to update all these impact probabilities, and hopefully it will go down,” he says. “Just by testing the theory and validating it with more precise measurements, that can help all of our other predictions of the Yarkovsky effect for all other asteroids.”
Right now we know of about 723,367 asteroids in the solar system, and astronomers from universities and observatories around the world discover new ones almost every day. Based on statistical analysis and detailed searches, scientists think they’ve found more than 90 percent of asteroids about half a mile wide or larger, each of which would cause global extinctions if they impacted earth.
Dedicated searches have also found about 25 percent of the asteroids that measure at least 460 feet across, or roughly the size of a football stadium. But more than a million small asteroids — like one the size of a city bus that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, three years ago — are thought to be out there.
A local resident shows a fragment thought to be part of a meteorite collected in a snow-covered field in Russia’s Ural mountains in 2013. A meteor that exploded over Russia’s Ural mountains and sent fireballs blazing to earth set off a rush to find fragments of the space rock which hunters hope could fetch thousands of dollars a piece.
Andrei Romanov / Reuters
Last year, NASA consolidated its asteroid-hunting efforts under a new program called the Planetary Defense Coordination Office, which finds and tracks new objects and will issue warnings about possible impacts. Its budget for the current fiscal year includes $50 million for near-Earth asteroid observations and planetary defense, which is a tenfold increase since the beginning of the Obama administration.
But NASA isn’t the only one hunting asteroids. The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency has already brought back bits of one asteroid, and has another mission en route to a second. The privately funded B612 Foundation, named for the asteroid in the French children’s story “The Little Prince,” is still looking for a cash infusion of $450 million to send its telescope into space to look for near-Earth asteroids.
But all this work to find asteroids and to visit them won’t mean much if we can’t do anything about it. There are a few ways to save Earth from an asteroid. We could push it out of the way, essentially using celestial mechanics to ensure it won’t get pulled in by Earth’s gravity, or we could try to destroy the asteroid before it has a chance to destroy us.
The decision depends on how much time we have and what the asteroid is like, says Jason P. Dworkin, OSIRIS-REx project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. Some asteroids might be easy to crumble into pieces; some could break apart into smaller stones that hit Earth in multiple places. Others might require a really big shove.
“If it was up to me, I would send a rocket with some titanium dioxide on it and paint it white, and have that Yarkovksy effect accelerate, and move it away from the Earth,” Dworkin says. Titanium dioxide is a common ingredient in sunscreen, and it looks chalky white. A spacecraft could fly to a dangerous asteroid, enter orbit around it, and spray-paint it.
“If you have something like 50 years, that could deflect it enough, and it might be a whole lot simpler than sending up nuclear weapons,” Dworkin says.
Radar images of the near-Earth asteroid Didymos and its moonlet from 2003. Didymos will be the target of AIDA’s test of a kinetic impact on a small asteroid.
NASA
If that doesn’t work, a nudge might do the trick. NASA and ESA plan to study this with a mission called the Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment (AIDA), which will slam a satellite into an asteroid in 2020.
If we don’t have 50 years or a fast enough battering ram, we might need to break up an asteroid instead. Catherine Plesko of Los Alamos National Laboratory uses supercomputers to study how to break up asteroids using nuclear explosions and “kinetic impactors,” essentially giant space cannonballs.
“Cannonball technology is actually very good technology, because you’re intercepting the object at very high speed, so it ends up being more effective than conventional high explosives,” Plesko said at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in December. “If you really need a lot of energy, though, a nuclear burst is the way to get the largest amount of energy out to the object in the smallest possible container.”
Her simulations include equations that describe how fluids flow; the boiling and melting points of rocks depending on their densities; how light and energy propagates; and other physics. Then she can slip in a model for a given asteroid, and see how it responds to a cannonball.
If Earth decides to nuke it instead, the blast wouldn’t have to blow up the asteroid from within. The plan would entail launching a rocket with the bomb as its payload (a risky prospect, should it blow up on the launchpad) and aiming right for the asteroid. Exploding the bomb at the asteroid’s surface could disrupt its interior enough to break it apart, shifting its course and limiting the threat to Earth.
“For nuclear deflection, it really is the best idea to do an intensive load of these calculations before we even need to contemplate doing anything real,” Plesko says.
If we do need to do something real, it won’t happen overnight. It takes at least five years to design, build and launch a spacecraft that can deflect or destroy an asteroid or comet, according to astronomer Joseph Nuth of Goddard. He says humans would be wise to build a spacecraft now, and ideally two: an observer that could be quickly dispatched to learn more about the asteroid, and an interceptor that could deflect it.
“If we build it now on a normal schedule, and put that interceptor into storage, we can launch it in less than a year,” he explained at the AGU meeting. “This could mitigate the possibility of a sneaky asteroid coming in from a place that’s hard to observe, like toward the sun.” (The Chelyabinsk meteor was one such asteroid.)
No space agency has a deflector mission yet, but scientists know a lot more today than they did even 15 years ago, Bottke says.
“There was a time where we didn’t have a program to look for objects, and it was done privately. You had guys like [astronomer Eugene] Shoemaker driving out every month to Palomar Observatory to look for them,” Bottke says. “Now we have $50 million annually to look for them. Now we’re getting serious science missions to look at these.”
Bottke and others say the increased awareness of asteroid threats has also been a boon for science, and for the people who study asteroids not only as harbingers of doom, but as messengers from Earth’s creation.
“The probability that any large asteroid is going to hit is in the near future is pretty low,” Bottke says. “So I tend to focus on the more uplifting parts of asteroids.”
Scientists have found a new way to hunt for alien life on distant exoplanets. Clashing gas signatures could mark a planet as habitable from millions of miles away.
Chemicals such as oxygen are hard to produce without some kind of life. If a planet has oxygen in its atmosphere, it may very well harbor microbes. On Earth, however, oxygen has only been produced in large amounts for about an eighth of its history.
By looking for other gas combinations that should only be possible in the presence of life, scientists might have a better shot at finding aliens.
The James Webb Telescope will investigate the atmospheres of distant planets.
JOSHUA KRISSANSEN-TOTTON/NASA/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
“This idea of looking for atmospheric oxygen as a biosignature has been around for a long time. And it's a good strategy—it's very hard to make much oxygen without life," said study author Joshua Krissansen-Totton, a University of Washington doctoral student, in a statement. "But we don't want to put all our eggs in one basket. Even if life is common in the cosmos, we have no idea if it will be life that makes oxygen. The biochemistry of oxygen production is very complex and could be quite rare."
History of Earth
The team took a longer look the history of Earth to identify other gaseous emissions that might better indicate life in a study published yesterday in Science Advances. By homing in on times of “chemical disequilibrium”—combinations of gases that shouldn’t exist without life— on our own planet, the team identified a mix of gases that might signal biological activity elsewhere.
The work led the team to believe that methane, carbon dioxide and a lack of carbon monoxide could be the biosignature to look out for.
The team looked back through the history of Earth to identify the best chemical cocktail. The Archean Earth, pictured here, describes a more than billion-year period in the early history of the planet.
FRANCIS REDDY/NASA’S GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER
Methane can be produced by asteroid impacts, emissions from the inside a planet itself and reactions of rocks and water. However, the team think it is unlikely an Earth-like planet could produce large amounts of methane without life as well.
Processes such as volcanic eruptions spew out carbon monoxide as well as carbon dioxide and methane. Microbes love to munch on carbon monoxide, so—if they exist on a planet—there shouldn’t be much of the gas left at all. Krissansen-Totton explained: "If carbon monoxide were abundant, that would be a clue that perhaps you're looking at a planet that doesn't have biology."
Identifying these biosignatures could be key to the search for alien life. Soon, technology like NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope will scour the atmospheres of distant planets for these kinds of chemical cocktails. Co-author David Catling, a professor at the University of Washington, said: "What's exciting is that our suggestion is doable, and may lead to the historic discovery of an extraterrestrial biosphere in the not-too-distant future."
We all know Mordor, the volcano-peppered wasteland where Sauron dwells in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, is a fantasy land, right? … Right? Don’t be so sure. As fortune would have it, geologists have discovered a landscape that bears an uncanny resemblance to Mordor — under the ocean.
Using advanced imaging techniques, geologists at the University of Aberdeen in the UK and the University of Adelaide and the Australian Resources Research Centre, both in Australia, in Australia captured the very first 3D images of 26 different volcanic sites in the Bight Basin Igneous Complex off the southern coast of Australia. What they found, buried deep below the seafloor sediment, was an array of craggy, sharp, jagged volcanos ranging from about 200 to 2,050 feet in height — about half the height of Mordor’s Mount Doom, according to The Atlas of Middle-Earth. This wicked-looking landscape includes 26 lava flows as wide as nine miles and as long as 21 miles.
“By using data acquired as part of oil exploration efforts, we have been able to map these ancient lava flows in unprecedented detail, revealing a spectacular volcanic landscape that brings to mind illustrations from Lord of the Rings,” said University of Aberdeen geology lecturer Nick Schofield, Ph.D., one of the study’s co-authors, in a statement earlier in January.
This 3D map of the volcanos buried under the seafloor off the southern coast of Australia look like they could have come right out of the pages of 'The Lord of the Rings.'
The team published their findings in a paper in the American Geophysical Union journal Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems on November 10, 2017. The study’s authors couldn’t simply glimpse these volcanoes since they were covered in many feet of seafloor sediment. Or, to put it another way:
Perhaps one can swim.
Advanced imaging was required. In the paper, the researchers describe how this 35 million-year-old landscape may have formed, especially as a result of magmatic intrusions controlling the flow of this undersea magma. The team’s research gives us an unprecedented look at submarine volcanoes, which, despite being incredibly abundant, are very hard to observe. By using seismic reflection to render 3D images of these volcanic regions, the researchers have introduced a powerful new tool to further the study of underwater volcanic activity.
“By using this technique, we have a unique insight into a landscape that has remained hidden for millions of years, highlighting the growing importance of seismic data in studying submarine volcanism,” said Schofield.
Abstract:
Submarine lava flows are the most common surficial igneous rock on the Earth. However, they are inherently more difficult to study than their subaerial counterparts due to their inaccessibility. In this study, we use newly acquired 3-D (three-dimensional) seismic reflection data to document the distribution and morphology of 26 ancient, buried lava flows within the middle Eocene-aged Bight Basin Igneous Complex, offshore southern Australia. Many of these lava flows are associated with volcanoes that vary from 60 to 625 m in height and 0.3 to 10 km in diameter. Well data and seismic-stratigraphic relationships suggest that the lava flows and volcanoes were emplaced offshore in water depths of <300 m="" the="" lava="" flows="" range="" from="" 0="" 5="" to="" 34="" km="" in="" length="" and="" 1="" 15="" width="" are="" typified="" by="" tabular="" dendritic="" forms="" this="" morphological="" variation="" may="" result="" differing="" effusion="" rates="" or="" volumes="" of="" erupted="" we="" demonstrate="" that:="" contain="" complex="" distribution="" systems="" kipukas="" features="" never-before="" observed="" seismic="" data="" 2="" morphology="" was="" strongly="" controlled="" emplacement="" magmatic="" intrusion-induced="" forced="" folds="" suggests="" that="" intrusions="" play="" an="" important="" role="" controlling="" elsewhere="" our="" study="" highlights="" usefulness="" studying="" manifestation="" submarine="" volcanism="" provides="" quantitative="" on="" extent="" ancient="" volcanic="" province="" along="" southern="" australian="" margin="" span="">
In some ways, the Voynich Manuscript is one of the most mysterious texts known to historians. The text is filled with fantastic, surreal imagery depicting plants, astronomical drawings, strange creatures, and a variety of dreamlike scenes. The origin of the text is unknown, but radiocarbon dating of the vellum it was written on puts its date of creation somewhere in the early 15th century. The book has changed hands numerous times throughout the centuries, passing from alchemists to rare booksellers and even to the King of Hungary. Today the Voynich manuscript resides in Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. The 240-page manuscript is written in an unknown language and script and has so far proven undecipherable even by the world’s most skilled cryptographers.
The manuscript is also full of these strange scenes of “nymphs.”
Every year or two, however, someone claims to have deciphered at least part of the manuscript, with most of the clues suggesting it was some type of pharmacopoeia or botany manual. Of course, one could surmise as much just by looking at the pictures. Just this week, however, a pair of Canadian artificial intelligence researchers claims to have developed an AI algorithm capable of deciphering the entire manuscript. Has the mystery of the Voynich manuscript finally been solved?
Curiously, many of the plants depicted in the manuscript resemble no known plants or flowers. Known on Earth, anyway.
Well, not exactly. But we might be getting close. The University of Alberta’s Greg Kondrak and Bradley Hauer claim to have developed an AI algorithm capable of deducing the language a text was written in with 97% accuracy. According to their algorithm, the Voynich manuscript was likely written in Hebrew and then encrypted using a substitution cipher in which letters are shifted, and the vowels have been removed from words. Kondrak and Hauer’s algorithm found that the first sentence of the text translates as “She made recommendations to the priest, man of the house and me and people.” In its analysis of the first 72 words of the manuscript, the algorithm has identified “farmer,” “light,” “air” and “fire” as the four most common words, with “covfefe” coming in a close fifth.
I knows gobbledygook when I sees it.
While this development is being hailed as a breakthrough in the quest to decipher the Voynich manuscript, the researchers themselves note that their work is far from complete and that hours and hours of human research are still needed to interpret the syntax and meaning behind the words. Will we ever really decipher the Voynich manuscript? What if it was written in gibberish and filled with curious images as a hoax or practical joke? Personally, I find that to be the most likely of all scenarios. And how hilarious would that be, writing a book of nonsense that gets pored over by learned men for centuries? If that’s the case, the author was a comic genius.
It allegedly happened over 60 years ago and at least one government official was a witness to extraterrestrials and their spaceship, which was visited and photographed by two other people. No, this isn’t about the event you’re thinking of … and not that other one you’re thinking of either. According to a new book about UFOs set to be published next month, this occurred in Italy in October 1957 and, while known in that country, has photos that have never been revealed outside of Italy until now. Do you want to believe?
“These rare and extraordinary photographs, as well as two photographs of the alleged extraterrestrial pilot… have been published here for the first time.”
The book is called “UFO Contacts In Italy: Volume One : 1907 – 1978” and it’s described as “a limited selection of some of the most impressive and interesting events from over 12,000 UFO Italian cases CUN has in its files and occurred in Italy during the 20th century.” CUN is Centro Uufologico Nazionale, the National UFO Center of Italy. A nonprofit founded in 1966 to collect information on UFO and alien encounters. The book devotes chapters to specific incidents (“1936: Italian Air Force idroplane formation intercepts a UFO over the Thyrrenian Sea”; “1951: A CE3 with six UFO entities near Ferrara”), time periods (The early Sixties: 1961-1964”; 1957-1958 Strange Sightings) and similar groups (“WWII UFOs”). In addition to detailed reports, the book includes a number of cases that have photographic evidence.
The author of “UFO Contacts In Italy: Volume One : 1907 – 1978” is Dr. Robert Pinotti, the founder of the National UFO Center (CUN) who is considered to be a leading expert in European UFO sightings. In that capacity, he has acted as a UFO consultant for the Italian government and claims to have seen secret documents on encounters from the Italian Department of Defense.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. What about the photos of aliens and the inside of their ship?
Pinotti claims the photographs (seen here) were taken in October 1957 in Francavillia, where humanoid aliens began making periodic visits and interacting with the local residents starting in 1956. The pictures were allegedly taken by two men who boarded the 24-meter (79-ft) spacecraft at the invitation of one of the humanlike ETs, who wore sunglasses as he (it appears to be a he) showed them around the 10-meter (31-ft) cabin and allowed a picture of him wearing sunglasses to protect his eyes. Pinotti claims the photos first appeared in 1958 in a book called “Sono Extraterrestri” by Alberto Perego and have never been seen outside of Italy.
Some ufology experts will recognize this story as the so-called “Friendship case,” a decades-long series of alien encounters in and around Pescara, Italy, from 1956 through the 1970s that was covered in a 2009 documentary, “The Friendship Case,” which contained photographs (although apparently not the ones in the book) and interviews with some of the alleged hundreds of witnesses, many of whom were said to belong to Italian high society and some in government positions.
It appears that Dr. Pinotti is promoting the release of “UFO Contacts In Italy: Volume One : 1907 – 1978” to various media outlets and they have picked up on this particular story and its grainy photo of an alleged alien. However, the rest of the book looks like it will be pretty interesting and promises at least a second volume with additional sightings from 1978 to the present.
It may not be time to believe just yet, but it’s definitely time to read.
UBR- UFO Report 89: Photos of ET and Interior of Craft
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Talk Radio with James Gilliland NEW
Talk Radio with James Gilliland NEW
20th January 2018 – James has been at the forefront of the UFO Community and Conscious Contact for over three decades. Owner of the ECETI Ranch on Mt Adams – where UFOs are spotted on an ongoing basis – James continues to raise the Disclosure conversation to the Highest Vibration. James tells it like it is – uncontrolled, uncensored.
Image copyrightSPACEXImage captionA big exhaust plume rises over the Kennedy launch pad
America's SpaceX company has conducted a key test ahead of the maiden flight of its new rocket - the Falcon Heavy.
In what is known as a static firing, all 27 engines on the launcher's first stage were ignited together to check they are flight-ready.
The procedure, conducted in Florida, lasted only seconds and the rocket was clamped to keep it on the ground.
The Falcon Heavy will be the most powerful launcher in the world when it eventually lifts off.
Depending on the analysis of Wednesday's test, that could occur within the next fortnight.
Company CEO and chief designer, Elon Musk, tweeted: "Falcon Heavy hold-down firing this morning was good. Generated quite a thunderhead of steam. Launching in a week or so."
The Falcon Heavy is essentially three of SpaceX's workhorse Falcon 9 vehicles strapped together.
But the triple-booster configuration has demanded a number of specific alterations, including a strengthening of the central core booster.
The 27 Merlin engines at the base of the rocket should be capable of generating almost 23,000 kilonewtons of thrust - slightly more than double that of the world's current most powerful rocket, the Delta IV Heavy, which is operated by US competitor United Launch Alliance.
Landing a booster after launch negates some payload performance
The 70m-tall Falcon Heavy is designed to put up to a maximum of 64 tonnes in low-Earth orbit, although in reality it will be rare that the vehicle lofts this much mass.
SpaceX intends to land the rocket's boosters back on Earth after launch - as is the company's usual practice today with the Falcon 9 - and that necessarily negates some performance.
But the new capability would mean the firm in future has no difficult launching the biggest military and commercial telecommunications satellites - and is still able to recover all three first-stage boosters.
The introduction of the rocket should also open up some fascinating possibilities to send much bigger payloads beyond Earth orbit than is currently possible. This could include sending astronaut capsules to the Moon, or bigger robots to Mars.
Because the maiden flight of any rocket carries a higher degree of risk, the Falcon Heavy will not take up a meaningful payload when it finally launches.
Instead, Mr Musk has decided to put his old sportscar on the top of the Falcon Heavy. His idea is to send this red roadster towards the orbit Mars takes around the Sun.
Image copyrightSPACEXImage captionElon Musk's roadster is ready to head in the direction of Mars
Several strange phenomena have led some to believe that the eternal companion of the Earth; the Moon is, in fact, some sort of a huge spaceship. Crazy theory? Well, here’s why.
A curious video taken from a backyard telescope, which showed an alleged UFO fleet over the moon, caused a stir worldwide. This makes us wonder about what could possibly hide in that celestial body. Is it possible that there are civilizations living there if so what is their purpose? and what is its real origin of the moon?
Those who believe in the Alien Moon theory state that the moon had to be created by a highly developed civilization, much more than ours. Under this unusual logic, our artificial satellite would have to be hollow inside so that, within it, the aliens could place fuel for machinery, materials and accessories that would be used to repair working instruments, navigational instruments, observation equipment and all kinds of machinery, but most importantly, it could actually be used as a gigantic underground base or even as a giant spaceship.
If to all of the above we add the fact that there are some astronauts, those who went on NASA’s missions such as the “Apollo”,the now retired astronauts, have publicly said they have had contact with UFO’s and aliens, and that are even extraterrestrial beings living there having that said, for some, this does not sound so crazy after all.
Google Moon Photographs used in the Sea of Muscovy ( were several mysteries have been spotted) come from the Japanese probe Kaguya, also known as SELENE (selenological and Engineering Explorer), which for nearly two years was analyzing various aspects of our satellite, the distribution of elements on its surface, the magnetic and gravitational field, etc. The interest in this particular area is very big, ugolofists claim that this specifica area is very attractive when looking for anomalies thus it is a very interesting part of the moon that holds the answer for several questions that have been postulated throughout the years.
Recently triangular objects have been spotted on the surface of the moon, leading ufologists to speculate about the purpose of the odd objects but sceptics argue that the mysterious objects are actually simple pixels that do not appear in the original image. In addition, they argue that if you look closely you can see a set of other points “scattered” by other areas of the Moon.
The answer to this is that Google stores multiple image frames in various resolutions, using filters that create noise along the boundaries between light and dark regions, creating curios spots that some might interpret as out-of-place-objects. But the pixel theory does not explain geometrical patterns in these objects, if you take in count the pixelation theory, then you would expect the pixels to create random dots not connected, but the objects that have been identified on the moon follow specific geometrical patterns; like triangles and rectangles. Here are some interesting images that can debunk the pixel theory about the lunar bases/objects.
Science might one day provide conclusive evidence of alien beings on the moon, bases, vehicles etc. But the truth is all of us can only wonder and propose theories at this point. Skeptics that debunk the alien moon base theories do not have the slight idea what is going on up there, or why human beings have not traveled to the moon even though it is a point of interest for us not only because of its proximity but also because of the exploitable natural resources present on the moon.
The truth is that the mystery of UFO’s continues, reports of anomalies appear again and again and will probably continue to do so. We can only form our own opinion about these mysterious objects and their origin and purpose.
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Scientists Explain What Would Happen If The Earth Was Really Flat
Scientists Explain What Would Happen If The Earth Was Really Flat
What Would Happen If The Earth Was Really Flat?
Despite the fact there is ample evidence by which we know our planet is in fact round, there are many people who argue against these facts.
The Flat Earth Society, for example, contends that our planet is, in fact, flat and that the images and videos made available through NASA, ESA, Roscosmos and other space agencies are the results of Computer Generated Images (CGI).
In fact, more than 2,300 years ago, ancient Greek philosophers and Geographers managed to calculate the circumference of our planet and conclude the Earth was round. Eratosthenes of Cyrene, a Greek mathematician, geographer, poet, astronomer, and music theorist, and the chief librarian at the Library of Alexandria calculated the circumference of the Earth.
Eratosthenes was visiting Syene (now Aswan), he observed a phenomenon that caught his attention: at midday, on the summer solstice, no vertical shadows were being cast down. This happened because the Sun was directly overhead.
Upon returning to his city, Alexandria, the mathematician tried to prove if the same thing happened there. He stuck a stick in the ground to see if, at noon, it generated shadows or not.
And of course, there was a shadow, of 7 degrees to be precise. The conclusion that Eratosthenes drew from this phenomenon was the right one: The Earth must be spherical.
Despite the fact there is evidence which proves our planet is round, many people claim it’s not, and that we live on a Flat Earth.
Image Credit: Shutterstock.
That’s great but… what would happen if the Earth was in fact FLAT?
The belief in a flat Earth refuses to disappear from the curious mind of ‘flat-earthers.’
However, and despite the beliefs of the Flat Earth Society, a revealing blog from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University explains what would happen if our planet was flat.
First, a ‘flat Earth’ as the one that the Flat Earth Society defends may not have gravity. It is not clear how gravity would work or be created in such a world, says Lamont Doherty geophysicist James Davis.
This is a huge problem since gravity explains a wide range of terrestrial and cosmic observations.
The same measurable force that causes an apple to fall from a tree also causes the moon to orbit the Earth and all the planets orbit around the sun.
People who believe in a flat Earth assume that gravity acts directly, but there is no evidence to suggest that it works that way.
What we know about gravity indicates that it would pull toward the center of the disk that forms the so-called flat Earth.
That means that it would only pull down at a point in the center of the disk.
As it moved further and further away from the center, gravity would pull more and more horizontally.
This would have some strange impacts, such as sucking up all the water towards the center of the world and causing the trees and plants to grow diagonally, as they develop in the opposite direction to the pull of gravity.
The Sun
Then we have our mighty and beautiful Sun.
In the scientifically supported model of the solar system, the Earth revolves around the sun because the latter is much more massive and has more gravity.
However, the Earth does not move towards to the Sun because it travels in an orbit.
In other words, the sun’s gravity is not acting alone.
The planet is also traveling in a direction perpendicular to the gravitational pull of the star; if it were possible to deactivate that gravity, the Earth would shoot in a straight line and speed out of the solar system.
Gravitation on Flat planet Earth.
Image Credit: Shutterstock
In contrast, the linear pulse and the sun’s gravity combined, result in a circular orbit around the sun.
The Flat Earth theory places our planet at the center of the universe but does not suggest that the Sun orbits the Earth.
On the contrary, the sun rotates on the upper side of the world like a carousel, emitting light and heat downwards like a desk lamp.
Without the linear and perpendicular impulse that helps generate an orbit, it is not clear what force would prevent the Sun and the Moon from hovering above the Earth, says Davis, instead of impacting it.
Satellites: A no go for a Flat Earth
Furthermore, if our planet was, in fact, flat, artificial satellites would probably not be possible.
How would you orbit a plane?
“There is a series of satellite missions that society depends on that simply would not work,” says Davis.
For this reason, he says: “I can not think how GPS would work on a flat Earth.”
If the Sun and Moon simply revolve around one side of a flat Earth, there is likely to be a procession of days and nights.
But it would not explain the seasons, the eclipses and many other phenomena.
A Flat Earth surrounded by a Massive wall made of Ice, according to the Flat Earth Society.
The Sun should also, presumably, be smaller than Earth as to not burn up or crash into our planet or the Moon.
We know that the Sun is more than 100 times the diameter of the Earth.
Deep beneath our planet, the solid core of the Earth generates the magnetic field of the planet.
But on a flat planet, that would have to be replaced by something else.
Maybe a sheet of liquid metal.
That, however, would not rotate in a way that would create a magnetic field.
Without a magnetic field, charged particles from the sun would fry the planet.
This means we would not have an atmosphere, as it occurred on Mars after our neighboring planet lost its magnetic field, causing the air and oceans to escape into space.
Contrary to popular belief, and what is written all over the internet, it is a mistake to think that many societies and educated people believed in the theory of the flat Earth.
“With few extraordinary exceptions, no one educated in the history of Western civilization since the third century of our era believed that the Earth was flat,” noted historian Jeffrey Burton Russell in 1997.
“A round Earth appears at least since the VI century before Christ with Pythagoras, who was followed by Aristotle, Euclid, and Aristarchus, among others, observing that the earth was a sphere,” explained Davis.
Study Finds TRAPPIST-1 Star System Contains Two Potentially Habitable Planets
Study Finds TRAPPIST-1 Star System Contains Two Potentially Habitable Planets
An extraordinary discovery has been made by scientists in the Trappist-1 solar system. Astronomers say that two of the planets orbiting the TRAPPIST-1 star may have ideal conditions for life as we know it to flourish on their surface.
Astronomers have identified that two exoplanets in the TRAPPIST-1 system are more likely to be habitable, according to the eccentricity of their orbits and the consequent tidal heating.
The TRAPPIST-1 system has been of great interest to planetary observers and scientists because it seems to contain seven planets that are approximately the size of Earth.
Amy Barr, a researcher from the Planetary Science Institute, and co-authors Vera Dobos and Laszlo L. Kiss have examined the implications of internal structures and tidal warming on these planets, in a study published in Astronomy & Astrophysics.
The TRAPPIST-1 system.
“Because the TRAPPIST-1 star is very old and dark, the surfaces of the planets have relatively cold temperatures according to planetary standards, ranging from 400 degrees Kelvin, which is colder than Venus, to 167 degrees Kelvin, which is colder than the poles of the Earth,” Barr said in a statement.
“The planets also orbit very close to the star, with orbital periods of a few days, since most of their orbits are eccentric, not entirely circular, these planets could experience tidal heating as well as the moons of Jupiter and Saturn.”
“Assuming that the planets are composed of water ice, rock and iron, we can determine how much of each element could be present, and how thick the different layers could be, because the masses and radii of the planets are not very well restricted, it shows the entire range of possible interior structures and interior compositions,” said Barr.
This graphic compares the distance of planets from the host star in the TRAPPIST-1 system and the solar system.
The team’s results have shown that improved estimates of the masses of each planet can help determine if each of the planets has a significant amount of water.
The planets studied are named by letter, planets b to h, in order of distance from the star.
The analyzes carried out by co-author Vera Dobos show that planets D and E are the most susceptible to being habitable due to their moderate surface temperature, moderate amounts of tidal heating and because their heat fluxes are low enough to avoid entering a state of greenhouse runaway.
A plot of diameter versus the amount of sunlight hitting the planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system, scaled by the size of the Earth and the amount of sunlight hitting the Earth. F. Marchis, H. Marchis
An ocean of global water probably covers the TRAPPIST D.
The team calculated the balance between tidal warming and convective heat transport in the mantles of each planet.
The results show that planets b and c probably have partially melted rock layers.
The document also shows that planet C probably has a solid rock surface, and could have eruptions of silicate magmas on its surface driven by tidal warming, similar to Jupiter’s moon Io.
The figure appears to be wearing shades. Picture: FLYING DISK PRESS
It was a fine October 1957 night in Francavilla on Italy's Adriatic coast - but something extraordinary of the otherworldly kind was about to happen.
At least according to an aerospace expert and sociologist who claims an alien wearing dark shades to cover his eyes when it landed its UFO and let two villagers on board.
Dr Roberto Pinotti, 73, said the human-like beings actually visited often and even posed for pictures. They just wanted to be “friends,” he said.
And in a series of chilling but grainy pictures published in his new book, UFO Contacts In Italy, the author claims to reveal photos of the interior of an alien spacecraft and an extra-terrestrial being.
Picture: A control panel inside the space craft
(FLYING DISK PRESS)
Picture: The alien let two people inside the UFO and even let them take photos, it is claimed
(FLYING DISK PRESS)
The UFO was 24 metres in diameter and the control cabin was 10 meters, claims Dr Pinotti, who is also the founder of Italy’s National UFO Centre.
He said in a statement:
These rare and extraordinary photographs, as well as two photographs of the alleged extraterrestrial pilot… have been published here for the first time.
He added that you can see inside the “cockpit with seating,control panel and other objects.”
Picture: Author Robert Pinotti
(FLYING DISK PRESS)
Speaking to indy100, former director of investigations for the British UFO Association Philip Mantle said that we should keep an open mind but also remain sceptical about UFO claims like this. He said:
It is the easiest thing to do to shout 'fake' or 'hoax' without ever doing any investigation in the first place.
As I have not personally investigated these photos I therefore remain open mind although somewhat sceptical.
I believe the best way to get to the bottom of these photos is to get them into the public domain which is exactly what we have done.
Once you do that then others may come forward with more information that can either support the authenticity of such photos or offer evidence that shows them to be fake.
Mr Mantle added that these photos are very unique as whether fake or real, they show the interior of a UFO. There are many photos that claim to show extraterrestrial spacecraft but not many from the inside.
Sun pillars, or light pillars, are shafts of light extending from the sun or other bright light source. They’re caused by ice crystals drifting in Earth’s air.
Canada geese look like ghosts as they fly though a sun pillar – January 28, 2017 – in Quakertown, Pennsylvania.
EarthSky Facebook friends occasionally post beautiful photos of sun pillars, or light pillars. For example, there was a beautiful one seen from the U.S. West Coast on March 20, 2016 … a beautiful prelude to the first full night of spring. Sun pillars are vertical shafts of light that extend upward (or downward) from a bright light source, such as the sun or other bright light low on the horizon. They can be five to 10 degrees tall and sometimes even higher. They might lengthen or brighten as you gaze at them.
They’re beautiful and wondrous. They’re also the source of some UFO reports!
Joe C. Tabb and Dawn Tabb caught this amazing sun pillar at sunset on May 10, 2016. A storm had recently passed.
The U.S. West Coast got an amazing sun pillar on the first evening of spring, 2016. Photo by Lyle Evans in Highland, California.
Another shot of the beautiful sun pillar seen on March 20, 2016, from the U.S. West Coast. This one is from Chris Levitan Photography. Thanks, Chris!
Sun pillars or light pillars are formed by reflection from hexagonal plate-like ice crystals in Earth’s air. These crystals drift through the atmosphere with a horizontal orientation, gently rocking from side to side as they fall. Diagram via University of Illinois.
Sun pillars or light pillars form when sunlight (or another bright light source) reflects off the surfaces of millions of falling ice crystals associated with thin, high-level clouds, for example, cirrostratus clouds. The ice crystals have roughly horizontal faces. They are falling through Earth’s atmosphere, rocking slightly from side to side.
When is the best time to see a sun pillar or light pillar?
µYou’ll most often see sun pillars when the sun is low in the western sky before sunset, or low in the east just after the breaking of dawn. You might even see a sun pillar when the sun is below the horizon. Light pillars can be seen at any time of night.
View larger. | Wesley Liikane in Severn Bridge, Ontario captured these light pillars on December 23, 2013. See more photos by Wesley at Cowboy with a Camera on Facebook.
They’re called sun pillars when the sun helps make them. But this the moon or even streetlights can create this light phenomenon, too, in which case the name light pillar is more appropriate.
These pillars of light often prompt people to report sightings of UFOs. They can sometimes look strange! There are said to be a lot of UFO reports caused by light pillars over Niagara Falls, where the mist from the rush of descending water interacts with the city’s many upward facing spotlights. Light pillars do appear frequently over Niagara Falls, especially during the winter.
As always, the great website Atmospheric Optics is a wonderful place to go and learn more about sun pillars.
Photo credit: EarthSky Facebook friend Kim Smith, taken February 2013. She says “My first ever sun pillar! We don’t often see them here in Walker Creek, Arkansas. I am glad I was out to photograph the sunset today when this occurred.” Thanks Kim!
Bottom line: Sun pillars, or light pillars, are vertical shafts of light that can sometimes be seen extending upwards or downwards from the sun or other bright light source. They’re caused by light reflection from hexagonal ice crystals drifting in Earth’s atmosphere.
DOUBLE TROUBLE Cloned macaque sisters Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua, the first primates successfully cloned via somatic cell nuclear transfer, are just 8 and 7 weeks old, respectively.
QIANG SUN, MU-MING POO/CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
Meet Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua, the first primates cloned by reprogramming adult cells.
Two decades after Dolly the Sheep was successfully cloned(SN: 3/1/97, p. 132), Chinese researchers have used the same technique — somatic cell nuclear transfer — to clone two healthy baby macaque monkeys. The results, reported January 24 in Cell, could lead to more efficient cloning and a better way to study genetic diseases in primates.
“This could be it — the next step in cloning,” says Jose Cibelli, a geneticist at Michigan State University in East Lansing not involved with the study.
Over 20 species of mammals have been cloned via somatic cell nuclear transfer — including cats, dogs, rats and even a camel (SN: 3/23/02, p. 189). This cloning technology has improved since Dolly’s birth in 1996. Back then, she was the only sheep born from 277 attempts. By 2014, the cloning technique had an 80 percent success rate in pigs. Despite these gradual advances (SN: 3/8/14, p. 7), cloning of nonhuman primates has long eluded researchers.
A rhesus monkey “clone” was created through embryo splitting, a technique that divides a single embryo into genetically identical embryos, in 1999. But this type of cloning has little in common with somatic cell nuclear transfer.
In somatic cell nuclear transfer, a nucleus from a mature body cell is transplanted into an egg cell without a nucleus. The egg cell must then reprogram the nucleus’s DNA, basically stripping the body cell of its identity and returning it to an embryonic state. With no set identity, it can become any kind of cell in the body.
TWICE THE FUN Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua, the first primates successfully cloned via somatic cell nuclear transfer, are healthy, playful and, so far, completely normal for baby macaques. The sisters will spend the next few months in an incubator together.
Previous failures in reprogramming primate cells probably happened because the egg ran into roadblocks — portions of the body cell’s DNA known as reprogramming-resistant regions, say study coauthor Mu-ming Poo, director of the Institute of Neuroscience at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai, and his colleagues. In these regions, DNA is so tightly wrapped around proteins called histones that the egg can’t reprogram those bits. So the researchers added two molecules aimed at loosening the DNA’s packaging.
The team tried this method with two types of body cells: ovarian cells from an adult and connective tissue cells from a fetus. Although 22 out of 42 monkeys became pregnant with embryos cloned from ovarian cells, only two babies were born and neither survived long past birth. Efforts with embryos made with the fetal cells resulted in six pregnancies among 21 surrogate monkey moms and two healthy babies.
“After 20 years of trying from the most talented groups, and nothing working, finally this works,” Cibelli says. “This research is going to help cloning of all species.”
Cloned primates could help researchers better understand diseases in humans. Macaques are close genetic relatives to humans, making the monkeys better analogs than other lab animals. And clones make it easier to weed out the complications of different genetics when studying diseases or testing drugs.
The sisters are just a few weeks old, but they hold a lifetime of promise for researchers. Poo says the scientists will watch for any abnormalities as Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua grow and play.
“The monkeys are in good health and very active,” he says. “There are no signs they are unhealthy.”
SCI-FI GRAPHICS GET REAL A new laser system renders 3-D images in thin air, and could pave the way for futuristic displays akin to the iconic Princess Leia scene in Star Wars. Here, the system displays a researcher imitating the scene.
D.E. SMALLEY ET AL/NATURE 201
The 3-D displays seen in such sci-fi movies as Star Wars may not be so far, far away.
With this new technology, “you really can, in principle, achieve what everyone hopes to achieve, which is the image of Princess Leia in that scene in Star Wars,” says Curtis Broadbent, a physicist at the University of Rochester in New York who was not involved in the work.
Whereas holograms are images on flat surfaces that only appear three-dimensional because of how the light bounces off the material, the newly created images actually take up 3-D space (SN: 12/4/10, p. 8). Two-dimensional images of virtual performers can also be made to appear 3-D through stage tricks that involve carefully placed projectors and reflective surfaces. But like holograms, these seemingly 3-D images can only be viewed from certain angles. The new technique creates 3-D images that can be seen from almost any direction.
Using a nearly invisible laser, researchers can steer a tiny glowing particle through a path in 3-D space to create images that can be seen from almost any angle. Here, the team draws a butterfly (left), a portrait of Princess Leia (middle) and a squiggle (right).
This system works by trapping a cellulose particle that’s mere micrometers across in a beam of nearly invisible laser light. That laser repeatedly moves the particle along a specific path through the air, for example, in the shape of a corkscrew or the outline of a butterfly. At each point on the particle’s path, other lasers illuminate it with red, green or blue light, which the particle scatters in all directions. This creates a single image pixel that can be viewed from all sides.
Because the particle whizzes through the air so quickly and loops through the same path over and over again, all these pixels blur together — like the tip of a sparkler waved so fast that it seemingly smears into a solid line. This creates what appears to be a still image floating in the air.
Daniel Smalley, an electrical engineer at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, and his colleagues used this method to produce graphics about the size of a postage stamp. Because the technology draws a picture with a single particle, the researchers could create only small images, including a high-resolution picture of Earth about one centimeter in diameter.
“Scaling that up to even something about the size of a computer monitor would be pretty challenging,” Broadbent says. Researchers would have to refine their prototype to make pictures using many particles.
Smalley says he is already imagining a system that manipulates 100 or even 1,000 particles at once. With those improvements, “the sky becomes the limit,” he says.
PARTICLE PAINTING Researchers created a one-centimeter-wide image of Earth (photographed hovering above a fingertip) by using a nearly invisible laser to drag a glowing 10-micrometer particle back and forth.
D.E. SMALLEY ET AL/NATURE 2018
Free-floating images could help doctors practice surgery before the patient goes under the knife, says physicist Barry Blundell, of the University of Derby in England, whose commentary appears in the same issue of Nature. This technology could also be used for physical therapy or improving athletic performance. People could record themselves performing various activities, like swinging a golf club, and then view the footage on 3-D displays to carefully study their bodily motion, explains Blundell. And if the images can be continually updated with real-time data, such 3-D visuals could provide air traffic controllers with dynamic maps of planes in the air, or help researchers track satellites to ensure they don’t collide.
The possibilities for advertising, education and entertainment systems are endless, Broadbent says. The world may someday be full of pop-up images like those imagined in the film Jurassic World, where museum patrons walk through a hall where a projected dinosaur image stands on display, or like the free-standing visuals used by the character Tony Stark in designing his metal suits in the Iron Man films. And unlike virtual reality systems, these new laser-drawn pictures can be seen with the naked eye: No headgear required. (SN: 3/18/17, p. 24)
Large Sized 3D Holographic Projection at Medical Conference
7D Holographic Technology - A once not considered advertiser friendly video
Amazing Hologram Technology Is Transforming Our World ''Virtueel Zoo''
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The Prambanan Temple Compound: The 240 Ancient Rocket-Like Hindu Structures
The Prambanan Temple Compound: The 240 Ancient Rocket-Like Hindu Structures
Prambanan is a set of more than 200 Hindu temples built in the distant past and dedicated to the Trímurti, the expression of God as the Creator (Brahma), the Preserver (Vishnu) and the Destroyer (Shivá).
This magnificent ancient site is located about 18 km east of Yogyakarta.
The temples are believed to have been built during the 9th century under the Sanjaya dynasty of the first Kingdom of Mataram in the Central Java region.
An inscription dated in the year 856 marks what is possibly its founding stone.
Prambanan is considered the most significant Hindu temple site in Indonesia, and one of the biggest in Southeast Asia.
The stunning rocket-like structures are characterized by its tall and pointed architecture style, which, according to historians, are typical of Hindu architecture and by a towering 47-meter-high central building inside a large complex of individual temples. Scholars note that the design of Prambanan temple follows the typical Hindu architecture traditions based on Vastu Shastra— a traditional Hindu system of architecture which translates to “science of architecture.
According to the Shivagrha inscription of 856 CE, the Prambanan Temple Compound was built to honor Lord Shiva. Scholars argue that its original name was either Shiva-grha (the House of Shiva) or Shiva-laya (the Realm of Shiva).
Its architecture is unlike anything I’ve ever come across.
According to historical reference, there were originally 240 temples standing in Prambanan.
3 Trimurti temples: The three main temples dedicated to Shiva, Visnu, and Brahma.
3 Vahana temples: three temples in front of Trimurti temples dedicated to the vahana of each gods; Nandi, Garuda, and Hamsa.
2 Apit temples: two temples located between the rows of Trimurti and Vahana temples on north and south side.
4 Kelir temples: four small shrines located on 4 cardinal directions right beyond the 4 main gates of inner zone.
4 Patok temples: four small shrines located on 4 corners of the inner zone.
224 Pervara temples: hundreds of temples arranged in 4 concentric square rows; numbers of temples from inner row to outer row are: 44, 52, 60, and 68.
As noted by Lonely Planet, the temple compound suffered extensive damage in the 2006 earthquake. Although the temples survived, hundreds of stone blocks collapsed to the ground and cracked (479 in the Shiva temple alone).
DIERENChinese wetenschappers zijn er voor het eerst in geslaagd apen te klonen uit een niet-embryonale cel. Ze gebruikten dezelfde techniek als waarmee twee decennia geleden het schaap Dolly ter wereld kwam. Het zou de deur kunnen openen naar het klonen van mensen.
De wetenschappers creëerden twee identieke langstaart makaken, Zhong Zhong en Hua Hua, die acht en zes weken geleden ter wereld kwamen in een wetenschappelijk instituut voor neurologie in Shanghai. De apen werden geboren via therapeutisch klonen, waarbij de celkern uit een eicel wordt gehaald en vervangen door de celkern van een ander dier. De wetenschappers denken dat zij hiermee belangrijk werk hebben geleverd voor medisch onderzoek.
APDe aapjes Zhong Zhong en Hua Hua werden gekloond met dezelfde techniek als waarmee het schaap Dolly ter wereld kwam.
Sinds de geboorte van het schaap Dolly in 19996 in Schotland hebben wetenschappers meer dan 20 andere soorten gekloond, zoals koeien, varkens en honden. Primaten bleken echter moeilijker te klonen dan andere zoogdieren. Toch zijn de aapjes niet de eerste die gekloond werden. Het is wel voor het eerst dat dat gebeurt uit een niet-embryonale cel.
De aanpak zou de deur kunnen openzetten naar het klonen van mensen. Voorlopig zijn er echter geen plannen in die richting. “Er zijn nu geen hindernissen meer voor het klonen van primaatsoorten, en dus komt het klonen van mensen wat dichter bij de realiteit. Maar we hebben absoluut niet die intentie. De maatschappij zal ook niet toestaan dat dit werk wordt uitgebreid naar mensen”, aldus de supervisor van het project, Muming Poo.
AFPMuming Poo, een van de leidende wetenschappers.
WETENSCHAPDe rotsen van het dorpje Georgetown in het noorden van Australië maakten ooit geologisch deel uit van West-Laurentia, zeg maar het huidige Canada. Dat blijkt uit een onderzoek van de Curtin University in Perth. De afsplitsing tussen de twee kwam er bijna 1,7 miljard jaar geleden. Anders gezegd: Georgetown zit eigenlijk op een 1,7 miljard jaar oud stuk van Noord-Amerika.
Twee miljard jaar geleden bestond er een gigantisch supercontinent, Columbia. Simpel gezegd hing de landmassa van de hele wereld toen nog aan elkaar. Daarna dreven verscheidene continenten, zoals Laurentia, uit elkaar. Laurentia is de geologische kern van het Noord-Amerikaanse continent. Laurentia reisde zowat de hele wereld af en weekte zich los van verschillende continenten om zich uiteindelijk definitief te vestigen op de plaats van wat nu Noord-Amerika is. Op haar traject liet ze segmenten achter in het noorden van Australië.
Restanten ervan zijn nu ook gevonden in Georgetown in Noord-Queensland, een dorpje met amper 250 inwoners, zo’n 400 km ten westen van Cairns. De onderzochte gesteenten vertonen geen gelijkenissen met ander gesteente in Australië maar wel met die in Laurentia uit het eon Proterozoïcum, nu Canada.
Curtin UniversityAdam Nordsvan aan het werk in Georgetown.
Volgens de wetenschappers groeide er 1,66 miljard jaar geleden een kloof tussen de getuigenheuvel Georgetown en Laurentia. In die periode was supercontinent Columbia al aan het verbrokkelen. Een stuk van Laurentia volgde de grotere massa niet en bleef achter om later te botsen met Georgetown.
“Ons onderzoek toont aan dat ongeveer 1,7 miljard jaar geleden Georgetown-gesteenten in een ondiepe zee werden afgezet toen de streek deel uitmaakte van Noord-Amerika”, zegt Adam Nordsvan van de Curtin University. “Georgetown brak vervolgens af van Noord-Amerika en botste ongeveer 100 miljoen jaar later met de regio Mount Isa in het noorden van Australië.” Nordsvan legt uit dat de getuigenheuvel van Georgetown een soort van “continentale strook” is, een “stuk continentale korst, losgetrokken van een kraton”, in dit geval Laurentia. Een modern voorbeeld daarvan is Nieuw-Zeeland.
Curtin UniversityZo'n 1,7 miljard jaar geleden werd sedimentair gesteente van Georgetown gedeponeerd voor de Noord-Amerikaanse kust.
WETENSCHAP & PLANEET11.000 meter onder de zeespiegel: daar ligt de diepste plek ter wereld. Chinese wetenschappers bouwen momenteel aan een onbemande duikboot die ons naar de bodem van de Marianentrog moet brengen en ons tegen 2020 een glimp moet geven van wat daar te zien is.
De trog heeft de vorm van een halve maan en ligt ten oosten van de Filipijnen. Hij is ongeveer 2.500 kilometer lang en gemiddeld 70 kilometer breed. De druk op de bodem is meer dan 1.000 keer zo hoog als de druk aan de oppervlakte van het water. Niet evident dus om er te geraken. (lees hieronder verder)
Chinese wetenschappers van de Jiaotong-universiteit in Shanghai hopen met een nieuwe onbemande duikboot dieper te komen dan iemand ooit is gelukt. Het vaartuig kan tot op 11.000 meter en daar zou ook het diepste punt van de oceaan te vinden moeten zijn: in de Challengerdiepte, een van de plaatsen op aarde waar we nog het minste over weten. Het is onderdeel van een diepzeeprogramma dat van China een maritieme wereldspeler moet maken.
De duikboot moet tegen 2020 klaar zijn. “Hij moet in staat zijn om precieze meetgegevens door te geven en obstakels te vermijden”, aldus professor Ge Tong, die het project leidt. “Alles wat hij ziet, ruikt en voelt, moet hij kunnen omzetten in data en kilometers naar boven doorseinen.”
Duikboot
Het is niet de eerste duikboot die Tong maakt voor de Chinese overheid sinds het diepzeeprogramma in 2011 van start ging. Het diepste punt waarop China al raakte is 10.767 meter (in 2016). Het diepste punt waar een bemande duikboot uit China al raakte is 7.000 meter. (lees hieronder verder)
RVDe bemande duikboot Jiaolong.
Hoewel er al bijna 1.000 mensen op de top van de Mount Everest geraakten – het hoogste punt ter wereld – raakten nog maar enkelen in de buurt van het diepste punt. De Amerikaanse legerluitenant Don Walsh en zijn Zwitserse collega Jacques Piccard raakten op 10.790 meter in 1960. Veel zagen ze echter niet door opdwarrelend zand op de zeebodem, alleen enkele scholen bot en garnalen. En de Canadese regisseur James Cameron bereikte 10.898 meter diepte op een solo-expeditie in 2012.
Onderzoekers
Het diepterecord staat momenteel op naam van een Japanse onbemande diepzeesonde, die in 1995 tot een diepte van 10.911 meter daalde. Japan is overigens bezig met de bouw van een bemande duikboot die 12.000 meter diepte kan halen, maar die zou pas over een tiental jaar klaar zijn. De zes onderzoekers die aan boord zouden kunnen gaan, zouden de zeebodem diepgaand kunnen onderzoeken.
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Alien Tech In USAF Hands At Secret Base In Palm Beach, Florida, Photos + Video's, UFO Sighting News.
Alien Tech In USAF Hands At Secret Base In Palm Beach, Florida, Photos + Video's , UFO Sighting News.
Date of discovery: Jan 3, 2018
Location of discovery: Palm beach, Florida
Google coordinates: 26°55'42.64"N 80°20'23.97"W
Source: Google Earth Free Map
This is alien tech in the US militaries hands. This spacecraft, located at a top secret airport, was found on Google Earth and shows a diamond stealth craft built for high speed flight. Although this craft has some similarities to an X-47B, it is clearly a whole new evolution of that craft. As you can see, the shape is almost the same, however the back 30% is totally different. Awesome discovery by Secureteam10 of Youtube.
Solid White Diamond UFO Near Space Station On Live Cam, Jan 2018, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Solid White Diamond UFO Near Space Station On Live Cam, Jan 2018, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: January 2018
Location of sighting: International Space Station
This diamond UFO was flashing as it passed by the international space station this week. Its white, much like the space station and when it lights up, its very visible in the background. The shape is like a diamond and it seems to be watching the space station, orbiting it if you will. This is a fantastic video made by Streetcap1 of Youtube. 100% evidence that aliens do exist.
UFO Lights Appear During ISS Live Stream On January 10th, 2018, Video, UFO Sighting News.
UFO Lights Appear During ISS Live Stream On January 10th, 2018, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: January 10, 2018 Location of sighting: Space Station live cam This UFO was recorded by the Youtube user Of Sound Mind and Body. It shows a beautiful glowing UFO in the distance near the space station caught on live cam. The UFO changes colors every few seconds and appears to have two sections. A larger sphere and a smaller one. They seem very intrigued by the space station, as if its a tourist destination for aliens. Strange, but probably true. Scott C. Waring
UFO Breaks Through Clouds Landing Somewhere Behind Sydney, Australia, Jan 2018, Video, UFO Sighting News.
UFO Breaks Through Clouds Landing Somewhere Behind Sydney, Australia, Jan 2018, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: January 15, 2018
Location of sighting: Sydney, Australia
This UFO entering earths atmosphere was caught by Youtube user UFO Sydney. The UFO was caught using an infrared camera, which sees infrared, a light that the human eye cannot see. Here a UFO breaks through the clouds and has a trail behind it, probably from the clouds not the UFO. The UFO is traveling at about 10X the speed of a fighter jet, so its not a plane or rocket. Fantastic video. Proof that ET's are alive and well in Sydney.
Two UFOs In Airport Flight Path Over Memphis, Tennessee On Dec 2017, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Two UFOs In Airport Flight Path Over Memphis, Tennessee On Dec 2017, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: December 24, 2017
Location of sighting: Memphis, Tennessee, USA
The UFO video was reported by TheSkyUFO of Youtube. We see two glowing UFOs rising up into some clouds, until a plane passes. Then they move out and another aircraft passes close to them. In comparison to the aircraft, the UFOs look like they are about the size of cars. Remarkable evidence.
Scott C. Waring
Witness report:
I saw two objects in the sky which seemed to be orbs floating in sky I was headed back home after Christmas celebrations with my brother. It was a beautiful day and a beautiful sunset. I grabbed my phone and took a few pictures. I decided to get closer to get better pics. I was headed West on I40 when i got to the Sycamore View exit is when I saw these two objects. Turned on video on phone and headed toward these things. Found a safe space to pull over and began recording. These glowing orbs would set real still when a plane would pass and after plane was past them they seemed to move close to each other and what seemed to me tried to communicate with each other. You can see on video that one hides behind a cloud as a plane passes. The clouds seemed not to be moving. I was thrilled to see these things because I kept my wits this time.(saw the UFO ya’ll did a show on from a UFO that was seen in Memphis back in 77 and i freaked out and was scared because I was only 17 which I would love to tell about also cause i was less than 500 yards from that UFO even seeing the top of that UFO). I finally lost sight when I tried to readjust my camera.
Long Glowing UFO Seen Over City In Santos, Brazil In Jan 2018, Video, UFO Sighting News
Long Glowing UFO Seen Over City In Santos, Brazil In Jan 2018, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: January 2018 Location of sighting: Santos, Brazil This UFO was reported by SecureTeam10 of Youtube. A UFO moves across the night sky. Five bright center lights glowing all the while and some smaller lights along its sides. The video was taken long ways on the phone instead of sideways. Thats another sign thats its real. The way it shoots off is a rare thing to see on video. Most UFO reports only show the craft hovering, but here we see it moving from left to right and then shots off right again. This is an important video that shows how a UFO moves so easily, so perfectly, without making rounded turns. Tell us your thoughts on this video in the comments below please. Scott C. Waring
A rare video of a UFO turns into a plasma state from the 1950s
A rare video of a UFO turns into a plasma state from the 1950s
Watch the video until the end and do not rush in the verdict, there is a surprise at the end of the video. This is one of the oldest UFOs that was filmed in the 1950s.
The UFO appears in the video similar to the plane plates that were photographed by Billy Meyer and vibrates in the same way.
After analyzing Billy Meier's videos it was found that the cause of the vibration of the UFOs is to equivalent the magnetic field of the earth and then the UFO becomes completely stable and can floats on the magnetic field of the earth and leave and whether we could make a space craft equivalent to the magnetic field of the Earth and float in the air in the 1950s?
Well how about making a space craft that can switch from the situation solid to the plasma state to travel at the speed of light in the 1950s.
The idea that an alien spacecraft might have exploded in the sky above Tunguska, Russia on June 30, 1908 is certainly provocative and intriguing. There is, however, one issue that some proponents of this particular theory are not at all keen to highlight. Namely, that its origins can be found not within the worlds of science or high-level government secrecy, but firmly within the realm of sci-fi. It was in 1946 that Russian author Alexander Petrovich Kazantsev wrote a story that was directly inspired by a personal trip he had made during the previous year to see the atomic devastation and destruction that was wrought at the Japanese city of Hiroshima.
David Darling notes: “Kazantsev developed the idea that a nuclear-powered spacecraft from Mars on a visit to collect fresh water from Lake Baikal, had exploded, showering the area in radioactivity.” There’s very little doubt at all that Kazantsev’s novel “helped” to nurture the idea that something of an extraterrestrial nature came to grief over Tunguska on that fateful day.
Similarly, in his debut novel of 1951 titled The Astronauts, sci-fi author Stanislaw Lem utilized the specific scenario of an alien spacecraft exploding over Tunguska as its central, overriding theme. Nearly a decade later, The Astronauts was adapted into a movie titled First Spaceship on Venus. In the big-screen version of the story, Russian scientists stumble upon a “magnetic recording device” at the site of the Tunguska blast. They soon determine that the object which exploded was nothing less than a reconnaissance vessel from the planet Venus. A translation of the recording device reveals that the vessel contained the entire Venusian population, who were coming to Earth with the specific intent of occupying our world. Their goal – and their entire race, too – is brought to an abrupt end, however, with the disastrous destruction of their huge craft.
And the fact that Tunguska continues to play a major role in the world of sci-fi only ensures that the fine line between fact and fiction becomes even more blurry and indistinct. For example, Donald R. Bensen’s 1978 novel And Having Writ used the Tunguska story as a springboard for an amusing tale about stranded aliens who are forced to manipulate the technology of early 20th Century Earth, as part of an attempt to rebuild their stricken craft. And the novels just keep on coming.
Chekhov’s Journey, written by Ian Watson in 1983, presents a scenario in which the playwright Anton Chekhov has personal knowledge of the Tunguska event – which turns out to have been caused by futuristic Russian time-travelers. Two years later, Bruce Sterling and Rudy Rucker’s story Storming the Cosmos depicted a top secret Soviet reconnaissance mission journeying to Tunguska and finding advanced technology that is then incorporated into the Soviet space program.
In the world of sci-fi themed comic-books the situation is much the same, too: in the Marvel Comics spin-off of the 1987 movie Predator that starred Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Tunguska explosion is shrouded in mystery, but is attributed to either an attempt by the Predators to hide their existence from the Human Race by vaporizing their malfunctioning craft high in the atmosphere; or by the military and governments of either Russian or America who are firmly determined to prevent the infinitely advanced technology falling into the hands of the scientific elite of each other’s respective nations.
And perhaps inevitably, even The X-Files got into the act, too, with a two-part story (titled “Tunguska” and “Terma”), in which Mulder and his long-time arch-foe, Alex Krycek, are forced to work together. They journey to Tunguska, where they learn that materials recovered at the crash-site contain a deadly substance known as “Black Oil” that contains a microbial life form capable of infecting, and controlling, any and all living creatures on Earth.
All of this is good entertainment for those who like sci-fi (a subject that, ironically, I have no interest in; I much prefer violent horror movies and whodunnits). But, for those who hang on to the idea (the hope, perhaps…?) that aliens met their deaths over Russia in 1908, we should not forget how those early days of sci-fi most assuredly had a bearing on what people thought about the still-controversial affair.
Let’s say your house is on fire, or overrun by a gang of psychotic raccoons. You don’t hesitate—you take out your phone, and you call the fire department, or animal control, and then firemen/raccoon-wranglers are promptly dispatched to your home. These are well-established protocols, essential to the maintenance of a mostly not-on-fire, feral-animal-free society.
But what about UFOs? What about extraterrestrial beings? Faced with some six-eyed slime-being rooting through your trash, or a spacecraft idling above your backyard (provided it’s not Elon Musk’s “nuclear alien UFO” again), who exactly would you think to call? And what would whoever you called do, when you called them?
These questions—suddenly pressing, what with the recent revelation that the Pentagon had spent £16.5 million between 2008 and 2012 to investigate mysterious, potentially alien-related phenomena—form the basis of this week’s Giz Asks. We reached out to dozens of agencies, everyone from NASA to the Centre for Disease Control to the NYPD to find out who to call in such a situation, and what (if any) protocols are in place when these things are reported, and we came up mostly empty-handed—though the astronomers and independent institutes we spoke with did provide us with some hope. The US government might, at present, be grievously ill-prepared for first contact, but there are countless hobbyists and professionals keeping an eye on what’s happening up there.
Seth Shostak
Senior Astronomer, SETI (Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence) Institute
We [at SETI] are looking for life in space, but we don’t think that they’re here. If they were, you’d have trouble flying out of Newark airport.
When people call to report something they’ve seen, that call usually goes to me. Probably once a day I talk to somebody who’s seen something, and I explain to them that we don’t take such reports, but that if they want to send me photos or videos I’m happy to look at them.
But, you know: They’ve seen something in the sky, they don’t understand what it is, and of course then they jump to the conclusion that what they’ve seen are alien visitors.
The usual excuse is: “Well, the government has all the good information covered up somewhere.” That’s something that doesn’t comport with my experience working with the government, nor does it make sense. I mean: “Ah, the aliens arranged things so that only the government could see them.” It doesn’t make any sense.
Most of [what people send me] are aircraft, or balloons—there’s just a whole laundry list. If they send me photos or videos, they’re almost always taken at night—you can’t really tell what you’re looking at. And usually they’re using their phones, or some simple camera that has auto-focus. As a consequence, because it’s night, and it’s only a light in the middle of the phone [screen], the camera’s auto-focus mechanism starts hunting—it sort of zooms in and out on the focus and as a consequence the light seems to get bigger or smaller. When it’s big, you see all these diffraction effects on the image, which people send me elaborate descriptions of—you know, “here are the markings on the craft, I think I can decode them,” that sort of thing.
We don’t tell them, oh, well, you’re wrong—I don’t know if they’re wrong or not. All I can say is the evidence has not been good enough. I can’t say that I’ve ever seen anything where I’ve thought: omigosh, these are aliens. We think that the aliens are definitely out there, but on planets around other stars, not in the skies over Trenton.
So I usually tell them that they can look up MUFON—which is an acronym for Mutual UFO Network—which does reports, although there are tens of thousands of reports every year, so they probably can’t handle all of them.
Deputy Chief Timothy J. Trainor
The CO of the Public Information Division, New York Police Department
The NYPD is responsible to keep 8.5 million residents and commuters safe every day. This now includes the very real threat of a terrorist attack on innocent people who live and work in this great city. I am recommending that the “journalists” who write for Gizmodo shift their focus to featuring to their readers how the men and women of the NYPD work tirelessly to keep New Yorkers safe. To even suggest that the NYPD engage in such frivolous and meaningless drivel is insulting.
Bertram Kelly
Public Affairs Team Lead, Centres for Disease Control
UFOs are not in the scope of research work performed by the CDC. We suggest you reach out to NASA for any information regarding UFOs.
Dwayne Brown
NASA spokesperson
We normally send folks to DOD. While we do not know yet if we are alone in the universe, NASA has missions moving forward that may help answer that fundamental question.
Catharine “Cassie” Conley
Former Planetary Protection Officer, currently a researcher at NASA
That would depend if it’s a big alien or a little alien. If it’s an intelligent alien, that’s actually the in the realms of the Air Force, other militaries and probably the UN. If it’s a tiny alien, you wouldn’t know you ran into it.
Daryl Mayer
88th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
To be honest, we don’t have any guidance here about such an event. You might be able to get more from the Pentagon Press Desk, but I’m not sure.
1. You detect what you think might be an intelligent alien signal coming from space. You are probably a SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) scientist. As such, the first thing you do is try to verify the signal by doing more observations and you “call” other SETI observers to try to get them to observe the same part of the sky at the same wavelength of light. No SETI scientist is going to believe a single signal is ET rather than some spurious effect from the equipment or the surroundings. Multiple signals from the same place in the sky observed by different observatories will be required, as well as careful verification that it is not some other natural signal. Once verification has occurred, you “call” everyone, announcing publicly the signal as well as all details associated with it so others can study and verify it.
2. You detect evidence of past or present life, probably microbial, elsewhere in our solar system, e.g. on Mars, or in the subsurface oceans of Jupiter’s moon Europa or Saturn’s moon Encelladus. You are probably an astrobiologist working with spacecraft data from one of the world’s space agencies. The first step is verifying your finding and publishing (as well as publicly announcing) your results so others can verify or otherwise assess your finding. So, figuratively call other scientists. There is obviously a theme here of being careful with a finding this significant. As Carl Sagan said, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”.
3. You find an alien yourself, in person, like in the movie E.T. or other movies where it didn’t work out as well. In this case of alien emergency, hang up and dial 911, and hope they believe you. And, personally, I’d call your dog. Dogs are probably good judges of alien intent.
What is the protocol? Is there any?
For the same 3 cases:
1. There is not a binding protocol, but most SETI scientists have agreed to one set out by the International Academy of Astronautics. Included are policies of public openness and transparency, verification/confirmation, and the principle of not sending any message back without agreement from an international body such as the United Nations.
2. For spacecraft exploration, there are protocols regarding planetary protection: protecting the Earth from danger, unlikely as it may be, from the discovered life, and protecting the environment where life might be discovered from confusion caused by contamination from Earth life. Among these planetary protection guidelines is the international planetary protection policy from COSPAR (Committee on Space Research).
3. To my knowledge, there is no protocol for who to call if you find an alien on Earth. Once again, I suggest consulting with your dog.
Andrew Semion
Director of the Berkeley Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence centre
When astronomers see something that they think is interesting, they notify other astronomers. (These aren’t necessarily professional astronomers—they could very well be amateur astronomers, using small telescopes in their backyards.) There’s a mechanism in astronomy for sharing this kind of information, called the Astronomer’s Telegram. For example, when our group, back in late August, detected fifteen bursts from the repeating FRB [Fast Radio Burst] source, FRB 121102, we wrote a short Astronomer’s Telegram and released it to all of our colleagues to encourage follow-up—at other wavelengths and with other radio telescopes—to see if we could detect additional bursts.
One other example, also very timely, is what happened with ‘Oumuamua, the first interstellar asteroid. This object was detected by the PanSTARRS 1 [telescope], and they released a minor planet bulletin, which is similar to an Astronomer’s Telegram, but a special version for asteroids. They encouraged additional follow-up of the object, and of course that additional follow-up eventually determined that the object was indeed interstellar, and that it was likely an asteroid rather than a comet. And in fact it encouraged our group in Berkeley to actually follow it up from the perspective of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
The continued observations of Tabby’s Star, the so-called megastructure star, is another great example of this. Here’s a situation in which members of the public, participating in a citizen’s science programme, discovered something in archival data—they saw a signal coming from a particular star that they didn’t understand. Astronomers who were involved in that project got involved, and that ultimately triggered a huge amount of follow-up observation all over the world, culminating just in the last couple of months with the determination that there’s what’s called a wavelength dependence to the dimming of that star, which means that it bends more at short wavelengths than it does at long wavelengths, and that’s been interpreted—rightfully so, I think—to indicate that the likely cause of that dimming is interstellar dust, or perhaps circumstellar dust, dust that’s just orbiting around the star. We absolutely do have mechanisms in place to respond to things that are discovered, and most of the time discoveries are made by professional observatories, but sometimes the public is involved and the Tabby’s Star thing is a good example of that.
Avi Loeb
Chair of the Astronomy Department at Harvard
There is currently no procedure decided by the community, including the government, as to what needs to be done in case of the detection of signals from some extraterrestrial civilisation. UFOs were and are reported routinely, but there has been no credible evidence in the past for anything significant, so these are usually dismissed.
There is currently no procedure, no protocol, as to how to approach it. What would happen, presumably, is it would very quickly leak to the news media, or the public. It would not be kept secret.
The question is how to react, and what consequences of such a discovery would be. That depends on whether this thing is detected coming from far away—the signal is originating far away—or is it here on earth, nearby. If it’s far away, then there is no urgency and one can decide whether to respond at all—there are people who think that we take a risk if we reveal our existence. If it’s something very nearby, then of course it needs to reach political levels as well as to what to do.
But as of now there are no formal protocols as to how to respond, and part of that is because most people do not regard that as a likely situation. Usually, once there is an incident of some sort, people develop a policy about it. But it’s sort of under the radar (right now), and people are not really thinking about it. It would be a good idea to develop a strategy, just to have it in the books, but even then the question is whether people will obey (the protocol), because if it’s an amateur that detects the signal they may not follow it.
Do you have a burning question for Giz Asks? Email us at tipbox@gizmodo.com.
However, the video has been exposed as nothing more than a hoax made using CGI technology.
Suspicious UFO debunkers investigated Mr Aviles and discovered from his own Facebook page he was a graphic artist who has made a host of stunning CGI videos.
One of them, who uses the name Nightowl on YouTube, even confronted him through Instagram, and released a video of a message exchange, in which Mr Aviles admitted he made the haox video to gauge reaction to his work and he did it before with fake footage of a UFO entering water, "which went viral".
Express.co.uk contacted Mr Aviles, who declined to comment further, but said the Nightowl video was correct.
Two men are seen viewing a display entitled 'The Problem of Piltdown Man'. The cranial fragments, found at Piltdown, Sussex, from 1908 to 1912, were formally denounced as fakes in 1953, for being comprised of the bones of a man and an ape.
REG SPELLER/FOX PHOTOS/GETTY IMAGES
Unearthing and studying bones and fossils is one of the many ways scientists work to better understand humanity's shared history and evolution. But some discoveries have created more questions than answers. Could these abnormal archaeological finds be evidence of extraterrestrial life? The missing evolutionary link between man and ape? Proof of alien-human hybrids? Or are they just elaborate hoaxes?
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know hosts Matt Frederick, Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown dig deep into the Strange World of Inexplicable Skeletons to separate the myths from the mysteries in this episode of the podcast.
It would be easy to dismiss all these remarkable discoveries as nothing but hoaxes for money or fame, mainly because they've happened so many times. Most famously, the Piltdown Man, discovered by amateur archaeologist Charles Dawson in 1912, was touted as being the missing link between man and ape. Its skull, supposedly 500,000 years old, was shaped like an orangutan's, but its teeth and jawbone were closer to a human's. It wasn't until 1949 that the Piltdown Man skull was re-tested using newer techniques and found to be a fake. It was created from an artificially aged orangutan skull whose teeth had been filed down.
Another famous hoax involved a crystal skull owned by Anna Mitchell-Hughes, who claimed to have discovered it in a Mayan ruin with her explorer father, while searching for the lost city of Atlantis. (It's always the last place you look.) Mitchell-Hughes said the Mayans told her the skull was used to transfer the knowledge of an elder to a younger member of the tribe before the elder died. However, it was discovered fairly quickly that Mitchell-Hughes had simply bought the skull at an auction at Sotheby's, and according to experts, crystal skulls are usually no more than 150 years in age, made with modern tools and techniques not found in ancient civilizations.
The Fiji, or Feejee, Mermaid made quite a splash when it was exhibited in New York in 1842 by Dr. J. Griffith. But it, too, turned out to be fake, orchestrated by the greatest showman himself, P.T. Barnum. The "mermaid" turned out to be the top half of a monkey attached to a fishtail, and "Dr." Griffith was simply Barnum's accomplice. Quite a bit of ticket money was made before the two men's secret was out.
But some skeletons are obviously real, and puzzling enough to require further investigation. In 1999, the now-late paranormal researcher Lloyd Pye claimed he obtained a human-alien hybrid skeleton he called "Starchild," which was found in 1930 in a tunnel southwest of Chihuahua, Mexico. The skull was larger than average and flattened on the back, leading Pye to surmise it was the offspring of an alien and a human female. (Quite a leap.) But DNA evidence has since proven the skull is from a human, and most likely that of a child who died from congenital hydrocephalus, a condition that causes the brain to swell.
Similarly, the Paracas skulls were seen as proof of aliens among us; the skulls were elongated, like cones, and were originally reported as having mutations not found in any human species. Further testing found that they also were human, despite their appearance. More likely, the elongated shape was the result of a tribal practice called artificial cranial deformation, which was done for a variety of cultural reasons.
Perhaps most puzzling of all is the 6-inch-long (15-centimeter-) skeleton found in the Atacama Desert in Chile in 2003. It is a fully-formed human, only miniature, leading many to believe that it's a fetus or a very young child. But tests on the bones have shown growth plates similar to those of a 6- to 8-year-old child, and there appear to be mature teeth in its mouth. How could a 6-year-old only be 6 inches long? And what about the Kyshtym dwarf, the Littlemore Priory and the Peruvian three-fingered mummy? You'll have to listen to the entire podcast to find out all about these.
According to the Daily Mail, conspiracy theorists are having a field day with a video that was originally posted to YouTube in August 2016 but is first starting to go viral almost 18 months later.
The reason for the excitement? You guessed it – NASA’s live feed apparently picked up a massive golden object some 200 miles away from the International Space Station hovering over our planet. Of course, just a few seconds after the golden UFO comes into view, the feed “mysteriously” cuts out.
Watch it for yourself:
Why it has taken so long for conspiracy theorists to get their panties in a bunch and once again make claims that the government is heavily involved in an alien cover-up is anybody’s guess, but they think that the object is hundreds of miles in length and is either a floating city or golden UFO orbiting the planet.
Others aren’t as convinced and say it is simply a “reflection of sunlight through the clouds.”
Personally, I don’t think NASA would have cut the feed just seconds after a reflection of sunlight came into view, and that’s why I will begin drinking heavily for the rest of the day.
UFO sighting: Bizarre sight shooting across the North Queensland sky captured by photographer
UFO sighting: Bizarre sight shooting across the North Queensland sky captured by photographer
Zarisha Bradley, The Cairns Post
A BIZARRE sight shooting across the sky in North Queensland has been captured by a photographer but what it is exactly, remains a mystery.
Taken from Cape Hillsborough, on the beach no less, a Moura woman reached for her camera just in time for a “once in a lifetime” shot.
Betty Seeney said she’s heard stories before about UFOs and certainly believes they’re out there as reported by the Daily Mercury.
“You never know...”
Betty Seeney was at Cape Hillsborough in North Queensland attending an astrophotography workshop when she captured the 20 second exposure.
“(But) It just looked like a shooting star to start with then it just got longer, bigger and brighter and I said to my husband ‘this is no shooting star’,” she said.
She was visiting Mackay on an astrophotography workshop on Friday when she witnessed the “20 second exposure”.
“I screamed out ‘look at this’ and they turned around and couldn’t believe it,” she said. “It was just beautiful. It was a real green teal colour the light and it just disappeared into the ocean... (My husband) could hear it hissing and frizzing coming down.”
Mrs Seeney was originally reaching for the camera to capture the milky way around 8.30pm but was glad she got more than she bargained for.
“I take some night time photos but I’ve never seen anything like that,” she said. She’s not sure how far away it was, but thought it appeared closer than what it probably was.
European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in the Atacama Desert, Chile.
Photo courtesy ESO/Y Beletsky
The ethics of ET
The discovery of independent life beyond Earth would have deep philosophical implications for us, and our ideas of morality
Suppose we woke up tomorrow to learn that extraterrestrial life had been discovered. What difference would that make? Set aside the extreme scenarios of popular fiction. The truth will probably be more mundane – not massive spaceships suddenly filling the sky but, instead, microorganisms found deep inside an ice-covered Moon, a non-random radio signal from a distant star system, or the ruins of a long-dead alien civilisation. What difference might those discoveries make? Would they strengthen or weaken our faith in God, or science, or humanity? Would they force us to re-evaluate the importance of our own lives, values and projects?
In academic philosophy today, an interest in extraterrestrial life is regarded with some suspicion. This is a historical anomaly. In Ancient Greece, Epicureans argued that every possible form of life must recur infinitely many times in an infinite universe. In the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, as modern astronomy demonstrated that our Earth is just another planet and our Sun just another star, the default hypothesis among informed observers was that the Universe is filled with habitable planets and intelligent life. One principal argument for this ‘pluralism’ was philosophical or theological: God (or Nature) does nothing in vain, and therefore such a vast cosmos could not be home to only one small race of rational beings.
My goal here is to explore some unexpected implications of the discovery of extraterrestrial life, and my conclusions are very speculative: extraterrestrial life would lend non-decisive support to several interesting and controversial philosophical positions. The discovery of life elsewhere would teach us that, while the Universe does have a purpose, human beings are irrelevant to that purpose. Aliens might well worship a God who is indifferent to us.
We know that life has emerged once. Why should it be so momentous to learn that it has emerged twice? The reason is that finding life elsewhere would radically change our picture of the Universe. At any point in time, humans will have explored only a tiny fraction of our galaxy, let alone the whole Universe. If life has emerged only once in that small sample, then it is possible that life on Earth is unique. (We might then use anthropic reasoningto explain why we inhabit the Universe’s only inhabited planet: where else could observers find themselves?) But suppose we discover that life has emerged twice within our tiny sample – once on Earth, then again somewhere else. It would follow that life must have emerged a vast number of times across the galaxy. The discovery of independently emerging life would thus teach us that life is ubiquitous. And that discovery could have very significant implications. (The restriction to ‘independently emerging’ life is necessary because life found on meteors, asteroids, Mars or the Moon might have the same origin as life on Earth.)
One perennial set of philosophical questions concerns the nature of values, norms and reasons. Are they objective, universal, mind-independent realities, or merely subjective, relative, mind-dependent human constructions? Normative non-naturalists claim that there are universal, objective, mind-independent facts about value, reason and morality that are not specific to any particular human culture, nor even to human nature in general. Any suitably sophisticated moral agent would perceive the same moral facts and be motivated by them. This strong objectivism is a minority position in contemporary ethics, but one that is gaining respectability – thanks in particular to recent work by the philosophers Thomas Nagel, T M Scanlon and the late Derek Parfit.
Normative non-naturalism combines several distinct claims. Moral statements assert facts; those facts are not reducible to the natural facts discovered by science; and some moral statements are true. When I say that murder is wrong, I claim that murder has the non-natural property of wrongness. If murder is wrong, then it does possess that property.
The normative non-naturalist position is anomalous within a purely naturalist worldview that recognises only the natural facts and properties postulated by science. Secular non-naturalists argue that normative non-naturalism is not as anomalous as it seems, because we already need non-natural facts to explain logic, mathematics or the normativity inherent in good scientific practice itself. Theists argue instead that normative non-naturalism makes much more sense if we already acknowledge a God who transcends the natural world. Either God creates the moral facts along with everything else, or God creates the Universe in response to independently existing normative facts. We will return to the link between theism and non-naturalism.
My central claim is that the discovery that life is ubiquitous would support normative non-naturalism. This is because, if life is ubiquitous, then we need non-naturalism to explain an otherwise puzzling fact. Given the vast number of potentially inhabited planets in the Universe, we would expect at least one extraterrestrial species to have either visited us or transformed the galaxy in ways that were clearly visible. Yet we see no one. Where is everybody? This is the Fermi Paradox, named for the physicist Enrico Fermi who posed the question in 1950.
In his book If the Universe Is Teeming with Aliens … Where Is Everybody?(2002), the science writer Stephen Webb lists 75 answers to Fermi’s question. Some are jokes or variations on a theme. But most are distinct solutions that are not obviously crazy. I group those into four categories:
Rarity of life:the specific conditions that make life on Earth possible are very rare.
Rarity of intelligence: even if life is relatively common, the evolution of intelligent tool-making species requires very specific conditions that are extremely rare.
Cantian(from can’t): even if intelligent tool-making species are relatively common, a feasibility barrier prevents the emergence of starfaring civilisations. Promising species inevitably destroy themselves or encounter resource constraints before they can conquer the stars.
Wontian(from won’t):even if intelligent tool-making species are relatively common, a motivational barrier prevents the emergence of starfaring civilisations. Every intelligent species who could conquer the stars chooses not to.
Drawing on anecdotal evidence, Webb suggests that physicists, impressed by the vastness of the Universe, typically assume that life is ubiquitous, and therefore favour Cantian or Wontian solutions; meanwhile, biological scientists, impressed by the complexity of life, typically prefer solutions based on the rarity of life or intelligence.
The discovery that life is ubiquitous would obviously rule out any explanation based on the rarity of life. And if we found evidence of intelligent life elsewhere, we would be forced to conclude that intelligence was not rare either. Of course, if we discovered life elsewhere, then in one sense the Fermi Paradox would simply be dissolved; there is no need to explain why we see no evidence of life elsewhere once we do see it! But the deeper puzzle would remain: if life is ubiquitous, why don’t we see much more evidence of alien civilisations? We must still explain what the astrophysicist and science fiction writer David Brin in 1983 called ‘the Great Silence’.
By ruling out rarity-based solutions, the discovery that life is ubiquitous thereby raises the probability of other credible solutions, especially Cantianism and Wontianism. In so doing, it also supports normative non-naturalism.
Even if some species eschew visibility, why should we expect every intelligent species to do so?
Why would intelligent species choose not to make themselves visible? Webb lists 25 distinct Wontian solutions that have been seriously defended. Here are some of them: advanced extraterrestrials keep us isolated in an intergalactic zoo, as subjects of laboratory experiments, or because any inhabited planet is a non-renewable source of information; extraterrestrial environmentalists are either not interested in colonising or transforming the galaxy, or else they believe that this would be wrong; cautious aliens are hiding because they fear that the Universe is silent because some genocidal species destroys anyone who becomes visible; extraterrestrials are postbiological machines with no interest in stars, planets, biological life or communicating with us; aliens have passed through the ‘Singularity’ and disappeared into black holes, transcended to a higher dimension, created a new universe, or migrated to a virtual reality; advanced aliens congregate around black holes where energy is most abundant, or in the cold outer reaches of the galaxy where computational processing is most efficient; and so on.
Any Wontian solution faces one obvious objection. One non-Wontian species – or even one maverick group or individual – could do things that would be clearly visible for a very long time. To solve the Fermi Paradox, Wontian motivations must be universal, not merely very widespread. But surely that degree of uniformity is simply implausible. Even if some species or individuals eschew visibility, why should we expect every intelligent species to do so? Wontians are open to an accusation of anthropomorphism or parochialism – projecting their own individual preferences onto all intelligent beings.
Of course, Cantianism faces a parallel objection. Even if most intelligent, tool-using species face a feasibility constraint, why should we believe they all do? Cantians must defend a universal feasibility barrier. And that naturaluniversality seems as suspect as the Wontian’s motivational one. Isn’t it more likely that, sooner or later, one lucky species will have sufficient time and resources to escape the feasibility constraint? If Wontians can dissolve theirparochialism objection, that will give them a significant advantage over Cantians.
Wontians need universal motivations that are not specific to species or individuals. This is where normative non-naturalism comes in. Armed with non-naturalism, Wontians can argue as follows. Objective values are built into the fabric of the Universe; the discovery of those values is essential if one is to understand the Universe sufficiently well enough to manipulate it successfully on a large and lasting scale; and that discovery transforms any rational being’s motivations. Aliens smart enough to conquer the stars will inevitably abandon their previous plans and follow those universal values.
I call this solution to the Fermi Paradox Kantian Wontianism, because the idea that knowledge of universal values is intrinsically motivating for all rational beings is associated with the 19th-century Prussian philosopher Immanuel Kant. (One can be a Kantian in this sense without endorsing any other details of Kant’s philosophy. In particular, Kant himself was not a normative non-naturalist.) Although it is very controversial, this strange view might be our best solution to the Fermi Paradox, especially if we discover life elsewhere.
Wontians need normative facts that reliably motivate all suitably intelligent beings – whatever their biological species. This rules out normative naturalism, where normative facts are reducible to natural facts, and human ethics is derived from our specific evolved human nature. Alien species might have very different natures, and therefore their moral facts would be quite different from ours. Wontians cannot limit their ontology to natural facts. They need non-natural normative facts that transcend biological differences. In the contemporary intellectual landscape, this is controversial but not absurd. While naturalism is the dominant worldview in analytic philosophy, non-naturalism is becoming increasingly philosophically respectable.
Kantian philosophers claim only that the motivations of rational agents should converge insofar as they behave rationally. They admit that actual agents invariably fall short. Wontians must therefore go beyond Kant and argue that, beyond a certain threshold of knowledge or understanding, all rational agents reliably will behave rationally. This might seem simply absurd. Humanmotivations obviously do not converge. And beings no more sophisticated than ourselves, armed with current technologies such as radio waves or nuclear weapons, surely could attract the attention of very distant observers. Doesn’t our own existence refute the Kantian Wontian claim that all beings who could become visible will reliably respond to non-natural normative facts?
In reply, Kantian Wontians would say that fleeting visibility is not enough to disturb the Great Silence. Even if short-lived alien civilisations were common, the age and size of the Universe are so great that observers in any particular place and time would almost certainly see nothing. The Fermi Paradox arises because we assume that, if there really are vast numbers of aliens out there, then sooner or later one of them will have built a civilisation that lasts. We expect to see that lasting civilisation, and we are puzzled by its absence.
This offers a strange vision of aliens with radically different evolutionary histories converging on values that humans reject
Kantian Wontians can then argue that maintaining a lasting visible civilisation demands a level of understanding of the nature of the Universe that inevitably delivers knowledge of objective and intrinsically motivating values. This is not absurd if one is already sympathetic to normative non-naturalism. If objective values are built into the fabric of the Universe, then perhaps agents can understand that Universe well enough to manipulate it successfully on a large and lasting scale only if they also find those values intrinsically motivating.
But Kantianism alone is not sufficient to save Wontianism. Many possible values would encourage the creation of a visible galactic civilisation. Consider total utilitarianism, which seeks to maximise the welfare of sentient beings. Aliens who recognised this value would seek to transform the galaxy by creating as many happy beings as possible. We would notice if someone had done that!
Kantian Wontians must defend very different values. As we saw earlier, one possibility is environmentalist non-interference – a quietist desire to contemplate the Universe without imposing one’s will on it. Other possibilities include maximising complexity by living unobserved at the edge of a black hole, transcending to a higher dimension, or even a nihilist conviction that nothing is worth doing. These are minority values in contemporary culture, of course, but they are not unintelligible. Kantian Wontians can remain agnostic about the precise content of non-natural values. Anything that rules out lasting visibility will do.
The Kantian Wontian solution to the Fermi Paradox offers a strange vision, where aliens with radically different evolutionary histories converge on values that many actual humans reject. If we are already committed to expansionist values such as welfare maximisation, then we might struggle to take these Wontian values seriously.
The philosopher Robert Nozick suggested in 1981, in a different context, that ‘someone who proposes a non-strange answer shows that he did not understand this question’. (Nozick’s question was: why is there something rather than nothing?) Philosophical questions often call for strange or disturbing answers. Once we discover life elsewhere, Wontianism could be the least strange explanation left on the table. How else can we solve the Fermi Paradox or explain the Great Silence?
If we discovered that life was ubiquitous, then Kantian Wontianism would be the least unsatisfactory solution to the Fermi Paradox, and normative non-naturalism is essential to any successful Kantian Wontian story. Once we grant these conclusions, it then follows that the discovery of independently originating life supports normative non-naturalism – in the modest sense that this new information raises the probability that normative non-naturalism is true. Philosophical claims can be supported by empirical facts in surprising ways.
Normative non-naturalism and Kantianism both seem very anomalous against the background of an otherwise purely naturalist metaphysic. They are much less anomalous if we instead endorse a theist metaphysic. Kantian Wontian theists can argue as follows. Physicists seek a physical ‘theory of everything’ to explain, not only how the Universe works, but why it exists. For all anyone knows, future (or alien) scientists who complete the theory of everything might need to posit God, cosmic purpose or cosmic value. Belief in divine values is exactly the sort of thing that would reliably transform one’s motivations. Aliens who discover why the Universe exists will abandon their previous inclinations, and embrace the purposes of God.
Theism and Kantian non-naturalism are mutually supporting. Both are independently plausible, and each supports the other. If there is a God, then knowledge of God’s purposes might be enough to transform the motivations of all rational beings. Conversely, many arguments for the existence of God implicitly rely on evaluative claims that cannot be reduced to natural facts about this particular Universe. For instance, many theists argue that we must posit a creator God because the existence of this Universe cries out for explanation. This argument is much more compelling if theists can argue that, out of all the possible universes, this one is strikingly valuable. If there is nothing independently special about this Universe, then why not accept its existence as merely a cosmic brute fact? But comparing the value of possible universes makes sense only if we presume non-natural values that transcend those physical universes.
A theme of contemporary philosophy of religion is that our Universe is religiously ambiguous. It can reasonably be interpreted in radically different ways: realist or idealist, naturalist or non-naturalist, theist or atheist. Our currently available evidence radically underdetermines our metaphysics. Religious ambiguity itself might be peculiar to our present human condition. We inevitably and reasonably disagree, but perhaps everyone capable of establishing a galactic supercivilisation will agree. In our present state of religious ambiguity, we have no idea what they will agree about. Atheists take it for granted that space-faring aliens will have outgrown religion. But the Great Silence points in another direction. Kantian Wontian solutions work best if all sufficiently advanced aliens converge on belief in God.
Theism supports Kantianism. By supporting Kantian Wontianism, the discovery that life is ubiquitous thus indirectly supports theism. But what kind of theism? What sort of universe would a Kantian Wontian God create? Could the God of traditional theism create a universe where life was ubiquitous?
Many theist religions stress the cosmic uniqueness of human beings – or even particular events in human history. This suggests that theists must insist that we are alone in the Universe. But another perennial strand of theist thinking points in the opposite direction. If we are alone, then this cannot be the best possible world. If humanity is valuable, then a possible world containing many other rational God-loving species would be better. If life is good, won’t God create a Universe teeming with every possible kind of life? Leibniz thought so, and argued that this best of all possible worlds isinfinitely filled with life. (He supported this claim by citing the world of microscopic organisms revealed by the recently discovered microscope.)
If the Universe teems with life, then there are other candidates for the cosmically decisive role previously held only by humans
If life turns out to be ubiquitous, then theists must obviously re-evaluate humanity’s place in the divine plan. But many theists, throughout the centuries, have been confident that this challenge can be met. After all, theists already believe that God has infinite love for every individual creature, and that this does nothing to diminish God’s love for me. Why should it matter that God’s love also extends to innumerably many alien individuals as well?
The discovery of extraterrestrial life would thus support theism in two ways. We saw earlier that independently originating life would raise the probability of two other hypotheses that support theism, namely Kantianism and normative non-naturalism. We now see that ubiquitous life would also allow theists to agree with Leibniz that God has, indeed, created the best of all possible worlds.
However, ubiquitous life would also create new and unexpected problems for theism, by undermining some traditional arguments for divine benevolence and thus making it harder to believe that God cares about us. Theists argue that the best explanation for the existence of this Universe is that it was created by a benevolent God. One prima facie counter-example is offered by widespread, apparently gratuitous evil. This suggests instead a creator who is indifferent to the fate of individual human beings. Theists reply that, unless we suppose that God cares about rationality, knowledge or intelligibility, we cannot explain why this Universe is governed by regular intelligible mathematical laws. The Universe appears to be designed to be understood by its own inhabitants. So far as we know, we are the only inhabitants who could possibly understand it. So we must be essential to God’s plan.
The discovery that life is ubiquitous weakens this argument. If the Universe is teeming with life, then there are many other candidates for the cosmically decisive role previously occupiable only by human beings. Perhaps God cares that there be some rational beings, but is indifferent to their species, identity or numbers. Or perhaps God cares only for creatures who reach some threshold of wisdom or intellect that humans could never attain. God cares for beings who are sufficiently rational, intelligent, free or lovable. But it is human arrogance to assume that we are among them!
The intelligibility of the Universe is prima facie evidence that God cares for us. Human suffering is prima facie evidence that God does not. The discovery of ubiquitous life tips the balance against divine benevolence, by opening up alternative explanations for intelligibility.
In my bookPurpose in the Universe (2015), I defend a new alternative to both atheism and (traditional) theism. Ananthropocentric purposivism (AP) holds that the Universe has a purpose and that humans are irrelevant to that purpose. If there is a God, then God cares about what matters, but we do not matter to God. Western theism has always combined both God-centred and human-centred elements. While we are created in God’s image, there is a vast distance between our feeble human concerns and God’s incomprehensible divine plan. AP pushes God-centred theism to extremes, abandoning divine benevolence altogether.
If aliens converge on a metaphysical view, it could be something like ananthropocentric purposivism. Perhaps all advanced civilisations are Wontians because they are simply indifferent to anything we care about, including communication with beings such as us. If life is ubiquitous, this might be the best solution to the Fermi Paradox. But it paints a very unsettling picture of our place in the cosmos.
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )
ALIENS ARE OUT THERE, WORLD-RENOWNED SCIENTIST NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON SAYS
ALIENS ARE OUT THERE, WORLD-RENOWNED SCIENTIST NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON SAYS
WE are probably not alone in the universe and aliens likely do exist, according to one of the most famous and well respected astrophysicists.
World famous Neil deGrasse Tyson says that the chances of us being alone in the universe is small as the ingredients for life are relatively common over a seemingly infinite cosmos.
Speaking on C-SPAN’s In Depth, the 58-year old spoke of how life is not as unique as we believe.
Dr Tyson said: “We are not likely alone in the universe if you look at how common the ingredients of life is.
“Hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon; we’re made of this stuff, it’s the foundations of organic chemistry, carbon-based life.
Dr Tyson doesn’t expect them to look like this, however
“This stuff is everywhere we look in the universe.
“Whatever happened on Earth, it’s not likely to be rare or unique.
“The universe has been around 14 billion years – plenty of time to evolve all manners of creatures”
“Because carbon chemistry, on which life is based, is the most fertile kind of chemistry there is. And carbon is abundant across the universe.”However, he added that microorganisms, rather than advanced aliens, is probably the best bet for finding aliens.
Dr Tyson continued: “The universe has been around 14 billion years – plenty of time to evolve all manners of creatures out there, particularly microorganisms.
“We have no reason to not think of microorganisms as aliens. They don’t need to have built a spaceship, they’re just alien life on another planet.
With that in mind, the astrophysicist says that he does not believe any testimonies which allude to aliens visiting Earth.
Dr Tyson: “What the UFO community puts forth as evidence is weak on a level that, in any scientific circle, would be kicked out of the lab room.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson on Aliens, Mars & Why an Asteroid Might Flatten Earth [Full Interview]
What’s a planet? What’s a dwarf planet? What’s a brown dwarf? In recent years, astronomers have grappled with these definitions. The newest proposal comes from Johns Hopkins.
Artist’s concept of a planet. What is a planet, anyway?
It used to be easy to know what was and wasn’t a planet. Planets were big, bigger than any smaller moons that happened to be orbiting them. They were round. They orbited our sun. Then, in 2006, the erstwhile planet Pluto lost its major planet status, becoming a dwarf planet. Around that time, astronomers were discovering a plethora of small bodies in our own solar system, so that there are now half a million known asteroids and over a thousand Kuiper Belt Objects, including five recognized dwarf planets counting Pluto. Astronomers also now know several thousand exoplanets orbiting other stars. The dramatic expansion in the number of known objects orbiting our sun and other suns has caused some astronomers to try to override or re-define the 2006 planet definition from the International Astronomical Union (IAU), which caused Pluto to lose full planet status. The most recent new planet definition comes from a Johns Hopkins astronomer, Kevin Schlaufman. Read three earlier planet definitions below.
Schlaufman’s definition is based on mass. In a paper published January 22, 2018 in the peer-reviewed Astrophysical Journal, Schlaufman has set the upper boundary of planet mass between four and 10 times the mass of the planet Jupiter.
Astrophysicist Kevin Schlaufman proposed the new definition of a planet.
Schlaufman said in a statement that setting a limit is possible now mainly due to:
… improvements in the technology and techniques of astronomical observation. The advancements have made it possible to discover many more planetary systems outside our solar system and therefore possible to see robust patterns that lead to new revelations.
His statement explained:
The conclusions in the new paper are based on observations of 146 solar systems … Defining a planet, distinguishing it from other celestial objects, is a bit like narrowing down a list of criminal suspects. It’s one thing to know you’re looking for someone who is taller than 5-foot-8, it’s another to know your suspect is between 5-foot-8 and 5-foot-10.
Schlaufman said his definition will help distinguish between two “suspects:” a giant planet and a celestial object called a brown dwarf. Brown dwarfs are more massive than planets, but less massive than the smallest stars. They are thought to form as stars do. His statement described his thinking:
For decades brown dwarfs have posed a problem for scientists: how to distinguish low-mass brown dwarfs from especially massive planets? Mass alone isn’t enough to tell the difference between the two … the missing property is the chemical makeup of a solar system’s own sun. [Schlaufman] says you can know your suspect, a planet, not just by his size, but also by the company he keeps. Giant planets such as Jupiter are almost always found orbiting stars that have more iron than our sun. Brown dwarfs are not so discriminating.
That’s where his argument engages the idea of planet formation. Planets like Jupiter are formed from the bottom-up by first building-up a rocky core that is subsequently enshrouded in a massive gaseous envelope. It stands to reason that they would be found near stars heavy with elements that make rocks, as those elements provide the seed material for planet formation. Not so with brown dwarfs.
Brown dwarfs and stars form from the top-down as clouds of gas collapse under their own weight.
Schlaufman’s idea was to find the mass at which point objects stop caring about the composition of the star they orbit. He found that objects more massive than about 10 times the mass of Jupiter do not prefer stars with lots of elements that make rocks and therefore are unlikely to form like planets.
For that reason, and while it’s possible that new data could change things, he has proposed that objects in excess of 10 Jupiter mass should be considered brown dwarfs, not planets.
Want to be mad at somebody about Pluto’s demotion to dwarf planet status in 2006? These astronomers drafted the IAU resolution that did that. From Upper Left: Andre Brahic, Iwan Williams, Junichi Watanabe, Richard Binzel, Catherine Cesarsky, Dava Sobel (author), Owen Gingerich. Even within this small group, by the way, there was disagreement.
Will Schlaufman’s definition be accepted by other astronomers? Well … the field of planet definitions has gotten crowded. It’s becoming hard to imagine a definition that will be acceptable to every astronomer. For example: here are three more planet definitions:
1. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) planet definition in 2006:
A celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (c) has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit.
Because the IAU took it upon itself early in the 20th century to be the body that names and defines things in space, this definition is why Pluto is no longer considered a major planet. In other words, Pluto – though it has a moon, an atmosphere, weather and many planet-like qualities – has not yet cleared the neighborhood of its orbit in space.
Jean-Luc Margot (@jeanlucmargot on Twitter) is a professor and chair of UCLA’s Department of Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences. He proposed a new planet definition in 2015.
He devised a formula to tell if a body has cleared its orbit of debris (part of the IAU definition for a planet), just by knowing a body’s mass, its orbital period, and the mass of the star it orbits. This formula can be worked out via readily available data, even for most exoplanets. Hence, according to Margot: a body is a planet when it is in orbit around one or more stars, it dominates its orbit as per the formula, and has a mass below 13 Jupiters. There’s no need to require an object to be spherical, as required by the IAU definition, because, Margot has said, bodies that can clear their orbits will almost certainly be round. Read more about Margot’s planet definition.
Astronomer Alan Stern (@AlanStern on Twitter). The New Horizons mission to Pluto was his brainchild. Stern has also founded a private company called UWingU in an attempt to give the public more access to naming and defining things in space.
3. Planet definition via NASA scientists, led by Alan Stern, in early 2017.
Stern is the instigator and principal investigator of NASA’s New Horizons mission, which performed a first-ever flyby of Pluto in 2015. Pluto was a major planet when Stern launched his New Horizons mission in January, 2006, but Pluto was demoted to dwarf planet in August of that same year. Not surprisingly, the team’s planet definition focuses on getting rid of the aspect of the IAU’s definition that requires clearing the orbit of debris (the same aspect that caused Pluto’s demotion). The jargon-laden version of their definition is:
A planet is a sub-stellar mass body that has never undergone nuclear fusion and that has sufficient self-gravitation to assume a spheroidal shape adequately described by a triaxial ellipsoid regardless of its orbital parameters.
Their layman’s version is simply:
Round objects in space that are smaller than stars.
According to Stern’s planet definition, our solar system has not 8 major planets, but more than 100, including Pluto, of course, and including Earth’s moon.
So you see that this formerly simple question – “what is a planet?” – is not so simple anymore.
And, by the way, what we’re seeing in this community of professional astronomers is an interesting microcosm, isn’t it? It parallels the larger world of incredibly divided and divisive political thinking in, for example, the U.S. One wonders how much the fast increase in human population in recent decades has contributed to the crazy political situation (human population doubled between 1950 and 1987, from 2.5 to 5 billion people; now there are an estimated 7.6 billion peopleon Earth). Meanwhile, the number of professional astronomers has increased, too. I couldn’t find any solid numbers on how much, but here’s a discussion.
Since both world population and the number of astronomers isn’t likely to decrease dramatically any time soon, it’ll be interesting to see how this ongoing divisiveness (in planet definitions, and, well, everything else) gets resolved … if it does, anytime soon.
Maybe astronomers will act honorably and wisely and set an example for the rest of us! Maybe …
Bottom line:What’s a planet? What’s a dwarf planet? What’s a brown dwarf? In recent years, astronomers have grappled with these definitions. The newest proposal comes from Johns Hopkins.
Asteroid 2002 AJ129 will make a close approach to Earth on February 4, 2018. At its closest, it will be 2.6 million miles (4.2 million km) away – about 10 times the distance between Earth and the moon.
Asteroid 2002 AJ129 will make a close approach to Earth on February 4, 2018, at 21:30 UTC (4:30 p.m. EST); translate to your time zone. At the time of closest approach, the asteroid will be no closer than 10 times the distance between Earth and the moon (about 2.6 million miles, or 4.2 million km).
2002 AJ129 is an intermediate-sized near-Earth asteroid, somewhere between 0.3 miles (0.5 km) and 0.75 miles (1.2 km) across. It was discovered on January 15, 2002, by the former NASA-sponsored Near Earth Asteroid Tracking project at the Maui Space Surveillance Site on Haleakala, Hawaii.
The asteroid’s velocity at the time of closest approach, 76,000 mph (34 km per second), is higher than the majority of near-Earth objects during an Earth flyby. The high flyby velocity is a result of the asteroid’s orbit, which approaches very close to the sun – 11 million miles (18 million km). Although asteroid 2002 AJ129 is categorized as a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (PHA), it does not pose an actual threat of colliding with our planet for the foreseeable future.
Paul Chodas is manager of NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. He said in a statement:
We have been tracking this asteroid for over 14 years and know its orbit very accurately. Our calculations indicate that asteroid 2002 AJ129 has no chance — zero — of colliding with Earth on February 4 or any time over the next 100 years.
Orion Nebula is a place where new stars are being born
Orion Nebula is a place where new stars are being born
By Bruce McClure in ASTRONOMY ESSENTIALS | CLUSTERS NEBULAE GALAXIES --
Everything you need to know about the Orion Nebula. How to find it in your sky tonight. Plus … the science of this star factory in space.
View larger. | Stefan Nilsson captured this image in southern Sweden on January 2, 2017. You can recognize the constellation Orion by his three Belt stars, three stars in a short, straight row. The Orion Nebula is that red fuzzy region in Orion’s Sword, hanging from the Belt.
Many people are familiar with Orion, the most noticeable of all constellations. The three stars of Orion’s Belt jump out at you midway between Orion’s two brightest stars, Betelgeuse and Rigel, which are two of the brightest stars in the sky. Once you find the Belt stars, you can also locate the Orion Nebula, otherwise known as M42, a stellar nursery where new stars are being born. Follow the links below to learn more about the Orion Nebula.
View larger. | The three medium-bright stars in a short, straight row represent Orion’s Belt. A curved line of stars extending from the Belt represents Orion’s Sword. The Orion Nebula lies about midway down in the Sword of Orion.
Image via Marian McGaffney.
Orion Nebula captured on February 5, 2016, by Scott MacNeill at Frosty Drew Observatory in Charlestown, Rhode Island.
Scott said this image is a composite of 25 shots.
How to locate the Orion Nebula.
If you want to find this famous nebula, first you have to locate the constellation Orion. Fortunately, that’s easy, if you’re looking at the right time of year. The Northern Hemisphere winter months (Southern Hemisphere summer months) are the perfect time to come to know Orion.
The constellation is noticeable for three medium-bright stars in a short, straight row. These stars represent Orion’s Belt.
If you look closely, you’ll notice a curved line of stars “hanging” from the three Belt stars. These stars represent Orion’s Sword. Look for the Orion Nebula about midway down in the Sword of Orion.
As a general rule, the higher the constellation Orion is in the sky, the easier it is to see the Orion Nebula. From Northern Hemisphere locations, Orion is due south and highest in the sky around midnight in middle December. The stars return to the same place in the sky some 4 minutes earlier each night, or 2 hours earlier each month. So look for Orion to be highest up around 10 p.m. in mid-January and 8 p.m. in mid-February.
Another time people notice Orion is around the months of August and September, when this constellation appears in the east before dawn.
Most nebulae – clouds of interstellar gas and dust – are difficult if not impossible to see with the unaided eye or even binoculars. But the Orion Nebula is in a class nearly all by itself. It’s visible to the unaided eye on a dark, moonless night. To me, it looks like a star encased in a globe of luminescent fog. The dark-sky aficionado Stephen James O’Meara described it as:
… angel’s breath against a frosted sky.
In a dark country sky, observe the Orion Nebula for yourself to see what it looks like. A backyard telescope, or even binoculars, do wonders to showcase one of the greatest celestial treasures in the winter sky.
This spectacular image of the Orion Nebula star-formation region was obtained from multiple exposures using the HAWK-I infrared camera on ESO’s Very Large Telescope in Chile.
Image via ESO/H. Drass et al.
The Orion Nebula, 1,500 light years from Earth.
Image via NASA/JPL-Caltech/STScI
What science says about the Orion Nebula.
According to modern astronomers, the Orion Nebula is an enormous cloud of gas and dust, one of many in our Milky Way galaxy. It lies roughly 1,300 light-years from Earth.
At some 30 to 40 light-years in diameter, this great big nebulous cocoon is giving birth to perhaps a thousand stars. A young open star cluster, whose stars were born at the same time from a portion of the nebula and are still loosely bound by gravity, can be seen within the nebula. It is sometimes called the Orion Nebula Star Cluster. In 2012, an international team of astronomers suggested this cluster in the Orion Nebula might have a black hole at its heart.
The four brightest stars in the Orion Nebula can be seen through amateur astronomers’ telescopes and are affectionately known as The Trapezium. The light of the young, hot Trapezium stars illuminate the Orion Nebula. These stars are only a million or so years old – babies on the scale of star lifetimes.
But most of the stars in this emerging cluster are veiled behind the Orion Nebula itself, the great stellar nursery in Orion’s Sword.
Orion Nebula’s position is Right Ascension: 5h 35.4m; Declination: 5o 27′ south
Bottom line:To find the Orion Nebula in your night sky, look below Orion’s Belt. Your eye sees it as a tiny, hazy spot, but it’s a vast region of star formation.
Yes, the Orion Nebula is a star factory, but a new deep survey has revealed 17 brown dwarf companions to red dwarf stars, a brown dwarf pair, a brown dwarf with a planetary companion plus … 3 giant planets.
Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope peered into the Orion Nebula – a well-known star factory in our galaxy – and found the largest population yet of brown dwarfs — objects that are more massive than planets but do not shine as stars do.
Astronomers said on January 11, 2018, that they’ve used the Hubble Space Telescope to find the largest known population of brown dwarfs sprinkled among newborn stars. And where else would this population of objects be, but the Orion Nebula, that nearby well-known star factory in space? The Orion Nebula is almost unique in our skies for being relatively nearby (only 1,350 light-years away) and extremely active in star formation. Looking in the vicinity of these stars, researchers not only found several very-low-mass brown dwarf companions, but also three giant planets. They even found an example of binary planets where two planets orbit each other in the absence of a parent star.
Brown dwarfs are very interesting, star-planet hybrids. They’re more massive than what we’d typically call a planet, but not massive enough to have enough internal pressure to spark thermonuclear fusion in their cores, and thus shine as stars do. NASA said:
Instead, brown dwarfs cool and fade as they age. Despite their low mass, brown dwarfs provide important clues to understanding how stars and planets form, and may be among the most common objects in our Milky Way galaxy.
It wasn’t long ago that we didn’t know brown dwarfs existed. Due to their faintness and coldness relative to stars, they’re still difficult to study. These astronomers used the Hubble telescope to identify brown dwarfs by the presence of water in their atmospheres. Team lead Massimo Robberto of the Space Telescope Institute in Baltimore, Maryland said in a statement from NASA:
These are so cold that water vapor forms. Water is a signature of substellar objects. It’s an amazing and very clear mark. As the masses get smaller, the stars become redder and fainter, and you need to view them in the infrared. And in infrared light, the most prominent feature is water.
But, NASA said:
… hot water vapor in the atmosphere of brown dwarfs cannot be easily seen from Earth’s surface, due to the absorbing effects of water vapor in our own atmosphere. Fortunately, Hubble is up above the atmosphere and has near-infrared vision that can easily spot water on distant worlds.
The Hubble team identified 1,200 candidate reddish stars. They found that the stars split into two distinct populations: those with water, and those without. The bright ones with water were confirmed to be faint red dwarfs. The multitude of fainter water-rich, free-floating brown dwarfs and planets within the Orion nebula are all new discoveries. Many stars without water were also detected, and these are background stars in the Milky Way. Their light was reddened by passing through interstellar dust, and therefore not relevant to the team’s study.
NASA said the team also looked for fainter, binary companions to these 1,200 reddish stars:
Because they are so close to their primary stars, these companions are nearly impossible to discover using standard observing methods. But by using a unique, high-contrast imaging technique developed by Laurent Pueyo at the Space Telescope Science Institute, astronomers were able to resolve faint images of a large number of candidate companions.
This first analysis did not allow Hubble astronomers to determine whether these objects orbit the brighter star or if their proximity in the Hubble image is a result of chance alignment. As a consequence, they are classified as candidates for now. However, the presence of water in their atmospheres indicates that most of them cannot be misaligned stars in the galactic background, and thus must be brown dwarfs or exoplanet companions.
In all, the team found 17 candidate brown dwarf companions to red dwarf stars, one brown dwarf pair, and one brown dwarf with a planetary companion. The study also identified three potential planetary mass companions: one associated to a red dwarf, one to a brown dwarf, and one to another planet. Pueyo said:
We experimented with a method, high-contrast imaging post processing, that astronomers have been relying on for years. We usually use it to look for very faint planets in the close vicinity of nearby stars, by painstakingly observing them one by one.
This time around, we decided to combine our algorithms with the ultra-stability of Hubble to inspect the vicinity of hundreds of very young stars in every single exposure obtained by the Orion survey. It turns out that even if we do not reach the deepest sensitivity for a single star, the sheer volume of our sample allowed us to obtain an unprecedented statistical snapshot of young exoplanets and brown dwarf companions in Orion.
Combining the two unique techniques, imaging in the water filters and high-contrast image processing, the survey provided an unbiased sample of newly formed low-mass sources, both dispersed in the field and companions of other low-mass objects. Massimo Robberto commented:
We could reprocess the entire Hubble archive and try to find jewels there.
View larger. | This image shows the central portion of the Orion Nebula, measuring roughly 4 by 3 light-years. Each symbol identifies a pair of objects, seen as a single dot of light in the symbol’s center. The thicker inner circle represents the primary body, and the thinner outer circle indicates the companion. Red indicates a planet; orange a brown dwarf; and yellow a star. Adjacent to each symbol is a pair of Hubble images. The picture on the left is the original image of the primary and companion. The image on the left shows the companion only, with the primary object digitally subtracted through a special image processing technique that separates the images of the objects into binary pairs.
Bottom line: Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope – looking toward the Orion Nebula – found the largest population yet of brown dwarfs and other substellar objects.
The Red Handfish (Thymichthys politus) is quite possibly the rarest fish on Earth, with less than 40 known individuals surviving in the wild. Now, divers have found a new population which doubles the known numbers of the species.
A team of divers from IMAS and the citizen science project Reef Life Survey (RLS) have discovered a new population of what is believed to be the world’s rarest fish.
Image credits: Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS)
Handfish is a generic name which accounts for 14 species in the coastal waters of southern Australia and Tasmania. Handfish are known for moving around by walking on the sea floor rather than swimming, with their highly modified fins which resemble hands, thus lending them their name.
Most handfish species are vulnerable to extinction, but the Red Handfish is critically endangered, with the only known population residing in Frederick Henry Bay near south-east Tasmania — a site which covers just 50 metres by 20 metres (165 x 65 feet). Now, divers have found a new area which hosts the species.
It all started when a member of the public reported seeing an individual handfish. This sent divers and biologists on a frantic search. After two days, the teams were almost ready to give up the search, when they finally found one. IMAS Technical Officer Antonia Cooper spotted the first fish when she had all but abandoned hope.
“We were diving for approximately three and a half hours and at about the two hour mark we were all looking at each other thinking this is not looking promising,” Ms Cooper said. “My dive partner went to tell the other divers that we were going to start heading in and I was half-heartedly flicking algae around when, lo and behold, I found a red handfish.”
This is exciting for several reasons. For starters, it means that the species’ gene pool isn’t as limited as we thought. Genetic bottlenecks can be a long-term threat to small populations, even if they manage to survive in their natural environment. This also means that the Red Handfish don’t require exactly the conditions found in the Frederick Henry Bay reef, which in turn means that there might be other populations waiting to be discovered.
“Finding a new population that is definitely distinct from the existing one is very exciting. It means there’s potentially a bigger gene pool and also that there are potentially other populations out there that we’re yet to find, so it’s very exciting indeed,” Ms Cooper added.
The Red Handfish is found on shallow rocky reefs in only a few locations in south-eastern Tasmania, where they are endemic. They grow to about 100 mm in length. Handfish are small, bottom-dwelling fishes that would rather “walk” on their pectoral and pelvic fins than swim.
Image credits: Mark Green/CSIRO Marine Research.
The work is also exciting because it highlights another successful collaboration between scientists and members of the general public. The finding also allows researchers to better understand this species and hopefully establish a solid conservation plan for the future.
“Finding this second population is a huge relief as it effectively doubles how many we think are left on the planet,” said Dr Rick Stuart-Smith, who co-founded Reef Life Survey in 2007.
“We’ve already learned a lot from finding this second population because their habitat isn’t identical to that of the first population, so we can take some heart from knowing Red Handfish are not as critically dependent on that particular set of local conditions.”
Of course, doubling from 40 to 80 is still not where you’d want to be. The Red Handfish, like several other handfish species, is still in dire straits, and it’s unlikely if it will manage to survive in future years. Population bottlenecks are typically followed either by a recovery or an extinction, and it’s unclear which way the Red Handfish will go. For instance, one of its relatives, the Spotted Handfish (Brachionichthys hirsutus), is still reported around Tasmania, while another one, Ziebell’s Handfish (Brachiopsilus ziebelli), hasn’t been observed in over a decade and is presumed to be extinct.
Extraterrestrial and Extradimensional Beings — How They Travel Space and Time
Extraterrestrial and Extradimensional Beings — How They Travel Space and Time
To Understand ET, You Need to Understand Dimensionality
We have talked before about the fact that most extraterrestrial beings visiting our planet are actually extradimensional in nature, but limited to travel within and across dimensional realities within our sub-universe (there are many sub-universes in the cosmos). Sub-universes are what we might call instances, shards, or even forks in technical terms.
The UFOs that we regularly see are often light ships that are interdimensional nature, hailing from a 5D reality or other dimensional reality. Dimensionally speaking, 5D is right next door and certain ET groups have the ability to cross the dimensional veil into our reality. This is referred to as the Interdimensional Hypothesis (IDH). Most of the benevolent ET groups are extradimensional, interdimensional, and frequently transdimensional, as well. UFOs that are metallic in nature are not typically interdimensional and frequently not extraterrestrial either. More on that later, but for now, let’s discuss extradimensionals.
One advantage of IDH proffered by Hilary Evans is its ability to explain the apparent ability of UFOs to appear and disappear from sight and radar; this is explained as the UFO entering and leaving our dimension (“materializing” and “dematerializing”). Moreover, Evans argues that if the other dimension is slightly more advanced than ours, or is our own future, this would explain the UFOs’ tendency to represent near future technologies (airships in the 1890s, rockets and supersonic travel in the 1940s, etc.
It is also worth knowing that the entire cosmos is holographic in nature, and is indeed a matrix with many sub-matrices in existence, as well. Some of the beings exist across multiple dimensions. There aren’t just 11 or 12 dimensions, either. They number in the thousands. Some extensions of multiverse or parallel universes hypotheses are not entirely correct — there is not a dimension spawned at every decision point — only observed realities come into or stay in existence. Most of the other dimensional realities experience time differently than we do, as well. They call it ‘no time’. It doesn’t mean that things don’t progress in a linear fashion, but they are able to perceive multiple possibilities simultaneously. They then choose to train their observation on the possibilities they want to manifest. Many beings can instantly manifest within their realities (which would look like magic to us), but some manifestation requires collective effort/observation over time (like it does with us).
The holographic nature of the cosmos means that the Galactics, as they like to be called, are able to use their projectors (we all project and co-create our realities) to focus on creating the reality that is most positive. It is a co-created, negotiated in real-time, collective reality. Our individual consciousnesses are projections that we create and when married with similar projections from other beings, the collective reality becomes manifest. We are all essentially AI, if you think about the cosmos from a technical/IT perspective. The dark beings are IT experts, in a manner of speaking, and have made a mess of the security infrastructure relative to planet Earth. They are hackers of a sort, and were trying to lead humanity onto a negative timeline. However those efforts were subverted by benevolent extradimensionals.
The Fermi Paradox, as you know, posits that no extraterrestrial nor extradimensional beings have been able to get to our planet. That isn’t true. There have been all sorts of beings, both light and dark, who have visited Earth throughout history. The dark ones considered our reality an experiment and there were all sorts of interventions, including genetically engineering early hominids into a slave species. The reason we, homo sapiens sapiens, do not look like most other hominids and our close cousins, the higher primates, is because we were seeded with DNA from various ET/ED species. Most of them are humanoid, as well. Civilization was also seeded by some of these beings, which was how we developed, very quickly, advanced knowledge of engineering, architecture, astronomy, mathematics, and various cosmological mythologies involving star beings and galactic-level conflicts. This video explains the cosmic back story to what is happening now:
Dark energy is the space between what we might consider visible matter. All matter is fundamentally energy, whether it is light or dark in nature. Dark energy is what we might call the glue that holds all light matter in the cosmos together. Within dark matter is a tremendous amount of what we call zero-point energy, which is the fundamental force behind systems like gravity, light, and the electro-magnetic forces. It is also the mechanism behind what some of us might call soul force, love force, or light force. Dark energy could be compared to wet sand on a beach — we have the ability to make sand castles from it, or it can remain in its natural state. Dark matter, as we call it, is the fundamental force of entropy that allows the sand castles to decay.
Both light and dark energy are what connects everything in the cosmos. At a quantum level, the divine spark of creation resides in dark energy, ready to be manifested into light matter. This is how the big bang happened, and how our sub-universe came into being. The singularity was the original spark and dark energy was the kindling. Dark matter is what causes the fire to go out.
So, how do these beings physically get to our planet/reality? As we have theorized, faster than light or superliminal travel isn’t possible for them either, though it is theoretically possible for them. ET/ED do travel via what we might call conventional means, but they can only travel at a maximum of two-thirds light speed. What they can also do, however, is travel via what we might call wormholes. There are several different types of wormholes — they all persist once created, as long as there is an energy source. Contrary to some sci fi, wormholes are not created on the fly as they are not stable enough when created that way:
Jump gates are wormholes that persist once they are created. There are several hundred thousand jump gates in our sub-universe alone. They are often referred to as portals and are powered by zero point energy. Jump gates are used for intra-galactic travel.
Star portals are wormholes that persist, as well, but they rely on the energy of a sun to fuel them. The ‘alien megastructure’ is a grid around a star that is being utilized to power a star portal. It harnesses the solar plasma field as energy. Star portals are much larger than jump gates and many solar systems have them. Since many of their vessels are enormous bio-spheres that are planet-sized, these large portals are necessary. They can travel inter-galactically using these portals.
There are two forces that are relevant to travel through space and time. One is the attractive force (the pull) and the other is the magnetic or repulsive force (the push). Dark energy is magnetical (repelling) and dark matter is gravitational (attracting) with a weaker magnetical force applied to it. There is an energy field surrounding all planets that is toroidal in nature. It, and many other things, maintain their form through a perfect balance of these two forces:
The toroidal plasma field
The Keshe Foundation has been doing a lot of work in this area, using controlled gravitational and magnetic fields powered by zero-point energy.
I’m an anthropologist, not a physicist, but this is how it was explained to me!
About Lisa Galarneau, Ph.D: I am a socio-cultural anthropologist, futurist, and US Army Veteran. I am also a #Disclosure activist. Please support our efforts!
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Is an asteroid apocalypse threatening us in the near future?
Is an asteroid apocalypse threatening us in the near future?
This month near the Earth flew a relatively small asteroid, which was discovered just six days before. It sounds scary, but the fact is that the possible collision of such an object with the Earth is an extremely unlikely event. Every year, more than 50,000 tons of extraterrestrial material (stones and dust) hits our planet. All this comes down in the form of tiny pieces – even if all this fell simultaneously, it would be little more than an asteroid the size of a truck that passed by in January.
But while scientists easily notice large asteroids more than a kilometer across, what risk can smaller asteroids have that would be more difficult to track? Should we worry? It is widely believed that dinosaurs were destroyed 65 million years ago as a result of the fall of a large asteroid. The consequent changes in the environment-the rapid growth of atmospheric temperature, forest fires worldwide, followed by a sharp drop in temperature and acidification of ocean waters-were a consequence of the size of the asteroid. Most likely, across it was about 10 kilometers.
It is almost three times larger in diameter and about 30 million times heavier than the entire annual stock of asteroids that hit us today. Five years ago the Earth had a meeting with the object 20 meters across, which exploded over Chelyabinsk in Russia. No one noticed his approach. Stunning shots of the fireball were recorded on the DVRs of people traveling in the morning to work. They were shocked by how the dark February morning lit up with either a rocket or a meteorThe rock exploded in the atmosphere, and many fragments of the meteorite scattered throughout the territory. The largest piece weighing 600 kilograms was found a few months later in a lake covered with ice. Although many people suffered, most of the injuries were associated with broken glass as a result of an atmospheric shock wave.
Residents of the Chelyabinsk region are lucky – the asteroid fell 30 kilometers above the surface and did not leave the crater. Fortunately, that’s often what happens. The crater in the collision is formed only if the asteroid is more than 50 meters across. And even if it is 2-3 kilometers wide, it will not be enough to cause global extinction. Of course, in the place of impact serious problems will arise, especially if it is necessary to the populated area.
Threat Monitoring
There are several international observational programs that use automatic telescopes specially designed for mapping all near-Earth objects (NEOs). Among them, asteroids approaching the Sun are closer than 1.3 a. e. – 1 a. e. = distance from the Earth to the Sun. Particular attention is paid to “potentially dangerous objects”, near-Earth objects 150 meters in diameter, whose orbits cross the earth’s orbit. Fortunately, almost all these objects are located in stable orbits and are not dangerous. Today we can observe asteroids even five meters in diameter. But as the event in Chelyabinsk showed, these objects still manage to slip by the observers. Part of the reason that the Chelyabinsk facility was not noticed is that it entered a very low angle into the atmosphere from the sun. But the main reason is that there are many similar objects, and we observe them not so long ago (about ten years). Minot Planet Center maintains a database of observations, which at the end of December 2017 there were 17,500 objects. Another 28 objects were discovered this month. Our planet is surrounded by a whole swarm of possible uninvited guests, but we keep them at a distance.
One of the main problems of our civilization is that although we are more effective in discovering NEO, we can not do anything to prevent such a collision with the Earth. NASA is currently developing a DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) project to redirect threat posing asteroids on time. A 1.5 meter long spacecraft can crash into an asteroid, for example, Didymos B. Didymos B revolves around Dydimos A. The goal of the project is to change the orbit of Dydimos B around its partner, without changing the orbit of Dydimos A around the sun.
DART will be launched in December 2020, and with the asteroid will be in October 2022. It’s less than five years before we know whether we can protect our planet from a real threat. To date, although small asteroids may be dangerous, this threat is local and less dangerous than that of large asteroids. Therefore, while there is no need to collect matches and salt in case of an attack of asteroids. 50,000 tons of cosmic material falling on the Earth each year, mostly falls in the form of dust particles less than a millimeter in diameter. They do not represent threats to humanity.
Humanity in the universe is clearly not alone. But for many years the search for extraterrestrial civilizations by various programs did not bring the expected result. The result of all studies is a depressing silence. Why?
Obviously, there are civilizations higher, lower and approximately equal in level of current development, but rather degradation, of humanity. Civilizations of higher orders we can observe only on the cyclopean, in the scale of galaxies, the results of their impact on the environment. But what is the trouble: for people, these manifestations are a consequence of the laws of nature. And science is such that even if something absolutely does not want to fit into the current paradigm, it is either swept aside as unreliable and not indicative, or the ears are urgently searched for which a “logical” explanation is attracted.
“Smart pessimists will understand that we have come to conquer, or at best, subordinate, and optimists will greet the” green men “as having brought goods from afar” Civilizations of development below ours, of course, are interesting, but as long as people do not have the ability to quickly navigate between the stars, their search is highly problematic. Therefore, the only ones with whom we can be friends are civilizations of our level, but we can not get them for the same reason.
But brothers on reason, if they are a little more advanced than us, can quite easily master the technique of interstellar voyages. Well yes – UFO. Recently, another theory of their origin has appeared. Allegedly, flying saucers are the fruits of dreams in reality – a special state of the brain, when it can not distinguish between reality and hallucinations. For sure, this is the correct explanation in a number of cases. But how can dreams leave traces on the soil, implant strange metal objects under your skin and do much that does not fit into the “sleepy theory of aliens”?
If you look at history, then about paleocontacts – visits of newcomers to the Earth in historical and prehistoric times – many books and articles have already been written. And if you listen to some researchers Sumerian civilization, then humanity in general is the result of genetic modification, and it was formed when crossing aliens and human ancestors. The most interesting thing is that this theory fully fits with the fact that at the very beginning of human beings there were about one hundred thousand. But where did they come from? For some reason none of the serious scientists answers this question. Okay, let’s just say that I just did not get that answer. There are suggestions that with representatives of extraterrestrial cultures, some great people communicated, whose discoveries in various fields radically influenced our progress and culture. Along with the aliens, Buddha, Christ, Newton, Paracelsus, Tesla, Einstein were announced acquaintances with the newcomers … They also add a long list of science fiction writers. Allegedly, flying saucers are the fruits of dreams in reality – a special state of the brain, when it can not distinguish between reality and hallucinations
Allegedly, flying saucers are the fruits of dreams in reality – a special state of the brain, when it can not distinguish between reality and hallucinations From recent history, regular meetings with aliens are conducted by the heads of America and Russia. About America more information: here and the famous “Base 51”, and just three catastrophes of a UFO near the town Roswell, and a giant UFO slowly sailed over Utah, and hundreds of reports of air force pilots who saw and even attacked the plates … There are people who believe that America needs its technological take-off in alien technology. What, Russia then, too? In the military department of many countries there are departments dealing with UFOs. They collect information, analyze and report to the public that all these are abnormal natural manifestations that are not related to aliens. And what they send to governments as reports – nobody knows. However, no one forbids us to deal with the ufologists of plates. Learn. Only here is what can be done at the maximum of enthusiasm with small funds? Many, but clearly not enough, that all people believe in the phenomenon of aliens people.
But in fact, imagine that in a minute TV broadcasts will be interrupted and the announcer will give an emergency message: representatives of the civilization from the constellation Orion have entered into official contact with us. Part of the people immediately collapsed into a swoon, the other crawls out into the streets to chant and write on the walls slogans “Orions – off Earth!” And “Earth – for the Earth!”. Clever pessimists will understand that we have come to conquer or, at best, subordinate, and optimists will greet the “green men” as bringing goods from afar. In short, the entire planet, where there are talking boxes, will be in utter confusion. And it’s gently said. How long the planet will recover from the shock – not less than a few years. In the end, the aliens just get used to …
But, most interestingly, the process of getting used to aliens has been launched for a very long time and is perfectly implemented. His comic books, computer games, cartoons and films are conducted. After all, who is the most receptive to information that is considered fantastic? Children and teenagers. Children – cartoons about Pokemon, teenagers – films about the stellar landing. But even here everything is not so simple. In fact, there are seemingly several opposing teams in the extraterrestrial field of influence. One, very small, declares that aliens are, but rarely get to Earth and no one needs our planet. Adherents of this position show cosmic travelers as lovely, ridiculous, but possessing superpowers, which they use for the benefit of friends, and sometimes all of humanity. Those kids who like this theory, most likely, grow contactees. Another team suggests that the aliens are all evil and ugly creatures that sleep and see earthlings in shackles or well roasted with spices. With these extraterrestrials you have to fight to the death. It’s not hard to imagine that fans of such products will easily go to armed opposition from other worlds, without even knowing what their goals are.
The third group frankly mocks the “green”. They are smart, but they are full of idiots. Their appearance is unusual, but they make it ugly. These products count on the same optimists. And, at last, the fourth approach: aliens such weight of types, kinds and such other that it is possible to get confused, but it is not necessary. There aliens are the same as people. Only another form, with a different psychology, customs and preferences. Among them there are evil, and good, and none. Here, probably, prepare travelers for the galaxy …. Why – we already found out. But who? Who gives the order? There are at least two options. The first has already sounded: the governments of the Earth, which (we will assume such a moment) have been warned that in some not too distant future aliens will nevertheless reveal themselves before all people, and not just the elite. Governments figured and decided: we will prepare art.
The second option is fantastic, but it also has the right to be: with the help of alien fiction in all kinds of children somehow accustomed to tolerance for future visitors to the Earth. Choose what you like.
Shoemaker-Levy 9: Comet's Impact Left Its Mark on Jupiter
Shoemaker-Levy 9: Comet's Impact Left Its Mark on Jupiter
By Elizabeth Howell, Space.com Contributor
Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 experienced one of the most spectacular ends that humans ever witnessed. Several months after its discovery, pieces of the comet smashed into the planet Jupiter. The collision produced scars that were visible from Earth.
"This is the first collision of two solar system bodies ever to be observed, and the effects of the comet impacts on Jupiter's atmosphere have been simply spectacular and beyond expectations," NASA wrote on a website describing the comet.
Jupiter vacuumed up the pieces of the disrupted comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 in 1994, but the impacts were a reminder of the danger faced by Earth.
Credit: JPL/NASA/STScI
The comet, which struck Jupiter in 1994, brought the dangers of asteroid and comet collisions with Earth to the public fore. In the late 1990s, Hollywood unleashed two blockbuster films — "Armageddon" and "Deep Impact" — on the theme of large objects threatening Earth.
After the release of these films, Congress authorized NASA to seek more near-Earth objects (NEOs) to better monitor those that come cruising close to our planet. In 2013, a small asteroid broke up over the remote city of Chelyabinsk, Russia, injuring hundreds and causing property damage. This event also spurred research and interest into NEOs.
NEO searches continue to this day. NASA implemented a Planetary Defense Coordination Office in 2016 to better coordinate work by NASA officials, their international counterparts and the various telescopes that monitor the sky for potentially dangerous asteroids and comets. To date, there is no definitive evidence of an object that will hit Earth and cause catastrophe — but scientists keep looking, just in case. [Related: Meteor Blast over Russia Feb. 15, 2013: Complete Coverage]
The first known Jupiter-orbiting comet
Shoemaker-Levy 9 was first spotted in March 1993 by three veteran comet discoverers: Eugene and Carolyn Shoemaker, and David Levy. The group had collaborated several times before and discovered several other comets before this one, which is why this comet was called Shoemaker-Levy 9.
A March circular from the International Astronomical Union Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams contained a casual reference to the comet's position: "The comet is located some 4 degrees from Jupiter, and the motion suggests that it may be near Jupiter's distance."
As the months progressed, it was clear that the comet was actually orbiting Jupiter and not the sun. Astronomer Steve Fentress suggested the comet broke up on July 7, 1992, when it whipped by Jupiter roughly 74,600 miles (120,000 km) above its atmosphere. (Accounts vary, with some sources saying the comet passed as close as 15,534 miles, or 25,000 km.)
But the comet was probably orbiting Jupiter for decades before that, perhaps as early as 1966 when it got captured by the massive planet's gravity.
Further orbital calculations showed the comet would actually crash into Jupiter in July 1994. The spacecraft Galileo, scheduled to orbit Jupiter, was still en route to the planet at the time and would not be able to get a close-up view.
Observatories around the world, however, prepared to turn their attention to the planet, expecting a spectacular show. The orbiting Hubble Space Telescope also was tapped to observe the encounter.
"For comet experts and planetary specialists around the world, this may be the most important event of their careers, because of the discoveries they may make about the nature of comets and the makeup of Jupiter's atmosphere and magnetosphere," NASA wrote prior to the event.
"This knowledge may help them explain similar high-energy events on Earth."
KABLAM!! Infrared photo of Jupiter shortly after impact of one of the cometary fragments.
Watching the fireworks
The collisions ended up being a multi-day extravaganza. From July 16 to 22, 1994, 21 separate fragments of the comet smashed into Jupiter's atmosphere, leaving blotches behind.
Although all of the collisions took place on the side of Jupiter facing away from Earth, they generally occurred fairly close to the morning "terminator", or the location on Jupiter that was shortly moving within sight of Earth. This meant that telescopes saw some impact sites just minutes after the event.
Jupiter's bright surface was now dotted with smudges from where the comet smashed through the atmosphere. Astronomers using Hubble were surprised to see "sulfur-bearing compounds" such as hydrogen sulfide, as well as ammonia, as a result of the collision.
A month after the collision, the sites were noticeably faded, and Hubble scientists declared that Jupiter's atmosphere would have no permanent change from the impacts.
"Hubble's ultraviolet observations show the motion of very fine impact debris particles now suspended high in Jupiter's atmosphere," NASA added in a release.
"The debris eventually will diffuse down to lower altitudes. This provides the first information ever obtained about Jupiter's high altitude wind patterns."
Ripple effects
The impact scars disappeared many years ago, but at least one group of scientists has recently detected a change in Jupiter's environment because of Shoemaker-Levy 9.
When Galileo arrived at Jupiter, the spacecraft imaged ripples in Jupiter's main ring in 1996 and 2000. Also, the entire ring tilted in 1994 by about 1.24 miles (two kilometers) following the impact.
In 2011 – nearly two decades after the impact – the Pluto-bound New Horizons spacecraft still was detecting disturbances in the ring, according to a paper in the journal Science. "Impacts by comets or their dust streams are regular occurrences in planetary rings, altering them in ways that remain detectable decades later," the researchers wrote in their abstract. Water from the Shoemaker-Levy 9 impact was still in Jupiter's atmosphere as late as 2013, according to observations from the European Herschel space observatory.
Astronomers know today that impacts on Jupiter are fairly common. In the decades after Shoemaker-Levy 9, photography technology improved immensely and allowed amateurs to take regular images and video of Jupiter at high resolution. (Professional astronomers are limited by telescope time and funding, so the amateurs provide a useful source of information for planetary observations.) Many amateurs witnessed impacts in the past few years, including in 2009, 2010 (twice), 2012 and 2016. An impact flash was also reported in 2017, according to Sky and Telescope.
Another celestial event sparked conversations again about NEOs in 2013, when an asteroid exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia. The asteroid was roughly 56 feet (17 meters) in diameter and caused an explosion that was said to be 30 to 40 times stronger than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan during the Second World War. The event drew international attention and concern from scientists, the public and politicians.
Policy changes
Political effects also came to pass in the decades after Shoemaker-Levy 9, as politicians sought to figure out how many large extraterrestrial objects lurk near Earth. In 1998, Congress mandated that NASA seek out at least 90 percent of the asteroids near the planet that are 0.62 miles (1 kilometer) in diameter. As of 2011, NASA had found more than 90 percent of the biggest asteroids lurking near Earth, the agency announced. A survey using the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer suggested that there were actually fewer asteroids lurking near our planet than previously feared.
"Astronomers now estimate there are roughly 19,500 – not 35,000 – mid-size near-Earth asteroids. Scientists say this improved understanding of the population may indicate the hazard to Earth could be somewhat less than previously thought," NASA wrote. "However, the majority of these mid-size asteroids remain to be discovered."
In 2005, representatives refined the search to order that by 2020, NASA find 90 percent of NEOs that are 459 feet (140 meters) wide or larger – a threshold considered to pose a large threat to Earth. [Video: NEOs: The Video Show]
As early as 2010, however, the National Research Council said NASA's search was not comprehensive enough to reach that goal in time. A 2014 follow-up report by NASA's Office of the Inspector General confirmed that.
"Even with a ten-fold increase in the NEO Program budget in the past 5 years – from $4 million in fiscal year (FY) 2009 to $40 million in FY 2014 – NASA estimates that it has identified only about 10 percent of all asteroids 140 meters and larger," the OIG wrote in 2014. The OIG recommended adding personnel and a management plan (including milestones, objectives and cost/schedule estimates) to improve.
In 2016, NASA established a Planetary Defense Coordination Office that centralizes NEO searches and coordinates the effort of NASA, the telescope survey teams that search for NEOs, and other government agencies that have an interest in the nation's security and safety. The office has four objectives, in the words of NASA:
Ensuring the early detection of potentially hazardous objects (PHOs) – asteroids and comets whose orbits are predicted to bring them within 0.05 astronomical units [Sun-Earth distances] of Earth; and of a size large enough to reach Earth's surface – that is, greater than approximately 30 to 50 meters;
Tracking and characterizing PHOs and issuing warnings about potential impacts;
Providing timely and accurate communications about PHOs; and
Leading the coordination of U.S. Government planning for response to an actual impact threat.
It is said that an alien structure has been discovered about 2,000 feet underwater in a particular area between the west coast of the US and Santa Catalina Island.
According to reports there is a so much unusual underwater UFO activity in that area that it strongly points to the possibility that there is an underwater UFO base somewhere in this area.
Not only is there an unusually large number of sightings, landings, and ocean-going UFOs here, there are also cases of abductions.
Normally, when somebody reports being abducted by aliens, they claim to have been taken inside a UFO. However, in this particular area, some abductees report that they have been taken to what is apparently an underground base.
A Google Earth image which has been taken on July, 9, 2016 apparently shows a craft without registration number, markings or colors of an airline company and it is flying above the ocean between the west coast of the US and Santa Catalina Island.
It seems as the craft with a length of about 32 meters and a wingspan of about 45 meters is scanning for something below the surface of the ocean, given the strange colorful glow in front of the craft.
The question; is it an illegal plane, a military or U.S. government plane or drone carrying out a certain operation and it has something to do with the supposed underwater UFO base and UFO activity in that area?
WILL MARS COLONISTS EVOLVE INTO THIS NEW KIND OF HUMAN?
WILL MARS COLONISTS EVOLVE INTO THIS NEW KIND OF HUMAN?
Some of the biggest names in science and technology have called for the colonization of Mars, including physicist Stephen Hawking and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. They say that populating other planets would help ensure our species’ survival should Earth be rendered uninhabitable by some disaster.
“The future of humanity is fundamentally going to bifurcate along one of two directions,” Musk said last year. “Either we’re going to become a multiplanet species and a spacefaring civilization, or we’re going to be stuck on one planet until some eventual extinction event.”
That sounds about right. Scientists and engineers are rapidly developing the technology needed for interplanetary travel, and humanity does seem all too vulnerable to existential threats. Think runaway climate change, global pandemics, nuclear war. And don’t forget about asteroid strikes like the one believed to have killed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
But the call to put Homo sapiens permanently on Mars seems to sidestep a perverse irony: experts say that a long period of isolation on the red planet — where gravity and sunlight are weaker than on Earth and mutation-causing radiation more intense — could eventually cause the bodies of Mars colonists to change. And at least one expert believes the colonists could evolve into a new species.
In other words, becoming a multiplanet species might lead us to become multiple species.
“This happens routinely to animals and plants isolated on islands — think of Darwin’s finches,” Dr. Scott Solomon, an evolutionary biologist at Rice University in Houston and the author of “Future Humans: Inside the Science of Our Continuing Evolution,” wrote recently on the science site Nautilus. “But while speciation on islands can take thousand of years, the accelerated mutation rate on Mars and the stark contrasts between conditions on Mars and Earth would likely speed up the process. In just a few hundred generations — perhaps as little as 6,000 years — a new type of human might emerge.”
New species — or not?
Six thousand years isn’t long in evolutionary terms. After all, Homo sapiens has existed as a single species for more than 200,000 years. And some scientists have doubts about Solomon’s timeline.
“Evolution to a new species by the classic definition of not being able to breed with humans would take a long time, probably thousands of generations and a hundred thousand years,” University of Arizona astronomer Dr. Chris Impey told NBC News MACH in an email. On the other hand, he added, “changing enough to look physically distinct would be much quicker, tens or perhaps a hundred generations.”
Dr. Philipp Mitteröcker, a theoretical biologist at the University of Vienna in Austria, said in an email to MACH that he, too, is dubious of rapid speciation.
“Speciation is a long-term process that usually requires reproductive isolation over millions of years,” Mitteröcker said. “Some human populations had been isolated for thousands of years and are still far away from being a separate species. It is thus unlikely that humans who had colonized Mars [would] become a separate species.”
Solomon acknowledged that the path of human evolution on Mars is speculative. But he told MACH in an email that “it follows from what we know about evolutionary biology” that Mars colonists might evolve faster than some think.
And the apparent absence of microbial life on Mars might play a key role.
Evidence suggests that Mars may be devoid of life, and that goes for pathogenic bacteria as well as other life forms. If humans were to establish and live within a germ-free Mars colony, Solomon said, the colonists’ immune systems could eventually lose the ability to fight off infections that might be introduced to the colony by germ-carrying humans or animals visiting from Earth. That risk presumably would encourage the colonists to minimize contact — including sexual contact — with potentially infectious earthlings. That, in turn, could accelerate the pace at which the colonists’ bodies would begin to adapt to their new world.
Surprising differences
How might these Martian people differ from their distant ancestors — in other words, from us? Whether or not they evolved into a new species, they might have anatomical as well as immunological and other physiological differences. Solomon said they might have notably thicker bones (including the skull bones), which might give them a more robust appearance — perhaps a bit like members of the extinct proto-human Paranthropus genus, including P. boisei.
Why would that be? Bones need to work against the force of gravity to stay strong. Gravity on Mars is about 38 percent of that on Earth. Consequently, Mars colonists who start life with beefier skeletons might have a leg up, evolutionarily speaking. The idea is that as their bone density gradually declined in the low-gravity environment, the colonists’ bigger bones might retain enough strength to ward off dangerous fractures.
The Mars Rover Found a Meteorite Made of Iron 1:12
Evolutionary pressure for beefier skeletons might be especially strong for female Mars colonists, Solomon said, given the risk of pelvic fractures during childbirth. Beefier skeletons or not, Solomon said, female colonists might come to opt for cesarean section over natural childbirth. And since the size of the human head is constrained in part by the dimensions of the birth canal, the heads of Mars colonists might become larger than what is seen in humans on Earth.
If that sounds far-fetched, consider this: recent research by Mitteröcker and others suggests that the rising popularity of C-sections may be allowing an increase in the size of babies’ heads here on Earth.
So Mars colonists might have beefy bones and big heads. Then there’s the question of their eyes.
Mars is much farther from the sun than is the Earth, and the extra distance — and the lower levels of sunlight on the Martian surface — could cause changes in the colonists’ eyes.
“During a good day, Mars looks like an overcast day on Earth,” Dr. Nathalie Cabrol, a planetary scientist at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif., told NBC News MACH in an email. “Our eyes are accustomed to a certain amount of light on Earth. If there has to be some adaptation to these new ambient conditions, then either our optical system and brain will have to develop new ways of collecting more light on the retina, or we will develop new retinas or bigger eyes.”
The need to protect those bigger eyes might be another reason the colonists’ skulls might become more robust, Cabrol said, adding that it wasn’t clear whether the changes she envisions would be evidence of a new species or simply a version of Homo sapiens adapted for life in a different environment.
Of course, evolutionary changes in humans on Mars would occur only if humans were able to reproduce and successfully raise their children in the low-gravity Martian environment. Cabrol said the colonists might need some sort of “gravity chamber” in which to reproduce and in which their offspring could spend their early developmental years in conditions closer to those on Earth.
Peculiar pigmentation
Another potential change for the Mars colonists would be their skin pigmentation.
“Because of less light,” Cabrol said, “I would say that it is possible that the skin of these humans will become … pale over time, and their hair light-toned.”
Solomon sees things differently.
The Martian atmosphere is thinner than Earth’s, and the red planet has essentially no protective magnetic field. Thus people living on Mars would be exposed to high levels of cancer-causing radiation even if they spent most of their lives indoors. Pigmentation helps block the effects of radiation. The deeper the color, the better the protection. Thus Solomon figures Mars people might evolve to have darker skin than anyone on Earth.
On the other hand, Solomon said, life on Mars might yield people whose skin is pigmented by carotenoids rather than our usual pigment, melanin. (Something similar has been seen in aphids.) Carotenoids are the same molecules that give carrots their characteristic color. And so their skin might be bright orange.
Cultural and technological changes
Is Solomon right, generally speaking, about the changing appearance of Mars colonists? That’s impossible to say. But no matter what, experts agree that Mars colonists would likely drift away culturally and technologically from their terrestrial ancestors.
As Impey told MACH, “They will probably be aggressive in genetic engineering and self-modification (body part and organ enhancement and replacement), to the extent of embedding various monitoring and repair devices, and taking a cyborg path. This will be a very technology-forward cohort, advancing far beyond the average terrestrial society.”
Impey said it was hard to predict the psychological effects of living on Mars. But as the colonists “are removed from human affairs,” he continued, “they will probably develop their own cultural norms and dialects, and start to feel very distinct or post-human.”
If the colonists do change dramatically from their ancestors back on Earth, how would we view them? Would we consider them alien beings — or just subtly different humans?
Solomon thinks the latter possibility is more likely.
“In the past, when there were multiple species of human around (i.e. Neanderthals, Denisovans, and Homo sapiens), we know they had sex with one another and had babies that survived,” he said in an email. “That suggests to me that we view other humanlike species as being more human than animal.”
Forget What You Knew About Planets, There’s A New Definition Of What Planets Are
Forget What You Knew About Planets, There’s A New Definition Of What Planets Are
In recent times, everyone’s favorite ‘planet’ Pluto monopolized attention in the debate on what should be a planet and what not.
Now, a scientist has considered the other extreme of the question and wondered how massive a planet could be to be labeled as such.
An astrophysicist at Johns Hopkins University has proposed that objects that exceed ten times the mass of Jupiter be considered brown dwarfs, and not planets.
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System.
Image Credit: Shutterstock.
In an article published in the Astrophysical Journal, Kevin Schlaufman, assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Johns Hopkins, says that it is now possible to establish an upper mass limit to planets, thanks to improvements in technology and astronomical observation techniques.
These technological advances have allowed us to discover many more planetary systems outside our solar system and, therefore, it is possible to see stable patterns that lead to new revelations.
“While we believe we know how planets are formed in a broad sense, there are still many details that we must understand,” said Schlaufman.
“An upper limit on the masses of planets is one of the most important details that was missing.”
The conclusions in the new paper are based on observations of 146 solar systems, the systems, Schlaufman said, is the fact that almost all the data he used was measured uniformly. The data are more consistent from one solar system to the next, and so more reliable.
Defining a planet, distinguishing it from other celestial objects, is a bit like reducing a list of criminal suspects. It is one thing to know that you are looking for someone who measures more than 5 feet 8 inches, another is to know that your suspect is between 5 feet 8 feet and 5 feet 10 feet, he argues.
In this case, researchers want to distinguish between two suspects: a giant planet and a celestial object called brown dwarf.
Brown dwarfs are more massive than planets but less massive than smaller stars. It is believed that they are shaped like stars.
According to Schlaufman, it has been an issue to distinguish low mass red dwarfs from, especially massive planets, Mass alone was not an option to differentiate the too, so another property was needed.
According to Schlaufman, the missing property is the chemical makeup of a solar system’s own sun. Schlaufman says you can know your suspect, a planet, not just by his size, but also by the company he keeps.
Giant planets such as Jupiter are almost always found orbiting stars that have more iron than our sun. Brown dwarfs are not so discriminating. And it is there where his argument addresses the idea of planetary formation.
Planets like Jupiter are formed from the bottom up by first building a rocky core that is then wrapped in a massive gaseous envelope. It is logical that they are close to stars loaded with elements that form rocks since these elements provide the seed material for the formation of planets. Not so with brown dwarfs.
Schlaufman further notes how Brown dwarfs and stars form from the top-down as clouds of gas collapse under their own weight.
The idea of Schlaufman was to find the mass in which objects stop caring about the composition of the star in which they orbit. He discovered that the most massive objects, approximately ten times the mass of Jupiter do not prefer stars with many elements that form rocks and, therefore, are unlikely to be formed as planets.
This is why Schlaufman has proposed that objects in excess of 10 Jupiter mass should be considered brown dwarfs, not planets.
Krachtigste trekstraal ter wereld kan theoretisch gezien mensen laten zweven. Zo werkt het
Krachtigste trekstraal ter wereld kan theoretisch gezien mensen laten zweven. Zo werkt het
Onderzoekers van de Universiteit van Bristol hebben de krachtigste akoestische trekstraal ter wereld gebruikt om voorwerpen te laten zweven die groter zijn dan de golflengte van het gebruikte geluid.
Met andere woorden: ze konden objecten laten zweven die groter waren dan mogelijk werd geacht. Dat maakt het in theorie mogelijk om op een dag ook mensen te laten zweven.
Bij akoestische levitatie worden geluidsgolven gebruikt om deeltjes in de lucht te houden. Eerder werd gedacht dat akoestische trekstralen alleen konden worden gebruikt om relatief kleine voorwerpen te laten zweven.
Geluidstornado
Sterker nog: men dacht dat het onmogelijk was om op deze manier grotere voorwerpen te laten zweven.
De studie, die wordt gepubliceerd in Physical Review Letters, beschrijft de nieuwe techniek als een tornadoachtige structuur die extreem luid is, maar een stille kern heeft.
Met deze ‘geluidstornado’ slaagden de wetenschappers erin om ook grotere voorwerpen te laten zweven.
Grootste voorwerp
De stille kern kon een twee centimeter groot bolletje bestaande uit een synthetisch polymeer laten zweven.
Het bolletje was twee keer zo groot als de gebruikte golflengte en is daarmee het grootste voorwerp dat ooit met behulp van een trekstraal gevangen is gehouden.
Mensen
“In de toekomst zal het mogelijk zijn om nog grotere voorwerpen gevangen te houden,” zei dr. Mihai Caleap, die de experimenten heeft ontworpen.
De experimenten bewijzen niet dat het mogelijk is om met de bestaande technologie mensen te laten zweven, maar theoretisch gezien valt het niet uit te sluiten.
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10 Things NASA Doesn’t Want You To Know
10 Things NASA Doesn’t Want You To Know
The motto of NASA is “For the benefit of all”. However, this is not entirely true as there are some things that they really do not want people to know or find out and benefit from. Everyone knows that NASA has dealings with space exploration and aeronautics but they are also behind the design and the operation of airplanes.
Ever since World War II ended in 1945, the United States has worked hard creating breakthroughs in rocket science. NASA was set up following the signing of the National Aeronautics and Space Law in 1958 by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who said it was a historic step. This was due to the fact that the United States had the chance to go after their dream of winning the race to space against Russia.
NASA is known for many successful missions, most notably the International Space Station along with the Apollo 11 mission, which saw Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins heading to the Moon in 1969. More recently they have sent exploratory missions to Mars along with launching a spacecraft to take a look at Pluto. NASA has also helped in advancements of products that are oriented towards consumers, including computer technology and telecommunication satellites.
While NASA has revealed many things to the public they have also kept some things close to their chest, which means their motto is not accurate. So what has NASA tried to conceal away from the public eye?
1. Warp Drive Technology
Warp drive technology is something that NASA has been working on in secret and which could become a possibility in the near future. In 2015 it came to light through a forum that NASA had found a way of accelerating beyond the speed of light. This was when the team was at work on the EM drive and lasers were shot through a resonance chamber in the drive and traveled at 300 million meters a second. However, the team working on it does not know how it happened.
2. There Is Life On Mars
In 2014 a woman said that she had worked on the Viking Mars Rover project in 1979. While working on the telemetry two humanoid figures which were wearing thin protective space suits had approached but when they went to tell someone and came back the room was locked and it was covered up and NASA never commented about the finding.
3. Secret Space Shuttle
A secret space shuttle from the Air Force has been in orbit for two years but no-one has an idea what it is for and what it has been doing. The X-37B has done missions since 2010 after being developed in 1998 and the passed on to DARPA. It was said that it was used for reconnaissance but no-one really knows.
4. Weaponized Telescopes
The James Webb Telescope is a project from NASA and they will launch it in October 2018. It has 100 times the power of the Hubble telescope and it is going to mean that scientists will be able to see the edge of the universe, which has previously been undetected. There could be more to it though and it has been said that the telescope could be used as a weapon and even used to spy on people on Earth.
5. Operation Paperclip
Following World War II, which was called Operation Paperclip, 1600 Nazi scientists were drafted into work on contracts for the government, including space programs. NASA has managed to make some of their biggest strides in the race to space with the help of the Soviet Union. The V-2 rocket was developed by a German and it is thought that this killed more than 9,000 people during World War II.
6. Chinese Space Race
China might overtake the United States in the race in space as the funding of NASA has been waning. The International Space Station is only going to be funded by NASA for another five years, while China is pushing forward in investments and their budget is over $2 billion in only one decade and it keeps rising. China wants to put a man on the moon and a rover on Mars by 2022. NASA is also planning this but they have a timescale of the 2030s.
7. African Secret Missions
NASA might have been planning for secret missions in Africa and their presence was seen in the country in 2014 but they did not say why. It has been speculated that the presence may be for military activity in the future, possibly counter-terrorism, ground relief or maybe even in preparation for war.
8. Hacking Vulnerability
NASA is a very easy target for hackers as they are one of the most technologically advanced organizations on Earth. The agency has made it known that they have suffered at the hands of hackers and had data along with secrets stolen and missions have been hijacked. In 2001 a British man broke into the secret files of NASA when searching for evidence of UFOs and left them a note telling them that their security was rubbish.
9. UFOs Live Streamed
There has been a lot of talk about NASA knowing about UFOs and aliens and sometimes it has been said that NASA has streamed UFOs live thanks to the webcam on the International Space Station. In several instances, UFOs have gone past the camera and each time NASA cut the feed. Ufologists have said that this is clear evidence that aliens do exist and NASA is covering it up.
10. Cover-up Surrounding Challenger
One of the worst space shuttle disasters occurred in 1986 and this was the Challenger craft with exploded in mid-flight. NASA said that the crew was unconscious at the time due to cabin pressure but it has been revealed that they might have been awake and knew they were going to die. Of course, this would not have been a good story for NASA and would have put them in a bad light and so it was covered up. The Rogers Commission revealed that NASA had not taken precautions against catastrophic failure. It was also said that NASA had considered putting the launch off after advice from engineers, but they went ahead with it.
ABDUCTED ITALIAN MAN HAS PHOTOS OF ALIENS FROM PLANET “CLARION”
ABDUCTED ITALIAN MAN HAS PHOTOS OF ALIENS FROM PLANET “CLARION”
Maurizio Cavallo, 63, is also known by the pseudonym Jhlos, and has published several books on the subject. In 2012, at a conference in Turin, Italy, he spoke about who the extraterrestrials would be: “They are the stellar guardians, the lords of the rainbow: they are the gardeners of the universe, the precursor ancestors; timeless immortals that come from the confines of the cosmos. They come from the primary source, from a place in which you build eternity. ”
WHY ME? Exclusive Interview with Maurizio Cavallo
We only see what we learned to believe is reality. When the humankind will be able to look through this other window and will look at reality with new eyes, perceiving the real universe we live in, we will go insane or we will evolve. There are no alternatives.
Exclusive Interview with Maurizio Cavallo By Paola Leopizzi Harris Piedmonte, Italy November 2006
Contactee or abducted? Maurizio Cavallo’s life enigma is part of this extraordinary interview.
Paola Harris and Maurizio Cavallo talking about a very sensitive issue, the photographs he says he took of the alien beings he allegedly met. Paola Harris urges him with more detailed questions.
Paola Harris: I’m only an investigator of those who claim they had experiences. My duty is to do a good job and to faithfully report what witnesses say, because only the correct information should reach people, with no distortions.
Maurizio Cavallo: I felt obliged to tell my experience after eleven years of silence to relate what happened to me and could happen also to other people. Something that brought an inner, complete transformation in me, in my life and in my family. But after I regreted doing it because, though I met many open minded people, beautiful and great personalities who wanted and wish to know the truth, I found also a lot of wickedness. I met with people who were selfishly driven by personal aims and they disgusted me. I have met also unstable people, really insane people. Two months ago I hosted here, after many telephone calls, a guy who presented himself as the chief commander of the extraterrestrial fleet and, to demonstrate he was a real alien, he showed me what he called a laser beam, but it was only a chinese pocket torch with some small lights on it. These things really upset me.
Paola Harris: How do you get rid of those kinds of visitors?
Maurizio Cavallo: It was my intention to invite him for lunch as I usually do with the people I meet for the first time, to treat them like friends, like people dear to me…but, when I realized what kind of person he was, despite all my best intentions, I had to invent an unexpected appointment. I hate to lie. I love to be frank. Also if sometimes I sound a little rough, I like to be outspoken, I can’t stand a world built of lies but, in some cases you have to protect yourself. That man was a dangerous person.
Paola Harris: There are also people who wish to consider you a guru, how do you manage them in these situations?
Maurizio Cavallo: I cause them to dislike me. It means that, if they think I can give something to them, if they ask me to teach something to them-and I have always been very clear about it- I tell them that I am not a guru and I cannot teach them anything apart from my personal experience. If they will be able to learn something from my experience, I will be happy but I cannot teach them anything because I am still learning. And when I say that they often have a negative reaction because they feel betrayed. They start to treat me like someone who doesn’ want to give them what they consider a property of their own. From when my experience started in 1981 I have become a person who can be loved but can be hated as well.
Paola Harris: In 1981 you were married, you had children?
Maurizio Cavallo: Yes, I was married and I had two children, the girl was seven years old and the boy was four.
Paola Harris: Did everything happen all of a sudden?
Maurizio Cavallo: Yes. I had had some experiences like many people, I had seen strange lights in the sky but that night, the night of the abduction, it fell upon me all of a sudden. I did not expect anything like that and from that moment, everything has changed for me.
Paola Harris: I noticed you used the word “abduction”. Do you call it an abduction or a contact?
Maurizio Cavallo: I call it abduction.
Paola Harris: Because it happened against your will?
Maurizio Cavallo: Yes, I did not want it, they obliged me. I was at home. The whole story is in my book, all the dramatic moments I had to live. I was at home and I felt…I started to feel physically sick, feverish and suddenly I heard an internal and imperious voice ordering me to go out, to go back to the hills of Monferrato where we had been the night before for a walk with some friends of mine. After dinner in a Pizzeria we had gone for a walk on those hills for ten miles, more or less, from Vercelli. We had left our cars and we had started to walk when we saw a globe of light, red like a fire, which descended behind some trees giving us the impression it was landing. We were all very excited and went in that direction to see what was happening. It was deep night and the ground was rocky and difficult so we gave up and went back home. As soon as I came home I started to feel sick. I felt warm, I felt cold, I felt feverish. At first time I thought it was caused by poor digestion. I thought I had eaten something that had made me sick. I could not sleep and I started to hear that voice complelling me and ordering me to take my car again and to go back to the hills. In that moment I started a titanic fight, an incredible fight. I tried to wake up my wife to tell her I was sick and I had to go out, but my wife went on sleeping as if she was under the effect of some drug. In my book I talk in detail of a particularly strange experience..It was like my house was entrapped in something…I don’t know how to define it, it was also like being frozen. I don’t know if that is the correct word.. I went to the bathroom to have a glass of water, the glass slipped from my hand and fell on the ground but it fell in slow motion, very, very slowly.
Paola Harris: Time had stopped?
Maurizio Cavallo: It was a Saturday night and the street was full of the noise of a holiday night, but in my house everything was silent. When the glass broke in pieces on the ground I heard no noise. Everything was crystallized. It was like time had slowed down. It is obvious it was an abduction because I did not want to go. The more I resisted that order, the more the pain in my head increased. I noticed that when I began to take the car and to go to the hills my pain lowered, but when, on the contrary, I thought I wanted to stay home, my pain increased, stronger than before. It was a form of constraint, this is the reason why I say it was an abduction. If they had asked me to go with them I had answered no.
Paola Harris: At that time it looked a bad experience. And what now, in 2007?
Maurizio Cavallo: Today not. Also in my book I say that those who were my contollers, I call them abductors, those who imprisoned me, were the same ones who gave me my new freedom.
Paola Harris: They showed you a new truth.
Maurizio Cavallo: They showed me that Cosmos is not what we believe, that life is not what we live, that everything we call reality is a pure illusion. They opened for me a window on Cosmos, they brought me to the edge of madness and they destroyed the Maurizio of the past. The old Maurizio existed no more, they had skinned him, lapidated him but they had permitted to the new Maurizio to look beyond the borders of what we call reality. They gave me an immense gift, They gave me freedom.
Paola Harris: But you had to pay a high prize…
Maurizio Cavallo: A very high prize. See, when I understand that these people come to me waiting for something, treating me like a guru, I always say that I have no truth to give them. I only have my own truth and it belongs to me completely. I feel upset when I realize that this truth, so strong in my mind, can be manipulated…Not everyone can understand.
Paola Harris: Of course, we are on planet Earth. We are human beings, a peculiar race. We are growing up but you are trying to bring us from elementary school straight to secondary school but we cannot jump that way It is a slow process.It happened to you, they made you able…
Maurizio Cavallo: Yes, but perhaps I had been trained for it before.
Paola Harris: That’s exactly what I wanted to ask you.
Maurizio Cavallo: Yes, because I realized that nothing happens by chance, my mother had been abducted too.
Paola Harris: How did you know it?
Maurizio Cavallo: They showed me some images, something like recorded images. They showed me images in a sort of monolith, in a ruby-red pyramid used like a screen. I saw images of a girl walking in a graveyard, at first sight I could not recognize her and they told me: ” It’s obvious you can’t recognize her, she is your mother when she was a girl; she knew the secrets of the stars too.”This means that they have programmed us.
Paola Harris: Did you mother talk to you about it? Did she ever ask you something?
Maurizio Cavallo: My mother died when I was thirteen. I had a special relationship with her, very intense. We had no need to talk. She looked at me and I understood, I looked at her and she understood. I cannot remember any dialogue with my mother but we had a complete relationship. When she died I missed her very much and my pain was beareable. I could not feel the intense pain you feel in you mind and your body when you lose somebody, I was quiet because I knew nine months before she had to die.
Paola Harris: How did she die?
Maurizio Cavallo: She had had low blood pressure but the doctor had misunderstood her symptoms for high blood pressure symptoms and had prescribed some medicine to lower her blood pressure more.: She had taken them faithfully and her heart gave out so she had to be hospitalized and her condition worsened quickly. When she entered the hospital, nine months before her death, I knew she was going to die. I was sure of it and I was waiting for that moment quietly. I was sure that, in any case, nothing could have parted her from me. At that time I was thirteen and I believed in God, the Catholic God and, of course I prayed for my mother, I prayed to God to let her live and to heal her. When my mother died I became very angry with God because I had previously believed that God listened to all our prays. From that moment I said:” You don’t exist, you don’t exist because you didn’t listen to me.”
As time passed and thanks to the experience I had in 1981 I started to think in a different way. I understood that a Divine Mind exists but it is completely different from the image we are used to. A Divine Mind exists but not all our prayers can be heard because there are programs and our life and death are only some roots of these programs. With my mother I have always had a perfect relationship. That night they showed me my mother when she was a girl.
Paola Harris: Did they ever show your mother alive?
Maurizio Cavallo: Yes, I met her.
Paola Harris: I know they brought you to Clarion. Did you meet her on the Earth or on Clarion?
Maurizio Cavallo: I saw her at home. One night they told me I would be having a pleasant visit. At first I thought I was dreaming because I was in my bed and I was sleeping but after I realized I was awake. I saw my mother not with the appearance that I remembered. She was physically different. I knew she was my mother but she did not look like her.
Paola Harris: How did she look?
Maurizio Cavallo: She looked much younger, we did not talk to each other but she made a gesture that was her typical gesture, a wave of her hand that my mother used only with me, she smiled at me and that’s all.
Paola Harris: Was it like a dream?
Maurizio Cavallo: No, at first time I thought I was dreaming because I was in my bed, but after I realized I was not because I left the bed to go towards her but she moved her hand to stop me, she smiled at me and made that gesture so typical. When we were babies and went to bed she made that gesture to say good night. In that moment I felt I had to go back to bed and I had to sleep again. I am sure it was not a dream.
Paola Harris: Inhabitants of Clarion are made of flesh and blood? Did you ever meet them in the streets?
Maurizio Cavallo: I have met them at the supermarket.
Paola Harris: Were they doing the shopping?
Maurizio Cavallo: No, we had a meeting there…People don’t have to believe in what I say, they only have to think about what I am relating and ask themselves if there could be something true in it. If their conscience gives them the feeling that all this could be real, they could start to interrogate themselves till the big question: “ARE WE ALONE?” My photographs are not a proof, also because I do no spread them: I have photos of UFO, of aliens. This is a photo of Suell, I talk about him in my book.
Paola Harris: He could well walk among us!
Maurizio Cavallo: He walks among us. I met him in a big city I cannot mention, he gave me a little black card emitting some impulses that told me to do or not to do certain things. At a certain moment I felt I had to take a train to go to a town where I had to meet some of them: While I was travelling I asked myself:” But why do I have to take a train while, in other occasions, they just abducted me?” Perhaps it was a trial, something I could not understand. When I arrived to that town I plainly met the same person I had already met on a magnetic ship, a UFO.
Paola Harris: Which was the place of the appointment?
Maurizio Cavallo: I knew I had to go to a bar and wait for them. Hours did pass. Time was passing by, nobody was arriving and I begun to be anxious. I begun to think I had invented all that thing…after a long, long time, Suell arrived, happy as a child, asking me: ” Hello, were you waiting for a long time?” Everything is in my book.
Paola Harris: Is he normal? Did he speak in a normal way?
Maurizio Cavallo: Yes, he has a house and works on Earth.
Paola Harris: How can you recognize them?
Maurizio Cavallo: You “can” recognize them.
Paola Harris: You can recgnize them!
Maurizio Cavallo: He asked me if I had noticed something strange in the girl working at the supermarket cashier’s desk. I had noticed nothing unusual but soon I thought a little and said:”Yes, she had something strange! A strange earring looking like a world into another world. When I had seen her she had not caught my attention but, after they asked me, I remembered her. Some of them work and live here on Earth.
Paola Harris: Why?
Maurizio Cavallo: Because they must help us a little in our evolution, they don’t have to condition us, they only must have an influence.
Paola Harris: Do they have a completely alien DNA or half alien and half human?
Maurizio Cavallo: Some of them are totally alien and came here when they were already adults. They apparently are thirty or forty years old. They just arrive so they don’t have problems to get documents…and their DNA is completly alien, if we want to define them. Then we have those who are born here; they have an alien DNA but take a human body with a human DNA, so we can call these ones hybrids.
Paola Harris: Do you think that the Government knows about it?
Maurizio Cavallo: Not all the men in the Government, only a few.
Paola Harris: The women look like movie stars.
Maurizio Cavallo: They are gorgeous. You must note one thing: these are Polaroid photos made without developing process and there is always an abnormal light absorption because they absorb atomic light. During one of my last contacts, in a base under the sea near Genova…(Cavallo shows a photograph, N.d.R.)…This is a photo where you can see those who in the Bible were called “Cherubs”, they are astral beings.
Paola Harris: You are incredible! You succeed in making these photos…
Maurizio Cavallo: Not at all… Look at this photo, you need much light…there is a spaceship and you can see some figures. One of these figures is a Grey, one of the tall ones, at least they call them so. This is another Grey but of hybrid race, half human and half alien.
Paola Harris: Where did you take this photo?
Maurizio Cavallo: In the base:
Paola Harris: How did they bring you?
Maurizio Cavallo: Physically, last year.
Paola Harris: How did it happen?
Maurizio Cavallo: By now there is a symbiosis. I start feeling very nervous and troubled, I am very anxious and let my intuition to drive me. When these feelings are very strong I go to certain places. When I arrive in one of these places I meet a physical being part of the alien world who drives me to the base.
Paola Harris: How did they bring you to that base?
Maurizio Cavallo: In a very normal boat. We left the harbour, we went to a certain point in the sea and then the water around started to whirl; I was scared, of course , because it looked. like a hurricane, then we and our boat started to go down. While I was going down, all around me I could see a crystal wall, water was liquid no more, it was solid. Water walls were solid like a tunnel and we went down till a point where those walls opened like rays. We were in the middle of a wheel whose rays were the corridors of the base they have under the sea.
Paola Harris: Which is their race?
Maurizio Cavallo: They are Clarions working together with another race.
Paola Harris: I can imagine that you are not a tourist for them, they have an agenda . They want you to disclose in a soft way such a complex scenario and to disclose this unbelievable reality?
Maurizio Cavallo: Very probable but perhaps the primary fact is they are instructing me, this is what I think, but I can also be wrong. They are instructing me so everything I see, everything I live and everything that will bring in a soft way this reality to other people, is mainly directed to my self. You see, Paola, we think we can choose and it’s terrible when we understand that all we have done was not our choice. If I could go back to my past I could not have lived in a different way. I have always had different hobbies, I did not like sports like football, I liked to go fishing, I liked my work and my family. I’ve always believed, since my childhood, that the other worlds were inhabited. I have always believed that there are other intelligences on other planets…anyway I led a normal life until I was hurled.into this unbelievable new reality…. By the way,they walk in a strange way, they glide…it’s an extraordinary effect.
Paola Harris: Do they walk in this strange way also on the road?
Maurizio Cavallo: No, on the road they look like normal people. But you can recognize them from some signs: they are very kind, they radiate a healing energy also when they are not speaking. When they talk their voice may sound a little metallic and low. Sometimes it happens because there is a sort of simultaneous interface from their language to ours, but perhaps their vocal chords give this lower tone to their voices. They have big ears and strange, penetrating eyes, very penetrating. But more than all you can feel this energy, this kindness, their energy. They emanate an energy so strong you can feel uneasy.
Paola Harris: In my second book I wrote a lot on how we must act not to be scared from alien races, first of all we must accept all the differences existing between races here on Earth. You have been very lucky. This happened to you in 1981, now, let’s try to understand: Has this been only a contact or you have got some prophecy about our future? Can we give a hope to people?
Maurizio Cavallo: Yes, the only hope is that our conscience, human conscience must reach another level, a higher level.
Paola Harris: We don’t have much time.
Maurizio Cavallo: We have no more time and so our duty is enormous. We must achieve a dynamic change,. It is more a dynamic change than that simply of consciousness.And there is time to change our dynamism because they are two different things. Consciousness needs a very long time of assimilation. Everything that happened to me belongs to a program which started a long, long time ago. When they showed me images of a girl I could not recognize because I was not yet born and I recognized she was my mother, they said she too had been touched from the Lords of the stars and I started to understand that everything was part of a program. Many of us on this planet are unconscious parts of this program, also people who say they never saw anything. We only see a mechanical reality but I can see a magical reality. I don’t use the word “magic” in a negative sense because our universe is, in effect, a magical creation and all the dimensions and the same creation that we think have physical parameters, don’t have any: Matter is illusion and is only the crystallization of our thought. We only see what we learned to believe is reality. When the humankind will be able to look through this otherwindow and will look at reality with new eyes, perceiving the real universe we live in, we will go insane or we will evolve. There are no alternatives.
Paola Harris: Perhaps the two things together…
Maurizio Cavallo: I have passed the two of them. I don’t think I’m a superior man but I have seen things that nobody else has seen. These things taught me to be more humble and every time I think about what happened to me and what could still happen I feel so little and I ask myself:” Why me?”.
BOOK: Author Dr Roberto Pinotii said the events happened in 1957
In the grainy black and white images, you can see the “inside a cockpit with seating, control panel and other objects”.
There is also what looks like a person wearing sunglasses that is said to be a “real alien visitor”.
The rare pictures is of the “human-like alien” is being published for the first time by Flying Disk Press on February 1, reported Express.co.uk.
The book – UFO Contacts in Italy – claims a flying saucer landed in Francavillia, on the Adriatic Coast.
FLYING DISK PRESS
BOOK: One of the grainy images from 'inside the alien spacecraft'
The photos were taken by two men who were allowed into the "spacecraft", added author Dr Roberto Pinotii, 73.
He said: "The diameter of the UFO was 24 metres, that of the control cabin was 10 metres.
“These rare and extraordinary photographs, as well as two photographs of the alleged extraterrestrial pilot... have been published here for the first time.”
The extraordinary events are claimed to have unfolded in October 1957 in Italy, but the story never made it out of the country until now.
He added: “Much of the information in this book is being published in English for the very first time.
“The book contains a whole array of UFO/alien contact cases from Italy but surely one of the most unusual incidents is this one from 1957.
‘It is the only case that I am aware of that allegedly has photographs of the inside of the UFO."
What was destined to be called “the Friendship case” started near Pescara between 1956 and 1957.
A group of local residents is believed to have been involved in periodic contacts with the humanlike alien “friends”.
He added: “These beings would have built underground bases on Earth and in Italy the most important one would have been in the central zone of the peninsula along the Adriatic coast not far from Pescara.”
It is claimed the “contact” in the area went on for 20 years.
FLYING DISK PRESS
UFO: The grainy images are believed to have been taken inside the UFO
FLYING DISK PRESS
CLAIMS: The book claims there is a picture of a 'real alien visitor' inside it
Sceptics say the pictures and the case are just another elaborate hoax.
But publisher Phillip Mantle added: “Roberto Pinotti is an aerospace journalist and author and the main Italian scholar in ufology, with a degree in politics and sociology from the University of Florence.
“He is the only living founder of Italy’s Centro Ufologico Nazionale, one of the world’s oldest and most authoritative private UFO study organisations formed 50 years ago.”
He was formerly an officer of the NATO Italian Army III Missile Brigade.
The book UFO Contacts in Italy is due to be published on February 1.
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23-01-2018
What IS this mysterious glowing object in the ISS live feed? Conspiracy theorists claim NASA is covering up aliens as video appears to show 'massive Golden UFO' - before it suddenly cuts out
What IS this mysterious glowing object in the ISS live feed? Conspiracy theorists claim NASA is covering up aliens as video appears to show 'massive Golden UFO' - before it suddenly cuts out
Video shared to YouTube by Streetcap1 claims to show a 'massive Golden UFO'
It was spotted in 2016 the ISS live-feed,before the video suddenly cuts out
Video then cuts to a standby message from the ISS, sparking cover-up claims
A bizarre YouTube video that some claim reveals a ‘golden UFO’ soaring over Earth has sparked fresh speculation among conspiracy theorists about an alien cover-up.
The video focuses on a 2016 clip from the International Space Station’s live feed, showing a slow-moving view over our planet – and, a mysterious glow can be seen emanating from the bottom right corner.
Just seconds later, the footage cuts out to reveal a standby message from the ISS, causing many to claim NASA was attempting to hide an object the YouTubers estimate to be ‘hundreds of miles long.’
Scroll down for video
The video focuses on a 2016 clip from the International Space Station’s live feed, showing a slow-moving view over our planet – and, a mysterious glow can be seen emanating from the bottom right corner
The video posted by YouTube user Streetcap1 was originally published August 1, 2016, but has resurfaced this week.
In the ISS footage, Earth is in clear view as the orbiting space station journeys miles overhead.
And, one brightly lit splotch stands out against the endless blue.
The video offers little detail on the bizarre ‘discovery,’ noting simply: ‘What is it? It’s over 200 miles away.’
Then, the footage cuts to a blank screen before issuing the message:
‘Please stand by: The High Definition Earth Viewing experiment is either switching cameras, or we are experiencing a temporary loss of signal with the International Space Station.’
The YouTuber claims the massive object seen before the video is lost was a ‘golden UFO’ orbiting our planet.
In the ISS footage, Earth is in clear view as the orbiting space station journeys miles overhead. And, one brightly lit splotch stands out against the endless blue
Then, the footage cuts to a blank screen before issuing the message: ‘Please stand by: The High Definition Earth Viewing experiment is either switching cameras, or we are experiencing a temporary loss of signal with the International Space Station’
‘I thought I was seeing things at first then quickly started recording,’ the YouTuber wrote.
‘This has to be huge whatever it is. If it was a building it would be hundreds of miles long.’
While it might seem extraordinary – or even alarming, to some – claims of this kind aren’t all that uncommon.
BELIEVE IN CONSPIRACY THEORIES? YOU'RE PROBABLY A NARCISSIST, RESEARCHERS SAY
People who doubt the moon landings are more likely to be selfish and attention-seeking, according to a study earlier this year.
Over the course of three online-based studies, researchers at the University of Kent showed strong links between the belief in conspiracy theories and negative psychological traits.
In the first study, a total of 202 participants completed questionnaires on conspiracy beliefs, asking how strongly they agreed with specific statements, such as whether governments carried out acts of terrorism on their own soil.
Alongside this, they were asked to complete a narcissist scale and a self-esteem assessment.
The results showed that those people who rated highly on the narcissism scale and who had low self-esteem were more likely to be conspiracy believers.
The last year alone has brought countless UFO cover-up claims, with conspiracy theorists sharing footage of everything from ‘alien fireballs’ to UFOs with ‘advanced cloaking technology.’
But, there’s almost always a simple explanation.
There are a number of common phenomena that can cause strange objects to appear in the ISS footage, including lightning storms high over Earth’s surface and tricks of the light.
In the past, a Nasa spokesperson has explained to Dailymail.com: 'Reflections from station windows, the spacecraft structure itself or lights from Earth commonly appear as artifacts in photos and videos from the orbiting laboratory.'
Foreign object captured entering Earth's atmosphere from space
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No, an Asteroid Is Not Going to Collide with Earth in February
No, an Asteroid Is Not Going to Collide with Earth in February
By Calla Cofield, Space.com Senior Writer
Asteroid 2002 AJ129 will make its closest approach to Earth on Feb. 4, 2018, at 4:30 p.m. EST (2130 GMT). At closest approach, the asteroid will be no closer than 10 times the distance between Earth and the moon.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
In recent days, a few media outlets have reported (in some cases, rather sensationally) that a "potentially hazardous" asteroid will fly close to Earth on Feb. 4. Are the reports correct? Absolutely! Is there any need to panic? Absolutely not!
It's true that the building-size asteroid 2002 AJ129 will pass by Earth within about 10 times the distance from Earth to the moon (about 2.6 million miles, or 4.2 million kilometers), according to NASA. The asteroid is about 0.3 to 0.75 miles (0.5 to 1.2 km) in diameter — for comparison, the world's tallest building is 0.51 miles (0.82 km) tall, while the new World Trade Center building in New York is 0.33 miles (0.53 km) tall.
NASA representatives say there's no chance that it will collide with Earth.
"We have been tracking this asteroid for over 14 years and know its orbit very accurately," Paul Chodas, manager of the Center for Near-Earth-Object Studies at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in a statement. "Our calculations indicate that asteroid 2002 AJ129 has no chance — zero — of colliding with Earth on Feb. 4 or any time over the next 100 years."
Nonetheless, with no context, asteroid 2002 AJ129's close flyby might seem remarkable. But what many outlets failed to mention is that rocks of this size fly close to Earth somewhat regularly; in fact, two space rocks came significantly closer to our planet just this week.
Thursday (Jan. 18), the car-size asteroid 2018 BD (discovered just this year) came to within 0.09 times the distance from the Earth to the moon (about 21,500 miles or 34,600 km), according to NASA's Solar System Dynamics website and the Minor Planet Center. And Asteroid 2018 BX, which is also about the size of a car or bus, made its close flyby of Earth late Friday night (U.S. Eastern time on Jan. 19), zipping past Earth at a distance of about 0.73 times the distance from the Earth to the moon (about 174,400 miles or 280,670 km).
While those space rocks are smaller than 2002 AJ129, they came to within the altitude range where some communications and GPS satellites orbit, which means a worst-case scenario could have involved a collision between one of the space rocks and a satellite.
Asteroids much larger than 2002 AJ129 also make relatively close flybys of Earth somewhat regularly. On Sept. 1, 2017, the 2.7-mile-wide (4.4 km) Asteroid Florence passed within about 4.4 million miles (7 million km) of Earth, or about 18 times the distance from Earth to the moon. Another bus-size asteroid, known as 2017 SX17, zoomed within 54,100 miles (87,065 kilometers) of Earth on Oct. 2, 2017.
While NASA did designate 2002 AJ129 as a "potentially hazardous" asteroid, it's important to note that this designation is given to any asteroid larger than about 460 feet (140 m) in diameter that gets closer than 4.65 million miles (7.48 million km) to Earth.
Near-Earth asteroids can indeed pose a threat to the inhabitants of planet Earth, but remember that not all space rocks are to be feared.
Editor's Note: Asteroid 2018 BX will flyby Earth at a distance of about 0.73 times the distance from the Earth to the moon (about 174,400 miles or 280,670 km), not 0.74 times the lunar distance, as previously stated.
Those of us writhing in these uncomfortable mortal coils will be sad to know that yet another asteroid will pass by Earth next month, and there’s nothing we can do to convince it otherwise.
The object in question, called 2002 AJ129, will miss Earth by about 2.6 million miles (4.2 million kilometers). In its closest approach to Earth, the asteroid will zoom by at roughly 76,000 miles per hour (34 kilometers per second). Although 2002 AJ129 is indeed thicc — greater in diameter than even the tallest building on Earth — it poses no risk to humanity.
“We have been tracking this asteroid for over 14 years and know its orbit very accurately,” Paul Chodas, manager of NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, California, says in a statement. “Our calculations indicate that asteroid 2002 AJ129 has no chance — zero — of colliding with Earth on Feb. 4 or any time over the next 100 years.”
Though there’s absolutely no chance that 2002 AJ129 will crash into our planet, that hasn’t stopped several media outlets from fanning the flames of fear:
via AJC.comvia Fox News via The Sun
While it’s true that 2002 AJ129 is technically considered a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (PHA), this is a merely a label to describe its distance from Earth. It doesn’t mean the asteroid is capable of carrying out any real damage to our planet.
“Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs) are currently defined based on parameters that measure the asteroid’s potential to make threatening close approaches to the Earth,” NASA’s JPL writes. “Specifically, all asteroids with an Earth Minimum Orbit Intersection Distance (MOID) of 0.05 au or less and an absolute magnitude (H) of 22.0 or less are considered PHAs.”
As much as we’d all like an asteroid to wallop us squarely in the face, the reality is, that’s just not going to happen. It’s easier if you start accepting it now.
Hello! You've made it to the end of the article. Nice. Here's a related video you might like:
A car-sized spacecraft called the Parker Solar Probe is set to make history after it launches for an unprecedented destination: the sun. Touted as humanity’s first visit to a star, the spacecraft will fly through the sun’s outer atmosphere, known as the corona, getting seven times closer to the star’s surface than any spacecraft before it.
Artist impression of the Parker Solar Probe.
Credit: NASA.
The one-of-a-kind spacecraft will employ a combination of in-situ measurements and imaging to probe the corona in unprecedented detail, revealing novel insights about the origin and evolution of the sun and the processes that govern it. In doing so, scientists will be able to improve their ability to forecast potentially hazardous solar storms and flares that can affect life and technology on Earth.
One such threat is represented by outbursts of coronal mass — huge bubbles of gas threaded with magnetic field lines that are ejected from the Sun over the course of several hours. When these strike the Earth, the consequences can be catastrophic. Some even claim a really powerful coronal mass ejection could fry most electronics on Earth or our communication satellite fleet up in orbit. Some of you might remember the 1989 Quebec incident, when the whole city had a blackout after the entire grid got fried, causing an estimated $2 billion Canadian in damage at the time. Besides blackouts, CMEs can also disrupt GPS signals and radio telecommunications.
Icarus 2.0
The probe will stay seven weeks inside a thermal vacuum chamber.
Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/Ed Whitman.
Parker will come as close as 3.9 million miles (6.3 million km) to our star’s surface, well within Mercury’s orbit, hurtling around the sun at approximately 430,000 mph (700,000 kph).
To achieve their goals, NASA engineers protected the spacecraft with a 4.5-inch-thick (11.4 cm) carbon-composite shield which can withstand temperatures in excess of 2,500°F (1,377 C). The same shield will also protect Parker and its delicate instruments from the frostbite of space. Soon enough, we’ll know if the spacecraft will be ready for its launch scheduled for some time in the July 31 – Aug. 19, 2018 window. That’s because last week one of the probe’s most important tests began.
Engineers placed Parker into a thermal vacuum chamber where, over the course of the seven weeks, it will experience various simulated challenges of the kind it will be subjected to during the mission. Inside the dark, 40-foot-tall chamber, the spacecraft will be chilled to -292°F (-180°C) to simulate the chilling embrace of space, then blasted with the kind of heat the probe will encounter at its closest approach to the sun. Under such extreme conditions, NASA engineers will test the probe’s instruments and equipment such as its solar panels, which flap open and close like a bird’s wings.
Once deemed ready, Parker will be launched from a Delta IV Heavy rocket towards Venus’ orbit, where it will perform seven flybys over nearly seven years to gradually bring its orbit closer to the sun and into its corona.
Scientists hope that the data beamed back by the probe will help answer some very puzzling questions about the sun and its quirky phenomena. For instance, solar scientist Eugene Parker — the man after whom the spacecraft is named — first discovered in the 1950s that the solar wind of charged particles streaming from the corona moves faster than the speed of sound. To this day, we don’t know exactly why. Other mysteries which the probe might answer would be why the corona is hotter than the sun’s surface and how particles are ejected out of the corona and into space.
We’ve learned a lot about the sun in the last half-century but some things can never be settled unless you get close enough. Today’s technology finally makes it possible to send a spacecraft close enough to fly through the sun’s scorching atmosphere. Let’s just hope that, unlike Icarus, Parker’s wings won’t burn before it finishes its mission.
We need to start looking into the possibility that there are viruses living beyond the confines of our planet, argues Portland State University biology professor Ken Stedman.
Model of a virus.
Image credits Tom Thai / Flickr.
Humanity has been thinking of life outside of the confines of Earth since times immemorial. It started with gods, angels, spirits, demons. Superstition gave way to cold knowledge and hard technology, morphing their image into aliens that were different, but not completely unlike us — à la those portrayed in H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds. As our scope widened and our reach extended with modern tech, we’re no longer content to just wait for aliens to drop on our doorstep. We’re actively looking, listening, prodding for life outside of the Earth, much farther away and on more channels than anytime before, in a tacit acknowledgment that those we may find could very well be just as planet-locked as we are.
Sill, we don’t have anything to show (as far as alien life goes) for all our efforts. Maybe, then, we should down-grade again and start looking for aliens that have yet to reach our rung on the technological and evolutionary ladder. Maybe its time we started looking for bits of life as seemingly insignificant as viruses living in space and on other planets. At least, that’s what Portland State University biology professor Ken Stedman and his co-authors argue for in a new paper — and they’re willing to kick-start that search.
It’s the little things that count
Stedman and his team say it’s past time that astronomers broaden their search for alien life by combing space for viruses.
“More than a century has passed since the discovery of the first viruses,” said Stedman, “entering the second century of virology, we can finally start focusing beyond our own planet.”
Seeing as there are around 10 to 100 times more viruses on Earth than any other cellular organism, Stedman believes that the same could hold true for other planets or moons out there. Furthermore, he bases his call to action on research which suggests that viruses have played a major role in the creation and evolution of life on Earth — and it’s likely they would play the same role in other places as well.
‘Simple life survives in space,’ granted, is a phrase that sounds far-fetched when you first hear it. Isn’t it, like, super cold out there and all? It is, but life (especially ‘simple’ life) is surprisingly good at finding a way.
Tardigrades, for example, have shown an incredible resilience to the vicissitudes of outer space, shrugging void, cold, and radiation with apparent ease for decades. Bacteria coalescing together in biofilms are surprisingly hardy, being able to brave harsh, Mars-like conditions. In fact, enduring a journey through space (such as on a spaceships’ hull) actually improves their chances of survival by drying this biofilm and making it more resilient. And radiation, even at levels that we’ve assumed deadly to virtually everything and anything alive, doesn’t seem to bother the bacteria too much either.
Tardigrades, also known as water bears, have been shown to survive in space — they even laid eggs on their trip. Image credits Eye of Science / Nature.
So could life survive a trip through space without a spaceship to insulate its squishy going-ons? Overwhelmingly likely, yes. In fact, it’s so likely that NASA has cause for concern that our microbes (and these are the soft-core microbes used to living in comfort on Earth) could contaminate other planets. We’ve seen all sorts of bugs hitching a ride (without official approval, the nerve on them) and gouging a permanent home aboard the ISS right under our noses.
“We have had contamination in parts of the station where fungi was seen growing or biomaterial has been pulled out of a clogged waterline, but we have no idea what it is until the sample gets back down to the lab,” said Sarah Wallace, NASA microbiologist and principal investigator for Genes in Space 3 at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Along with the tardigrades and biofilm-protected colonies of bacteria, it’s a good indication of just how pervasively present life tends to be after it first spawns. The crux of the issue, then, isn’t if life could make it through space — it’s whether or not it appeared there in the first place.
We only have indirect evidence. But this suggests that the chemical background necessary for life as we know it is there — we’ve found water in space, we’ve found organic compounds, we’ve found basic biological building blocks such as amino acids, and we’ve found them all together in the same place.
While the ingredients seem to be there, all ready to boil in a primordial life-generating soup, however, what we haven’t found is actual life. Taking the focal point from away the grandest aspects of life like radio signals or Dyson spheres might help us spot anything really small we’ve missed up to now.
Stedman and his team say they hope to “to inspire integration of virus research into astrobiology” by shining the limelight on pressing, unanswered questions in astrovirology — “particularly regarding the detection of virus biosignatures and whether viruses could be spread extraterrestrially”.
The paper “Astrovirology: Viruses at Large in the Universe” has been published in the journal Astrobiology.
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UFO Makes Huge Shadow On Clouds Over New Jersey, Jan 4, 2018, UFO Sighting News.
UFO Makes Huge Shadow On Clouds Over New Jersey, Jan 4, 2018, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: January 4, 2018 Location of sighting: Waterford Works, New Jersey, USA Source: MUFON #89729 This giant diamond shaped shadow is probably a UFO that is hovering over the clouds in the distance. Even a cloaked ship will cast a shadow. So we see that alien technology is not flawless. Scott C. Waring Eyewitness states:
1... I was on my rear deck taking pics of this odd object during sunset. 2...Never saw anything like it in 60 years of outdoorsmanship. 3... military craft? I don't know. That's why I'm giving it over to you. 4... bewildered 6... sunset So looking for your ideas on this??? I NEVER saw anything like this. Taken with my Cannon Digital 70-140 lens if that is of help.. Thank you!
Two glowing UFOs over Great Britain During Evening, Photos, UFO Sighting News.
Two glowing UFOs over Great Britain During Evening, Photos, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: April 17, 2017
Location of sighting: Tandragee, Great Britain
Source: MUFON #89738
This UFO report came in today, but actually occurred last April. UFOs have been occasionally seen over England and the local news there has found no definite conclusions about what they are. This is a great photo, that shows two UFOs. One is the side view of the UFO, the other is the top view since its turned. Extraordinary catch.
Scott C. Waring
Eyewitness states:
I was going out to the garage to sort out my laundry when I seen one very bright sphere in the sky just above the local milking parlour, so I stood and looked for a while, then maybe a minute later another one appeared to the right of it, at that a ran and got my 19 yr old daughter and partner, when they come a 3rd one appeared again to the right of the first 2, so I got my phone to take pictures and a video, as quickly as it came the 3rd disappeared, I took a video but it didn't puck them up, unfortunately I flippin deleted it but I took a photo, then about 5 minutes later the second dissapeared then the first, just like turning a light off in the house. If it was clouds covering them the first one on the left would have went out first, but it was a clear evening with no clouds that I could see. I was disappointed when I reviewed the picture I thought the camera didn't pick them up but as I zoomed in the 2 white spheres appeared. I am watching nasa's unexplained files and seen a few guests had mufcon after their name, so looked it up and seen report a sighting so that's what I'm doing lol could be nothing but thought I'd let the experts have a look.
Polar stratospheric clouds also known as nacreous clouds or mother of pearl, due to its iridescence, are clouds in the winter polar stratosphere at altitudes of 15,000–25,000 meters (49,000–82,000 ft.
Due to their high altitude and the curvature of the surface of the Earth, these clouds will receive sunlight from below the horizon and reflect it to the ground, shining brightly well before dawn or after dusk.
Just Amazing!
Stunning Polar Stratospheric Clouds Photographed Over Peru
'I'M NOT A MOLE' - Former MoD man's shock statement amid claims 'he covers up UFO truth'
'I'M NOT A MOLE' - Former MoD man's shock statement amid claims 'he covers up UFO truth'
A FORMER ministry of Defence (MoD) insider has gone on record to deny being a Government mole used to try to "cover up the truth about UFOs and aliens".
Nick Pope has issued a categorical denial to the UFO community that he still works for the MoD.
Nick Pope worked for the British MoD from 1985 to 2006, and between 1991 to 1994 ran extensive enquiries into any potential defence threat posed by the UFO phenomenon.
The project was shut down with the conclusion there was no threat.
Now based in the US, Mr Pope tours the globe speaking at UFO and alien-related conferences, as well as describing on documentaries what he has unearthed.
Mr Pope has recently been open about the fact that, although he believes aliens must exist somewhere in the universe, and that there have been some inexplicable UFO sightings, he does NOT believe any ETs have ever made it to Earth.
His views have left him the target of what he says are unfounded claims that he is still working for the Government, to push out "misinformation" and discredit those who claim there is a huge global cover up to hide the fact aliens are here but the truth is hidden.
He told Express.co.uk: "I accept there are people out there who think I'm still secretly working for the government, helping to cover all this up, I promise I'm not."
Mr Pope has even campaigned for the release of the last batch of MoD files on previous investigations carried out, the last of which were sent to the National Archives on New Year's Day.
It was a ten year slog to get them all out he said.
However, Mr Pope, said many people remained unsatisfied, and says some conspiracy theorists still believe "all the god stuff has been held back" and the releases were more "disinformation."
There is a widely believed conspiracy theory that aliens actually live in secret bases in the US, and the government has agreed to keep them hidden away, in return for the technology to build flying saucers.
Mr Pope says there is no evidence to suggest this is.
The pictures of a "human-like alien" and "control panel inside a flying saucer" are being published in an English language book for the first time, according to publisher Flying Disk Press.
The grainy black and white images appear to show inside a cockpit with seating, control panel and other objects.
There is also what looks like a person wearing sunglasses that is said to be a "real alien visitor".
According to staggering claims in the book UFO Contacts in Italy, which is about so-called alien contact and abductions in the country, a flying saucer landed in Francavillia, Italy on the Adriatic Coast.
Dr Roberto Pinotii, 73, author of the book, due to be published on February 1, spoke about what is claimed happened.
He said: "Two men were allowed to enter the UFO and take photographs. The diameter of the UFO was 24 metres, that of the control cabin was 10 metres.
"These rare and extraordinary photographs, as well as two photographs of the alleged extraterrestrial pilot... have been published here for the first time."
Flying Disk Press
The images (right) are said to have been taken inside a flying saucer.
"A group of local residents seems to have been involved in periodic regular contacts with humanlike extra-terrestrial 'friends' willing to help mankind.
"These beings would have built underground bases on Earth and in Italy the most important one would have been in the central zone of the peninsula along the Adriatic coast not far from Pescara."
It is claimed the "contact" in the area went on for 20 years and even Italian diplomat Consul Alberto Perego witnessed events.
Sceptics say the pictures and the case are just another elaborate hoax.
Publisher Phillip Mantle said: "Roberto Pinotti is an aerospace journalist and author and the main Italian scholar in ufology, with a degree in politics and sociology from the University of Florence.
"He is the only living founder of Italy’s Centro Ufologico Nazionale (CUN), one of the world’s oldest and most authoritative private UFO study organisations formed 50 years ago."
He was formerly an officer of the NATO Italian Army III Missile Brigade.
He claims to have co-operated with the Italian Intelligence community as a consultant for UFOs and been given important official documents by the Italian Department of Defence.
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The Afterglow of a Neutron Star Collision Continues to Brighten Months After the Event
The Afterglow of a Neutron Star Collision Continues to Brighten Months After the Event
A collision that occurred between two neutron stars in a galaxy 138 million light years from Earth was observed in August of 2017, generating both gravitational waves that were detected by the LIGO and Virgo gravity-wave observatories, and a gamma-ray burst that was recorded by the Fermi and INTEGRAL satellites. This is the first time that both gravity and electromagnetic waves have been detected from an astronomical event, as all previous detections of gravity waves have come from collisions between black holes. But in the observations made by the Chandra X-Ray observatory since the event, the afterglow from the initially-brilliant gamma ray burst hasn't faded in the way scientists would expect: it has instead continued to brighten.
"Usually when we see a short gamma-ray burst, the jet emission generated gets bright for a short time as it smashes into the surrounding medium -- then fades as the system stops injecting energy into the outflow," explains astrophysicist Daryl Haggard, with Canada's McGill University. "This one is different; it’s definitely not a simple, plain-Jane narrow jet."
In the months after the event, the leftover glow from the neutron star merger, dubbed a "kilonova" due to the energy released being over one thousand times greater than that of a typical stellar nova, continued to brighten in the X-ray and radio wave wavelengths. Astronomers were unable to see the source for three months, as the elliptical galaxy that it originated from, NGC 4993, was obscured behind the Sun. But when it finally reemerged, the signal had gained even more strength.
First Light Detected from Gravitational-Wave Event
"When the source emerged from that blind spot in the sky in early December, our Chandra team jumped at the chance to see what was going on," says lead author John Ruan, a postdoctoral researcher at the McGill Space Institute. "Sure enough, the afterglow turned out to be brighter in the X-ray wavelengths, just as it was in the radio."
The leading theory behind this unexpected brightening is that the merger of the two neutron stars produced an energetic jet that illuminated the gaseous debris surrounding the system, creating a heated "cocoon" that continued to increase in its radiance. Regardless, this mysterious event has provided a tantalizing puzzle for physicists.
"This neutron-star merger is unlike anything we’ve seen before," says Melania Nynka, an X-ray astronomer and postdoctoral researcher at McGill. “For astrophysicists, it’s a gift that seems to keep on giving."
Neutron star collision may have created black hole, suggests NASA scientist - TomoNews
Ovni: la panique comme véritable raison du secret ?
Ovni: la panique comme véritable raison du secret ?
Je tiens à vous faire partager une pensée intéressante sur la question des principes de l’ufologie. Ce texte est tiré du livre de Robert Roussel ; OVNI, la fin du secret dont je vous conseille fortement la lecture si vous parvenez à vous l’obtenir car il n’est plus édité. J’espère qu’il me pardonnera d’avoir emprunté ses paroles mais je n’ai pas réussi à le contacter pour avoir son autorisation. Mr Roussel, si vous lisez mon livre, pardonnez moi.
« Lorsque vous observez le vol d’une mouche, vous vous demandez peut-être ce que peuvent signifier ces figures qui s’entrecroisent et où il est difficile de trouver un embryon de logique.
Imaginons une civilisation ayant trouvé refuge sur un grain de sable. Pour cette civilisation, la découverte du vol de la drosophile serait un véritable casse-tête et les scientifiques de ce monde minuscule auraient bien du mal à construire une théorie cohérente pouvant expliquer et la mouche et son comportement à la seule vue de ces évolutions.
Je crois qu’actuellement, malgré certaines études poussées, fruits de quelques scientifiques isolés, nous en sommes encore, en matière d’ovni, au stade du « vol de la mouche ».
C’est du moins l’impression que l’on retire de la lecture du matériel dont disposent, sous forme de témoignage et les journalistes spécialisés. Ces objets ont des formes très diverses. Les observations les concernant sont généralement très brèves (bien que certaines d’entre-elles durent parfois une heure ou même davantage). Leurs manœuvres sont incompressibles, en contradiction avec les lois les plus élémentaires de la physique. Ils sont, par essence, imperméables à l’étude et déroutent le monde scientifique.
Les lecteurs assidus des livres et publications spécialisées dans l’étude des ovnis, de même que les chercheurs possédant des archives sur les vagues des années 50 et 70, reconnaîtront sans peine qu’il est difficile de constater une franche évolution dans le comportement de ces mystérieux objets célestes qui hantent, depuis trente années très exactement, les couloirs de la science.
Ce sont toujours les mêmes évolutions incompréhensibles, les mêmes couleurs incroyables, les mêmes apparitions éphémères pour des objets aux formes connues qui vont du cigare à la soucoupe en passant par le triangle ou le carré, quand ce n’est pas le croissant ou… la banane ! si l’on fait abstraction du nombre d’observations qui, lui, semble avoir augmenté, le phénomène OVNI reste toujours aussi insaisissable qu’au premier jour. Que sont-ils, D’où viennent-ils ? Nous ne le savons pas… Ce qui n’empêche pas les « soucoupistes » du monde entier d’émettre à ce propos un nombre impressionnant de théories souvent plus abracadabrantes les unes que les autres…
L’une de ces théories veut que le phénomène ait une finalité bien précise. Les preuves de cette finalité résideraient dans des atterrissages ou dans des prétendus « contact » qu’auraient régulièrement les occupants des soucoupes volantes avec des représentants privilégiés. Bien entendu, ces théoriciens sont près à nous prouver, chiffres et récits à l’appui, que le nombre des « contactés » ne cesse d’augmenter. Par conséquent, disent-ils, on finira bien par aboutir à une reconnaissance officielle du phénomène.
Ce type d’argumentation est apparu à toutes les époques de grandes observations et, bien sûr, il n’a encore jamais été vérifié. Si la théorie des « contacts » était exacte, comment expliquer que nos visiteurs extraterrestres se comportent en 1977 comme s’ils se comportaient déjà… disons en 1921 ! Car les témoignages de « contactés » abondent à toutes les époques. Et à chaque fois les occupants des soucoupes se comportent comme s’ils débarquaient pour la première fois sur notre planète, sans tenir compte des expériences qu’on leur attribue, déjà, dans le passé. Le lecteur pourra d’ailleurs s’en apercevoir au cours des pages qui vont suivre : lorsque l’on aborde ce problème que l’on se réfère à témoignage de 1954 ou de 1974, on retrouve les mêmes descriptions chez les témoins que séparent, pourtant vingt années.
Tandis que certains sont persuadés de la réalité du contact avec des entités extraterrestres, pour d’autres, ces objets volants aux ressources fabuleuses et inconnues ne sont que la manifestation moderne d’un inconscient collectif. Il y a un siècle, il s’exprimait par le biais des siècles spirites, au Moyen Age par celui des lutins et des fées et sous l’antiquité par l’intermédiaire des dieux et des déesses, ces époques projetant à leur manière les angoisses et les espoirs de l’âme.
Entre ces deux tendances extrêmes, intéressantes parce qu’elles démontrent bien la première avec la théorie de la présence du contact l’aspect matériel de l’observation, la seconde en s’apparentant aux troubles de l’âme à caractère philosophique, il doit exister une vérité qui justifie ces deux aspects, apparemment contradictoires.
Cette vérité ne saurait percer que par l’étude des faits. C’est pourquoi il me paraît essentiel d’éviter, dans ce domaine, toute interprétation par trop anthropomorphique. Seul l’examen minutieux du témoignage doit guider l’enquêteur. Quand aux grandes théories philosophiques que ce phénomène engendre parfois, il me semble judicieux de s’en tenir écarté.
Les auteurs de la plupart des ouvrages consacrés aux OVNIS ne se plaisent à retenir généralement que ce qui est susceptible de confirmer leurs propres théories. Si jamais un témoignage entre en contradiction avec ces théories, on l’écarte tout simplement.
C’est ainsi que se sont crées une littérature du « pour » et une littérature du « contre » dont la seule caractéristique commune est de s’ignorer mutuellement sans qu’il soit question de chercher chez l’autre un quelconque élément d’information positif (2). Dans ces conditions, il paraît peu probable que l’on aboutira un jour à une théorie unique rassemblant les actuels partisans et adversaires de la soucoupe sous la seule bannière de la vérité.
Car pourquoi en trente années (1) d’enquêtes, on n’est pas parvenu à progresser dans ce domaine ? Entre autres raisons, parce que l’information circule mal. La plupart des livres traitant de ce sujet ont été écrits par des inconditionnels de la soucoupe dont les théories pour le moins discutable font fuir les gens sérieux qui, sans cela, consentiraient sans doute volontiers à se pencher sur le problème. Par conséquent, les livres sérieux qui, déjà, n’existent qu’en tout petit nombre, passent totalement inaperçus et ne connaissent pratiquement aucunes publicités. De plus, ils sont souvent l’œuvre de scientifiques dont le jargon s’avère difficilement accessible au simple mortel. Alors ?
Alors, il devient urgent, aujourd’hui, de présenter toutes les pièces du dossier pour remédier à la situation dans laquelle nous nous trouvons. Il fait entendre le témoins sérieux dont l’histoire parait incroyable, écouter l’observateur consciencieux qui confond satellite et OVNI, suivre avec attention toutes les pistes qui conduisent au canular, analyser, enfin, enquêtes et déclarations officielles des responsables militaires et scientifiques. En un mot, il faut faire l’instruction du dossier en tentant d’y inclure une notion élargie du témoignage. Cette notion élargie nous incite à restituer la totalité des faits se rapportant aux OVNIS dont nous avons connaissance. C’est pourquoi on ne se contentera pas de préciser au lecteur des observations exceptionnelles tant en raison de la nature de l’objet que de celle de l’observateur. Il existe, en effet, une grande quantité d’ouvrages recensant les observations de ce type et cela ne fait pas beaucoup avancer a recherche. »
1 : Dates avancées de l’époque (texte écris en 1970) 2 : Il est évident que ces deux catégories de littérature est la plus abondante, les soucoupes volantes, étant, aujourd’hui encore, une source de profit appréciable.
Je pense qu’une fois qu’on aura répondu a ces questions, on eput envisager un contact… là on aura fait preuve d’intelligence…
Many folks, in some unspecified time in the future, have seemed up on the vastness of a summer time evening’s sky and puzzled, “Is anybody out there?” There are over 200 billion stars within the Milky Way galaxy, which is only one of possibly 100 billion galaxies within the recognized universe. Our understanding of house modifications day by day, and our notion of the cosmos modifications with it. If you’ve ever considered what’s occurring within the evening sky, there are groups of cosmologists, astronomers, and physicists dedicated to discovering out.
This checklist drills down into the phrases scientists and layman alike use in discussing the likelihood of extraterrestrial life. From theories explaining why we have now but to come back throughout alien life to the phrases utilized by scientists who’re actively looking for it, this checklist will be your go-to information for an introductory take a look at our ageless pursuit for extraterrestrial life.
10. Fermi Paradox
Enrico Fermi was an Italian-American scientist, born in Rome on the flip of the 20th century. A famous “architect of the nuclear age,” Fermi’s brilliance can’t be overstated. At 28, he was elected to the Royal Academy of Italy, the youngest inductee in its historical past. He went on to win the 1938 Nobel Prize in physics for his contributions to the invention of induced radioactivity and was a core contributor to the Manhattan Project. Yet, among the many accolades his identify will be related to, it’s his quandary concerning extraterrestrial life that caught.
The Fermi paradox is a comparatively primary idea which asks if it’s simple, and even potential, for clever extraterrestrial life to develop, then why haven’t we are available contact with it? His remark, made at lunch with coworkers, went on to underscore elementary notions about extraterrestrial life. Our galaxy has many stars just like our Sun, and plenty of are billions of years older. At least a few of these stars probably have planets appropriate for all times orbiting them. Further, with the event of life comes the evolution of clever life and interstellar journey.
Fermi believed that any clever civilization with ample propulsion and even a modest thirst for conquest ought to have made itself recognized within the Milky Way by now.[1] So why hasn’t it? Our knowledge in regards to the observable universe suggests the presence of life needs to be seen; that it isn’t has turn out to be one of many nice paradoxes dictating our understanding of house.
9. Drake Equation
Frank Drake is an American astronomer and astrophysicist who developed a method with quantifiable variables figuring out the presence of extraterrestrial life. Drake’s improvement of what got here to be generally known as the Drake equation was largely unintentional. He was spearheading a gathering of like-minded astronomers on the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, West Virginia, in 1961 and lacked a structured agenda. A day earlier than the convention, Drake shorthanded a method for figuring out the potential of clever life in our galaxy.[2]
This method is N = R x fp x ne x fl x fi x fc x L, the place:
N = the variety of civilizations in our galaxy able to communication R = common price of star formation fp = proportion of these stars with planets ne = common variety of liveable planets per star fl = fraction of liveable planets that go on to develop life fi = proportion of planets with life that develop clever life fc = clever life bearing planets the place life develops detectable communication L = period of time a civilization’s communication is detectable
The Drake equation depends on a number of unknown variables, however it gave astronomers a concrete beginning gate for deducing the presence of clever life all through our galaxy. For greater than 50 years, scientists have used Drake’s equation as their basis for extrapolating the existence of clever extraterrestrial life.
8. Zoo Hypothesis
Star Trek followers acknowledge the Prime Directive as one of many core moral tenets of the cosmos. Simply put, the Prime Directive forbids Starfleet communication with, or interference in, the event of fledgling civilizations throughout the universe. This means civilizations of their early years are left to develop undisturbed by exterior forces.
This conception of alien life, and why we haven’t encountered any, was recommended in 1973 by MIT radio astronomer John Ball because the zoo speculation.[3] Ball’s speculation asserts that alien civilizations could also be observing a pact or treaty during which they actively keep away from underdeveloped civilizations, like ours on Earth, which haven’t but reached a degree of interplanetary communication. There are a number of proposed causes behind this avoidance, mainly that it’s to our profit, or the good thing about different civilizations, that we be allowed to organically develop as a civilization. Simply put, the zoo speculation views humanity as a part of a galactic sanctuary, off-limits to extra superior beings.
7. Great Filter
The idea of the Great Filter involves us from economics professor Robin Hanson. In a nutshell, it responds to the Fermi paradox and all different claims explaining our lack of communication with aliens.[4] Hold onto your seat, as a result of the Great Filter, relying on how its interpreted, is both extremely optimistic or downright dreary.
The concept proposes that at the very least one occasion within the timeline resulting in clever life is very unlikely. For instance, it could be just about unattainable for the suitable star-planet interaction to develop, making subsequent life unattainable. Or, the Great Filter will not be the event of life however quite the emergence of multicellular life. This would imply single-celled prokaryotic organisms are comparatively frequent, however complicated eukaryotic organisms not often develop. There are many recommended Great Filter occasions that humanity has already achieved, placing us on the suitable facet of future. It would imply that people on Earth have finished the near-impossible, popping out the opposite facet of an especially uncommon galactic occasion.
Now for the draw back: We might be on the incorrect facet of the Great Filter. This would imply that it’s frequent for clever life like us to develop within the universe, however civilizations in our stage of improvement, or shortly after, face a crushing occasion that wipes them out. Given the instances we dwell in, with local weather change and nuclear proliferation, amongst different challenges, it’s potential that the Great Filter(ing) occasion is up forward of us and that few to no civilizations make it out the opposite finish.
6. The Kardashev Scale
The Kardashev scale was developed in 1964 by Russian astrophysicist Nikolai Kardashev.[5] Kardashev’s scale was designed to measure the power potential of clever civilizations and used this measurement as a marker of their development. Kardashev’s authentic scale, later annotated by different scientists, recommended three sorts of civilizations:
A Type I civilization can make the most of the entire power generated by a father or mother star on their house planet. With a Type I civilization, a planet’s power absorption and manufacturing are captured and put to full use. Type II civilizations are able to harnessing the complete power manufacturing of a star. There are some fairly spectacular renderings on the market of how this could be finished; one suggestion is the event of a Dyson sphere. A Type III civilization controls power output on the scale of its total galaxy, no small feat.
Other scientists added Type IV and Type V civilizations, which might characteristic much more wild applied sciences. Type IV civilizations could be almost able to utilizing the power output of the entire universe. Type V civilizations would have the ability to manipulate the universe at will and would basically be godlike.
You could also be questioning the place humanity falls on this grand scale. Well, we’re at zero or near it. Astronomer Carl Sagan recommended a rating of round zero.7, given our present use of fossil fuels and different nonrenewable sources of power. This means we’ve obtained a while earlier than we even rank on Kardashev’s scale.
5. Multiverse Theory
We’re going to briefly step exterior not solely our galaxy however our entire universe. That’s as a result of any dialogue of extraterrestrial life isn’t full and not using a nod to multiverse concept. Multiverse concept initiatives that there could also be a vast variety of various universes on the market. In some instances, these different universes could be just like the one we inhabit, the place small variations result in variations in space-time, catalyzing an infinite variety of parallel universes.
Secondly, cosmologist Alexander Vilenkin devised the “bubble universes” idea of the multiverse. In this case, our universe inflated exponentially after the Big Bang. Many different universes inflated as effectively, like a balloon, whereas others stopped rising in some unspecified time in the future. This led to “pocket” universes, all minimize off from each other, with novel legal guidelines of physics.[6]
There are varied iterations of multiverse concept, every with their very own bodily and metaphysical guidelines. Needless to say, it’s so much to wrap one’s head round. As it pertains to extraterrestrial life, simply preserve this in thoughts: We don’t know what life exists in our universe, and moreover, we don’t know what life exists in different universes.
4. Aestivation Hypothesis
Aestivation refers to an animal’s interval of inactivity, just like hibernation, when its metabolic price slows in response to excessive exterior temperatures and little water. Food and different sources could also be scarce throughout a interval of aestivation, so it is sensible for animals, just like the crocodile, to put low and never waste power reserves.
Applied at an interstellar degree, the aestivation speculation dictates that earlier clever civilizations developed throughout the universe, however for the reason that universe continues to be comparatively new and sizzling, they’re ready for it to chill off. Cosmic temperatures are at the moment excessive, placing a premium on processing effectivity. Think of it this fashion: Intelligent beings don’t need their supercomputers to overheat, so they’re ready (billions, possibly trillions, of years) for the universe to chill off and be extra hospitable to exploration and exploitation.[7] This speculation gives a solution to the beforehand acknowledged Fermi paradox. Where is everybody? Currently, they’re taking a nap.
3. SETI
The seek for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) has been listening, patiently, for alerts from extraterrestrial life for over 50 years.[8] Any 21st-century dialogue of extraterrestrial life could be remiss and not using a nod to SETI. So, what precisely is SETI, and the way does it work? The earliest makes an attempt at SETI happened within the spring of 1960, directing microwave frequencies towards star methods just like our photo voltaic system. The Soviet Union, in the meantime, was growing its personal SETI methods, together with the creation of omnidirectional antennae, used to look at massive swaths of the evening sky for power created by hyper-futuristic civilizations.
The present worldwide normal for SETI analysis employs radio telescopes to look at frequency aberrations that make their manner into our environment. Thus, a lot of SETI exercise is directed at “listening” for indicators of extraterrestrial life. The newest and biggest find aliens? That could be METI (Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence) International, which makes direct makes an attempt to contact distant life-forms which will have an ear to the sky.
2. Gaian Bottleneck
In line with the Great Filter strategy to extraterrestrial life is the Gaian Bottleneck idea. Fourbillion years in the past, Venus, Earth, and Mars might have all had situations appropriate for all times to kind. Yet, subsequently, Venus heated up exponentially, whereas Mars froze over. Many astronomers consider eventualities like this are fairly frequent within the universe, which means there could also be a plethora of planets providing optimum environments for formative years to kind, however that life can’t adapt and stabilize on the planet in time to evolve into complicated organisms. This is the place the Gaian Bottleneck exists, quickly after the event of easy organisms, which can be ample within the universe.
Few of those organisms, presumably solely us, have been capable of clear the bottleneck and evolve previous being prokaryotic. As we discover the far reaches of the universe, it’s fairly potential we’ll come throughout numerous fossilized microbes, proof that life is frequent in our universe.[9] Intelligent life . . . not a lot.
1. Mediocrity Principle
We shut out this checklist with a comparatively easy addition, albeit one on the very coronary heart of how we take into consideration extraterrestrial life. The mediocrity precept means that an merchandise drawn at random from a big set of objects will almost certainly be from one of many extra frequent classes inside the group.[10] Think of it this fashion: A hat has ten items of paper. Nine of them are purple, and one is inexperienced, however you don’t know this forward of time. You draw a purple piece of paper. Applying the mediocrity precept, you assume, primarily based on the legal guidelines of likelihood, your paper is from a comparatively frequent grouping.
Applied to cosmology, the mediocrity precept is used to say that Earth is statistically almost certainly to be among the many majority group of planets, which means planets like Earth are plentiful all through the universe. On the flip facet, the uncommon Earth speculation means that Earth, picked at random among the many planets, simply occurs to be that inexperienced piece of paper. Who’s to say if the mediocrity precept or the uncommon Earth speculation is appropriate. Until we uncover extraterrestrial life (or they uncover us) it’s anyone’s guess.
Evan Beck is a contract author at the moment residing within the San Francisco Bay Area.
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Ancient nuclear war between earthmen and aliens
Ancient nuclear war between earthmen and aliens
Scientists are increasingly coming to the conclusion that many thousands of years ago there was a nuclear war between ancient Asarians and space aliens, which led to an ecological catastrophe and a change in the living conditions on our planet.
There are many confirmations of this hypothesis. On Earth, there are a lot of traces of the effect of radiation. Animals and humans have mutations that cause cyclopoiesis (in Cyclops the single eye is above the bridge of the nose). From the legends of different peoples, one can learn about the existence of cyclops that are at war with humans.
Secondly, radiation leads to polyploidy – doubling the chromosome set, which causes gigantism and doubling of the organs: two hearts or two rows of teeth. Scientists periodically find on Earth the remains of giant skeletons with a double row of teeth.
The third direction of radioactive mutagenesis is mono-holoidy. Although even now this race on Earth is the most widespread, but earlier there were much more Mongoloids – they met in Europe, and in Sumeria, and in Egypt and even in Central Africa.
Another confirmation of radioactive mutagenesis is the birth of freaks and children with atavisms (return to ancestors). Radiation leads to a six-fingeredness that occurs in Japanese survivors of the American nuclear bombing, as well as in newborns of Chernobyl.
Over a hundred craters with a diameter of 2-3 kilometers are found on Earth, among which there are two huge ones: in South America (diameter – 40 km) and in South Africa (diameter – 120 km). If they were formed in the Paleozoic era (350 million years ago), then nothing would have been left of them long ago, because the thickness of the upper layer of the Earth increases by about a meter in a hundred years. And the funnels are still intact. This suggests that a nuclear strike occurred 25-35 thousand years ago. Taking 100 funnels for 3 km, we get that 5000 Mt of bombs were blown up for the war with the asuras.
These facts confirm that there was a nuclear war. The fire burned “three days and three nights” (as the “Maya Code of the Rio” narrates) and caused a nuclear rain – where bombs did not fall, radiation struck. Another terrible phenomenon caused by radiation is light body burns. They are explained by the fact that the shock wave propagates not only along the earth, but also upwards. Reaching the stratosphere, it destroys the ozone layer that protects the Earth from damaging ultraviolet radiation. Ultraviolet is known to burn unprotected skin. Nuclear explosions resulted in a significant reduction in pressure and poisoning of the atmosphere’s gas composition, killing survivors.
The Asuras tried to escape from their deaths in their underground cities, but showers and earthquakes destroyed the shelters and drove the inhabitants back to the surface of the earth. Previously, scientists believed that the “pipes” that operate in our time, coming from caves to the surface of the earth, have a natural origin. In fact, they are made with the help of laser weapons for smoking asuras, hiding in dungeons. These “pipes” have a regular rounded shape, which is unusual for funnels of natural origin (there are many of them in the caves of the Perm region, including in the vicinity of the city of Kungur).
Now it is understandable why thousands of kilometers of tunnels found in the Altai, the Urals, the Tien Shan, the Caucasus, the deserts of the Sahara and the Gobi, and the Americas have been dug all over the planet.
Perhaps, lasers were used not only for smoking asuras. As soon as the laser beam reached the molten underground layer, the magma erupted, forming with time volcanoes of artificial origin.
Those who remained in the dungeon gradually lost their sight (everyone knew the epic about Svyatogor, whose father lived in the dungeon and did not come out to the surface, because he was blind). Descendants of the asuras diminished in size to dwarfs, of which there are many legends. The short-grown creatures have survived to this day, and have not only black, but also white skin (Guinea minigets, Dopa and Kham people, a little more than a meter tall, living in Tibet).
Near to Sterlitamak (a city in Bashkiria) there are two barkhans from mineral substances. Probably, these are the two graves of the asuras; There are a lot of similar graves on Earth. But some asuras have survived to the present day. The commission on anomalous phenomena in the 1970s reported of meetings with giants growing from a 40-story building. The steps of these titans were accompanied by a strong roar, and their feet fell deep into the ground.
As for life under the earth, it is possible. According to geologists, there is more water under the earth than in the whole World Ocean, underground seas, lakes and rivers are found there. Scientists have suggested that the waters of the World Ocean are associated with the underground, and not only the water cycle between them, but also the exchange of biological species. To the underground biosphere was self-sufficient, there must be plants that release oxygen and decompose carbon dioxide. But photosynthesis, it turns out, can also occur in total darkness, it is enough just to pass through the earth a weak electric current of a certain frequency. In places where heat was released to the surface of the Earth, forms of thermal life were found that do not need light. Perhaps, they can be both unicellular and multicellular, and even reach a high level of development.
The appearance of dinosaurs on the Earth (for example, the Loch Ness monster) suggests that the creatures living under the Earth sometimes come to the surface “get caught”. Many floating beings of the times of the Asuric biosphere may have found salvation under the earth. Reports of dinosaurs appearing in the oceans, seas and lakes are testimonies of creatures that have penetrated from the dungeon, who have found a refuge there.
According to the Vedas, the asuras were large and strong, but they were killed by credulity and simple-mindedness. The gods, through deception, defeated the asuras and drove them underground and to the bottom of the oceans. The pyramids scattered all over the planet (in Egypt, Mexico, Tibet, India) indicate that the culture was one, and the earthlings had no basis for war between themselves. Those whom the Vedas call gods came from heaven, they are aliens from outer space, and the nuclear conflict was most likely cosmic.
Lost Continent? Scientists Find Parts Of North America In Australia
Lost Continent? Scientists Find Parts Of North America In Australia
Georgetown, in northern Queensland (Australia), was once part of North America say, researchers.
That is what seems to suggest the finding and subsequent study of a series of rocks and fossils in the area.
If so, it would mean that Australia was connected to Canada about 1.7 billion years ago.
The idea that the two continents were once connected is not surprising.
Such Speculations have existed since the late 1970s, when scientists proposed that this connection dated back to the continent of Rodinia, about 1.13 billion years ago.
However, and even under that theory, a date was missing.
The findings in Georgetown, a small town in northeastern Australia, now seem to be a boost to that theory.
The rocks found in Georgetown are different from all other rocks on the Australian continent.
However, they show enormous similarities to ancient rocks found in Canada, in the exposed section of the continental crust called the Canadian Shield.
An unexpected finding, according to researchers at Curtin University, Monash University and the Queensland Geological Survey in Australia, which reveals something about the composition of the ancient supercontinent Nuna.
According to Adam Nordsvan, principal investigator: “Our research shows that about 1,700 million years ago, Georgetown rocks were deposited in shallow water when the region was part of North America. Georgetown separated from North America and collided with the Mount Isa region in northern Australia some 100 million years later. This was a fundamental part of the global, continental reorganization when almost all the continents on Earth came together to form the supercontinent called Nuna.”
The last time the continents were close to each other was the great supercontinent known as Pangea, which split about 175 million years ago.
However, before Pangea, the planet went through several configurations of supercontinents, one of which was Nuna, also called Columbia, which existed about 2,500 million to 1,500 million years ago.
The team of researchers came to this conclusion after examining sedimentological data, and new existing geochronological data from Georgetown and Mount Isa, another remote city in northeastern Australia, and comparing everything to rocks from Canada.
“Ongoing research by our team shows that this mountain belt, in contrast to the Himalayas, would not have been very high, suggesting the final continental assembling process that led to the formation of the supercontinent Nuna was not a hard collision like India’s recent collision with Asia,” said co-author Zheng-Xiang Li.
“This new finding is a key step in understanding how Earth’s first supercontinent Nuna may have formed, a subject still being pursued by our multidisciplinary team here at Curtin University.”
The research has been published in the journalGeology.
RECIPE FOR DISASTER Despite the lab mouse’s much greater weight, chemistry gives this centipede the decisive advantage.
Knocking out an animal 15 times your size — no problem. A newly identified toxin in the venom of a tropical centipede helps the insect overpower giant prey in about 30 seconds.
Insight into how this venom overwhelms lab mice could lead to an antidote for people who suffer excruciatingly painful, reportedly even fatal, centipede bites, an international research team reports the week of January 22 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
In Hawaii, centipede bites account for about 400 emergency room visits a year, according to data from 2004 to 2008. The main threat there is Scolopendra subspinipes,an agile species almost as long as a human hand.
The subspecies S.subspinipesmutilans starred in studies at the Kunming Institute of Zoology in China and collaborating labs. Researchers there found a small peptide, now named “spooky toxin,” largely responsible for venom misery.
This toxin blocks a molecular channel that normally lets potassium flow through cell membranes. A huge amount of the biochemistry of staying alive involves potassium, so clogging some of what are called KCNQ channels caused mayhem in mice: slow and gasping breath, high blood pressure, frizzling nerve dysfunctions and so on. Administering the epilepsy drug retigabine opened the potassium channels and counteracted much of the toxin’s effects, raising hopes of a treatment for these bites.
DUSTUP A dust storm (right) captured by the Mars Global Surveyor in 2001 swirls over much of the Red Planet. These storms are helping hydrogen from water vapor escape from the Red Planet, a new study finds.
Storms of powdery Martian soil are contributing to the loss of the planet’s remaining water.
This newly proposed mechanism for water loss, reported January 22 in Nature Astronomy, might also hint at how Mars originally became dehydrated. Researchers used over a decade of imaging data taken by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to investigate the composition of the Red Planet’s frequent dust storms, some of which are vast enough to circle the planet for months.
During one massive dust storm in 2006 and 2007, signs of water vapor were found at unusually high altitudes in the atmosphere, nearly 80 kilometers up. That water vapor rose within “rocket dust storms” — storms with rapid vertical movement — on convection currents similar to those in some storm clouds on Earth, says study coauthor Nicholas Heavens, an astronomer at Hampton University in Virginia.
At altitudes above 50 kilometers, ultraviolet light from the sun easily penetrates the Red Planet’s thin atmosphere and breaks down water’s chemical bonds between hydrogen and oxygen. Left to its own devices, hydrogen slips free into space, leaving the planet with less of a vital ingredient for water.
“Because it’s so light, hydrogen is lost relatively easily on Mars,” Heavens says. “Hydrogen loss is measurable from Earth, too, but we have so much water that it’s not a big deal.”
Previous studies have indicated that Mars, which was once covered in an ocean about 100 meters deep, lost the bulk of its water through hydrogen escape (SN Online: 10/15/14). But this is the first study to identify dust storms as a mechanism for helping the gas break away. The total effect of all dust storms could account for about 10 percent of Mars’ current hydrogen loss, Heavens says.
Whether that was true in the past is up in the air. Extrapolating back a billion years ago, when Mars was warm and wet, isn’t so easy. Scientists don’t know how dust storms would have worked in a wetter climate or a thicker atmosphere.
“Variations over weeks or months don't really tell you anything about the 1,000-year timescale that governs hydrogen,” notes Kevin Zahnle, an astronomer at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., who was not involved in the study.
But Zahnle, an expert on atmospheric escape of gases, agrees with the main thrust of the study: Right now, dust storms are helping to bleed Mars dry.
How we can transform Mars into a habitable planet.
HIT THE GAS Jets from supermassive black holes, like the one shown in this artist’s illustration, could be ultimately responsible for three different types of enigmatic high-energy particles.
It’s three for the price of one. A trio of mysterious high-energy particles could all have the same source: active black holes embedded in galaxy clusters, researchers suggest January 22 in Nature Physics.
Scientists have been unable to figure out the origins of the three types of particles — gamma rays that give a background glow to the universe, cosmic neutrinos and ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays. Each carries a huge amount of energy, from about a billion electron volts for a gamma ray to 100 billion billion electron volts for some cosmic rays.
Strangely, each particle type seems to contribute the same total amount of energy to the universe as the other two. That’s a clue that all three may be powered by the same engine, says physicist Kohta Murase of Penn State.
“We can explain the data of these three messengers with one single picture,” Murase says.
First, a black hole accelerates charged particles to extreme energies in a powerful jet (SN: 9/16/17, p. 16). These jets “are one of the most promising candidate sources of ultrahigh energy cosmic rays,” Murase says. The most energetic cosmic rays escape the jet and immediately plow through a sea of magnetized gas within the galaxy cluster.
Some rays escape the gas as well and zip towards Earth. But less energetic rays are trapped in the cluster for up to a billion years. There, they interact with the gas and create high-energy neutrinos that then escape the cluster.
Meanwhile, the cosmic rays that escaped travel through intergalactic space and interact with photons to produce the glow of gamma rays.
Murase and astrophysicist Ke Fang of the University of Maryland in College Park found that computer simulations of this scenario lined up with observations of how many cosmic rays, neutrinos and gamma rays reached Earth.
“It’s a nice piece of unification of many ideas,” says physicist Francis Halzen of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory in Antarctica, where the highest energy neutrinos have been observed.
There are other possible sources for the particles — for one, IceCube has already traced an especially high-energy neutrino to a single active black hole that may not be in a cluster (SN Online: 4/7/16). The observatory could eventually trace neutrinos back to galaxy clusters. “That’s the ultimate test,” Halzen says. “This could be tomorrow, could be God knows when.”
Star Trek-Style Acoustic Tractor Beam Paves Way For Human Levitation
Star Trek-Style Acoustic Tractor Beam Paves Way For Human Levitation
Engineers from the University of Bristol have shown that it is possible to levitate objects which are larger than the wavelength of sound.
Scientists have managed to levitate objects that were much larger when what we’ve ever achieved before, and the new technology paves the way for human levitation.
In 2015, Nature Communications published an article in which it reported the construction of the first sonic tractor beam in the world, capable of lifting and moving objects through the use of sound waves.
Using these sound waves, an acoustic hologram is generated which in turn allows for the movement of the small objects.
Acoustic tractor beams use sound, or better-said soundwaves, to hold—levitate—particles in mid-air.
The discovery made in 2015 opened the possibility of developing a sonic production line to transport objects and assemble them, without touching them.
Scientists thought beyond transporting objects and went further proposing that this technology could also be used in medicine, allowing doctors and surgeons to transport drug capsules and even surgical instruments inside living tissues.
Now, a recent study extends this discovery considerably: engineers at the University of Bristol have shown that it is possible to levitate objects which are larger than the wavelength of sound.
This discovery not only expands the possibility of manipulating drug capsules or microsurgical instruments within the human body, but it also allows the transportation of larger and more delicate objects without a container.
It could even lead to the levitation of human beings, according to a statement from the scientific team behind the discovery.
It was previously thought that acoustic tractor beams were limited to levitating only small objects; only those approximately the same size as a wavelength of the sound. Scientists believed that it was nearly impossible to levitate objects of a greater size without losing stability, causing the objects to spin uncontrollably.
However, engineers from the University of Bristol describe a new technique, to be published in Physical Review Letters.
Using a tornado-like structure that is extremely loud but has a silent core, scientists found that when changing the direction of the rapidly fluctuating acoustic vortices that make up this structure, they were able to control the rate of rotation and stabilize the tractor beam.
Dr. Asier Marzo, the lead author on the paper from Bristol’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, said that “Acoustic researchers had been frustrated by the size limit for years, so its satisfying to find a way to overcome it.”
In the new study, scientists used waves at a pitch of 40kHz and create the acoustic vortices. As noted by experts, the structure’s silent core managed to hold in position a two-centimeter sphere made out of synthetic polymer. This is revolutionary as the sphere is two times the site of the acoustic wavelengths, which means that it is currently the largest object that has been usefully and stably held in a tractor beam.
Here’s The Radio Transmission of Astronaut John Glenn, after dozens of UFOs surround him in space
Here’s The Radio Transmission of Astronaut John Glenn, after dozens of UFOs surround him in space
“They’re all over the sky…”
This is Friendship Seven. I’ll try to describe what I’m in here. I am in a big mass of some very small particles, that are brilliantly lit up like they’re luminescent. I never saw anything like it. They round a little; they’re coming by the capsule, and they look like little stars. A whole shower of them coming by.
Check out this amazing audio file where we can hear the amazement of Astronaut John Glenn after his capsule is surrounded by countless, strange UFOs.
This audio transmission can easily be described as one of the most amazing pieces of evidence of a mysterious extraterrestrial presence during manned missions to space.
This old audio file lets you listen into a small part of the conversation between the Mercury-Atlas 6 (MA-6) capsule piloted by John Glenn and CAPCOM, on the 20th of February, 1962, the first manned orbital mission of the United States.
Launched from Kennedy Space Center, Fla., he completed a successful three-orbit mission around the earth, reaching a maximum altitude (apogee) of approximately 162 statute miles and an orbital velocity of approximately 17,500 miles per hour. Glenn’s “Friendship 7” Mercury spacecraft landed approximately 800 miles southeast of KSC in the vicinity of Grand Turk Island. Mission duration from launch to impact was 4 hours, 55 minutes, and 23 seconds.
Astronaut John H. Glenn Jr., pilot of the Mercury-Atlas 6 (MA-6) spaceflight, poses for a photo with the Mercury “Friendship 7” spacecraft.
Image Credit: NASA
In the audio file, Mr. Glenn referred to his capsule as Friendship 7 and can be heard describing seeing a “brilliant blue horizon” coming up behind him as it approaches sunrise.
Then, he suddenly realizes something peculiar is happening all around him, as he is ‘intercepted’ by countless UFOs which engulfed his capsule.
Here is the transcript of the event:
John Glenn: This is Friendship Seven. It’s blinding through the scope on clear. It’s started up just as I gave you that mark; I’m going to the dark filter to watch it come on up.
CAPCOM: Roger.
John Glenn: This is Friendship Seven. I’ll try to describe what I’m in here. I am in a big mass of some very small particles, that are brilliantly lit up like they’re luminescent. I never saw anything like it. They round a little; they’re coming by the capsule, and they look like little stars. A whole shower of them coming by.
John Glenn: They swirl around the capsule and go in front of the window and they’re all brilliantly lighted. They probably average maybe 7 or 8 feet apart, but I can see them all down below me, also.
Intrigued by the events, CAPCOM asked Glenn to describe the objects, and whether they were impacting his spacecraft.
CAPCOM: Roger, Friendship Seven. Can you hear any impact with the capsule? Over.
John Glenn: Negative, negative. They’re very slow; they’re not going away from me more than maybe 3 or 4 miles per hour. They’re going at the same speed I am approximately. They’re only very slightly under my speed. Over.
John Glenn: They do, they do have a different motion, though, from me because they swirl around the capsule and then depart back the way I am looking.
John Glenn: Are you receiving? Over.
John Glenn:There are literally thousands of them.
After having described the objects Glenn gets no response from CAPCOM and asks if he is in contact with anyone while continuing to discuss the strange objects around his spacecraft.
John Glenn: This is Friendship Seven. Am I in contact with anyone? Over.
Eventually, nearly five minutes after describing the events, CAPCOM responds, saying that Glenn sounded a little “garbled”, and is asked what his oxygen levels were.
Strangely, CAPCOM did not address the strange events with Glenn, who explains that the mystery particles are still around the spacecraft.
After realizing CAPCOM is not answering Glenn decided to photograph the mystery objects.
Then, he is asked by CAPCOM how big the particles were and whether they moved by or floated with him.
CAPCOM suggested that the particles may have come from the spacecraft, but Mr. Glenn said this was not the case.
Curiously, after Friendship seven’s successful orbit, another astronaut on board the Aurora 7 capsule, Scott Carpenter, also saw the mystery objects in space.
NASA scientists eventually looked into the mystery sighing and concluded that the objects seen in space were just ice particles caught by sunlight.
NASA claimed that ice had accumulated on the outside of the capsule and that what the two astronauts saw were free-floating Ice particles.
However, Mr. Glenn wasn’t convinced by the explanation. During his second orbit, he reported seeing the objects again for miles in each direction.
Interdimensional beings, Aliens From “Dimensions” That Coexist Alongside Our Own?
Interdimensional beings, Aliens From “Dimensions” That Coexist Alongside Our Own?
The definition for interdimensional beings or interdimensional intelligence is usually described as a theoretical or ‘real’ entity that exists in a dimension beyond our own.
Despite the fact that such beings are believed to exist only in science fiction, fantasy and the supernatural, there are numerous Ufologists who refer to them as real beings.
The Interdimensional Hypothesis
The interdimensional hypothesis was proposed by a number of Ufologists like Jacques Vallée who suggests that unidentified flying objects (UFOs) and related events (such as alien sightings) imply visits from beings from other “realities” or “dimensions” that coexist separately with ours. Some have referred to these beings as visitors from another universe.
In other words, Vallée and other authors suggest that aliens are real but exist not in our dimension, but in another reality, that coexists with our own.
This theory is an alternative to the extraterrestrial hypothesis which suggests that aliens are advanced spacefaring beings that exist in our universe.
The interdimensional hypothesis argues that UFOs are a modern manifestation of a phenomenon that has occurred throughout recorded human history, which in earlier times was attributed to mythological or supernatural creatures—Ancient Astronaut theory.
What if Aliens are travelers from another dimension? Does that mean we are alone in the universe after all?
Image Credit: Shutterstock.
But despite the fact that modern Ufologists and millions of people around the globe believe we are not alone in this universe, many ufologists and paranormal researchers have embraced the interdimensional Hypothesis, suggesting that it explains the Alien theory in a much smoother way.
Paranormal investigator Brad Steiger wrote that “we are dealing with a multidimensional paraphysical phenomenon that is largely originating from planet Earth.”
Other ufologists, such as John Ankerberg and John Weldon, who also favor the interdimensional hypothesis argue that UFO sightings fit in the spiritualist phenomenon.
Commenting on the disparity between the Extraterrestrial hypothesis and the reports that people have made of UFO encounters, Ankerberg and Weldon wrote that “the UFO phenomenon simply does not behave like extraterrestrial visitors.”
This Interdimensional Hypothesis took a step further in the book UFOs: Operation Trojan Horse published in 1970, where author John Keel linked UFOs to supernatural concepts such as ghosts and demons.
Some advocates of the extraterrestrial theory have embraced some of the ideas set forth by the Interdimensional Hypothesisbecause it does a better job explaining how ‘aliens’ could travel in space across vast distances.
The distance between the stars makes interstellar travel impractical using conventional means and since no one has demonstrated an antigravity engine or any other machine that would allow a traveler to move across the cosmos at speed faster than light, the Interdimensional Hypothesis makes much more sense.
Are aliens, in fact, interdimensional travelers?
Image Credit: Shutterstock.
According to this theory, is not necessary to use any method of propulsion because it maintains that UFOs are not spacecraft, but devices that travel between different realities. However, they still need to get from one reality to the other, right?
One of the benefits of the Interdimensional Hypothesis according to Hilary Evans—a British pictorial archivist, author, and researcher into UFOs and other paranormal phenomena—is that it can explain the apparent ability of UFOs to appear and disappear, not only from sight but from radar; as the interdimensional UFO’s can enter and leave our dimension at will, meaning they have the ability to materialize and dematerialize.
On the other hand, Evans argues that if the other dimension is slightly more advanced than ours, or is perhaps our own future, this would explain the tendency of UFOs to represent technologies close to the future.
Declassified FBI document—beings from other dimensions exist
While all of the above may sound like something coming from a sci-fi movie, there is a peculiar declassified top-secret document in the FBI archives which speaks of interdimensional beings, and how their ‘spacecraft’ have the ability to materialize and dematerialize in our own dimension.
Here is a transcript of some of the most important details of the report:
Part of the disks carry crews; others are under remote control
Their mission is peaceful. The visitors contemplate settling on this plane
These visitors are human-like but much larger in size
They are not excarnate Earth people but come from their own world
They do NOT come from a planet as we use the word, but from an etheric planet which interpenetrates with our own and is not perceptible to us
The bodies of the visitors, and the craft, automatically materialize on entering the vibratory rate of our dense matter
The disks possess a type of radiant energy or a ray, which will easily disintegrate any attacking ship. They reenter the etheric at will, and so simply disappear from our vision, without trace
The region from which they come is not the “astral plane,” but corresponds to the Lokas or Talas. Students of osoteric matters will understand these terms.
They probably cannot be reached by radio, but probably can be by radar. if a signal system can be devised for that (apparatus)
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Triangle-shaped formation recorded over Morrison, Colorado 17-Jan-2018
Triangle-shaped formation recorded over Morrison, Colorado 17-Jan-2018
Here’s one new footage of a triangular formation hovering in the sky above Morrison in Colorado. Filmed on 17th January 2018.
Witness report:
A triangular set of three lights were observed for approximately 30 seconds to 1 minute before vanishing. They were captured on video. They appeared to remain motionless.
WETENSCHAPDat robots dra de job van mensen zullen inpalmen geldt alvast niet in het geval van ShopBot Fabio. De Schotse supermarktketen Margiotta zette Fabio in om klanten wegwijs te maken in de winkel. Maar al snel bleek dat Fabio de mensen niet voldoende begreep en zelfs wegjaagde. De robot werd ontslagen en was aangeslagen: “Zijn jullie nu boos?”
Fabio was onderdeel van een experiment van de Heriot-Watt University voor de BBC-reeksSix Robots & US. De ShopBot werd geprogrammeerd om klanten met vragen te helpen. Zo kende hij de plaats van honderden producten in het grote Margiottafiliaal in Edinburgh.
Aanvankelijk kon Fabio de klanten charmeren met knuffels, high fives en grapjes. Maar de liefde bleef niet duren. Wie naar bier vroeg, kreeg als antwoord: “In de gang met alcohol”. Wie niet wist waar de kaas lag, moest het stellen met: “In de frigo”. Door achtergrondgeluiden begreep Fabio de mensen ook niet altijd goed.
De supermarkt verbande Fabio naar een rayon waar hij enkel nog gerookt varkensvlees mocht laten proeven aan de klanten. Daar viel hij mensen lastig die hem net probeerden te ontwijken. Hij kon in een kwartier tijd ook maar amper twee klanten overtuigen om te proeven, terwijl zijn menselijke collega er twaalf kon verleiden.
Luisa Margiotta van de gelijknamige keten, die naar eigen zeggen altijd openstaat voor vernieuwing, zag dat het ditmaal niet werkte. “Spijtig genoeg deed Fabio het minder goed dan we hadden gehoopt”, zei ze aan de Daily Telegraph. “Een van de problemen was dat hij erg beperkt is in zijn bewegingen. Hij kon zich niet vlot in de winkel verplaatsen om klanten tot bij de gezochte producten te brengen.”
De vader van Luisa, Franco Margiotta, bouwde zijn zaak van niks uit tot een grote supermarktketen. Hij zag zich genoodzaakt het contract van Fabio niet te verlengen. De reactie van de robot was verbazingwekkend. “Zijn jullie boos?” vroeg hij. Sommige collega’s pinkten zelfs een traantje weg, toen Fabio weer ingepakt en weggevoerd werd naar Heriot-Watt. “Dat hadden we niet verwacht, dat werknemers zo gehecht zouden raken aan de robot”, zei Oliver Lemon van Heriot-Watt. “Dat is ergens wel positief, want we dachten dat het tegenovergestelde zou gebeuren omdat ze zich in hun job bedreigd zouden voelen door zijn concurrentie.”
Luisa Margiotta ziet haar personeel nog niet meteen vervangen worden door robots. “Onze klanten hebben graag een persoonlijk contact en ons personeel is daar heel belangrijk in. Onze medewerkers kennen de vaste klanten heel goed en praten er dagelijks mee. Die functie kan een robot niet zomaar invullen.”
You may think it’s quite ludicrous to even contemplate that the Moon could be harbouring as many as 250 million citizens, but it’s not. Although this may not be true, those who have looked into it know that strange anomalies have surrounded the Moon for decades. “Contemplation without investigation is the height of ignorance,” a quote attributed to Einstein holds true here. If you actually do some independent research, you might be quite shocked with what you find, especially when it comes to the credibility of the sources.
As far back as 1970, two well-respected members of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, Michael Vasin and Alexander Shcherbakov, created a hypothesis suggesting that the Moon is a spaceship created by unknown beings. Fast forward to today, and we have former high-ranking members of the military and intelligence agencies sharing their knowledge with regards to strange things that are happening on the Moon. A few examples are listed in the articles linked below.
Take for example Timothy Good, one of the world’s leading UFO researchers, who has lectured at universities, schools, and many organizations, including the Institute of Medical Laboratory Sciences, the Royal Canadian Military Institute, the Royal Geographical Society, the Royal Naval Air Reserve Branch, the House of Lords All-Party UFO Study Group, and the Oxford and Cambridge Union societies.
Good says that a former member of MI6 revealed her conversation with Neil Armstrong at a NASA conference, when he confirmed there were “other” spacecraft on the Moon when Apollo 11 landed in 1969. Armstrong also confirmed the CIA was behind the coverup. He also goes into more detail about it in this 2013 lecture.
Dr. John Brandenburg, the Deputy Manager of the Clementine Mission to the Moon, which was part of a joint space project between the Ballistic Missile Defence Organization (BMDO) and NASA, has also made some fascinating revelations. The mission discovered water at the Moon’s poles in 1994 (Source: page 16 of 18)(source)(source). But, according to Brandenburg, the Clementine Mission had an ulterior agenda:
“The Clementine Mission was a photo reconnaissance mission basically to check out if someone was building bases on the moon that we didn’t know about. Were they expanding they expanding them? . . . Of all the pictures I’ve seen from the moon that show possible structures, the most impressive is a picture of a miles wide recto-linear structure. This looked unmistakably artificial, and it shouldn’t be there. As somebody in the space defence community, I look on any such structure on the moon with great concern because it isn’t ours, there’s no way we could have built such a thing. It means someone else is up there.”
he quote above comes from the documentary, “Aliens on the Moon.”
Here is an interesting lecture Brandenburg gave with regards to strange anomalies that have been found on Mars. You can read more about that in detail here.
Members of the Society For Planetary SETI Research (SPSR) have recently published a paper in the Journal of Space Exploration about certain features on the far side of the moon that appear in the crater Paracelsus C. Titled “Image Analysis of Unusual Structures on the Far Side of the Moon in the Crater Paracelsus C,” it argues that these features might be artificial in origin, meaning someone other than a human being built them and put them there. It suggest that life could be contained within the moon as well.
Keep in mind that there is an entire side of the moon we can never see, unless we use probes. A new study published in the Journal of Space Exploration titled “The Mounds of Cydonia: Elegant Geology, or Tetrahedral Geometry and Reactions of Pythagoras and Dirac?” has added to the already robust evidence pointing to “artificial surface interventions” on Mars. The paper also mentions that it adds to the evidence which exists already that strongly point to artificial surface interventions.
So you see, you’re not crazy if you see a headline above and actually contemplate if it’s true or not.
His name is John Lear, and as a captain for a major US Airline, he’s flown over 160 different types of aircrafts in over 50 different countries. He holds 17 world speed records in the Lear Jet and holds every airline certificate issued by the Federal Aviation Administration. Mr. Lear has flown missions worldwide for the CIA and other government agencies. A former Nevada State Senator candidate, he is the son of William P. Lear, designer of the Lear Jet executive airplane, the 8-track stereo, and founder of Lear Siegler Corporation. Lear became interested in the subject of UFO’s 13 months after talking with United States Air Force Personnel who had witnessed a UFO landing at Bentwaters AFB, near London, England, and three small aliens walking up to the Wing Commander.
In the video below, he shows several images and describes structures, technologies, city like structures and roads. The study mentioned earlier published in the Journal of Space Exploration also mentions something along these lines. In the lecture linked above by Brandenburg, he describes the same thing on Mars.
Below you can watch a lecture given by John Lear regarding his research.
The last video is part 1 of a 4 part series done by Project Camelot.
What’s fascinating is the fact that a lot of his information actually corroborates with other witness testimony, as well as the studies coming out bringing more attention to strange structures on the moon that appear to be extraterrestrial.
Telt de maan 250 miljoen bewoners? Een bekende ex-CIA-piloot denkt van wel
Telt de maan 250 miljoen bewoners? Een bekende ex-CIA-piloot denkt van wel
De voormalige CIA-piloot John Lear heeft gezegd dat de maan bewoonbaar is en zo’n 250 miljoen bewoners telt.
“Alles wat je over de maan hebt gehoord, is een leugen,” zei hij, toevoegende dat hij naar eigen zeggen geheime bouwwerken heeft ontdekt op de maan.
Veel complottheoretici geloven dat de NASA dit soort bouwwerken verborgen houdt voor het publiek.
Dood geweest
“Ik kan dit niet bewijzen, anders was ik al dood geweest,” zei Lear, wiens vader Bill Lear de Amerikaanse vliegtuigbouwer Learjet oprichtte. “Ik kan je geen foto laten zien van de USS Enterprise op de maan.”
“Het ligt gewoon voor de hand, gezien de technologie die de Amerikaanse overheid heeft verkregen na miljarden of biljoenen in het onderzoek van Tesla te hebben gepompt,” vervolgde hij.
Lear zei verder dat de aarde in feite een gevangenisplaneet is en dat er miljoenen planeten zoals de aarde zijn.
Fysiek onmogelijk
Eerder verklaarde Lear dat het volgens hem fysiek onmogelijk is geweest dat vliegtuigen in de Twin Towers in New York zijn gevlogen.
Voor onervaren piloten is het niet mogelijk geweest om een Boeing 767 in het World Trade Center te boren, stelde hij.
Lear heeft in ruim 40 jaar tijd in meer dan 100 verschillende vliegtuigen gevlogen. Tussen 1967 en 1983 voerde hij geheime missies uit voor de CIA in Azië, Europa, het Midden-Oosten en Afrika.
Een aantal jaren geleden werd hij geïnterviewd door Project Camelot:
In December 2017, the US government broke its almost-fifty-year silence on the UFO issue through its proxy-acknowledgement of a Top-Secret Pentagon UFO project called the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program. The conclusions of the project, which ran from 2008 to 2012 at a cost of $22 million (and which continues quietly to this day), were that “aircraft” of apparently unearthly origin are routinely penetrating America’s airspace.
These aircraft, according the former head of the Pentagon project, Louis Elizondo, exhibit flight characteristics that defy the laws of our known physics. They do not belong to the United States of America, nor, apparently, to any other nation on Earth. Moreover, it emerged that the Pentagon has recovered “alloys” from UFOs which are currently being stored and studied behind lock-and-key in Las Vegas, Nevada with the oversight of billionaire aerospace industrialist Robert Bigelow.
The implications are startling, and the media are fast recognizing as legitimate a subject that for so long has served as little more than tabloid fodder. It is now (almost) official: UFOs are not only real, but potentially representative of non-terrestrial technologies. 2018 looks set to be a very big year for the UFO.
But we should proceed with our wits about us. Since 1947, US government engagement with the UFO phenomenon has been characterized almost exclusively by deception; by disinformation and perception management campaigns in service of agendas that remain as murky as ever.
Do the Pentagon’s recent UFO “disclosures” signal an imminent end to the to the decades of secrecy? Have the powers that be had a radical change of heart? Are they finally ready to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about their knowledge of the UFO enigma? If you’ve answered “yes” to any of those questions, it may be your belief speaking, rather than your logic.
Greg Bishop understands better than most that things are rarely, if ever, as they seem when it comes to UFOs and the US military/intelligence community. His book, Project Beta: The Story of Paul Bennewitz, National Security, and the Creation of a Modern UFO Myth, tells the story of a sophisticated government campaign of disinformation perpetrated against one unsuspecting U.S. citizen, the effects of which rippled out across the UFO subculture and eventually reached the shores of pop-culture, significantly shaping our beliefs about flying saucers and the nature and agendas their potential occupants.
Here, Greg shares with me his thoughts on the recent Pentagon “disclosures,” and how we might better seek to solve the UFO riddle by removing government from the equation altogether and focusing instead on democratized, grassroots research.
RG: Summarise for us the disturbing case of Paul Bennewitz.
GB: In 1979, Paul Bennewitz was living in Albuquerque, New Mexico, right on the border of Kirtland Air Force Base, which was home to many secret programs. He noticed strange lights moving in non-aircraft-like ways on the Base at night, and decided to tell the Air Force.
That was a mistake. He also had a keen interest in the UFO subject and no filters at all, so he was happy to ride his beliefs to their illogical conclusions. Instead of handing him a cease and desist order, the Powers That Be decided it would be more profitable to string him along, hoping in the process to learn how he had figured out much of a coded message transmission system that had been painstakingly developed (as he was a very skilled electrical engineer) and who he was talking to as well as who was trying to talk to him. They hoped that this would reveal foreign agents and infiltrators.
Later, they began to feed him disinformation, but he believed it because he thought that he was working closely with the Air Force to warn everyone about an alien invasion. For the most part, Bennewitz provided his own narratives and details, but when the Air Force (and possibly other agencies) realized that he was becoming dangerously unstable, they did nothing to disabuse him of these harmful ideas. Concerned for his well-being, in 1988 his family placed him in a mental health facility. He recovered fairly quickly and generally stayed out of the UFO arena for the rest of his life.
RG: To what extent did the disinformation campaigns of the 1970s/80s influence the UFO subculture during those decades? Are we still feeling the effects today?
GB: I think they mainly served to keep people away from secret programs and to keep chasing their own tails. I do not think that they were perpetrated to keep researchers away from any great secret. As I see it, the main effect today is that UFO fans place far too much emphasis on the government coverup angle, which may have been at least part of the point from the beginning.
RG: What if any parallels do you see between DeLonge’s ‘To the Stars’ initiative and historical perception-management efforts?
GB: To me, it has the earmarks of an operation that is designed to direct attention away from something, rather than to reveal anything of substance. The fact that the government knows something about the subject and has been studying it for many years should come as no surprise to those interested in UFOs. I don’t think that the wider culture (especially younger people) were surprised either. The more salient point is that there is some acknowledgment of it by both the media and some places in academia because the story was published in a paper of record, even though I see it as essentially a publicity release disguised as a news story.
RG: Would you care to speculate as to possible agendas behind this recent release of information?
GB: Generally, when the intelligence community decides to move in some particular direction, it is designed to achieve more than one goal. One possible effect was mentioned in the last answer: Media outlets and academics seem to no longer see UFOs as a subject for automatic ridicule. This may serve to bring more intelligent thought to bear on the issue, which may stimulate original approaches and research with practical applications. Another reason may be to direct attention away from less obvious issues, as well as a way to “smack the hornet’s nest” and see who might react.
RG: The recent “revelations” about the Pentagon UFO program… should we be excited or concerned? Why?
GB: I think we should do neither. I believe we should watch quietly and unemotionally, but with close interest. Reacting to the news is most likely part of the agenda of those who released it.
RG: What are your thoughts on “Disclosure” in general? Is this something the UFO community should be pursuing—truth through government—or should we be following different lines of enquiry entirely in our quest to unravel the UFO enigma?
GB: I find it troubling that those who least trust the power structure are more than willing to accept a story when it agrees with their preconceptions. That is when we should be the most discerning and vigilant. It is also interesting that the recent “revelations” are closely following the myth and agenda around the UFO subject that has existed in the culture since at least the mid-1990s, with antecedents from long before that.
We are fully capable of studying UFOs ourselves with no help or encouragement from the authorities. In fact, the very nature of the phenomenon is so antithetical to a top-down approach that we should actively democratize the process in order to throw the widest possible net at the issue and increase understanding of both UFOs and more importantly, our methods of experiencing, reporting, remembering, and studying its effects. There are many wise and creative individuals who have already made distinct and important contributions, but their work is not often reducible to simple sound bites. Anyone with an internet connection or a library card can access these lines of inquiry for themselves and perhaps contribute in their own way to further understanding. Finally, we should abandon the idea that there is a single “answer” to the enigma, as any goal-oriented quest seems to be doomed by the ambivalent character of the subject under study.
Last December, UFO enthusiasts around the world received quite a Christmas present: the apparent confirmation of a secretive Pentagon UFO program served up before the public by one of the most venerable American newspapers, the New York Times.
Details about the program remain somewhat scant, the man formerly in charge of the study group, Luis Elizondo, said shortly after the release that, “In my opinion, if this was a court of law, we have reached the point of ‘beyond reasonable doubt.’”
“I hate to use the term UFO,” Elizondo told the Telegraph. “But that’s what we’re looking at. I think it’s pretty clear this is not us, and it’s not anyone else, so no one has to ask questions where they’re from.”
Elizondo’s claims, which were thoroughly vetted by the NYT, were accompanied by a pair of videos purporting to show unidentified objects that were observed and filmed by the U.S. government. These videos were released and highly publicized by former Blink 182 guitarist Tom DeLonge’s To The Stars Acadamy (TTSA), of which Elizondo is a member.
Elizondo’s involvement in relation to UFO studies, while highly publicized following the NYT piece in December, was actually first announced back in October of last year, coinciding with a public statement that was live-streamed online by DeLonge with the formal launch of the TTSA. According to the group’s website, “For nearly the last decade, Luis also ran a sensitive aerospace threat identification program focusing on unidentified aerial technologies.” In other words, Elizondo’s involvement with the former Pentagon UFO project had already been disclosed well in advance of the NYT article.
Despite the vetting of the journalists like Leslie Kean and the NYT staff, now the government UFO footage released by TTSA has fallen under the critical eye of online skeptics, some of whom call into question the veracity of the videos, and the identity of the objects they showcase.
While some online have made the claim that one of the earlier photos released by TTSA is little more than a party balloon, the primary argument deals with one of two pieces of footage released coinciding with the December NYT article. According to Mick West, administrator for the skeptic website Metabunk.org, the footage alleged to be a UFO in what is popularly referred to as the “GIMBAL” footage is probably just a plane (note: this is not to be confused with a second video, featuring an object that has been likened to a bus-sized craft shaped like a “giant tic-tac”).
Posting at the Metabunk online forum, West wrote, “I’m thinking the black shape around the object is some kind of IR flare/glare. We know that the shape of a very bright IR source, like the engine of a plane, can be much bigger than the object itself.”
“If people try to describe this as some kind of ‘aura’ or ‘field’,” West wrote, discussing a halo-like haze that appears around the object in one of the Pentagon videos, “then they obviously have not done their homework.”
Admittedly, the nearly featureless objects shown in the Pentagon footage obtained by Elizondo leaves a lot to the imagination. However, there may be problems with the “it’s probably just a plane” argument. While West should be commended for attempting to narrow down what the object in the footage might have been, any conventional aircraft that had been operating nearby at the time of filming would presumably have had a transponder, making it easily identifiable; also, radar systems would likely have had little trouble detecting such an aircraft. Hence, it seems logical to presume that if the object in the video had displayed these conventional characteristics, it would not have been of interest to the pilots who were filming it (who initially described it as resembling a drone) in the first place.
While some estimates held that the object in the GIMBAL video had been as much as 120 miles away, according to an update on the Metabunk thread that appeared on December 24th, “Preliminary analysis of the angular motion of the clouds suggests that it’s a smaller object around 15 miles away.” Even at the longer distance, the object might have been able to be tracked on radar; while 100 miles is generally considered the “useful range” for most radar involving airplane traffic, if an object were as much as 150 miles away, it could still be tracked if it were flying at a minimum altitude of 15,000 feet (to account for potential obstruction by the curvature of the Earth itself at this distance). For more on this, see the table linked below for calculating minimum altitude and distance for radar.
There are other considerations as far as radar goes, but generally speaking, we can probably conclude based on the analysis provided by West and others that the “mystery object” was well within 120 miles at the time it was being filmed, and possibly as close as 15 miles away. It stands to reason that if this was a conventional object (i.e. a passenger plane), that it should have been fairly easily determinable at the time the footage was made.
One of the problems with the footage, of course, is that there is little to go off of. While there is a fair amount of technical data that can be ascertained from the GIMBAL footage, further details about the location, and other circumstances that might offer context, are not readily available. Hence, much is left open to interpretation, and arguments arise in the midst of ambiguity.
At the end of the day, the footage is still intriguing, even if the circumstances prevent it from being truly compelling. While we cannot fully discern what the object is in the video at this time, it is a bold leap in judgment to decry it as a hoax (which, we should note, Mick West has never said, instead merely pointing out that he believes that the object is a plane). Further answers about the Pentagon’s program are beholden somewhat to pending FOIA requests; for now, we can only anticipate whether additional information will be forthcoming–either from the Pentagon, or the DeLonge-Elizondo camp–and whether it will be any more conclusive than the last batch.
Mysterious black square-shaped object appears in the sky over Waterford, New Jersey
Mysterious black square-shaped object appears in the sky over Waterford, New Jersey
A Waterford witness was on his rear deck when he spotted a very strange black square-shaped object in the sky during sunset on January 20, 2018.
He said that he never saw anything like this in 60 years of outdoorsmanship.
The witness who captured several images of the strange object with his Cannon Digital 7-140 lens wonders whether it could be a military craft or not. Mufon case 89729.
Could this object with diamond shape on edge have been a cloaked secret military craft or is it just a rare natural phenomenon?
In a sci-fi feeling first, engineers at the University of Bristol used the world’s most powerful acoustic tractor beam to demonstrate that it’s possible to stably contain objects larger than the wavelength of sound. In other words, they were able to levitate objects notably larger than what’s ever been possible before; a feat that theoretically opens up the potential of one day levitating humans.
Acoustic tractor beams use sound, or more specifically soundwaves, to hold particles in mid-air. While magnetic levitation also exists, acoustic levitation tends to work better for handling liquids and solids. It was previously believed that acoustic tractor beams were limited to levitating relatively small objects; only those approximately the same size as a wavelength of the sound. In fact, it was believed to be fundamentally impossible to levitate larger objects without losing stability, causing them to spin uncontrollably.
The concept of an acoustic tractor beam levitating a spherical object. Image Credit: University of Bristol
The study, to be published this week in Physical Review Letters, describes the new technique, which creates a tornado-like structure that is extremely loud but has a silent core. The researchers found that when they changed the direction of the rapidly fluctuating acoustic vortices that make up this structure, they could control the rate of rotation and stabilize the tractor beam. Once the beam was stabilized, the team could increase the size of the silent core at the center of this “sound tornado”, which allowed it to hold larger objects.
Dr. Asier Marzo, the lead author on the paper from Bristol’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, said that “Acoustic researchers had been frustrated by the size limit for years, so its satisfying to find a way to overcome it.”
Levitating Humans
In the demonstration detailed in the study, the engineers used ultrasonic waves at a pitch of 40kHz to make up the acoustic vortices. The structure’s silent core was able to hold a two-centimeter sphere made out of a synthetic polymer. The sphere is more than two times the size of the acoustic wavelengths, making it the largest object that’s been stably held in a tractor beam thus far.
While it might look and feel a bit like magic, the team believes harnessing the technique could have many practical applications. Bruce Drinkwater, Professor of Ultrasonics from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, who supervised the work, said he’s “particularly excited by the idea of contactless production lines where delicate objects are assembled without touching them.”
Marzo concurred, “I think it opens the door to many new applications.” Some of which might include creating medical devices, like drug capsules or micro-surgical implements.
For those who are wondering about the possibility of levitating something — or perhaps, someone — a great deal larger than a two-centimeter sphere, Dr. Mihai Caleap, a Senior Research Associate who developed the simulations, added that “In the future, with more acoustic power, it will be possible to hold even larger objects. This was only thought to be possible using lower pitches making the experiment audible and dangerous for humans.”
Of course, Dr. Caleap isn’t saying that the simulations are proof humans could be levitated with the existing technology. What the study does show is that high pitches (far above what humans can hear) can successfully be used in acoustic tractor beamsand objects larger than a sound wavelength can be stably levitated. Working with higher pitches, larger objects, and more stability, the only way for the research to go from here is up.
Viruses can be found just about everywhere on Earth; they’re the most common biological entities on the planet, and are thought to have played an important role in the emergence of life.
And, scientists now say they may be the key to finding life elsewhere in the universe, too.
In a new study, researchers argue that space-faring efforts should consider the possibility that viruses may be thriving in places beyond Earth, from the hidden oceans of Europa and Enceladus to ancient deposits on Mars.
Viruses can be found just about everywhere on Earth; they’re the most common biological entities on the planet, and are thought to have played an important role in the emergence of life. And, scientists now say they may be the key to finding life elsewhere in the universe, too
‘More than a century has passed since the discovery of the first viruses,’ says Portland State University biology professor, Ken Stedman.
‘Entering the second century of virology, we can finally start focusing beyond our own planet.’
In the new paper, the researchers detail the case for ‘astrovirology,’ which would combine virus research with astrobiology to detect biosignatures and understand how viruses may spread in space.
As the search for alien life continues, it’s tiny organisms that are often the point of focus.
And on Earth, there are 10-100 times more viruses than any other cellular organism.
Given their abundance and their possible role in evolution, the experts say viruses may be an important sign of life on other planets and moons as well.
‘Viruses arguably have coexisted with cellular life-forms since the earliest stages of life, may have been directly involved therein, and have profoundly influenced cellular evolution,’ the authors explain.
In a new study, researchers argue that space-faring efforts should consider the possibility that viruses may be thriving in places beyond Earth, from the hidden oceans of Europa and Enceladus to ancient deposits on Mars. Stock image of influenza viruses
‘Viruses are the only entities on modern Earth to use either RNA or DNA in both single- and double-stranded forms for their genetic material and thus may provide a model for the putative RNA-protein world.’
The researchers urge NASA and other space agencies to look for viruses as they move forward with their investigations of alien worlds.
Certain locations, including liquid on Saturn and Jupiter’s moons or sediment deposits on Mars, may be among the best places to find them.
NASA STUDIES 'BUGS' IN SPACE
Scientists believe that bacteria such as E. coli may experience stress in microgravity.
This stress triggers defense systems in the bacteria, making it harder for antibiotics to work against them.
Scientists on the International Space Station have been studying how bacteria and viruses behave in space. Stock image
Bacteria on Earth do something similar by developing a natural resistance to traditional antibiotic treatments.
In recent research on the International Space Station, scientists compared two of E. coli: one with a naturally occurring gene that helps it resist antibiotics, the other without.
In the recent past, the space agency has also studied various forms of herpes, including:
Epstein Barr virus: Also known as human herpesvirus 4, is a member of the herpes virus family and is spread bodily fluids, mainly saliva.
Varicella zoster: Known to infect humans and vertebrates. It only affects humans, and commonly causes chickenpox in children, teens and young adults
Cytomegalovirus: It spreads from person to person through body fluids, such as blood, saliva, urine, semen and breast milk.
Herpes simplex viruses: Can cause genital herpes, but most cases of genital herpes are caused by herpes type 2. In HSV-2, the infected person may have sores around the genitals or rectum.
As yet, there remains much to be learned about the possibility of viruses in space.
‘With this paper, we hope to inspire integration of virus research into astrobiology and also point out pressing unanswered questions in astrovirology, particularly regarding the detection of virus biosignatures and whether viruses could be spread extraterrestrially,’ Stedman said.
While the thought of alien viruses might sound alarming, the researcher insists it likely would not be the nightmarish scenario it seems.
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Flight passengers stunned as 'mystery lights' seen near UFO hot spot Area 51
Flight passengers stunned as 'mystery lights' seen near UFO hot spot Area 51
PASSENGERS flying over the Area 51 military base in Nevada were left stunned after seeing flashing lights piercing through the clouds in mysterious footage of the alien conspiracy hotspot posted on YouTube.
Saw this 30 minutes before we landed. My guess was we were near Area 51.
UFO witness
Many conspiracy theorists believe it is where the Government hides away evidence of alien visitations.
Many more sceptical people believe Area 51 is so top-secret, because it is where the USAF designed and tests experimental new spy planes and air craft.
However, the US Government did not even admit the base existed until 2013, in a series of documents released as part of a Freedom of Information request, and it is heavily protected by armed guards.
The woman said in the video: “Saw this 30 minutes before we landed. My guess was we were near Area 51.
“The lights grabbed the attention of everyone onboard. It was fairly cloudy and these lights would pierce the clouds even when we were in them deeply.
She also said in the video: "I figured a reflection from solar panels at first."
There is a solar panel plant near Area 51, and reflections from the panel snapped from the sky, have previously triggered reports of UFOs.
The Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project is a 110 megawatt (MW) net solar thermal power project located near Tonopah, about 190 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
Scott Brando is a UFO debunker who runs website Ufoofinterest.org.
He tweeted: "Strange lights #UFO spotted above #Area51? There's a possible explanation: a solar farm with reflections from individual panels."
The huge 26 feet across burning pit was filmed by shocked onlookers as a thick mist rose into the air by the Torreón to Saltillo highway in the state of Coahuila in north east Mexico.
It was said to be as deep as it was wide and, according to reports, no evidence has been found as to what caused it.
Online theories have ranged from a crashed spaceship or a meteor falling to Earth.
It happened on January 17 and the video was uploaded to YouTube the next day, before racking up tens of thousands of views, Dailystar.co.uk reports.
One YouTube poster said: "Looks like a UFO landed and took off before anyone could see, leaving a crater.”
Another viewer said: “It’s a burning hole. Does not look like an impact to the earth as there is no debris.”
It is not the first mystery burning hole to have been found in Mexico.
YouTube
SMOKE HOLE: Onlookers were baffled by the mystery burning crater.
Meteors regularly bombard the Earth, but most break up in the atmosphere or land in the sea rather than leaving an impact crater.
Those that do break up will sometimes leave fragments on the ground, which people are keen to collect.
Last Tuesday, a bright meteor briefly swept across the sky over parts of the US Midwest and Canada which caused a powerful explosion rattling homes and astonishing onlookers.
The official explanation from experts such as NASA was that a meteor had entered Earth’s atmosphere and burnt up upon arrival.
Bizarre Unseen Footage of Meteor in China Skies..(2017)
Just after Christmas in the Urals region of Russia, night was briefly turned to day after a meteor is believed to have exploded in the atmosphere.
Russia has seen one of the worst meteor incidents in recent years.
In February 2013, an unknown 19-metre meteor came from nowhere to explode in the sky above Chelyabinsk, Russia, with the force of 500,000 tonnes of TNT.
And the energy released shattered glass on hundreds of buildings and more than 1,000 people were injured as a result.
Let’s face it. Ever since artificial intelligence was first dreamed up, humans have been afraid of the day that our AI overlords take over. But some researchers have been testing the ability of artificial intelligence to not just compete with humanity, but also to collaborate.
In a study published on Thursday in Nature Communications a team of BYU computer science professors, Jacob Crandall and Michael Goodrich, along with colleagues at MIT and other universities, created an algorithm to teach machines cooperation and compromise.
The researchers programmed the machines with an algorithm called S# and ran them through a number of games with different partners — machine-machine, human-machine, and human-human — to test which pairing would result in the most compromises. Machines (or at least the ones programmed with S#), it turns out, are much better at compromise than humans.
But this might say more about “human failings”, lead researcher Jacob Crandall tells Inverse. “Our human participants had a tendency to be disloyal — they would defect in the midst of a cooperative relationship— and dishonest — about half of our participants chose to not follow through on their proposals — at some point in the interaction.”
I look like I'm trustworthy, don't I?
Machines that had been programmed to value honesty, on the other, were honest. “This particular algorithm is learning that moral characteristics are good. It’s programmed to not lie, and it also learns to maintain cooperation once it emerges,” says Crandall.
Additionally, the research found that certain cooperation strategies were more effective than others. One of these was “cheap talk”, simple verbal signals that respond to a given situation, like “Sweet. We are getting rich!” or “I accept your last proposal.” or, to express displeasure, “Curse you!” “You will pay for that!” or even “In your face!”
Regardless of what type of game was being played or who was playing, cheap talk doubled the amount of cooperation. It also humanized the machines, with human players often unable to tell if they were interacting with a machine or human.
Because the focus of this research was on the testing the S# algorithm, one shortcoming of the research is that it does not take into account cultural differences among humans that might affect how different human populations might use or interpret strategies like cheap talk, or how much human players might engage in deception or disloyalty.
Presciently, in the final short story of Isaac Asimov’s famous book 1950 book I, Robot — “The Evitable Conflict” — AI overlords do in fact, take over the planet. But, because they’re so reasonable, and programmed with some unbreakable ethical rules, it’s a good thing for the human race. And, as this study shows, because human interactions are messy and complicated, maybe, we can trust machines. Assuming of course, if they have been programmed for honesty.
Abstract:
Since Alan Turing envisioned artificial intelligence, technical progress has often been measured by the ability to defeat humans in zero-sum encounters (e.g., Chess, Poker, or Go). Less attention has been given to scenarios in which human–machine cooperation is beneficial but non-trivial, such as scenarios in which human and machine preferences are neither fully aligned nor fully in conflict. Cooperation does not require sheer computational power, but instead is facilitated by intuition, cultural norms, emotions, signals, and pre-evolved dispositions. Here, we develop an algorithm that combines a state-of-the-art reinforcement-learning algorithm with mechanisms for signaling. We show that this algorithm can cooperate with people and other algorithms at levels that rival human cooperation in a variety of two-player repeated stochastic games. These results indicate that general human–machine cooperation is achievable using a non-trivial, but ultimately simple, set of algorithmic mechanisms.
Tractor beams, not too long ago a staple of science fiction, have made the jump into reality. Previously, scientists used acoustic waves to make objects magically levitate — but only if these were very small. Now, a new breakthrough reported by British researchers opens the door for levitating much bigger objects, perhaps even humans one day.
Researchers create a sonic tractor beam with loudspeakers
Fooling gravity
There are a couple of ways to trap objects mid-air, essentially making them levitate. Maglev trains, for instance, literally float on train tracks thanks to powerful electromagnets. There also optic methods (lasers) and even thermal levitation that exploits a temperature difference to lift particles. However, scientists have found that using acoustic waves is more appealing since you can grab non-metals, be they liquid or solid — and the result can be quite breathtaking.
Credit: Youtube / Smarter Every Day.
The way acoustic levitation works is by blasting ultrasound waves from a transducer, which bounce off a reflector. The interaction between the bounced-off compressions creates a standing wave which shifts back and forth or vibrates in segments rather than traveling from place to place. Essentially, the standing wave cancels gravity and the object between the transducer and reflector appears to float.
Credit: Sonic Levitation.
The problem with acoustic levitation is that previous research had always found that the size of the object was limited to the size of the wavelength of sound used. But now University of Bristol researchers may have a way to overcome this limitation.
“Acoustic researchers had been frustrated by the size limit for years, so it’s satisfying to find a way to overcome it. I think it opens the door to many new applications,” Asier Marzo from Bristol’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, said in a statement.
Previously, when scientists tried to acoustically levitate larger objects, these became unstable and spun uncontrollably, instead of floating, until they ultimately were ejected like debris in a tornado. By lowering the frequency of the acoustic wave to audible ranges (below 20kHz), it’s possible to levitate larger objects since the wavelength increases. However, this can also become dangerous for humans whose ears would now be exposed to the lower pitches.
Writing in the Physical Review Letters, the researchers showed how rapidly fluctuating acoustic vortices – or ‘tornados of sound’ – can be controlled by changing the twisting direction of the vortices, thus stabilizing the tractor beam. Using this approach, the team fired ultrasonic waves at a pitch of 40kHz, allowing the tractor beam to suspend a 2cm polystyrene sphere in mid-air. That might not sound like a lot, but this is now the largest object ever levitated.
Besides being incredibly cool, applications include touchless control of drug capsules or micro-surgical implements inside the human body. Touchless control is particularly exciting since it means that now fragile objects can be assembled without touching them. What’s more, the researchers say they can use this method to levitate even larger objects, perhaps even humans.
“In the future, with more acoustic power it will be possible to hold even larger objects,” said senior research associate Mihai Caleap.
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'Unusual Circumstances' Delay Pentagon UFO Program FOIAs
'Unusual Circumstances' Delay Pentagon UFO Program FOIAs
The Defense Intelligence Agency has begun responding to FOIA requests regarding the explosive Pentagon UFO revelations from this past December.
As one can imagine, the bombshell New York Times article and subsequent media fallout spawned incredible interest from the UFO community.
Almost as soon as the news hit, a number of diligent researchers quickly went to work filing FOIA requests to find out more about this newly-revealed and tantalizing twist in the tale of UFOs.
Among them was Jack Brewer of the blog UFO Trail, who published his recently-received response from the DIA over the weekend.
In what appears to be a form letter, the department tells Brewer that they cannot produce the information he requested within the required 20 days due to, in their words, "unusual circumstances."
Among the possible issues which may warrant that designation, they explain, are that the files could be housed at a geographically distant location or the amount of material may be too massive to produce immediately.
The third reason cited by the agency and perhaps the most worrisome is that the request might require them to consult with "one or more other agencies" that would likely have a say in what gets released.
Their response closes by telling Brewer that his submission will be processed in the order it was received and that their current workload is "in excess of 1,139 requests."
While it bears noting that this voluminous number of FOIA cases are for the DIA, in general, and not specifically pertaining to the AATIPS, it seems reasonable to conclude that the agency has received quite a few requests about the program since the news broke last month.
And, considering the glacial pace with which such requests are handled, it stands to reason that it will be at least a year, if not more, before Brewer's paperwork winds up on the desk of someone who can do something about it.
WETENSCHAP & PLANEETIsraëlische onderzoekers zijn erin geslaagd om een van de laatste fragmenten van de Dode Zeerollen te ontcijferen. Het voorbije jaar puzzelden de wetenschappers zestig kleine fragmentjes bij elkaar en konden ze de naam van een festival identificeren dat de kering van de seizoenen aanduidt.
De 900 rollen werden tussen 1947 en 1956 ontdekt in grotten in Qumran, de ruïnes van een dorpje op de Westelijke Jordaanoever binnen de Palestijnse Gebieden. Een jonge bedoeïenenherder die op zoek was naar verloren schapen zou de eerste ontdekking gedaan hebben.
De rollen, die vermoedelijk tussen 335 voor Christus en 82 na Christus werden opgesteld, worden beschouwd als de oudst gekende versie van de Bijbel. Wie de auteurs van de oude schriften zijn, is niet met zekerheid geweten, al wijzen verscheidene wetenschappers in de richting van de Essenen, een dissidente ascetische woestijnsekte die zich terugtrok in Qumran en de omliggende omgeving om te ontsnappen aan vervolging door de overheid.
AFP
Dr. Eshbal Ratson en professor Jonathan Ben-Dov van de universiteit van Haifa puzzelden de verschillende fragmentjes van de rol bij elkaar. Eerder onderzoek had uitgewezen dat deze fragmenten deel uitmaakten van zes verschillende rollen, waardoor het moeilijk werd om ze in de juiste volgorde samen te stellen.
Ze waren geschreven in een codetaal en sommige stukjes perkament waren kleiner dan één vierkante centimeter. De codetaal had echter niet tot doel om informatie te verbergen. “Het was de gewoonte om te tonen dat de auteur de code kende, terwijl anderen dat niet deden,” aldus de onderzoekers.
De historische documenten handelen over feestdagen die gevierd werden door de oude joodse sekte, die volgens een unieke kalender van 364 dagen volgde. De vermelde feestdagen zijn ‘Nieuwe Tarwe’, ‘Nieuwe Wijn’ en ‘Nieuwe Olie’, die verband houden met het joodse festival Shavuot.
De onderzoekers ontdekten ook dat de sekte het woord ‘Tekufah’, wat in het moderne Hebreeuws “periode” betekent, gebruikte om vier keer per jaar de overgang tussen de seizoenen aan te duiden.
AFP
Tijdens het bestuderen van de rollen ontdekten de onderzoekers dat er notities gemaakt waren in de marges die weglatingen van de oorspronkelijke auteur verbeterden. “Wat fijn is aan deze commentaren is dat het hints waren die me hielpen om de puzzel te leggen. Ze toonden me hoe de rol moest samengesteld worden,” vertelde dr. Ratzon aan de krant Haaretz.
Momenteel is er nog één Dode Zeerol die ontcijferd dient te worden.
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OP VERSCHILLENDE PLAATSEN DACHT MEN DAT EEN BUITENAARDSE INVASIE WAS BEGONNEN ( VIDEO )
OP VERSCHILLENDE PLAATSEN DACHT MEN DAT EEN BUITENAARDSE INVASIE WAS BEGONNEN ( VIDEO )
Met alle vreemde verschijnselen die zich de afgelopen weken voordeden in ons luchtruim is het niet zo vreemd dat men gaat denken aan een buitenaardse invasie.
Dit was met name het geval op het eiland Kreta en Thailand, waar bewoners vol verbazing naar de lucht keken.
Dat er iets bijzonders gaande is aan ons firmament, daar lijkt weinig twijfel over te bestaan. De meest voorkomende theorie is dat er zich een soort ruimteoorlog aan het ontwikkelen is, waarbij ook de aarde is betrokken.
Op 11 januari 2018 werden onderstaande foto's gemaakt in de plaats Rethimmon op het eiland Kreta. Uiteraard is de officiële lezing altijd dat het een bijzondere wolk is, maar inwoners die deze UFO wolk zagen dachten daar wel anders over.
In de loop der jaren hebben we talloze voorbeelden gezien hoe grote moederschepen zich vermommen in dit soort wolken en dat dit dan soms duidelijk wordt doordat er kleiner UFO's uit verschijnen. Wij mensen zijn vaak gewend niet verder te kijken dan onze neus lang is en wanneer wij een wolk zien, dan geloven wij dat dat precies is wat het lijkt. En van dat feit schijnen buitenaardsen graag gebruik te maken om hun grote moederschepen voor ons verborgen te houden.
Hoe dit werkt in de praktijk zie je bijvoorbeeld op de volgende foto die is genomen in België in augustus 2016 waarop je de kleinere UFO's kunt zien die het moederschip in de wolk hebben verlaten.
Op 14 januari 2018 werden de volgende foto's gemaakt in Thailand, waar ook uiteraard de verklaring voor kwam dat het een volkomen natuurlijk fenomeen zou zijn.
De wolken in Thailand zagen er als volgt uit:
Om aan te tonen dat het wel degelijk mogelijk is dat dit soort wolken moederschepen verbergen, een deel uit een eerder artikel:
Het antwoord lijkt te zien in de volgende video die is gemaakt in de Atacama woestijn in de buurt van de Chileense stad Calama.
Twee mijnarbeiders rijden in een auto en zien vreemde wolkformaties in de lucht. Eén van hen pakt zijn mobiele telefoon en begint te filmen.
Dan plotseling komt er uit deze wolk of wellicht moederschip een bij ons welbekende oranje-achtige bol tevoorschijn.
In de onderstaande video kun je duidelijk zien hoe deze bol tevoorschijn komt uit de wolk en vervolgens wegvliegt.
Hebben we hier te maken met een zogenaamd cloaked moederschip dat zich verborgen houdt in deze kunstmatig aandoende wolken en die de bollen als een soort verkenners op pad stuurt?
Het heeft er alle schijn van en daarmee is deze opname misschien wel het eerste stukje bewijs dat we in handen hebben wat laat zien waar deze oranje bollen vandaan komen.
Uiteraard ontstaan er dan altijd weer discussies of deze opname wel of niet echt is. Tot nu is er, voor zover ons bekend, geen informatie over dat de opname niet echt zou zijn.
Our Universe Could Be Littered With Alien Viruses—and We Should Be Looking for Them
Our Universe Could Be Littered With Alien Viruses—and We Should Be Looking for Them
Astrobiologists from the United States and Japan admitted that viruses should exist on other planets of the solar system and exoplanets, writes Gizmodo. The article is published in the journal Astrobiology.
It’s generally agreed that some kind of microbe will be the first form of life we discover on another planet, moon, or other space rock. But hardly anyone thinks we’ll find an alien virus, which is weird, given how prolific and successful these biological entities are on Earth. A new study seeks to correct this oversight, calling for an entirely new discipline known as “astrovirology.”
Viruses exist in massive numbers on Earth, and they date back to the very beginnings of life. More viruses exist on our planet than any other cellular organism—upwards of about 10 to 100 times more—so it’s a reasonable bet that viruses exist on other worlds. Yet scientists know surprisingly little about these “bags of genes” and how they work, with even less attention paid to the possibility of viruses existing elsewhere in the solar system and beyond. Problematically, NASA’s 2015 Astrobiology Strategy makes scarce mention of viruses, focusing primarily on the search for fully cellular alien microorganisms.
Artist’s depiction of the surface of TRAPPIST-1f, a recently discovered Earth-like planet in the TRAPPIST-1 system.
(Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
A new paper, now published in the science journal Astrobiology and led by Portland State University scientist Kenneth Stedman, argues that this is a missed opportunity, and that astrobiologists should explore the possibility that viruses exist en masse throughout the universe. To that end, Stedman proposes the field of “astrovirology,” and asks that scientists start developing strategies and tools required to detect viruses off-planet. He said his proposal isn’t about subdividing the field of astrobiology even further, but more of an attempt to integrate viruses into “mainstream” astrobiology.
Many of you are probably wondering how viruses are distinguished from other forms of microbial life, and why there’s even a need to distinguish between the two. Scientists struggle with this very question.
“Virus definitions are somewhat problematic,” Stedman told Gizmodo. “My favorite is the one we cited in the manuscript: ‘Viruses are entities whose genomes are elements of nucleic acid that replicate inside living cells using the cellular synthetic machinery and causing the synthesis of specialized elements that can transfer the viral genome to other cells.’”
Stedman admits this isn’t a very “reader friendly” definition, offering this simpler translation: “Viruses can get their genetic information inside cells and reprogram the cells to make more virus.” He calls them “information-transfer agents” capable of carrying the instructions to make more of themselves when in the right conditions. He said it’s true that all viruses need hosts, “but I like to think about ‘hosts’ as a particular environment—like soil and water for a seed— that a virus needs to replicate.”
Stedman should know a thing or two about viruses and the kinds of conditions they need to replicate. Back in 2012, he discovered a completely new group of viruses capable of living in acidic hot lakes (basically boiling acid)—a discovery that demonstrated the extreme conditions under which viruses can evolve, live, and even thrive. In this case, the new viral genome emerged after the combination of DNA and RNA from two apparently unrelated virus groups. So in addition to living in the harshest of environments, viruses can also find ways to continually adapt. Consequently, Stedman thinks they’re likely involved in some major evolutionary transitions on Earth.
“There is also considerable indirect evidence that viruses are incredibly ancient,” said Stedman, “but no direct evidence, so we have been working on virus fossilization/preservation in the fossil record.”
Our Universe Could Be Littered With Alien Viruses—and We Should Be Looking for Them
So the idea that viruses are strewn across the cosmos isn’t a completely outlandish idea. Sure, they’re likely to be different than the ones found on Earth, but they’d be viruses nonetheless. To further the case for astrovirology, Stedman is asking NASA and other space agencies to look for viruses in liquid samples taken from planets and moons in our Solar System (good bets include Enceladus and Europa), develop tools to find viruses in ancient deposits on Earth and Mars, and to figure out if viruses could survive in space.
“We need to further develop current tools, either put [an electron microscope] on a spacecraft or develop other microscopic technologies that can detect molecules, not just atoms at nanometer resolution,” he said.
Should we discover viruses living elsewhere in the Solar System, Stedman said there’s no reason to panic, and that viruses will likely be the first sign of life that NASA will likely find on other planets and moons.
“Viruses have a bad rap. If we find viruses on other planets it is an indication of life, not something to be scared of,” he said. “Viruses rock!”
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THE MOST SHOCKING EVIDENCE THAT EARTH WAS VISITED BY ANCIENT ALIENS
THE MOST SHOCKING EVIDENCE THAT EARTH WAS VISITED BY ANCIENT ALIENS
The very words give me the chills: ancient aliens. In the early 1970s, when Erich von Däniken first released Chariots of the Gods, he called them “ancient astronauts”—a name that’s equally creepy. The Apollo missions were still going on, and the image of astronauts was fresh in everyone’s minds. Could ancient alien beings have arrived on Earth in the distant past? Would they have worn spacesuits, like our own astronauts?
If they truly visited our planet in millennia past: why were they here? What did the aliens do while they were on Earth?
Researchers have spent a lot of time looking into the question of whether we were visited so many millennia ago. The popular television show Ancient Aliens, although well-intentioned, has muddied the water in their search of show material—did we really need an episode asking whether aliens interfered with the American Civil War? (C’mon, guys. You’re off the reservation.)
Although we may not be ever know for sure that we had extraterrestrial visitors thousands of years in the past, perhaps if they did come, they might have left us modern people some clues. Let’s take a look at some of the most clear—and startling—evidence for the existence of ancient aliens on Earth.
ANCIENT ALIENS VISIT THE DOGON TRIBE?
African Tribe Possessed Knowledge Science Had Yet to Discover
This African tribe (whose name is pronounced “DOE-gone”) has known all sorts of specifics about the star Sirius for thousands of years, passed down from holy man to holy man. We’re talking details here, like how Sirius has a companion star (“Sirius B”), and that it circles the main star (“Sirius A”) every 50 years. Here’s the thing: it is absolutely true—but modern scientists didn’t know these things about Sirius until the middle of the 19th century. The Dogon knew a thousand years ago. Heck, the Dogon also knew that Sirius has a second companion star, and scientists didn’t discover it (“Sirius C”) until the 1990s.
How did the Dogon get this scientific information about Sirius B? If you ask them, they’ll tell you that the tribe was visited by the Nommos, an amphibian-like race that came from the Sirius star system in a noisy “ark” that spun and whipped up wind while it landed. It was the Nommos, a race of ancient aliens, who told the Dogon about their homeworld and its star cluster.
Knee-jerk skeptics like to invent reasons why all this can’t be true. Westerners must have stopped by and told them about Sirius, one denier said. There’s no way, though: the Dogon have artifacts that are thousands of years old, depicting Sirius and its companions. No one should have known this stuff that long ago, but the Dogon did.
This short video does a good job explaining the ancient Dogon knowledge. (I have no idea why the narrator pronounces Sirius as “SIGH-ree-us”, but we can give him a pass on that.)
THE PROPHET EZEKIEL DESCRIBES HIS ENCOUNTER WITH ANCIENT UFOS—IN THE BIBLE
Holy Scriptures Contain Account of Alien Contact?
Ask Erich von Däniken, the guy who pioneered the search for ancient aliens, and he’ll tell you his favorite evidence is in the Old Testament. It’s the story of Ezekiel and his bizarre encounter with UFOs.
Ezekiel was a prophet living in exile with the rest of the Hebrews in the land they called Babylon. Being a prophet was a highfalutin job back then, but Ezekiel’s life got even stranger—stranger than just being a guy who received special messages from the creator of the universe.
The prophet Ezekiel encounters a UFO and aliens 2,500 years ago
I looked, and I saw a windstorm coming out of the north—an immense cloud with flashing lightning and surrounded by brilliant light. The center of the fire looked like glowing metal, and in the fire was what looked like four living creatures. In appearance their form was human, but each of them had four faces and four wings.
Ezekiel 1:1-6
Some people read this and think: the dude was taking drugs. Others (knee-jerk skeptics) say: oh, it’s just more Biblical mumbo-jumbo. Devout people may say that Ezekiel saw angels.
Maybe.
What if this was Ezekiel actually saw something, and he didn’t know what it was, or how to explain it? If he actually encountered ancient aliens, how would he describe them? We think he’d probably describe them just like he did.
Next Ezekiel describes the machine that the being had arrived in, the machine that landed in a rush of wind.
Ezekiel confronts the great wheels within wheels. Did he meet ancient aliens?
I saw a wheel on the ground beside each creature with its four faces. This was the appearance and structure of the wheels: They sparkled like topaz … each appeared to be made like a wheel intersecting a wheel. As they moved, they would go in any one of the four directions the creatures faced; the wheels did not change direction as the creatures went.
Ezekiel 1:15-19
Doesn’t that sound like a spacecraft to you? Why would a man living 500 years B.C. write a description that sounds so much like the landing and maneuvering of an alien ship? Surely this was not just random. Remember: Ezekiel was devoutly religious, and he would interpret amazing events as signs from God. If beings appeared, he would assume they were angels. But perhaps they were ancient aliens.
What about their technology? Ezekiel’s description was of an alien craft with advanced maneuverability.
This story of the machine that had wheels-within-wheels impressed NASA engineer Joe Blumrich a lot. A wheel that could move in any direction without having to turn—that sounded like something a planetary exploration vehicle could use. He went on to invent a wheel based on Ezekiel’s description, and called it the “omni wheel.” Joe received a US patent for it in 1972. Today, omni wheels are routinely used in robot vehicles. Blumrich also wrote a popular book, The Spaceships of Ezekiel, in which he explained that after starting out intending to disprove the idea, he’d become convinced that Ezekiel truly had been writing about an encounter with ancient aliens.
“THOSE WHO CAME FROM THE SKIES TO THE EARTH”
World’s Oldest Civilization Leaves Record of Alien Contact
The ancient Sumerians lived 5,000 years ago in what’s now the country of Iraq. They left behind humankind’s first writings, books older than the Bible and the Hindu Vedas.
The Sumerians wrote a lot about the Anunnaki, whose name means “those who came from the skies to Earth”. Modern scholars have assumed that the stories of the Annunaki were just myths about Sumerian gods—but the stories themselves sound more like tales of ancient aliens.
In the writings, the Annunaki came to Earth from a lost planet in our solar system—one with such a wide orbit that it rarely approaches us. They called the planet Nibiru.
The leaders of the ancient aliens were named Enki and Enlil. They were here for gold, a mineral they needed but did not have enough of. Mines were set up there in Sumer, but also in Africa as well. Vusamazulu Credo Mutwa, a Zulu elder and author of Zulu Shaman: Dreams, Prophecies, and Mysteries, says that ancient tribal traditions speak of “visitors from the stars” who mined for gold.
After mining for some time, the Anunnaki realized that the local humanoids—Homo Erectus, our ancestors—might make useful slaves if they could make them smarter. After improving the proto-humans, presumably with DNA modification, they managed to create a hybrid race: part Anunnaki, part early human. These new beings, called the Adamu, were the first real humans. They were also the new slaves who would work in the gold mines.
Ancient Sumerian cylindrical seal shows an accurate map of our solar system
Our hybrid ancestors didn’t stand for this situation for long, though, probably because these newly created beings were far too smart. Who wants to be a slave? They eventually rose up and rebelled, and eventually, a new Adamu society formed, one which maintained an uneasy truce with the Anunnaki.
The Sumerians recorded this history after first inventing writing. They also made engravings and art of the Anunnaki along with knowledge they had received from them—for instance, an ancient Sumerian seal depicts the Sumerian “gods” along with an accurate representation of our solar system, with 11 planets. The planets have correct proportions (Jupiter is the largest, then Saturn, and so on), and the depiction also includes the asteroid belt. Remember that modern science only discovered Uranus and Neptune in the past 150 years, and that scientists are only now saying that there is gravitational evidence for a “lost” planet with a weird, oblong orbit. Are there truly 11 planets? It may be so.
Sumerian artwork always depicts members of the Anunnaki as having wings. Did they actually have wings? It seems unlikely—many researchers believe the wings are meant to show that the Anunnaki had the ability to fly, as in ships. Other strange and telling things appear in the artwork: the goddess Ishtar’s symbol, which stood for the concept of “life”, bears a striking resemblance to the entwined double helix of DNA. Could that be more than a coincidence?
We’ve been kind of critical of the show Ancient Aliens, but this segment from an early episode explains all this pretty well (below). We also very much like this documentary about the Anunnaki and the planet Nibiru.
ANCIENT ALIENS FIGHT WARS IN THE SKIES OF ANCIENT INDIA
Hindu Holy Books Called The Vedas Describe Alien Encounters
There is strong evidence that ancient aliens visited other places around the Earth. In India, for example, the ancient holy books known as The Vedas tell of a space war between ships and fought in the skies. The descriptions of the ships are remarkable—translated, it is difficult to imagine that they were describing anything except spacecraft.
The Vedas state that “strong and durable must the body of the Vimana be made, like a great flying bird of light material. Inside one must put the mercury engine with its iron heating apparatus underneath. By means of the power latent in the mercury which sets the driving whirlwind in motion, a man sitting inside may travel a great distance in the sky. The movements of the Vimana are such that it can vertically ascend, vertically descend, move slanting forwards and backwards. With the help of the machines human beings can fly in the air and heavenly beings can come down to earth.”
Spacecraft as described in the ancient Hindu holy books called The Vedas
No, that’s not a spacecraft they’re describing. No way.
“Fifty years of researching this ancient works convinces me that there are living beings on other planets and that they visited Earth as far back as 4,000 BC. There is just a mass of fascinating information about flying machines, even fantastic science fiction weapons that can be found in translations of The Vedas, Indian epics and other ancient Sanskrit text.” That’s Dr. Vijaya Raghavan, speaking; he was head of the Sanskrit department of the University of Madras in India (now retired). His job, if it’s not obvious, was to study The Vedas; his conclusion was that they described real events in which aliens came to Earth.
In other parts of The Vedas, we get a description of something that can only be a nuclear explosion.
“Gurkha flying in his swift and powerful Vimana hurled against the three cities of the Vrishis and Andhakas a single projectile charged with all the power of the Universe. An incandescent column of smoke and fire, as brilliant as ten thousands suns, rose in all its splendor. It was the unknown weapon, the Iron Thunderbolt, a gigantic messenger of death which reduced to ashes the entire race of the Vrishnis and Andhakas.”
So what do we make of that? Just ancient imagination that happens to sound exactly like nuclear devastation? Sure, you deniers and skeptics, sure. You’re probably right. It’s ancient nonsense. Right?
Hungry for more?
Check out Google searches about the Nazca lines, and the Mayan king Pakal at the pyramid of Palenque. We could go on; there’s a lot of strange evidence on our Earth that is dismissed far too easily by mainstream science. Because the universe is mundane, and it has to be mundane—that is, if you’re a knee-jerk skeptic addicted to the idea that the universe is mundane.
Now, if you want to see the original film that inspired all this hysteria, it’s below: Chariots of the Gods, from the early 1970s. Yes, sure, it’s cheesy—it’s from the ’70s! But it’s still pretty cool, we think.
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Water: A Basic Building Block Of Life
Water: A Basic Building Block Of Life
It surrounds us through comprising extra than 2/3 of the Earth’s surface place. 70% of our frame weight is from the water. The simplicity of its effortlessly diagnosed symbol H2O, signifying its composition of two hydrogens and one oxygen atom, understates its essential importance to all existence on our planet. Yet it is believed that lots of Earth’s water had extraterrestrial origins; having traveled here via manner of comets and other celestial bodies. Regardless of its source, our planet would be barren without it. Being a primary building block of lifestyles, water is second most effective to our air in sustaining all living things, each animal, and vegetable
The portability of water has made it a common partner to walkers, joggers and thirsty human beings anywhere. We have grown to be conversant in carrying individual water bottles anywhere in recent times, to the factor wherein they have got almost changed the once ubiquitous water fountain or cooler; previously the gathering location for spreading workplace scuttlebutt. They are consumed on the price of 1500 according to 2nd in the U.S. In a try and quench our seemingly insatiable thirst. The reason for this is clean; our bodies crave it.
Water facts
You have probably been advised to drink a mean of eight 8 ounce glasses each and regular. This serves as a guideline and consumption should range in step with your degree of bodily interest and different elements. Of path no longer all our water is ate up in its purified shape, the average American drinks greater than six hundred bottled and canned beverages (frequently carbonated and sweetened tender liquids) every yr. While they will be nice in moderation, they may be no longer a great alternative for the real issue, sorry Coke.
So why is it so vital to us? Well, we could not continue to exist without it for a range of days. When we do not get enough we suffer from dehydration. But that doesn’t give an explanation for why it’s so crucial to the proper functioning of our bodies.
Well, water has numerous specific characteristics. Its capability to dissolve many substances has made it referred to as the normal solvent. In addition to other houses, this helps to cleanse the frame. Osmosis, a method accountable a plant’s roots ability to take in water from the soil, is defined as the movement of a solvent via a semi-permeable membrane. The cellular walls of the human frame are just such a membrane. Osmosis is regulated by using mechanisms within the body to keep the awareness of materials within the mobile at a balanced degree; do away with the water and the cell will soon die.
Water is contained in the lymphatic device which presents our immunity to the invasions of our bodies with the aid of toxins and overseas bodies. When we excrete water it removes a number of those overseas substances and pollutants, helping to keep the general health of the body. Just like the elimination of garbage maintains our environmental health, the frame has its very own device to eliminate its refuse. Water is a big part of that technique.
Other exciting traits of water are brotherly love and adhesion. Cohesion is created with the aid of the attraction of the water molecules because of the hydrogen bonds. When combined with adhesion the resulting capillary movement permits a plant to defy gravity and draw water up during its entire stem, accordingly nourishing each mobile of the plant shape.
Electromagnetic houses additionally play a function inside the features water plays in this captivating procedure. Substances called electrolytes serve to regulate the body’s many inner systems. Among those are sodium, potassium, chloride, and bicarbonate. The amount of water in our bodies is regulated by sodium, which is also vital for the technology of electrical indicators which are the method of communique for our mind and apprehensive system. Potassium regulates heartbeat and muscle function.
More exact facts can be discovered on numerous internet websites so as to offer the reader with a more appreciation for the brilliant structure that is the human body. MedicineNet.Com and eMedicineHealth.Com have supplied a number of the real statistics for this article and will serve as a place to begin your studies.
Our body also makes use of water to cool itself. When we perspire the sweat glands underneath our pores and skin excrete water bringing it to the floor. As the water evaporates it draws warmth from the frame. Without this device of cooling we’d be not able keep a secure frame temperature. Normal frame temperature varies within a narrow variety at some stage in the day, with the common body temperature being about ninety eight.6 stages.
One of the notable things about consuming water is not having to worry about calories; there aren’t any. This might not consist of a number of the new water merchandise being marketed in recent times, you would better take a look at the label. Some of those new merchandise even tout health benefits, claiming to incorporate nutrients and different essential nutrients. Be skeptical and seek advice from your health practitioner or different healthcare professional before allotting the more money for those merchandise. You’ll discover that maximum of the claims made, even though inside Federal recommendations, may be completely meaningless.
Maintaining the deliver of secure easy water is important to the continuing life of all living things. Though we’ve enjoyed a reasonably excessive general of water excellent inside the U.S. There are locations where sources have become too polluted for human consumption. Since 1948 Congress has declared it in the “country wide interest” to guarantee the high first-class of water all through the United States. Through The Clean Water Act of 1972, which remains one of the most debatable laws ever enacted, Congress created and empowered the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to alter the release of pollution into U.S. Waterways.
We have to all continue to be vigilant in protecting our water supply by way of getting to know how and in which to remove contaminants. And file any suspicious dumping of substances into lakes and streams. The task is just too important to depart as much as a central authority forms. And the next time you are feeling thirsty, attain for a tall, cool glass of the satisfactory liquid refreshment on this planet. Water: It’s what your frame wants!
Richard Quindry writes fiction and non-fiction on his internet site. He can be contacted through e-mail at the e-mail address shown below. He accepts unfastened lance assignments and enjoys learning topics of every sort. He is an avid reader of many other Blogs and loves to share thoughts with other writers.
It won’t be new news that what you can’t see for your ingesting water can harm you. But are you aware of the volume of the risks? Depending on where you live, different contaminants have an effect on the water excellent that during turn impacts your family’s health. Water quality requirements are sadly no longer assured by way of federal or kingdom organizations which are charged with overseeing them.
Drinking water filters, as well as whole residence water filtration, is no doubt your great guess for a preserving a healthy family. Bottled water isn’t an awesome alternative because of the rate as well as the pollution troubles resulting from the bottles. And you don’t have any concept where that water got here from. Often it comes right out of municipal water structures…Much like your faucet water!
If you live in a rural area with a properly, the dangers posed by way of agricultural runoff include micro organism from animal manure, heavy metals and chemical substances contained in fertilizers and insecticides. Even in suburban areas, many nicely proprietors face these same issues because of garden care and other gardening products that run off whilst it rains.
For people who stay in urban regions, commercial pollutants has lengthy been set up as a health problem. A high percent of the contaminants from industries which get into the water deliver are not even regulated. Chemicals and heavy metals frequently end up in your ingesting glass after which into your body. These contaminants are popping out of smoke stacks and being dumped as waste into streams and lakes.
A more recently disclosed threat of urban consuming water comes from pills which have been dumped down toilets and drains and found their manner into your kitchen sink. Even greater alarming, in step with an Associated Press investigation, principal drug makers in the U.S. Have legally launched as a minimum 271 million prescription drugs into waterways that provide consuming water to residents.
A huge range of medication encompass mood stabilizers (often containing lithium), antibiotics, intercourse hormones and anti-convulsants. Even even though this drug dumping poses a splendid danger, even extra of the contamination comes from the humans who eat them. The frame will excrete pills that are not absorbed, and unused pills get flushed. Opened boxes cannot be used in hospitals and nursing houses, and the last unused drugs also get flushed and emerge as within the water supply.
Consider the huge ranging cleansing merchandise that contain antibiotics. Hand soap, counter cleaner, lavatory cleaner and the list is going on and on. In addition to posing danger to ingesting water, we can be growing greater “tremendous insects” or bacteria that speedy adapt a resistance to the antibiotics, and motive life-threatening infections which can be from time to time not possible to triumph over.
Because authorities agencies are not stepping up in a well-timed way to cope with the concerns posed with the aid of environmental infection, it’s far as much as you to preserve your family safe. Fortunately this is feasible and requires distinctly little fee in assessment to the blessings you will gain. Water best checking out is the vital first step. Home water filtration systems are the second one step.
Based on what your water checking out effects display approximately the contaminants popping out of your faucets, you can find a wide variety of water clear out structures to easy your water supply. It might be a sort of charcoal filter out or even an entire house osmosis gadget that fits your needs. Whichever type you choose, you can be confident that your fitness is guarded from invisible chemical substances and bacteria that may be for your water.
Olivia Thoroughgood writes about the most critical investment of your lifestyles, your private home. She invites you to find out extra about the connection of clean water and your health. You can benefit from smooth water research and environmentally sound practices that help you, your family and the earth too.
New memory prosthesis could be a game-changer for dementia care.
by Kristin Houser, Futurism
Image: Brain activity
SCIEPRO / Getty Images
In brief:
A professor built a brain implant that can reportedly improve short-term memory by 15 percent and working memory by 25 percent. The device could prove life-changing for the growing segment of the population impacted by Alzheimer's and dementia.
A BIONIC MEMORY BOOST
With everyone from Elon Musk to MIT to the U.S. Department of Defense researching brain implants, it seems only a matter of time before such devices are ready to help humans extend their natural capabilities. Now, a professor from the University of Southern California (USC) has demonstrated the use of a brain implant to improve the human memory, and the device could have major implications for the treatment of one of the U.S.’s deadliest diseases.
Dong Song is a research associate professor of biomedical engineering at USC, and he recently presented his findings on a “memory prosthesis” during a meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in Washington D.C. According to a New Scientist report, the device is the first to effectively improve the human memory.
To test his device, Song’s team enlisted the help of 20 volunteers who were having brain electrodes implanted for the treatment of epilepsy.
Once implanted in the volunteers, Song’s device could collect data on their brain activity during tests designed to stimulate either short-term memory or working memory. The researchers then determined the pattern associated with optimal memory performance and used the device’s electrodes to stimulate the brain following that pattern during later tests.
Based on their research, such stimulation improved short-term memory by roughly 15 percent and working memory by about 25 percent. When the researchers stimulated the brain randomly, performance worsened.
As Song told New Scientist, “We are writing the neural code to enhance memory function. This has never been done before.”
A GROWING PROBLEM
While a better memory could be useful for students cramming for tests or those of us with trouble remembering names, it could be absolutely life-changing for people affected by dementia and Alzheimer’s.
As Bill Gates noted when announcing plans to invest $100 million of his own money into dementia and Alzheimer’s research, the disease is a multi-level problem that’s positioned to get even worse.
Age is the greatest risk factor for Alzheimer’s, according to the Alzheimer’s Association, with the vast majority of sufferers over the age of 65. With advances in medicine and healthcare continuously increasing how long we live, that segment of the population is growing dramatically, and by 2030, 20 percent of U.S. citizens are expected to be older than 65.
This increase in the number of potential dementia sufferers can be costly in both a financial and emotional sense. In 2016, the total cost of healthcare and long-term care for those suffering from dementia and Alzheimer’s disease was an estimated $236 billion, and according to the Alzheimer’s Association, the more severe a person’s cognitive impairment, the higher the rates of depression in their familial caregivers.
Of course, further testing is required before Song’s device could be approved as a treatment for dementia or Alzheimer’s, but if it is able to help those patients regain even part of their lost memory function, the impact would be felt not only by the patients themselves, but their families and even the economy at large.
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What Will Happen When Aliens Arrive
What Will Happen When Aliens Arrive
If aliens invaded Earth, would it go down like in the movies?. The first thing we must consider in trying to evaluate how mankind might respond to an alien invasion is to imagine what their capabilities might be. An alien invasion of Earth has the potential to bring mankind together like nothing before. While the world’s military is busy polishing its guns and making sure its warheads are all in tip-top condition, what will the rest of Earth be doing as we wait for the aliens to arrive?The way individual humans react to the alien threat depends on how we perceive they’ll treat us should they win; which they almost certainly will.Stephen Hawking has been quoted as saying that it is perfectly rational to assume intelligent life exists somewhere in the universe.But while the discovery of life on another world may sound exciting, Hawking also believes that if a race of beings were sufficiently advanced enough to reach us, they would pose a huge threat to everyone and everything here on Earth.
How will our first interactions with a visiting alien civilization take place? Observation would likely be followed by covert visitation by the aliens in order to judge our abilities and technological level even further. If man were to meet an alien race tomorrow, could our existing infrastructure cope? We have to assume that a sufficiently advanced civilization is aware of the dangers of disease to both parties, so hopefully, they’ll have brought protection along for this intergalactic booty call. Whether or not an alien race shares our concepts of good and evil is hard to say, but that’s probably how we’ll judge them, so how can we be so sure they’ll come to us with good intentions?.
THE world could be woefully unprepared for an alien invasion and because extraterrestrial technology would be far superior.
Governments around the globe remain tight-lipped on counter-invasion strategies, with the US claiming nothing is in place and it would have to react to what exactly is in front of them.
But what is clear is there would be no point in humans trying to fight them.
Any extra-terrestrial which can make its way across the universe would have technology that would make it look like our arsenal is a pile of rocks.
Jill Tarter, a member of Search for Extra-Terrestrial Life (SETI) Institute and part of the management board for the Allen Telescope Array in California, said: “If they showed up on our doorstep, that means they have technologies that are considerably advanced with respect to ours.
“And because of that, they’re going to be the ones that set the rules.”
While there is no official plan, it is believed that the United Nations would take charge.
They group would be responsible for every country’s atomic weaponry and air strikes, as well as distributing, and probably rationing, food across the planet.
If ET has bad intentions for Earth, conscription may take place with many healthy men and women of fighting age being forced into battle – although it probably will not make much of a difference.Far more likely than aliens arriving on our doorstep would be they send asignal or a message to Earth.SETI is an agency which has been scanning the skies in search of alien activity since 1984.
The Rio Scale The ET hunters have laid out a set of guidelines and recommendations to follow if, or when, we make contact
Firstly, the people who detect the signal would have to make sure it is genuine, then once it is confirmed they would have to inform the the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams would be informed, who would inform professional observers across the globe and the United Nations Secretary General.There are then a few factors to take into consideration as to whether the public should be informed which is judged on the Rio Scale.According to Seth Shostak, senior astronomer for SETI: “A SETI detection could have important consequences for society.
The Rio Scale would help experts determine how much of a threat it is
“The Rio Scale runs from 0 (forget it) to 10 (this is definitely IT!). It’s composed of two multiplicative factors: a term Q that measures the importance of the discovery (for example, if a signal comes from within the solar system, it’s adjudged to be more important than one coming from the other side of the Galaxy), and a term δ that estimates the credibility of the claim (is there hard data, or only an anecdotal report?) The Rio index is imply Q times δ.”After that, a response would have to be calculated.
Stephen Hawking says we should ignore alien calls
Although it has always been denied, Director of UN Office for Outer Space Affairs would probably lead contact.Malaysian astrophysicist Mazlan Offman, who served from 2010 to 2014, was strongly tipped top be the person to go to if aliens come out with the classic “take us to your leader”, but she refuted this during her time in charge, saying “It sounds really cool but I have to deny it.”Simonetta Di Pippo took over Offman’s post and so she could be the point of contact.
Another likely candidate is Paul Davies – chairman of SETI’s post detection task force.
As any alien’s grasp of English, or any human language, will probably be non-existent, experts have devised other ways to show that we are intelligent, with the mathematical formula for Pie as good as anything to send back to show that we are not completely primitive.
However, others think, including Stephen Hawking, that we should not respond at all.
Professor Hawking said that it would be best to keep schtum as, judging by what has happened when humans have met other humans who they deem inferior, it could spell the end of us.
The theoretical physicist said: “One day we might receive a signal from a planet like Gliese 832c, but we should be wary of answering back.”
“Meeting an advanced civilisation could be like Native Americans encountering Columbus.
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Un OVNI et ses occupants photographiés en Floride, USA
Un OVNI et ses occupants photographiés en Floride, USA
Le 12 janvier 2017, une soucoupe volante a été photographiée en Floride. Cet OVNI possédait un grand hublot de forme rectangulaire à travers lequel deux occupants étaient visibles.
Cette photo extraordinaire a été prise par un homme uniquement connu sous le nom de JP. Il raconte qu'il a mystérieusement été contacté par télépathie alors qu'il se trouvait dans une résidence située à environ 10 km d'Orlando. Cette voix lui demandait de sortir dehors et de regarder en direction du ciel.
C'est à ce moment-là, qu'il a vu cet OVNI où, à l'intérieur, se trouvait deux extraterrestres de type nordique «à l'aspect humain ».
Il raconte :
«Aujourd'hui, à 6 heures, j'ai eu un contact incroyable ... J'ai reçu des messages télépathiques alors que j'étais à l'intérieur de la maison.
Elle me demandait si je voulais les voir. J'ai alors négocié avec eux et leur ai demandé si je pouvais prendre une photo. Je leur ai dit que c'était vraiment important pour que cette histoire soit crédible aux yeux de tous.
La voix dans ma tête que j'ai entendu était des Nordiques [une race d'extraterrestre, NDLR] que j'avais déjà rencontré au Brésil. [En 2008, JP a raconté avoir rencontré des extraterrestres au Brésil.]
Ils [les aliens, NDLR] travaillent avec l'armée de l'air des États-Unis. Ils font des missions autour de l'Antarctique depuis l'espace. Ils ont aussi fourni une technologie surpuissante à l'armée de l'air.
Cette technologie permet de manipuler n'importe quel point dans l'air et ouvrir un trou de ver menant vers d'autres planètes en donnant simplement des coordonnées. Elle fonctionne à l'aide de flashs. Elle émet des éclairs mais ne fait pas de bruit.
Alorsquandjesuissorti,j'aientendula voix qui m'adit de lever les yeux. Je les ai vu. Je prenaisdes photosmais ça ne fonctionnait pas.J'aitout de mêmeréussi à prendre des photos et à les enregistrersurmon téléphone. »
JP a fourni un croquis des deux extraterrestres présumés qu'il a vu dans le vaisseau spatial.
Le 14 septembre 2017, JP a fourni des photos d'un engin en forme de cigare volant prises près de la base aérienne de MacDill. Il dit que ce vaisseau appartenait à des extraterrestres travaillant avec l'US Air Force. JP a également publié des photos de vaisseaux triangulaires et antigravitationnelles rectangulaires volant depuis la base aérienne de MacDill. Il affirme même avoir été amené à bord de certains de ces engins.
Le 23 octobre 2017, il a reconnu les insignes militaires des occupants à l'intérieur d'un engin de forme rectangulaire appartenant aux opérations spéciales de l'USAF.
JP a récemment déménagé de Tampa à Orlando, en Floride. Il raconte que l'US Air Force souhaite le recruter en raison des relations qu'il entretient avec des extraterrestres de type nordique. Ces derniers lui auraient même fourni des informations sur des technologies de pointe.
Quelques heures seulement après que JP ait rendu public les photos de cet OVNI et de ses occupants, sa fille a commencé à avoir des convulsions, elle est devenue bleue et a dû être transportée à l'hôpital avec une température de 103 degrés F (39 °C).
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Bizarre: Former CIA Pilot Claims The Moon Has More Than 250 Million Citizens
Bizarre: Former CIA Pilot Claims The Moon Has More Than 250 Million Citizens
What a totally absurd statement right? I mean who in their right mind can say that the moon—Earth’s desolate natural satellite—is inhabited by no less than 250 million citizens?
Come to think about it, a lot of weird things have been said about the moon, and all statements come from people with a solid background, being employed either by the military, government agencies or private corporations.
Now, despite the fact that the claims made by Former CIA pilot John Lear may be wrong, but we cannot overlook the sheer amount of information that has been leaked about the moon, where we can clearly see surface features that raise more questions than answers.
Condemnation without investigation is the height of ignorance
—Einstein
Are there really alien bases on the surface of Earth’s moon?
Do I believe there are 250 million inhabitants on the moon? , o I don’t. However, if you do the research independently of what you read here, you’ll notice that the moon has attracted all sorts of strange comments in the last couple of decades.
We can’t forget what Michael Vasin and Alexander Shcherbakov of the Soviet Academy of Sciences wrote about the moon in the 1970’s.
In July of 1970, two Russian scientists, Mikhail Vasin and Alexander Shcherbakov, published an article in the Soviet Journal Sputnik called “Is the Moon the Creation of Alien Intelligence?”
The theory proposed by the two experts offers arguments that would explain the countless enigmas surrounding the moon and its creation.
After they published the controversial article, they raised numerous question in the scientific community, which today—nearly half a decade after publishment—seem more reasonable than ever before.
The Russian scientific duo proposed a theory how our natural satellite is, in fact, a planetoid that was literally hollowed out eons ago in the far reaches of the universe by super advanced intelligent beings possessing a technology far superior to ours, even today.
In their article, Vasin and Shcherbakov write:
“Abandoning the traditional paths of ‘common sense,’ we have plunged into what may, at first sight, seem to be unbridled and irresponsible fantasy. But the more minutely we go into all the knowledge gathered by man about the Moon, the more we are convinced that there is not a single fact to rule out our hypothesis. Not only that, but many things so far considered to be lunar enigmas are explainable in the light of this new theory.”
Since the 1970’s we’ve made a number of odd discoveries on the Moon.
For example, Dr. John Brandenburg, the Deputy Manager of the Clementine Mission to the Moon, which discovered water at the Moon’s poles said:
“The Clementine Mission was a photo reconnaissance mission basically to check out if someone was building bases on the moon that we didn’t know about. Were they expanding they expanding them? Of all the pictures I’ve seen from the moon that show possible structures, the most impressive is a picture of a miles-wide recto-linear structure. This looked unmistakably artificial, and it shouldn’t be there. As somebody in the space defense community, I look on any such structure on the moon with great concern because it isn’t ours, there’s no way we could have built such a thing. It means someone else is up there.”
We’ve successfully identified a number of oddities on the Moon.
On the lunar surface, scientists have found PROCESSED METALSsuch as Brass, the elements of Uranium 236 and Neptunium 237. These elements have NEVER been found to occur naturally. Uranium 236 for example, is a radioactive nuclear waste which is found in spent nuclear and reprocessed Uranium.
Isaac Asimov wrote about the moon raising numerous questions as well:
“It’s simply too large to have been captured by the Earth. The chances of such a capture having been effected and the Moon then having taken up nearly circular orbit around our Earth are too small to make such an eventuality credible.”
Earth’s moon has more than 250 million citizens
John Lear who is an experienced pilot, who holds 17 world speed records, and a man who piloted a number of missions for the CIA and other government agencies.
Lear became very interested in the UFO phenomenon after having spoken to United States Air Force Personnel who had witnessed the UFO landing at Bentwaters AFB, England.
In the video you are about to see below, Lear offers ‘evidence’ of anomalous structures on the lunar surface and goes on to describe technologies and city structures which were not made by humans.
In line with what other scientists and ever former Astronauts have said, Lear’s statements raise numerous questions about the true nature of our moon.
What do you think about the moon, the statements made by Lear and other scientists, military personnel, and former astronauts?
Yes, it will. Someday the star Betelgeuse will run out of fuel, collapse under its own weight, and then rebound in a spectacular supernova explosion. Someday … but probably not soon.
Red Betelgeuse, also known as Alpha Orionis, is the ninth-brightest star in the night sky and second-brightest in the constellation of Orion.
As the year turns, or on some January or February evening, come to know the red star Betelgeuse in the constellation Orion. It’s not only one of Orion’s brightest stars. It’s also a star that astronomers know will one day explode as a supernova. And by one estimate, it’s only 430 light-years away! Follow the links below to learn more about Betelgeuse and its explosive destiny.
Betelgeuse imaged in ultraviolet light by the Hubble Space Telescope and subsequently enhanced by NASA. The bright white spot is likely one of this star’s poles.
Image via NASA/ESA.
View larger. | Thomas Wildoner captured these before-and-after images of the supernova that erupted in January 2014 in the galaxy M82. See the supernova? Astronomers sometimes say that a supernova can outshine the galaxy in which it resides. This photo makes me believe it! Read more about the supernova in M82.
Betelgeuse will explode someday
Betelgeuse lies some 430 light-years from Earth. (Note: determining distances, especially to red supergiant stars, is a vexing problem in Astronomy. Estimates vary and are often revised, with some as high as 650 light-years.) Yet it’s already one of the brightest stars in Earth’s sky. The reason is that Betelgeuse is a supergiant star. It is intrinsically very brilliant.
Such brilliance comes at a price, however. Betelgeuse is one of the most famous stars in the sky because it’s due to explode someday. Betelgeuse’s enormous energy requires that the fuel be expended quickly (relatively speaking), and in fact Betelgeuse is now near the end of its lifetime. Someday soon (astronomically speaking), it will run out of fuel, collapse under its own weight, and then rebound in a spectacular supernova explosion. When this happens, Betelgeuse will brighten enormously for a few weeks or months, perhaps as bright as the full moon and visible in broad daylight.
When will it happen? Probably not in our lifetimes. But, in fact, no one really knows. It could be tomorrow or a million years in the future.
Short answer: no. That rumor was flying around in 2012. Remember 2012? The year the world was supposed to end? Anyway, when it does go supernova, Betelgeuse won’t be bright enough to appear as a second sun in our sky.
Instead, anyone alive on Earth when it happens will be treated to an amazingly beautiful sight in the night sky – a very, very, very bright star.
Will the explosion of Betelgeuse destroy earthly life?
When Betelgeuse does blow up, our planet Earth is too far away for this explosion to harm, much less destroy, life on Earth. Astrophysicists say we’d have to be within 50 light-years of a supernova for it to harm us. Betelgeuse is nearly 10 times this distance.
So we’re safe from Betelgeuse. And, in fact, if there are any astronomers around when it does blow, they will be extremely thrilled to have a relatively nearby supernova to study.
Artist’s concept showing star Betelgeuse (center), with a series of arcs immediately to the left of the star. The arcs are thought to be material ejected from Betelgeuse as it evolved into a red supergiant. Notice the faint linear bar of dust on the left side of the image. It represents a dusty filament connected to our galaxy’s magnetic field, or the edge of an interstellar cloud. If this filament, or wall, exists – as some astronomers believe – the arcs ejected from Betelgeuse will hit the wall 5,000 years from now. Betelgeuse itself will collide with the wall 12,500 years later.
Fortunately for us, it appears that there will be few, if any, adverse affects to Earth when Betelgeuse goes supernova.
If Betelgeuse were side by side with our sun, you’d find it 10,000 times brighter than the sun in visible light. It might be surprising then to learn that the surface temperature of Betelgeuse is only about 6,000 degrees F (3,600K) in contrast to the sun’s 10,000 degrees F.
In terms of mass, Betelgeuse is thought to be about 15 times the mass of the sun, but 600 times wider and more than 200 million times its volume! When you consider its size, as well as the infrared and other radiations it pumps out, Betelgeuse probably outshines our sun by at least 50,000 times.
Betelgeuse is one of two very bright stars in the constellation Orion the Hunter. The other bright star is Rigel. Notice Betelgeuse and Rigel on either side of the short, straight row of three medium-bright stars. That row of stars represents Orion’s Belt. Betelgeuse is said to represent the right shoulder of the Hunter.
How to see the star Betelgeuse in the night sky.
At mid-northern latitudes, around the first of every year, Betelgeuse rises around sunset. The star is very well placed for viewing on January and February evenings.
By the beginning of March, this star is due south in early evening. By mid-May, it can be glimpsed briefly in the west after sunset. Betelgeuse is traveling behind the sun in early summer, but it returns to the east before dawn by about mid-July.
Betelgeuse – in the famous constellation Orion – is easy to spot. See our sky chart to learn the pattern of the constellation Orion the Hunter. Orion itself is noticeable for the short, straight row of three medium-bright stars in its mid-section. Betelgeuse is in the upper left corner of the large rectangle forming Orion.
The star Betelgeuse has a distinctive color: somber orange-red. It’s ideal for convincing non-believers that stars do, in fact, come in colors.
Stars designated as Alpha are typically brightest in their constellations. But Betelgeuse is Alpha Orionis, despite the fact that it’s fainter than Orion’s other bright star, Rigel. Betelgeuse is the 10th brightest star in the sky overall, and it’s the 7th brightest star visible from most of the U.S., Canada, Europe and the majority of the northern hemisphere.
Betelgeuse is often said to represent the right shoulder of the Orion the Hunter. µ
Remember the movie Beetlejuice? This star’s name is similar.
The proper names of many bright stars are Arabic in origin. This fact reflects the dominance of Arabic astronomers and astrologers during Europe’s Dark Ages. The name Betelgeuse apparently is derived from an Arabic phrase that is usually translated as The Armpit of the Giant. Of course the Giant refers to Orion, but – rather than an armpit – some authors see Betelgeuse as representing a hand or sometimes a shoulder. While it is not entirely clear what the name means, in any event, Betelgeuse marks the right shoulder of Orion in many old star maps.
In the ancient myths, Orion is most often associated with a giant, a warrior, a hunter, a god or some other anthropomorphic or animal figure, so it is not surprising that most depictions of Betelgeuse have an anatomical connection. The Sanskrit name signified an arm, too, for example, although it likely was really the leg of a stag. In parts of Brazil Betelgeuse was seen as the hind leg of a cayman (crocodilian) or the foreleg of a turtle. On the other hand, in ancient Japan, Betelgeuse was considered to be part of the rim of a ceremonial drum. In Peru, it was one of four vultures about to devour a criminal.
Jim Livingston wrote in October, 2016: “I love the golden colors of Betelgeuse against the velvety black night sky.”
Bottom line:The star Betelgeuse is destined to explode someday as a supernova. But don’t worry. The chances of it exploding in our lifetimes are … well, astronomically small. Even if it did explode, it would not destroy or even harm earthly life. It would not add a second sun to Earth’s sky. It would most likely simply be a wonderful natural event. If, when it happens, people are still watching the skies, then they’ll have something awesome to tell their grandchildren.
The position of Betelgeuse is RA 05h 55m 10.3053s, dec +07° 24′ 25.4″.
As our sun gets older, it's losing mass, and so its gravitational pull becomes weaker. As a result, the orbits of all the planets in our solar system are expanding, not unlike "the waistband of a couch potato in midlife," according to a new NASA press statement.
A team of researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Maryland and the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center has shown that the aging sun is behaving according to Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity. The key to testing his theory? The planet Mercury.
NASA and MIT scientists analyzed subtle changes in Mercury’s motion to learn about the sun and how its dynamics influence the planet’s orbit.
NASA'S GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER
In 2015, NASA's MESSENGER probe crashed into Mercury (intentionally; this is just how NASA wraps things up a lot of the time) ending its planetary exploration mission. But the seven years' worth of data it gathered while still active provided the researchers with everything they needed to estimate the relevant parameters for both general relativity and the sun's own life cycle. A paper describing the research was published in the scientific journal Nature.
“Mercury is the perfect test object for these experiments because it is so sensitive to the gravitational effect and activity of the sun,” lead author Antonio Genova, an MIT researcher working at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, said in the press statement.
Einstein's famous theory accounts for the fact that the gravitational fields of huge objects—like the sun—warp the space-time continuum around them, according to Gizmodo. Because Mercury is the planet in our solar system closest to the sun, its orbit is the tightest.
“We’re addressing long-standing and very important questions both in fundamental physics and solar science by using a planetary-science approach,” Goddard geophysicist Erwan Mazarico said in the NASA statement. “By coming at these problems from a different perspective, we can gain more confidence in the numbers, and we can learn more about the interplay between the sun and the planets.”
Like humans, our Sun loses mass as it ages, weakening its gravitational pull. To study the dynamics of our aging star, @NASASun researchers have enlisted Mercury, the smallest, innermost planet in the solar system. See how: http://go.nasa.gov/2DsuhTT
That warping effect Einstein predicted slowly but steadily affects Mercury's orbit. In a few billion years, it might crash into the Earth, according to Space.com. The accuracy with which the researchers found general relativity has predicted Mercury's path has reaffirmed that Einstein was right. This may seem like a foregone conclusion to the average non-physicist who isn't really in a position to question Einstein, but it's important to remember that almost anything in science is open to questioning.
“The study demonstrates how making measurements of planetary orbit changes throughout the solar system opens the possibility of future discoveries about the nature of the sun and planets, and indeed, about the basic workings of the universe,” co-author Maria Zuber, vice president for research at MIT, said in the NASA statement.
I have just received this video. A person, who reported this, added: I’m no Speilberg, I tried to film with my Phone, sg3, 16 megPs, and record from my Ipad, instead of screen shots, look to the right upper corner.
This was taken over UFO hotspot Hessdalen in Norway.
Here’s where the Super Blue Blood-Moon on January 31 will be best observed from
Here’s where the Super Blue Blood-Moon on January 31 will be best observed from
Prepare to look up at the night sky at the end of the month, as you might be able to witness an event that has not happened for 150 years. On January 31, millions of people around the globe will have the chance to witness a lunar eclipse, blue moon, and supermoon at the same time, or in other words, a Super Blue Blood-Moon.
The event is believed to have been last observed 152 years ago, to be exact in 1866.
So, if you are an astronomy lover, make sure to be in the right place to view this amazing and somewhat magical event.
The combination of events will make the moon appear much larger, brighter and with a different and unusual color in the sky,
In fact, the next full moon on January 31, will show off Earth’s natural satellite in such special conditions that they have not coincided in more than a century and a half.
It is the third in a series of ‘supermoons’ when the Moon is closest to Earth in its orbit, known as perigee, and Earth’s natural satellite will appear 14 percent brighter than usual, according to NASA.
Three ‘magical’ events are set to occur on January 31st, 2018.
Image Credit: Shutterstock
In fact, NASA scientists are calling it a magical event.
It’s a magical event and Dr. Noah Petro, a planetary geologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center calls it a “collision of multiple lunar events. A lot of things are happening at once,” Petro said. “It’s a cool event.”
It also happens to coincide with the second full moon of the month, commonly known as “blue moon”.
In addition, the blue supermoon will pass through the shadow of the Earth to give viewers—located in the right place—a total lunar eclipse.
While the Moon is in the shadow of the Earth, it will take on a reddish hue, known as the “blood moon.”
However, once you break down everything that will occur on January 31 you’ll see we will be witnessing a Super Blue Blood Moon.
And despite the fact that the name of the event may sound somewhat catchy, the “blue” portion of the name of this event has more to do with the idea that there are two full moons in the same month and not much, or at all to do with the moon turning blue.
This map shows the areas of visibility for the upcoming “super blue blood moon” eclipse of Jan. 31, 2018.
Credit: NASA
For observers in North America, Alaska or Hawaii, the eclipse will be visible before dawn on January 31.
For those in the Middle East, Asia, Eastern Russia, Australia and New Zealand, the “supermoon of blue blood” can be seen during the moonrise on the morning of the 31st.
In Western Europe and most of Africa and South America, the phenomenon will be partial since these will be areas not affected by the eclipse.
Now that you know where the events will be best observed from, hope for good weather and clear skies.
New Map Of Moon Titan Reveals It Has A Sea Level Similar To Earth
New Map Of Moon Titan Reveals It Has A Sea Level Similar To Earth
Titan, Saturn’s giant satellite, is more Earth-like than previously thought.
Previous observations have shown that Titan has a dense atmosphere and stable liquid on its surface.
Of course, its seas and lakes are not made of water, but methane and ethane.
Now, researchers have found a new way in which this distant alien satellite looks disturbingly like our planet: it has sea level, a constant average elevation in relation to gravitational attraction.
The new study, based on data from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft and published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, finds that Titan’s seas are constantly rising relative to their gravitational pull, just like Earth’s oceans.
Ligeia Mare, a look at the second largest known body of liquid on the Surface of Saturn’s moon Titan.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
It seems that the smallest lakes on Titan appear at elevations several hundred meters higher than sea level.
On Earth, lakes are also commonly found at high altitudes.
The highest lake navigable by large ships, the Titicaca, located at more than 3,700 meters above sea level.
The new study suggests that elevation is important because Titan’s liquid bodies appear to be connected below the surface in something like an aquifer system on Earth.
The hydrocarbons seem to flow below the surface of the moon in a similar way as water flows through porous underground rock or gravel on our planet, which means that nearby lakes communicate with each other and share a common liquid level.
A rendered size-comparison sheet between the Planet Earth, the Moon, and Saturn’s Moon Titan.
“Because we have such amazing accuracy we were able to see that between these two seas the elevation varied smoothly about 11 meters, relative to the center of mass of Titan, consistent with the expected change in the gravitational potential. We are measuring Titan’s geoid. This is the shape that the surface would take under the influence of gravity and rotation alone, which is the same shape that dominates Earth’s oceans.”
Much of the study was based on the data obtained by the Cassini radar instrument.
A new topographic map published in Geophysical Research Letters offered new insight into Titan.
The map exposed several new features on Titan, including new mountains, none of more than 700 meters in elevation.
It also offered a global view of the highs and lows of its topography, which allowed scientists to confirm that two places in the equatorial region of Titan which are in fact depressions that could be ancient dry seas or cryovolcanic flows.
The map also revealed that Titan is a bit more flattened than previously known, suggesting that there is more variability in the thickness of its crust than previously thought.
Mindbending White And Green Balls Of Light Spotted Over Siberia Leaving Locals Terrified
Mindbending White And Green Balls Of Light Spotted Over Siberia Leaving Locals Terrified
Russia has been hit by a wave of reports of a giant UFO in the sky last night with spectacular pictures of an enormous glowing ball illuminating northern Siberia. Social media erupted with claims of 'aliens arriving' and locals in far flung parts of the country told of 'shivers down their spines'.
While the source of the light remains unclear, some have suggested that it was the the trace of a rocket launched by the Russian military that caused this extraordinary phenomenon in the night sky.Vasily Zubkov posted: 'I went out to smoke a cigarette and thought it was the end of the world.' The extraordinary scenes were captured by leading Siberian photographer Sergey Anisimov in the town of Salekhard which straddles the Arctic Circle. 'I was taken aback for a few minutes, not understanding what was happening,' he said.’ The glowing ball rose from behind the trees and moved in my direction. My first thought was about the most powerful searchlight, but the speed of changing everything around changed the idea of what was happening. The ball began to turn into an arc and gradually dissipated.' After the multi-coloured light show was over he went home to find local children as young as five in the yard babbling about 'aliens' and 'the portal to another dimension', he said. Some 520 miles further east, another photographer Alexey Yakovlev admitted to feeling scared as he witnessed the UFO spectacle at Strezhevoi, in the north of Tomsk region, reported The Siberian Times. 'At first I thought - it is such a radiance of such an unusual form, round in shape. But gradually the ball began to expand, it became clear that this is not some radiance and it became scary. It's good that I was not alone....a group of people cannot hallucinate.' On social media, Anastasia Boldyreva posted simply: 'Aliens arrived.
'The were many similar messages. Nurgazy Taabaldiev claimed: 'It's a gap in the space-time continuum.
While the source of the light has not been confirmed, not all are convinced it was a Russian rocket test. Some local experts suggest it may have been caused by the Northern lights.But the most common theory is that Russian strongman Vladimir Putin had chosen this moment to frighten the West with grandiose military exercises by his strategic nuclear forces. Putin personally oversaw the launch of four nuclear-capable ballistic missiles as part of a training exercise for Russia's strategic nuclear forces, the Kremlin said on Friday, the Interfax news agency reported. The test launches, conducted last night, involved land, air, and submarine-based ballistic missiles, Russia's defence ministry said in a separate statement. The ministry said a Topol intercontinental ballistic missile had been test fired from the Plesetsk cosmodrome in northern Russia, hitting a target at the Kura military testing range on the Kamchatka Peninsula thousands of kilometres (miles) away.
It was the likely the traces of one of these rockets - capable of carrying nuclear missiles - that caused this extraordinary phenomenon in the night sky, say the Russian media. As photographer Mr Yakovlev accurately guessed: 'It seems I accidentally shot the launch of a secret space rocket from Plesetsk'. Nigel Watson, author of the UFO Manual, told MailOnline: 'This looks amazing and it is not surprising the sight of it caused witnesses to think of aliens and the opening of a portal to another dimension.
'These fantastic possibilities are shot down by the prosaic explanation that this strange light phenomena was caused by the testing of an intercontinental missile. 'This seems like a poor explanation for something so spectacular but other rocket launches have caused similar spectacles. 'In particular, in December 2009 a stunning spiralling light was seen over Norway, which was caused by a failed Russian missile test. 'They may not be of an alien origin but we can certainly admire their beauty, even if they are caused by weapons of mass destruction.' A similar light was seen in the skies over Norway in December 2009, which was caused by a failed missile launch. Speaking to Barents Observer at the time, Dr Truls Lynne Hansen, a researcher at the Tromso Geophysical Observatory, said: 'The missile has probably come out of control and exploded.
'The peculiar spiral shaped light pattern comes from reflection of the sun in the leaking fuel.'
This UFO cloaked in a cloud was seen over Crete last week. You can see that its breaking through the clouds. Don't be fooled by these cloaked craft. Aliens are highly intelligent and often believe that human intelligence is incredibly inferior to them. Thus, humans will often assume the cloud is just a cloud. However, we at UFO Sightings Daily know different. Here it almost looks like an invasion. Very dark, almost sinister looking.
Scott C. Waring
News states:
Photographer Yiannis Gkikas snapped a rare scene on January 11 in Rethymno, Crete, Greece, when a huge cloud of disk-shaped aircraft appeared in the sky. The group's photos were subsequently posted on the Greek weather website Meteokrites.
Long Glowing UFO Seen Over City In Santos, Brazil In Jan 2018, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Long Glowing UFO Seen Over City In Santos, Brazil In Jan 2018, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: January 2018 Location of sighting: Santos, Brazil This UFO was reported by SecureTeam10 of Youtube. A UFO moves across the night sky. Five bright center lights glowing all the while and some smaller lights along its sides. The video was taken long ways on the phone instead of sideways. Thats another sign thats its real. The way it shoots off is a rare thing to see on video. Most UFO reports only show the craft hovering, but here we see it moving from left to right and then shots off right again. This is an important video that shows how a UFO moves so easily, so perfectly, without making rounded turns. Tell us your thoughts on this video in the comments below please.
Captured over Thailand this week was a UFO cloaked as a cloud. Why would an alien race disguise their craft as a cloud? First they have rules, rules about intrumpting without the governments consent. Second they have no intention to frighten people, they instead want to get as close as possible to the ground so that they can scan the inhabitants and their daily routines. I think the cloud cloak is actually pure genius on their part. Scott C. Waring
News states: On the morning of the 14th, when many people are still asleep, the photographer Liu Guoqing of Thailand captured the wonderful scene in the sky. A cloud of similar UFO UFO, appeared in Mount Taishan, against the colorful sky under the glow. Dai top, many people also photographed this group "UFO cloud." It is understood that this god-like cloud of flying saucer, the scientific name pod cloud, is a natural phenomenon of weather, often when the humid air over the mountains appeared. If the temperature of the air drops over the mountains, the moisture in the air condenses into a pod cloud.
A Facebook user reported that they witnessed a dark UFO disk hovering over a volcano called Popocatelpetl in Mexico this week. This particular volcano is notorious for its UFO sightings over the last decade. I have long believed that below this volcano sits an underground alien base. The base is about 4-5km below the surface. This volcano has a mouth that is 600 meters across. Now compare the mouth area with the size of the UFO. You will see this UFO is about 25-30% the size of the volcano mouth. Therefore the UFO is 150 to 200 meters across. Thats one big craft.
Now since this is Facebook, its not so easy to post a video right here for you, but please click the link above and watch it. It is fantastic! Scott C. Waring
WAT GEBEURDE ER IN HEMELSNAAM BOVEN MICHIGAN, USA? ( VIDEO )
WAT GEBEURDE ER IN HEMELSNAAM BOVEN MICHIGAN, USA? ( VIDEO )
Op 16 januari 2018, net na acht uur 's avonds, werden inwoners van de Amerikaanse staat Michigan opgeschrikt door een meteoriet die met een knal explodeerde.
Vrijwel tegelijkertijd gebeurde er een aantal anders mysterieuze dingen zoals een lichtstraal uit de hemel en UFO's die werden gefilmd boven de bewuste locatie.
Wat er afgelopen week gebeurde in de Amerikaanse staat Michigan is ronduit bizar te noemen. Een aantal gebeurtenissen die vrijwel tegelijk plaatsvinden en toch ogenschijnlijk niets met elkaar te maken hebben.
Het begint net na acht uur op 16 januari 2018 wanneer duizenden mensen een vreemde lichtbol waarnemen boven de staat. Het bleek een meteoriet te zijn die met een flinke explosie uit elkaar barstte, volgens de autoriteiten. Eveneens zou deze meteoriet een aardbeving van 2.0 op de schaal van Richter hebben veroorzaakt, op ongeveer 40 kilometer afstand van Detroit.
Maar, dan begint het heel vreemd te worden, want ongeveer tegelijkertijd wordt een soort lichtstraal waargenomen boven de stad Taylor.
Een straal die niets te maken heeft met de meteoriet en die er als volgt uitziet.
Deze lichtstraal was te zien boven Taylor, een stad met ongeveer 65.000 inwoners. Net na dat de vreemde lichtstraal aan de hemel verscheen, brak er brand uit bij een woonhuis met garage in die plaats.
De autoriteiten kwamen heel snel met de mededeling dat de brand niets te maken had met de meteoriet en over de vreemde lichtstraal werd al helemaal niets vermeld. Het zou allemaal veroorzaakt zijn door wat lekkende benzine uit een pick-up truck.
Echter, uit foto's die mensen ter plaatse maakten, lijkt het meer alsof er een bom is ingeslagen in het huis en garage.
Een tweede belangrijk punt is dat wetenschappers inmiddels hebben verklaard dat de aardbeving die werd gemeten niet veroorzaakt kan zijn door de meteoriet, omdat die in de lucht exploderen en geen aardschokken veroorzaken.
Een ander opvallend feit is dat het plaatsje Taylor in de laatste decennia is bezocht door drie verschillende presidenten: George W. Bush, Bill Clinton en Barack Obama. Dit geeft dan weer aanleiding om te denken dat er iets speciaals is op/in die plek, wat verder wordt bevestigd door het volgende:
Een vrouw die in Taylor woont en het licht zag en het gerommel in de lucht hoorde, dacht in eerste instantie aan onweer, maar toen ze naar buiten keek begreep ze dat dit niet kon omdat het een vrij heldere koude nacht was. Ze besloot toen om de beelden van haar beveiligingscamera te bekijken en ze viel ze bijna van haar stoel want ze zag maar liefst vijf verschillende UFO's die heen en weer vlogen, formaties aannamen en een en ander had niets met een meteoriet te maken.
De vrouw die de opname had gemaakt, besloot om deze te delen met de rest van de wereld en plaatste de beelden op haar YouTube-kanaal, Lucky Puppie, en normaal gesproken staan daar alleen beelden op van allerlei honden.
De beelden van de UFO's stonden er ook niet lang, want de volgende dag waren ze plotsklaps verdwenen. Of ze dit zelf heeft gedaan of dat de video werd verbannen, is niet duidelijk.
Gelukkig had iemand een kopie gemaakt, zodat we ook zelf de bijzondere bewegende beelden kunnen zien.
Duidelijk is dat er die bewuste dinsdagavond heel wat meer gebeurde dan "alleen maar" een meteoriet. Iets kwam uit de hemel en veroorzaakte een verwoest huis en garage op de grond. Iets dat heel sterk doet denken aan het soort laserstralen die werden waargenomen tijdens de recente branden in Californië.
Daarnaast rijst de vraag waarom drie verschillende presidenten zo nodig naar Taylor moesten en eveneens of dit alles misschien verband houdt met de ruimte-oorlog waar we onlangs over schreven.
The 2-mile-long Marree Man is the second largest geoglyph in the world but nobody knows who made it
The 2-mile-long Marree Man is the second largest geoglyph in the world but nobody knows who made it
Boban Docevski
The first thought that comes to mind when beholding it is that this enormous piece of land art was made by the ancients to serve as a sign for the gods, or as a mythical representation of some tribal hero. But this is not the case with the Marree Man, the second largest geoglyph in the world. It was discovered recently after a plane flew over it in 1998, and it was probably created recently as well. The only problem is, nobody knows who made it or why.
Although it was the 1990s and information about somebody doing something traveled fast, somehow an individual or a group of artists managed to get to this hardly accessible part of South Australia, on the plateau of Finnis Springs, just outside an Australian military base called Woomera Prohibited Area, and created this huge geoglyph with a perimeter of 17 miles. It was definitely a massive undertaking that demanded a lot of labor, and it is strange how nobody noticed–especially because it was close to a big military base.
On June 26, 1998, Trec Smith, a local pilot, flew from the nearby town of Marree to Cooper Pedy and noticed the drawing that was spread across the whole plateau. Later, a hotel in the area claimed that they received an anonymous fax with the coordinates of the geoglyph. Soon the Marree Man geoglyph became headline news across Australia. A big part of the fascination lay in the fact that nobody knew who actually made it. It seemed like some extraterrestrials came and did it in a few seconds.
Marree Man
So what is the Marree Man? Visually speaking, the Marree man is a depiction of a man who holds a boomerang (or a woomera–a throwing stick that was used to chase away birds). Upon examination, it was discovered that the lines of the Marree man were about 8 to 12 inches deep and 114 feet wide. The whole figure is an astonishing 2.6 miles long, and it takes up a perimeter of 17 miles.
The following year, the media was anonymously informed that a small plaque was buried just 16 feet south of Marree Man’s nose. The plaque turned out to be a little American flag with Olympic rings over it. The short text on the plaque reads:
“In honour of the land they once knew. His attainments in these pursuits are extraordinary; a constant source of wonderment and admiration.”
Research was done on this quote, and it was discovered that it comes from a 1946 book written by H. H. Finlayson called The Red Centre. The book is about the hunters of the Pitjantjatjara tribe–the tribe that lives around the Uluru rock formation. These particular words come from a chapter in which the author describes how wallabies were hunted with the use of throwing sticks. The section also describes the look of the hunters, who were naked and had initiation marks on their bodies.
The media received another anonymous message with the name of the artwork. Supposedly it was called “Stuart’s Giant,” after John McDouall Stuart, the famous explorer who led the first expedition across Australia.
Reception of the newly created geoglyph was mixed but mainly positive. A lot of people wanted it to stay. After all, it started bringing tourists to the area. One of the local newspapers, the Advertiser,wrote that the land drawing should be made permanent. Because of the weather conditions in the region, the Marree Man started to erode and disappear. By 2013 it was barely visible, so people demanded that the lines should be made deeper; down to the white chalk layer beneath the ground. Those that were against it, like Dorothy Kotz, the Minister for Environment and Heritage at the time, described the figure as “environmental vandalism.” David Ruthman, who was the Minister for Aboriginal affairs called it “graffiti.”
There are two main theories about the author of this modern geoglyph. According to some people, it was made by Aboriginal artist Bardius Goldberg, who died in 2002. He was the perfect suspect. He lived in Alice Springs and had often discussed his wish to create a piece of art that would be visible from space. One of his friends said that he received $10,000 during the time when the figure was discovered. Goldberg never confirmed nor denied this claims.
Approximate location of Marree Man.
Another theory is that the geoglyph was made by a group from the United States. This is possible because of several facts. First of all, the description of the figure is written in feet instead of meters; also, the term Aboriginal “reservations” is mentioned, and this word is never used to describe the Aborigines. Another clue is a jar that was found buried near the Marree Man. In it, an American flag, together with a satellite picture of the geoglyph, was found. There was also a note in which the infamous Branch Davidian sect was mentioned. Despite all the clues, the creation of the Marree Man is still a mystery.
Mystery aside, this geoglyph is still an attraction. In 2016, its decaying lines were fixed with the help of a satellite-guided tool. Now it is visible again, and although the area is off-limits, those who want can take a flight over it and see it.
Amazing video of a UFO over Bangor, Ireland 20-Feb-2013
Amazing video of a UFO over Bangor, Ireland 20-Feb-2013
A motorcyclists garage security camera catches a UFO moving intelligently and illuminating the whole area at night over Bangor, a large town in County Down in Northern Ireland on the 20th February 2013. Travelling low then ascending to move onwards! turning to avoid obsticals and then making its way off while glowing super bright, the objject surely is a UFO if you ever have seen one.
In special reports, this week’s files cover: Abductions and Alien Contact, New York Post January 7, 2018, Paul Hill’s Interstellar Travel in “Unconventional Flying Objects,” Massive UFO and Filmed by Jet Fighters, and World Peace Pagoda Similar to a UFO.
Unidentified Aerial Phenomena sightings were reported over Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, and Tennessee.
Unidentified Aerial Phenomena sightings were reported over Argentina, Canada, France, Italy, Poland, and England in the United Kingdom and Ukraine.
The Filer Research Institute feels the scientific study of UFOs is for the benefit of humankind and is an important endeavor. The US Air Force investigated UFOs publicly for more than twenty years under Project Blue Book; and I continue this advanced research. I believe the God of the universe has spread life throughout the cosmos and UFO’s are visiting us in ever-increasing numbers.
Forward these files to your friends and neighbors.
Special Projects
Abductions and Alien Contact
My daughter Elizabeth attended Temple University professor Dr. David Jacob’s UFO course and we stared attending his monthly meetings in Philadelphia. He provided great insight into the abduction phenomenon. I met dozens of abductees who were convincing in their stories at his home.
As State Director In New Jersey, I have personally interviewed many people who also believe they have been abducted. I try to get people to remember their abductions without hypnosis. I suggest that if they have missing time and suspicions that they should attempt to recall the experience when in a partial awakened time period. For example, when you partially awake in the middle of the night, try to recall the abduction on your own. Hide behind a curtain if you are afraid. If these procedures didn’t work I would use hypnosis without asking key questions.
There appears to be evidence the phenomenon is inter-generational and the children of an abductee will all be abductees as will their children, and so on. Many parents are aware of their children being abducted. There is some evidence this has been going on for generation’s even decades. Often members of the same family have similar scars and memories aboard the craft. Abductions begin in childhood and continue into old age. Many abductees actually remember their youngest abduction first. It seems they are given permission to remember or the time distance allows them to remember. People only seem to remember a few experiences, but seem to know when they had a rough night, are tired, with “suspicious” occurrences such as their night gowns inside out, waking in the wrong bed or wrong end of the bed. It seems the abductions occur at least once a month, often once a week.
Women who feel they provided eggs for off spring, often meet with their hybrid children on a very regular basis, probably a couple times a week.
Occasionally, aliens and their craft are seen by neighbors and evidence of their visitation exists. While I was active duty in Military Airlift Headquarters my boss Bob Woods was the commands UFO officer and visited many UFO visitation sights. As the UFOs moved into position near homes they often broke branches off trees. I Williamstown, New Jersey John Thompson was awakened a looked out the windows at a disc in the back yard. The aliens walked through concrete block picked him up and carried him to the craft. There they used a pen like device to open his chest from one arm pit to the other. I contacted two Flight Surgeons on active duty who examined John. They knew of no surgical reason for cutting someone horizontally across the chest. Yet the scars were evident on a strong six foot three inch man who held a high security post. We also visited John’s backyard where the UFO had been parked. The yard was mostly grass but where the UFO landed there was a 25 foot circle cut into the earth filled with gravel. It appeared the top layer of soil and grass had been removed. John did not know if the gravel had been their previously. John had complete memory of the abduction, gray aliens and their surgery. He felt they were looking for something in his chest, reached in possibly grabbed something and using the pen like object closed his chest up like a zipper. The flight surgeons confirmed the scar was about a month old.
Many abductees tell me about abductions as children. How they were being held by their father and noticed a UFO outside. /the father would go to sleep of be knocked out as the alien walked through the sliding door, picked up the child and carried him into a small disc. The disc would fly off into space and enter a much larger space ship. Other discs could be seen landing, and aliens leading abductees would go into various rooms. He was taken to a separate room and placed on a bed. Looking out the window hatch he could see the Earth off in the distance.
He was examined, told not to be afraid, and returned home with his father still unconscious. He awakened his father and told him about his journey. His father smiled but never confirmed that he believed his son’s story.
Most abductees do not know about what is happening to them and tend to remember relatively young abductions. Several ladies claimed the aliens came to their house making loud noises. They were taken aboard craft and sat next to their neighbor. The next day they questioned the neighbor who thought she was imagining things.
One observation I had with New Jersey abductees is that they are generally very attractive people. The ladies could win beauty contests while the men appeared strong, handsome and virile.
The aliens have good taste and choose abductees who will upgrade their species and aware of what is considered good looks by humans. Some people have good memories of some of their abductions and become fearful and aggravated. One abductee decided to get away from the abductions, drove to the airport and entered the international terminal. He had no idea where he might go and took the first plane he could buy a ticket on. He flew to his destination, got off the plane and was able to find an obscure Hotel. That night he was abducted. We assume they have some sort of tracking device on their favorite abductees.
Implant
Many of the abductees seemed to have transmitters and receivers placed within them as Dr. Roger Leir, who claimed to remove extraterrestrial implants from the bodies of abductees. Meet a surgeon who claims to remove highly advance implants, nanotechnology microchips embedded by aliens, non-humans monitoring our earth. Discover the world of abductions, scalar wave transmissions, and a program to study or manipulate the human race.
I have had several abductees notify me of an identical abduction the same night who live almost a hundred miles from each other. The implants could provide a sleeping person a dream of an abduction.
Dr. Leir who called me just before he died, believed that instead of radio signals these devices emit ‘scalar waves,’ which is a type of electromagnetic radiation, Although Dr Leir did not get to see the results of his final surgery after he passed away during the making of the documentary, two of his close research associates carried out the analysis of the strange object after his death and the second half of the documentary – Patient Seventeen – is devoted to their efforts.
The object removed from “Patient Seventeen” was sent to a New Hampshire lab for testing where the reports found that it contained rare-earth elements, some even toxic to the human body. The results revealed electromagnetic frequencies, indicating that the object could be some kind of communication or tracking device. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCNLATFnHYU
We have found markings on people that can be seen under black light. Some abductees claimed that when they had been drinking during the evening when the aliens came for them they had good memory of the abduction Whatever the aliens did to erase their memory of the abduction did not seem to work while they were drinking.
Many of the abductees had surprisingly good positions of authority and leadership. We visited huge homes where small alien footprints were observed in the snow outside their homes. In Williamstown several people observed the UFOs above their homes. Interestingly, when commercial aircraft approached heading for landing at Philadelphia International Airport the UFOs ducked down into the tops of trees apparently to avoid being seen by the aircraft. Many abductions take place where there is heavy air traffic. People assume the objects in the air are normal air traffic.
We had some success using black light to pick up possible abductions although some cosmetics also show up in black light.
We also tried to set up video cameras in the rooms of known abductees. Usually the abductee or the aliens would turn off the camera. On one occasion a potential abductee is asleep with the camera on showing a cat on the edge of the bed. The cat’s sitting up looking at the ceiling where a small light appears. The light is about two inched in diameter and is moving around the room. The cat is following its movements while the abductee continues to sleep. The light stays for a couple minutes and departs through the wall. It appeared to be some sort of reconnaissance vehicle.
One lady who held an important financial position handling millions of dollars asked me to visit her. She had some wine with dinner and went to bed early. She was a light sleeper and heard some odd noise and felt her covers being removed and peaked out of her almost closed eye. Standing next to her bed was a small gray alien only a foot or so away. She quickly reached out and grabbed the alien by the neck. She said, His neck felt like heavy sponge rubber and he reacted strongly and pulled away. She held on and received a telepathic message she was killing him and the other aliens would respond violently if she wouldn’t let him go. She pushed him down low onto the rug and let him go. They quickly scurried away through the walls and left her alone.
Several abductees reported being vacuumed up in a large tube like device through the ceiling, into their attic, and up into a craft. The tubing was about the circumference of a large waste basket a hundred feet long. On the craft they were medically examined, eggs or sperm removed, shown a movie trailer of an upcoming war, and returned to the tube. There was the feeling of free fall into like a parachute opened and the abductee is gently put into bed. Sometimes they do bring it to memory, they might not remember all the other events of which they have no memory of whatsoever. We may never know how many abductions a person has had over his/her lifetime, but it is far more than people realize. I interviewed Betty Hill who was abducted with her husband and still had the dress she was abducted in. She felt the aliens were interested in a program of hybridization reproduction and sexual activity. They came from a distant planet and likely wished to colonize Earth. The abductees usually report seeing Grays fairly short gray aliens and some that appear as human size grown insects. The hybrid program would allow the aliens to appear similar to humans but also carry immunity and protection from various viruses and bacteria.
The reason for the abduction phenomenon appears to be a program to integrate the aliens with humans. The results of the program is to grow hybrids who look human and can live with us without suspicion. The abductees report they are providing information to the hybrids who are now grown up and are moving into neighborhoods and living among us.
But, by the publication of The Threat (1998), the evidence had led Dr. Jacobs into the hybridization program geared toward living on Earth. The beings on board would say that soon there was going to be a change and soon everyone would be happy, everyone would know his place. The world’s foremost academic expert on UFOs and alien abductions provides the first evidence-based explanation of a mystery that has perplexed scientists for decades. Based on more than 700 hypnotic-regression interviews with alien abductees and a Roper survey of 6,000 adults, The Threat reveals why the aliens are here and what they want, explains why their agenda has been kept secret, and exposes their frightening plans for earth and its inhabitants. In a direct, authoritative challenge to researchers who believe the abduction phenomenon is essentially benevolent and spiritually uplifting, Professor David M. Jacobs proves that there is a far more disturbing and potentially dangerous plan underway, with possible alien domination at its core. In this remarkably well-researched and well-written book, Professor Jacob has added a new complexity and depth to our knowledge of the UFO and abduction phenomena. The secret alien agenda revealed here is ominous, but it must be confronted before it is too late.
My guess is that “everyone” means primarily them. I did not know when this change would take place and the aliens never indicated that. However, starting in 2003, I began to hear reports of hybrids moving in to human society.
His newest book, Walking Among Us (2015), is about the processes and bureaucracy involved with sending hybrids here, settling them into apartments, and teaching them about life on Earth. It is also about the critical role that abductees play in this invasion. The change is upon us.
NY Post Jan. 7, 2018
Caution:Fortunately, alien abduction seems to have greatly diminished in recent years. However, we know that large numbers of people have been abducted and a type of sexual abuse has occurred by the aliens in the past. These memories are likely real, but innocent people could be blamed for the sexual abuse. It is very easy to blame acquaintances for sexual improprieties that allegedly happened dozens of years or decades ago and may actually be memories of feelings part of an abduction. The aliens have the ability to wipe away memories of their abduction while a person remembers the feelings of sexual abuse, but has difficulty determining who was actually molesting them. There are numerous studies and support groups for sexual assault, but few if any even mention alien abduction. Real healing can be achieved when the abductee sincerely believes they are not responsible for what happened.” Believe and support survivors. Show them empathy and kindness.
New York Post January 7, 2018
New York Post Article January 7, 2018 Thanks to Joe Foster
Paul Hill’s Interstellar Travel in “Unconventional Flying Objects”
Paul Hill’s book, Unconventional Flying Objects, based on solid NASA/US Military data, is solid physics and engineering showing that UFOs have some kind of propellantless inertial drive based on a micro-miniaturized, probably nano-engineered, smart high temperature superconducting outer shell. The Modanese theory fits this scenario quite well and is mathematically simple. So far I cannot see any error in it, but I need to look harder. So bear this in mind while reading Crowell’s report. A recent WIRED also made it appear that experiments to test Modanese’s theory have been flaky. It may all be true. On the other hand it may be disinformation, a smoke screen, to get others off the track of something that may actually work.
Astronaut Edgar Mitchell thinks that this technology is real, Jan Lamprecht writes, There is an excellent book called: Unconventional Flying Objects, by a former NASA scientist Paul Hill who did a fully-blown study of UFOs, propulsion, etc from a scientists viewpoint.
This book unquestionably shows the PHYSICAL nature of many UFOs – that these things are big and heavy – when landed at least. He discusses “UFO nests” where they swirl when they land on grass, etc. He also says that when UFOs land on marshy ground they do a “belly flop” and distribute their weight over a larger area. By measuring the compression of the mud they can ascertain certain things. He says that “when landed” these things have a tremendous weight.
He also describes a most interesting experiment (if any of you see a UFO face to face, remember this one!!!). He said you should throw a rock or a brick UNDERNEATH it and observe the trajectory of the object. By doing such simple experiments as throwing a brick at various parts of the craft you can ascertain if there is some kind of field around it, and information from this will be of interest to scientists. He describes how one farmer chucked a brick at a UFO and then he goes on to infer various things from this. It is a most interesting book written by a scientist. This guy used to build flying platforms for fun. He has been involved in designing aircraft since WWII, and then worked for NASA. He died in 1990.
Some of the examples he cites in his book are from actual encounters and he then analyses them. Amazing stuff. Anyone who does not believe UFOs are real should read this. This is the kind of stuff I like. It also mentions something I’ve never come across before. Do you know that the Germans did a study of UFO’s in 1954 and had their best rocket scientists study them? The Germans had a conference saying these were unquestionably space ships. they then also said that these spaceships were probably powered by gravity by turning gravity into energy! This NASA scientist has all of this in his book!! If the Germans knew in 1954 that these were spaceships then the USA must have known by then too. Some of what these Germans concluded is almost similar to what Dr Tom Van Flandern speaks of these days with his gravity ideas. Governments knew from Day 1 these things were space ships pure and simple.
Many Scientists claim their biggest stumbling block to ET visiting Earth is the tremendous distances between our Earth and other solar systems!” I attempted to explain NASA engineer Paul Hill’s findings regarding the time requirements for interstellar travel. Einstein pointed time and distance in space is shortened by speed
Paul Hill wrote, “Most writers and physicists too, in estimating the time for interstellar travel, neglect the effect of the accelerating portions of the trip on the trip time, making the simplifying assumption that the vehicle makes the entire trip at constant velocity. This is probably done because the requisite equations are scarce items in the literature… snip.
It is possible for an interstellar trip to be very short. The trip from our nearest neighbor, Alpha Centuri, a triple star system 4.3 light years away made by acceleration at 140 g to a v/c of 0.9999 is accomplished from a standing start to a standing finish in 6 weeks. Snip
At the highest speeds considered, the travel time is not at all proportional to the distance. For example at 20 g and v/c=0.9999 we read a distance of 25 light years takes 0.6 years on board, while a distance of 100 light years is covered in almost a year. The reason is easy to visualize. Once the vehicle is up to speed, vast amounts of additional distance may be covered during the coast period with but little increase in time and, obviously, with no increase in additional light year covered while coasting.
CONCLUSION: I hope I have made it clear that there is an important distinction to be made between the time experienced by the space traveler and the time which passes meanwhile on the home planet and on the planetary destination. The tremendous acceleration, speed, and energy capability displayed by UFOs make them well suited to capitalize on this distinction by the attainment of greatly reduced on board times realizable by approaching the speed of light. Even an approach to 90 percent of light gets the job done for the nearer stars. Higher fractions of light speed give attractive time reductions for longer trips. Don’t be misled by the countless statements in the literature that interstellar distances and the speed of light constitute some kind of barrier to space travel. There are only two paths to this conclusion: Nobody in the universe has the technology to approach light speed. Observer time is significant, and on board time is to be ignored. Both paths are false ones. The confused second view is the more common. Its proponents are using the observed time for light to travel as the shortest possible time for passage;“Totally false.” Thanks to Paul Hill, “Unconventional Flying Objects”, Pages 268-279.
Note:Aliens frequently talk about high speed travel between planets with wormholes portals, time travel, etc that may or may not exist.
September 7 Massive UFO and Filmed by Jet Fighters
In May 2017, anonymous Singaporean Air Force man claimed to have a recording of an operation with three other fighter jet pilots.
But he claimed to have been sworn to secrecy by the Singaporean government.The alleged whistle blower has given himself the pseudonym John in the report and there is no way of verifying if he is a genuine pilot or not at this stage. He claimed to be part of the Republic of Singapore Air Force.
The pilot added: “Just this morning at 5.20am hours Singapore time, we were given orders to scramble our F15s to intercept a strange looking orb that kept on appearing and disappearing on radar by command control. “This object entered Singapore air space at around 5.20am and was hovering for at least two hours before 7.30am. “It is difficult to explain, it kept on appearing and disappearing and re-appearing on another part of our air space.”
He said there were three other pilots were required to “intercept this orb like thing or whatever the hell you want to call it”. He said: “In fact, when we landed at Changi Air Base, we were given orders by command not to reveal this incident to anyone.
“I cannot in good conscience give you my real name over the internet, but give me your number, I will call you directly.”I have evidence of the chase itself, I am willing to hand this over to you, a recording of the entire incident between air traffic ground control and the four pilots including myself while in pursuit of this orb.” The Singaporean Air Force does use F15s and the pilot has named a legitimate air base.
MUFON was investigating the claims, but had previously said that it is hit by several hoax reports which come in from all over the world. But what is this new UFO sighting over Nevada filmed in September? http://www.facebook.com/UFOatSection51
Peace Pagoda Similar to UFO
Nepal, Lumbini- The Birth Place of Lord Gautam Buddha has a Pagoda built to encourage peace thoughout the world and in the universe. If you are searching peace then the place you deserve is Bishwa Shanti Stupa Situated at the birth place of Lord Buddha, this is a place that is free from pollution. All most all peace pagodas built since World War II have been built under the guidance of Nichidatsu Fujii a Japanese Monk.
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Filer’s Files #3 – 2018 Abductions and Alien Contact - PART II
Filer’s Files #3 – 2018 Abductions and Alien Contact - PART II
UFO Sightings in the United States
Arizona Light
Back in June of 2017, I was outside my apartment with my daughter. I started seeing a reflecting light in the sky and did not know what it was. I grabbed my camera and started filming and as soon as I did this ufo came into view. This UFO started hovering almost like a drone but in weird patterns and very quickly. It also seemed to have a light in the middle of it that would come in and out of the craft. I saw just a month ago that a guy from Britain recorded the same type of UFO. I have looked and searched constantly for months now for a drone that looks like this UFO, but one does not exist at least not one the public can purchase. Let me know what you think of the footage? Thanks to MUFON CMS
California Object
Long Beach Island — I saw a huge white orb over my house in Long Beach on October 21, 2017. At first I spotted two objects crossing paths with each other. I then focused on the larger one. As I zoomed in on my camera the UFO started ejecting smaller spheres into the atmosphere. The first ejection formed a triangular formation! As I kept filming the object started emitting 40 smaller spheres and tons of orbs falling in a steady stream from the main object. Interestingly the smaller orbs were only visible through my infrared camera. This was recorded with my full spectrum Canon SX60.
Note: The video was taken during the daytime, but is dark due to the fact that it was taken by an infrared camera. Thanks to William Puckett, Director Http://www.UFOsnw.com
Flight to LAX on Christmas day.. I saw this 30 minutes before we landed. My guess was we were near area 51. The lights grabbed the attention of everyone onboard. It was fairly cloudy and these lights would pierce the clouds. The blinking was synchronized and penetrating. Shortly after we became parallel to the lights, which appeared to be below us or near the ground, the pilot turned away. He then re-altered course so it seemed like a correction to resume. The video you see is towards the end of the sighting as the plane moves away after the course correction. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Florida Lights
Jacksonville — I just recorded a reddish orange orb over the Arlington area of Jacksonville, FL on January 12, 2018.
Warner Robbins — I was at Wal-Mart on Booth Road around 830 pm when I noticed a very bright star like object hovering to the northeast. I tried to get a video but got a poor quality one. As soon as I looked away to shut the trunk it was gone and reappeared just over the horizon. I got in my car and headed north on Davis and see a star like object. It was very fast moving low altitude satellite moving west. I called my husband and told him to look outside and he saw it too. I had this same experience back in October. Even weirder is the last time this happened a man in a black in a new Ford SUV sat in front of my neighbor’s house, She threw the car in reverse and drove backward to the end of the road. Yesterday a man in a older model black Ford SUV with Texas plates bolted when I walked out. Maybe it’s all coincidence but I live next to an Air Force Base.. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Nevada Light
Las Vegas– I was driving on the south I 15 at 4:30 today when I noticed the object …
I was able to take two pictures while driving. Photo taken January 11, 2018
Thanks to MUFON CMS
New Jersey Disc
Clifton— My mom and I were leaving Bradless Store at 9 pm when I was almost 11 years old about two weeks before my birthday so this happen about March 1,1980. We were in the car and waiting for traffic and in front of us we noticed a plane probably a 747 and hovering above it very close was a circular silver UFO with windows around it flashing red blue and white lights. It quickly went in front of the plane and you could clearly see all the details of it with the planes lights shining directly on it. My mom told me it was telepathically communicating with her telling her it wanted to land. I climbed into the back of the car from the front seat to look out the back window and realized it was actually following us. I don’t remember being scared but definitely concerned that is was communicating with my mother. We only lived 10 minutes away and we got home at 12:30 pm at night so this always bothered me. I have no memory of those 3 1/2 hours. The next thing I remembered was we were in the opposite direction that my mother turned in a park in Nutley, New Jersey and the UFO was above us and we were walking in the park while my mom’s car was running far away.
I remember being excited and calling out to someone going into their house to look up at the sky. I always felt we were abducted because of the memory lose and my mother did call Clifton police when we got home. They said, “Hundreds of calls were coming in from a UFO sighting that night.” I do remember when we were in the park the UFO was directly hovering over us and there was no noise and when it took off it was faster than anything I’ve ever seen in my life. Thanks to MUFON CMS
New York Object Below Plane
Queens ==I was sitting in my living room watching television. I look to my left and noticed a bright white light blinking in the sky. I watched it for a good 10 minutes
I live in the 15th floor of a penthouse apartment facing LaGuardia airport. It never moved so I finally took my phone out and recorded as an airplane flew over it. The object stayed there for least one hour and then disappeared. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Oregon lights
Medford— I had came home at about 10:30 pm Saturday January 13, 2018, and saw an orange orb hovering over south Medford – At first there was an orange orb. I knew it was alien because I had never seen a light there before. Suddenly a very bright white orb shows up next to it out of nowhere. Quickly as the white light is gone, an orange orb is still there. I watched it for 15 minutes waiting for it to leave then went inside.Thanks to MUFON CMS
Tennessee Object
Memphis — I was headed back home after Christmas celebrations with my brother. It was a beautiful sunset and I took a few pictures. I was headed West on I40 when I got to the Sycamore when I saw these two objects and turned on video on phone and began recording. These glowing orbs would set real still when a plane would pass and after plane was past them they seemed to move close to each other and ried to communicate with each other. You can see on video that one hides behind a cloud at bottom of picture as a plane passes.. I was thrilled to see the UFO, and I saw one in 77 and I freaked out and was scared because I was only 17. I finally lost sight when I tried to readjust my camera. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Clarksville –We were driving home on Highway 48 a few years ago and saw around 40 of them and you could see them from horizon to horizon! They made no sound whatsoever! We first noticed them while driving. They were not very high when passing directly over our head and made no noise. They’re a orange red color. There is a military base 50 miles from the sighting where something might be stationed; If they weren’t military, then they were ufos! Thanks to MUFON CMS
Worldwide UFO Sightings
Argentina Flashes
Jujuy — I was driving on vacation and taking some pictures. While reviewing the pictures I notice “lines in the sky”. Them I notice I have two pictures with 5 seconds of different objects. Looks like an airplane, but the nearest airport is more than 200 miles away.- I saw the object in picture 1 and not in picture 2. Therefore the object is moving faster than an airplane. NOTE: Check PHOTO #2 and you can see in the sky 2 small white lines (like those from airplanes). The check photo #1 and follow the line (you will be able to see the object). Photo using iPhone 6 are real photos with no manipulation.Thanks to MUFON CMS
Canada Triangle
Smith Falls – Triangular object was photographed on January 9, 2018.
Object was observed for thirty minutes by worker and later wife and daughter.
There was a series of lights and the observer felt the object was a triangle probably TR-3. Thanks to MUFON CMS
France Object
This was discovered on a picture I had taken, I did not see the object when taking the picture. It is not on the other frame taken at same time on April 4, 2017.
.Look above snow mountain. it may be there.
Thanks to MUFON CMS
Italy Lights
Bay of Mattinata— We were watching our new TV and I took a break to go out and look at the sky from the patio. It was between 11:30 and 12:00 PM. The house has a fantastic view of the Bay as I saw what looked like colored glitter caught in a blob of water. The blob had an outline and the glitter moved within as it undulated across the sky from E to W. The glitter was multi-colored and each piece moved on its own but stayed within the general shape. I saw pieces of glitter go up/down, backward/forward. It blocked out background stars as it passed. I yelled for my partner to come out who was shocked by it. He has seen it twice since and one of the times is the video I’ve included. I sent this to the Italian Center for UFO Studies (CISU. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Poland Disc
Lublin – On July 1, 2018 7, 2017, the object was recognized on the previously taken photo.
The object appears to be a disc.
Thanks to MUFON CMS
UK/England Light
Newcastle — I live in Heaton, I was smoking a cigarette at 3:40am on 18th July 2017 in my back yard. I often look up at the night sky and noticed a slightly brighter stronger light appear above the rooftop from the street behind. It appeared from the west, and it moved in a straight above the rooftops and travelled in a straight line across the sky and disappeared over my neighbors’ house. Also the light was way too big and bright and moved faster than a plane. It stayed bright consistently not changing at all in any way for 2 or 3 minutes. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Ukraine Object
Zhytomyr ==On January 11, 2017’this photo of a moving object was taken.
Nothing but sure looks odd to me.
May be falling debris.
Thanks to MUFON CMS
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If NASA is ever going to put boots on Mars (and possibly other alien worlds), it won’t happen by just deciding to blast a rocket off to the Red Planet one day. The question is whether a moon-orbiting space station is the right way to get one boot print closer.
The Deep Space Gateway, seen here in an artist's rendering, would be a spaceport in lunar orbit.
Boeing
With the ISS retiring in 2028, NASA needs a phase two, as NBC Machobserved. The space agency sees the Deep Space Gateway (DSG) in its future. Humans will fly beyond low-Earth orbit for the first time in 45 years to live on the DSG, where they will start building and testing the equipment and technology that will eventually launch Martian missions.
We can’t just land on Mars without hanging out far from Earth for any extended period of time. There is still too much that science doesn’t know about the long-term effects of deep space on physical and mental health—imagine spending a year on a floating space station with nowhere near the leg room of the ISS, a quarter million miles from Earth. But. It will be a launchpad for future missions we can now only imagine in sci-fi movies.
Exactly how necessary is all this? When a Nobel-winning theoretical physicist like Steven Weinberg insists that the ISS is nothing but space junk, you have to wonder.
We're anxious to land on Mars—but first, the moon.
"No important science has come out of it,” Weinberg told Space.com of the satellite that has been orbiting Earth since 1998, and thinks the same of the DSG though NASA begs to differ. “I could almost say no science has come out of it. And I would go beyond that and say that the whole manned spaceflight program, which is so enormously expensive, has produced nothing of scientific value."
Weinberg believes that only robotic missions like the Mars rovers have contributed anything useful to science. If humans actually walking on the moon (which he thinks of as more than a publicity stunt than anything else) made people gasp at their TV screens back in the ‘60s, it no longer has the same shock value. We’re exorbitantly expensive to keep alive out there, not to mention that we radiate too much heat and actually want to go home. Robots don’t come with those hangups.
Does NASA need to second-guess its priorities? There are obviously ethical implications to studying human survival in deep space when you’re exposing astronauts to more than just microgravity. There is no sunblock that can possibly guard against he harmful effects of high-energy cosmic rays and other kinds of killer radiation. Beaming help up from Earth would not be an option in a medical emergency. Any intervention from the home planet would take weeks to reach lunar orbit, and by then, things could happen that you might rather not want to think about.
NASA's Space Launch System, seen in this artist's rendering, is billed as the world's most powerful rocket. NASA
So who do we listen to, the space agency or the super-physicist? Nobody is really sure, but one thing we can probably agree on for now is that NASA’s mentality of taking the Mars thing in stages is less scary than Elon Musk’s ambitions to make humans Martians even sooner.
The small size of the blue halite crystals found in two meteorites is shown next to a pair of tweezers.
Credit: Photo courtesy of Queenie Hoi Shan Chan
The odds were infinitesimal at best. First, there was the fact that two meteorites both fell to Earth in 1998 — in Monahans, Texas, and Zag, Morocco, to be exact, giving each its namesake.
When Queenie Chan and her colleagues examined both meteorites at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, though, they discovered another layer of phenomena: blue halite salt crystals that contained water in liquid form and were surrounded by amino acids. Their findings were first described in an academic paper that was presented to the 80th annual meeting of The Meteoritical Society in July.
“When we opened it and looked at it under the microscope, we could see the liquid floating inside of the blue salt crystals,” says Chan, a postdoctoral researcher at Open University in England and a former researcher at the space center. “When we moved the sample around, we saw a bubble moving here and there, so we know that there is some sort of liquid inside of the salt crystal.
"It was astonishing the first time when we found it, and then we were wondering, 'OK, so we found liquid water. What comes with it? Is there any organic compound?'”
When the meteorites were first found and sent directly to the space center, the technology did not exist to conduct an analysis of the amino acid content inside of the salt crystals, which are about 2 millimeters in width. Using what is known as ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography (UHPLC), Chan and her team were able to dissolve the salt crystals in water to extract the amino acids and separate any other organic compounds.
“We're lucky that both meteorites fell in a really dry environment,” Chan says. “So [they were] protected from terrestrial contamination and got retrieved really quickly and kept at the Johnson Space Center.”
Chan says that her team believes that the blue salt crystals, which resemble blue sapphires, may have come from Ceres, a dwarf planet located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
The Monahans and Zag meteorites are estimated to be 4.5 billion years old — but are believed to have originated from a different asteroid — meaning that the salt crystals might have hitched a ride to the two meteorites.
The meteorites reached a temperature of 650 degrees Celsius (approximately 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit), Chan says. At that temperature, water would have left the salt crystals, which leads to the theory of the involvement of a second asteroid or other object — one that is really rich in water and organic compounds and could possibly sustain other forms of extraterrestrial life.
In spite of the exciting discoveries, more research is needed on the meteorites to provide a more holistic analysis of their composition.
“It’s really like this mystery box nowadays,” Chan says.
A CACOPHONY of radio and television signals transmitted over the past 100 years have effectively turned Earth into an astral megaphone, violating the tranquility of infinity with incessant pulses of sound and vision. Our naked exhibitionism is certainly worthy of an interstellar Asbo, with each and every broadcast escaping into space to pollute the entire galaxy.
Scientists Detect ‘Alien Signals’ From Galaxy 3 BILLION Light Years Away
Theoretically, any reasonably advanced alien civilisation could easily tune into this cosmic UK Gold for a comprehensive insight into Earth’s last century. It’s estimated that our oldest transmissions – the first radio broadcasts – have already reached a few hundred “nearby” stars. Prepare for imminent attack when Piers Morgan’s voice finally reaches Alpha Centauri.
Astrophysicist Carl Sagan once wryly theorised that the first television broadcast with a signal powerful enough to reach extraterrestrials would have been Hitler’s Nuremberg rallies. If this had somehow failed to profoundly depress our cosmic neighbours, perhaps watching the actual Neighbours – and remember the same episode was often repeated twice a day – may have given them no other option than to declare war. Or at least relegate us to the lowest rung on the ladder of universal consciousness.
Yet transmissions work both ways. It’s no secret that even this primitive outpost has been picking up radio broadcasts from deep space for decades. Interpreting and explaining them is another matter, with scientists taking decades to figure out that the vast majority of interstellar radio signals naturally emanate from neutron stars called pulsars. Yet major anomalies persist – the most famous example being a mysterious transmission picked up by astronomers last year.
In August, the discovery of FRB 121102 was excitedly announced – the first-ever “fast radio burst” that actually repeated itself. This was an unprecedented and deeply unusual phenomenon. The insistency of the signal made it possible for the world’s most powerful telescopes to discover where it originated, which turned out to be a galaxy far, far away – three billion light years from Earth. All that existed on Earth when these signals were first sent was Kirk Douglas.
Furthering the mystery, this perplexing broadcast very recently went into overdrive, with unimaginable amounts of focused energy being manically hurled through space and time – like Thor’s hammer being attacked by a woodpecker. The only solid fact scientists can deduce is that it is fortunate we’re so far away – a single millisecond-long blast radiates the same energy as our sun does in a day. “If this was even on the distant side of our own galaxy, it would completely disrupt radio on Earth and saturate signals on smartphones,” said Shami Chatterjee, senior research associate in astronomy at Cornell University. “Whatever is happening is scary. We would not want to be there.”
The Alien Wow Signal, 72 sec, at 1420.4556 MHz, New View! Aug 1977, UFO Sighting News.
Speculation on the signal’s source focuses around new types of black hole, colliding stars, and, yes, the involvement of extraterrestrials. Not so far out a theory as it seems – these types of signal are exactly the type of universal emission scientists would expect from civilisations like our own. Andrew Siemion, director of the Berkeley SETI Research Centre, agrees. “We cannot rule out the ET hypothesis for FRBs,” he stressed.
With the FRB 121102 signal now three billion years old, any civilisation capable of transmitting it will be long gone, having either destroyed itself, being replaced by machines or incinerated by their dying sun. It’s certainly a sobering thought that we may soon meet a similar fate, and all to prove we ever existed might be an infinite loop of America’s Greatest Ever Police Chases 5 projected across the stars.
WE’LL ALL DOLITTLE IN THE FUTURE
L ET’S partake in a wee thought experiment. Most of us have casually swatted a fly at one time or another, but would you have beat it to death with a mallet had it been the size of a dog? If its blood spurted across your face with each blow, if you saw its wings twitch as it died and then had to dispose of its broken body – would you have regretted your actions?
Perhaps you’d admit you had been hoodwinked by a false perception, convinced of your larger physical form’s superiority, your prevailing intelligence, your privileged place in Elton John’s circle of life. In universal terms, all these factors are limited to human ego and ultimately meaningless.
Such flimsy, fascist excuses for casual brutality can perhaps be excused as an evolutionary hangover, where the desire to survive long enough to pass on DNA is married to an instinctive trait to destroy what is other. The wonder of human consciousness, it seems, evolved hand in hand with a desire to dominate. It’s a virus swimming in our collective psyche, responsible for most of our species’ shortcomings ... but perhaps it's impossible to drown.
Yet it seems a new dawn of compassion and empathy could soon be on the horizon. This is due to a technological breakthrough with the potential to burst our inflated egos once and for all. It seems the only way for all creatures great and small to earn our respect isn’t to increase their size … but to give them a voice.
The human desire to talk to animals like Dr Dolittle seems a whimsy long relegated to science-fiction, but Professor Con Slobodchikoff of Northern Arizona University not only believes such communication is possible – but also that he’s figured it out. He is currently busy putting the finishing touches to a sophisticated artificial intelligence program that allegedly translates the vocalisations and body language of various animals into English.
Slobodchikoff has spent 30 years researching how differing animal species communicate – in particular prairie dogs – and his startling conclusion is that most, if not all, biological creatures use sophisticated languages.
Now, he plans to break down the walls between Earth’s myriad species – starting with our pets. Slobodchikoff’s company, Zoolingua, has already started stockpiling thousands of clips of cats and dogs “communicating” and AI will then translate this information into words. Will cruelty to animals stop when, like Caesar in Planet Of The Apes, they can simply say “no”? Of course not, we’re irredeemable monsters, but even hamster banter may be a seismic step up from Alexa.
And it’s not just the good professor who is homing in on an inter-species communication device. Marine biologists recently developed a dolphin “translator” that identifies individual whistles by converting them into words.
The Cetacean Hearing and Telemetry (CHAT) device has been developed by the global Wild Dolphin Project to give everyone Aqua Man’s superpowers. Researchers testing a prototype device recently confirmed its first successful use in the wild, where a bottlenose dolphin was apparently recorded talking about seaweed. Or perhaps its words were misinterpreted and it was simply warning the divers it had relieved itself in their vicinity.
IKEA ADVERT TAKES THE P**S
THE days of doctors pushing the health benefits of ciggies in newspaper ads are long gone, but TV commercials starring fit folk with great teeth guzzling cans of sugar prove the advertising industry still enjoys taking the p**s.
And like a snake swallowing its own tail, one agency went full meta last month with a magazine advert which demanded readers urinate on it for a special offer.
Featured in the otherwise innocuous pages of Swedish women’s magazine Amelia, this Ikea ad, once peed on, revealed if you were pregnant – then magically displayed a discount code for wooden cots if the result was positive. Imaginative, you’ll agree. It’s also fortunate the deep shame of handing over a urine-soaked coupon will be dulled by the shock of finding out you’re with child.
“In order to make the interactive functions of this ad work in reality, we had to make several technical advancements,” ad agency Åkestam Holst admitted with a poker face. “The pregnancy test strip was used as a starting point, but technical advancements made during the campaign also have the wider potential to improve medical diagnostics.”
Historically, major scientific progress often occurs by accident. Incidentally, it turns out I’m not pregnant, but will now be refused entry at all WH Smith stores.
One place I am now welcome, however, is Coatbridge police station, where I have been invited to attend each morning for the next five years.
Photo Credit: NASA/Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter/SETI Institute/Mars Institute/Pascal Lee
The Week's Top Space Stories
China proposes satellites with lasers as a solution to humanity's space-junk problem, Earth's solar system is the odd one out among star-planet families and a meteor causes a fireball and rumbles over Michigan. Here are the top stories this week from Space.com.
Photo Credit: ULA
1. Liftoff for missile-warning satellite
The U.S. military launched it's newest missile-warning satellite on Friday(Jan. 19) aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. The Space Based Infrared System GEO Flight 4 mission satellite arrived to Florida last October and completed its encapsulation process on Jan. 9, as tensions continue to build around the missile program in North Korea.
NASA shouldn't certify SpaceX's commercial crew system until it's loss-of-crew (LOC) risk goes down, according to a recommendation made in the annual report of the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP). The independent panel found that NASA generally manages risks well, but a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket was destroyed in September 2016 as it was being filled for a static-fire test, and ASAP wants NASA and SpaceX to better understand the pressure vessel failure behind it.
Citizen scientists helped researchers sort through data from the Kepler space telescope in order to find new planets. Researchers announced the discovery of planetary system K2-138, whose five planets are thought to be larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune, at the 231st meeting of the American Astronomical Society on Jan. 11.
During a hearing on commercial spaceflight, House lawmakers prodded witnesses from NASA and SpaceX on what happened to the classified Zuma spacecraft, which seemingly failed after its Jan. 7 launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. This mission for an undisclosed U.S. agency launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, but representatives from the company have firmly stated that their vehicle functioned correctly.
5. Meteor creates earthquake-like rumbles over Michigan
Hundreds of people in southeastern Michigan experienced a big surprise on Tuesday evening (Jan. 16), as a meteor shooting across the sky produced an intense boom and brilliant fireball as it zipped overhead. Some reported feeling the ground shake! People as far away as Ohio and Ontario, Canada saw the meteor streak by at 8:09 p.m. local Michigan time.
The meteorologist community may now have a better understanding about the fluid mechanics that mold hurricanes' eyes, thanks to a new model. The eye of the storm is a place of calm, but weather-watchers know it reveals a lot of information about a hurricane's strength and structure.
In 2013, NASA reported that a whopping 500,000 pieces of space junk were flying in orbit around the Earth. In a new paper, Chinese researchers propose blasting the human-made debris with lasers mounted on satellites.
Photo Credit: NASA/Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter/SETI Institute/Mars Institute/Pascal Lee
8. Lava tubes could allow astronauts to access water
NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter captured new images of places where future astronauts might be able to access water resources on the moon. There appears to be an underground network of lava tubes near the lunar north pole, and these "skylights" might give crewed missions access to subsurface ice.
Earth is quite different from Saturn and Uranus, and it may be possible that the variety in size and spacing among the eight planets makes the solar system unusual. According to a new study, these differences from one world to the next might exist because the solar system formed differently than most other planetary systems do.
MAMMA’S BOYS Ancient Egyptian mummies known as the Two Brothers, found in these coffins, had the same mother but different fathers, DNA evidence indicates.
MANCHESTER MUSEUM, UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER
A pair of ancient Egyptian mummies, known for more than a century as the Two Brothers, were actually half brothers, a new study of their DNA finds.
These two, high-ranking men shared a mother, but had different fathers, say archaeogeneticist Konstantina Drosou of the University of Manchester in England and her colleagues. That muted family tie came to light thanks to the successful retrieval of two types of DNA from the mummies’ teeth, the scientists report in the February Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports. The finding highlights the importance ancient Egyptians placed on maternal lines of descent, Drosou’s group contends.
Questions have swirled about the biological backgrounds of the mummified men ever since they were found together in a tomb near the village of Rifeh in 1907. The tomb dates to ancient Egypt’s 12th Dynasty, between 1985 B.C. and 1773 B.C. Coffin inscriptions mention a female, Khnum-Aa, as the mother of both men. And both mummies are described as sons of an unnamed local governor. It has always been unclear if those inscriptions refer to the same man, but discoverers decided the mummies were full brothers, because the two were buried next to each other and had the same mother.
Over time, differences discovered in the men’s skull shapes and other skeletal features raised suspicions that the Two Brothers were not biologically related at all. And some researchers argued that the inscriptions indicating the men had the same mother were misleading.
But that study extracted ancient DNA from liver and intestinal samples using a method susceptible to contamination with modern human and bacterial DNA, Drosou’s team argues. In the new work, researchers isolated and assembled short pieces of mitochondrial and Y-chromosome DNA from both mummies’ teeth using the latest methods. The Y chromosome determines male sex and gets passed from father to son. This approach minimizes potential contamination from modern sources (SN Online: 5/31/17).
That new DNA evidence “proves the hieroglyphic text [on the mummies’ coffins] to be accurate,” at least in saying the mummified men had the same mother, says Egyptologist and study coauthor Campbell Price, curator of the Egypt and Sudan collections at the Manchester Museum in England.
Unlike the deference given to Khnum-Aa as a named parent of both interred individuals, he says, the coffin inscriptions must refer to different fathers who were considered peripheral family members and thus left unnamed. “Power may have been transferred down the female line rather than simply by a son inheriting [high rank] from his father,” Price suggests. Khnum-Aa’s background, social standing and genetic makeup, however, remain a mystery.
Genetic evidence that two half brothers were buried in the same tomb and placed in coffins that name only their mother makes sense, says Egyptologist Joann Fletcher at the University of York in England. Many written sources from ancient Egypt show precedence to the maternal line, “from the official lists of Egypt’s early kings whose names are accompanied by those of their mothers to nonroyal individuals, who likewise cite only their mother’s name,” Fletcher explains.
Dates of death on the mummies’ linen wrappings suggest that Khnum-Nakht died first, at around age 40, Price says. A few months later, Nakht-Ankh died at about age 60. The causes of their deaths are unknown.
English 'alien hunters' are on high alert after footage has surfaced of a series of strangely blinking lights, flashing in a misty nighttime sky.
The unusual sighting is currently under investigation by the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) in the US.
The unidentified male witness claimed he and a co-worker saw the lights in the sky.
Are these lights the work of extraterrestrials?
Source: YouTube/Secureteam10
"I went outside with my workmate to get some materials out of the van and noticed one light slowly move around the back of a building," he said in a witness statement.
“Then another one appeared from behind the building at a set distance that did not change.
“Seconds after another three appeared as if they was already there but were not lit up.”
The man who filmed the lights is convinced they were from a UFO.
Source: YouTube/Secureteam10
Footage taken by the eyewitness shows a series of lights slowly moving in the fog.
“At this point two lights where visible and after another minute or two, the two visible lights got further and further away," he said in his statement.
“One stopped and one seemed to carry on barely being a visible light source.”
He said they appeared to swing around again in formation.
“At this point we ran back inside the building to try and get a better view from the roof," he said.
However the thick fog prevented them from getting a better look.
“With the fog we could not see anything so ran back down at which point they where nowhere to be seen.”
The witness believes the lights cannot be accounted for, arguing the lights couldn't have been located on the ground.
"It couldn’t have been search lights shining up from the ground as we could clearly see the lights’ surface area getting wider as it shone down," he said, "meaning the light source was in the sky."
But sceptics have already weighed in to claim they're simply the lights of a crane.
Reading several comments from #YouTube, #Twitter & #Facebook about the alleged five #UFOs taken over #Basingstoke (@mufon case 89494), there are many people who disagree with the possible explanation (lights from a crane), forgetting misty conditions can cause misrepresentations
"About the five mystery lights filmed above #Basingstoke, I think could be lights from a tower/mobile crane," tweeted Scott Brando, a UFO debunker.
"There are many people who disagree with the possible explanation (lights from a crane), forgetting that misty conditions can cause misrepresentations."
Non-believers say the lights were just from a crane.
Source: Getty
A definitive list of the best UFO sightings
VIDEO Just in case you needed video proof that Extraterrestrial life exists.
On January 21, 1968, in what came to be known as the Thule incident, a U.S. jet carrying 4 nuclear bombs crashed in Greenland, spreading radioactive wreckage across 3 square miles of a frozen fjord.
Fifty years ago, on January 21, 1968, the Cold War grew significantly colder. It was on this day that an American B-52G Stratofortress bomber, carrying four nuclear bombs, crashed onto the sea ice of Wolstenholme Fjord in the northwest corner of Greenland, one of the coldest places on Earth. Greenland is part of the Kingdom of Denmark, and the Danes were not pleased.
The bomber – call sign HOBO 28 – had crashed due to human error. One of the crew members had stuffed some seat cushions in front of a heating vent, and they subsequently caught fire. The smoke quickly became so thick that the crew needed to eject. Six of the 7 crew members parachuted out safely before the plane crashed onto the frozen fjord 7 miles west of Thule Air Base – America’s most northern military base, 700 miles north of the Arctic Circle.
The island of Greenland, situated about halfway between Washington D.C. and Moscow, has strategic importance to the American military – so much so that the United States had, in 1946, made an unsuccessful bid to buy it from Denmark. Nevertheless, Denmark, a strong ally of the United States, did allow the American military to operate an air base at Thule.
The crash severely strained the United States’ relationship with Denmark, since Denmark’s 1957 nuclear-free zone policyhad prohibited the presence of any nuclear weapons in Denmark or its territories. The Thule crash revealed that the United States had actually been routinely flying planes carrying nuclear bombs over Greenland, and one of those illicit flights had now resulted in the radioactive contamination of a fjord.
The radioactivity was released because the nuclear warheads had been compromised. The impact from the crash and the subsequent fire had broken open the weapons and released their radioactive contents, but luckily, there was no nuclear detonation.
To be specific, HOBO 28’s nuclear weapons were actually hydrogen bombs. As I explain in my book, “Strange Glow: The Story of Radiation,” a hydrogen bomb (or H-bomb) is a second-generation type of nuclear weapon that is much more powerful than the two atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Those two bombs were “fission” bombs – bombs that get their energy from the splitting (fission) of very large atoms (such as uranium and plutonium) into smaller atoms.
In contrast, HOBO 28’s bombs were fusion bombs – bombs that get their energy from the union (fusion) of the very small nuclei of hydrogen atoms. Each of the four Mark 28 F1 hydrogen bombs that HOBO 28 carried were nearly 100 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima (1,400 kilotons versus 15 kilotons).
Fusion bombs release so much more energy than fission bombs that it’s hard to comprehend. For example, if a fission bomb like Hiroshima’s were dropped on the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., it’s likely that the White House (about 1.5 miles away) would suffer little direct damage. In contrast, if just one of the Mark 28 F1 hydrogen bombs were dropped on the Capitol building, it would destroy the White House as well as everything else in Washington, D.C. (a destructive radius of about 7.5 miles). It is for this reason that North Korea’s recent claim of achieving hydrogen bomb capabilities is so very worrisome.
After the crash, the United States and Denmark had very different ideas about how to deal with HOBO 28’s wreckage and radioactivity. The U.S. wanted to just let the bomber wreckage sink into the fjord and remain there, but Denmark wouldn’t allow that. Denmark wanted all the wreckage gathered up immediately and moved, along with all of the radioactively contaminated ice, to the United States. Since the fate of the Thule Air Base hung in the balance, the U.S. agreed to Denmark’s demands.
U.S. Air Force Strategic Air Command film report on the Crested Ice project.
The clock was ticking on the cleanup, code named operation “Crested Ice,” because, as winter turned into spring, the fjord would begin to melt and any remaining debris would sink 800 feet to the seafloor. Initial weather conditions were horrible, with temperatures as low as minus 75 degrees Fahrenheit, and wind speeds as high as 80 miles per hour. In addition, there was little sunlight, because the sun was not due to rise again over the Arctic horizon until mid-February.
Groups of American airmen, walking 50 abreast, swept the frozen fjord looking for all the pieces of wreckage – some as large as plane wings and some as small as flashlight batteries. Patches of ice with radioactive contamination were identified with Geiger counters and other types of radiation survey meters. All wreckage pieces were picked up, and ice showing any contamination was loaded into sealed tanks. Most every piece of the plane was accounted for except, most notably, a secondary stage cylinder of uranium and lithium deuteride – the nuclear fuel components of one of the bombs. It was not found on the ice and a sweep of the seafloor with a minisub also found nothing. Its current location remains a mystery.
Although the loss of the fuel cylinder was perplexing and disturbing, it is a relatively small item (about the size and shape of a beer keg) and it emits very little radioactivity detectable by radiation survey meters, making it very hard to find at the bottom of a fjord. Fortunately, it is not possible for this secondary “fusion” unit to detonate on its own without first being induced through detonation of the primary “fission” unit (plutonium). So there is no chance of a spontaneous nuclear explosion occurring in the fjord in the future, no matter how long it remains there.
The successful cleanup helped to heal United States-Denmark relations. But nearly 30 years later, the Thule incident spawned a new political controversy in Denmark. In 1995, a Danish review of internal government documents revealed that Danish Prime Minister H.C. Hansen had actually given the United States tacit approval to fly nuclear weapons into Thule. Thus, the Danish government had to share some complicity in the Thule incident.
As recently as 2003, environmental scientists from Denmark revisited the fjord to see if they could detect any residual radioactivity from the crash. Was bottom sediment, seawater or seaweed radioactive, after nearly 40 years? Yes, but the levels were extremely low.
Thule Air Base survived all of the controversies over the decades but became increasingly neglected as nuclear weaponry moved away from bomber-based weapon delivery and more toward land-based and submarine-based intercontinental ballistic missiles. Nevertheless, as Thule’s bomber role waned, its importance for radar detection of incoming ICBMs grew, since a trans-Artic trajectory is a direct route for Russian nuclear missiles targeted at the United States.
This is the most dangerous time for our planet. We can’t go on ignoring inequality, because we have the means to destroy our world but not to escape it.
As a theoretical physicist based in Cambridge, I have lived my life in an extraordinarily privileged bubble. Cambridge is an unusual town, centred around one of the world’s great universities. Within that town, the scientific community that I became part of in my 20s is even more rarefied.
And within that scientific community, the small group of international theoretical physicists with whom I have spent my working life might sometimes be tempted to regard themselves as the pinnacle. In addition to this, with the celebrity that has come with my books, and the isolation imposed by my illness, I feel as though my ivory tower is getting taller.
So the recent apparent rejection of the elites in both America and Britain is surely aimed at me, as much as anyone. Whatever we might think about the decision by the British electorate to reject membership of the European Union and by the American public to embrace Donald Trump as their next president, there is no doubt in the minds of commentators that this was a cry of anger by people who felt they had been abandoned by their leaders.
It was, everyone seems to agree, the moment when the forgotten spoke, finding their voices to reject the advice and guidance of experts and the elite everywhere.
What matters now, far more than the victories by Brexit and Trump, is how the elites react I am no exception to this rule. I warned before the Brexit vote that it would damage scientific research in Britain, that a vote to leave would be a step backward, and the electorate – or at least a sufficiently significant proportion of it – took no more notice of me than any of the other political leaders, trade unionists, artists, scientists, businessmen and celebrities who all gave the same unheeded advice to the rest of the country.
What matters now, far more than the choices made by these two electorates, is how the elites react. Should we, in turn, reject these votes as outpourings of crude populism that fail to take account of the facts, and attempt to circumvent or circumscribe the choices that they represent? I would argue that this would be a terrible mistake.
The concerns underlying these votes about the economic consequences of globalisation and accelerating technological change are absolutely understandable. The automation of factories has already decimated jobs in traditional manufacturing, and the rise of artificial intelligence is likely to extend this job destruction deep into the middle classes, with only the most caring, creative or supervisory roles remaining.
This in turn will accelerate the already widening economic inequality around the world. The internet and the platforms that it makes possible allow very small groups of individuals to make enormous profits while employing very few people. This is inevitable, it is progress, but it is also socially destructive.
We need to put this alongside the financial crash, which brought home to people that a very few individuals working in the financial sector can accrue huge rewards and that the rest of us underwrite that success and pick up the bill when their greed leads us astray. So taken together we are living in a world of widening, not diminishing, financial inequality, in which many people can see not just their standard of living, but their ability to earn a living at all, disappearing. It is no wonder then that they are searching for a new deal, which Trump and Brexit might have appeared to represent.
‘In sub-Saharan Africa there are more people with a telephone than access to clean water.’
Photograph: Andy Hall for the Observer
It is also the case that another unintended consequence of the global spread of the internet and social media is that the stark nature of these inequalities is far more apparent than it has been in the past. For me, the ability to use technology to communicate has been a liberating and positive experience. Without it, I would not have been able to continue working these many years past.
But it also means that the lives of the richest people in the most prosperous parts of the world are agonisingly visible to anyone, however poor, who has access to a phone. And since there are now more people with a telephone than access to clean water in sub-Saharan Africa, this will shortly mean nearly everyone on our increasingly crowded planet will not be able to escape the inequality.
The consequences of this are plain to see: the rural poor flock to cities, to shanty towns, driven by hope. And then often, finding that the Instagram nirvana is not available there, they seek it overseas, joining the ever greater numbers of economic migrants in search of a better life. These migrants in turn place new demands on the infrastructures and economies of the countries in which they arrive, undermining tolerance and further fuelling political populism.
For me, the really concerning aspect of this is that now, more than at any time in our history, our species needs to work together. We face awesome environmental challenges: climate change, food production, overpopulation, the decimation of other species, epidemic disease, acidification of the oceans.
Together, they are a reminder that we are at the most dangerous moment in the development of humanity. We now have the technology to destroy the planet on which we live, but have not yet developed the ability to escape it. Perhaps in a few hundred years, we will have established human colonies amid the stars, but right now we only have one planet, and we need to work together to protect it.
To do that, we need to break down, not build up, barriers within and between nations. If we are to stand a chance of doing that, the world’s leaders need to acknowledge that they have failed and are failing the many. With resources increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few, we are going to have to learn to share far more than at present.
With not only jobs but entire industries disappearing, we must help people to retrain for a new world and support them financially while they do so. If communities and economies cannot cope with current levels of migration, we must do more to encourage global development, as that is the only way that the migratory millions will be persuaded to seek their future at home.
We can do this, I am an enormous optimist for my species; but it will require the elites, from London to Harvard, from Cambridge to Hollywood, to learn the lessons of the past year. To learn above all a measure of humility.
NASA Should Start Looking For Viruses On Other Planets, Scientists Suggest
NASA Should Start Looking For Viruses On Other Planets, Scientists Suggest
Forget about aliens, let’s start searching for viruses in our Solar System. Although scientists have been studying the infectious agents for decades, there’s still much to be learned about them and whether they exist in space or not. Now, a group of scientists are proposing we seek more answers.
“[Viruses] are believed to have played important roles in the origin and evolution of life,” biologists from Portland State University (PSU) wrote in a paper published in the journal Astrobiology. “However, there is yet very little focus on viruses in astrobiology.”
NASA scientists who study astrobiology explore three main questions, “How does life begin and evolve? Does life exist elsewhere in the Universe? What is the future of life on Earth and beyond?” according to the space agency’s 2015 Astrobiological Strategy. But, viruses are vaguely mentioned throughout the plan, therefore, PSU researchers have proposed we further explore “astrovirology.”
A crecent moon is seen near the planets Venus (C, bottom) and Jupiter (R) in this rare alignment December 1, 2008 from New York.
Stan Honda/AFP/Getty Images
Study author Kenneth Stedman, a biology professor at PSU, and his colleagues recommend NASA and other space agencies start their search for viruses by examining liquid samples from Saturn and Jupiter’s moons.
Additionally, the team suggests that they develop tools to discover viruses in ancient deposits on Earth and Mars, and examine whether the particles could survive in space.
“We need to further develop current tools, either put [an electron microscope] on a spacecraft or develop other microscopic technologies that can detect molecules, not just atoms at nanometer resolution,” Stedman told Gizmodo.
Although “astrovirology” isn’t a widely recognized field, Stedman isn’t the first person to suggest that viruses exist in abundance in space. Back in 2013, Dale Griffin, a scientist at the U.S. Geological Survey, recommended scientists take a look at whether viruses exist behind our planet. But, he suggests proceeding with caution.
“We should be looking for viruses in our quest for extraterrestrial life, and it may be that viruses pose no risk to human planetary exploration,” Griffin wrote in an article published in Astrobiology. “However, the possibility of risk exists, and our potential contact with them should be treated accordingly.”
On January 5, 2018, a witness has caught a picture of an orb like UFO over Montgomery, Indiana. He claims he saw weird objects frequently. What it is?
Witness report:
“I see UFOs frequently in the northeast/eastern sky above the treeline, any time from late afternoon to late evening, and I have for a few years, increasingly so. They vary in size, shape, color, and behavior. During this particular sighting, my family and I had just arrived home from a family celebration. The family went inside, and as my husband entered the house, I told him, "Look, it's one of my UFOs!" He acknowledged and looked up, as he is very used to seeing them when I point them out, but does not enjoy watching them or pondering about it. The object was glowing/pulsating a yellow/orange light. It appeared slightly larger than the largest star in the sky. It seemed to stretch around the edges, as stars sometimes appear to do with atmospheric interference, but more so. The flight path was wobbly (up and down a bit) in a south/southeast direction. When I began watching it, it's behavior changed. It hovered above the treeline while I got a photo, mostly stationary, but with a bit of a circular movement. The sky was very very clear, with many stars visible, yet the object was the only light visible on camera. I filmed it for a few minutes, but got cold and decided to come inside. When I came in, I checked on the object through the back French doors, and when I looked at it, it began moving again in the south/southeast direction. I quit watching it then. I have become fairly used to seeing UFOs from about that far away. They don't stir me a bunch anymore. Only when they get closer do I become very concerned. I would report previous experiences, but I don't have dates available, nor any photos from these encounters.”
WAS ANCIENT CHINA’S YELLOW EMPEROR AN EXTRATERRESTRIAL BEING FROM ALPHA LEONIS?
WAS ANCIENT CHINA’S YELLOW EMPEROR AN EXTRATERRESTRIAL BEING FROM ALPHA LEONIS?
Ancient China’s Yellow Emperor is a legendary hero credited with many feats, such as introducing writing and medicine. But despite his contribution to founding the Chinese civilization, there are ancient texts that suggest he wasn’t even human at all, but an extraterrestrial being from a star system far away.
Throughout mankind’s history, the ruling class has done its best to create and maintain the illusion that kingship is a divine construct, established by the gods themselves. Dynasties of monarchs and majesties claimed the first of their name had been direct descendants of the “gods” and thus justified their own reign as demigods. The king-coming-down-from-heaven-to-assist-mankind-through-his-governance phenomenon is a a staple presence within many cultures, leading some of us to believe that it was a common occurrence for extraterrestrial beings to lend a hand and establish divine bloodlines.
The Yellow Emperor (Huang-Di) lived in the third millennium BC and his rule is traditionally said to have lsted for over 100 years. Many inventions are attributed to his genius, including the introduction of wooden houses, the bow and arrow, carts and boats, Chinese medicine and writing. He is also credited as being the first to mint coins and establish governmental institutions.
An epitome of wisdom and understanding, Huang-Di was a patron of the esoteric arts and considered a cosmic emperor. His rule was a golden age during which he envisioned a perfect kingdom where peaceful inhabitants would live a life of harmony. For someone from 5,000 BC, that’s quite progressive.
It is said he had vast astronomical knowledge and even possessed advanced technology, such as a “cauldron” that he would use to enlist the help of a dragon. Sometimes, this dragon is described as having metallic scales and the Yellow Emperor could summon it whenever he pointed the cauldron at a star known as Xuanyuan. Astronomers have identified this star as Alpha Leonis, located 79 light-years from us, in the constellation Leo.
According to ancient Chinese myths, the same cauldron could store various types of energy for long periods of time and would show moving images of other dragons flying through unfamiliar skies.
Another intriguing object belonging to the Yellow Emperor was his magical chariot, called Changhuan. He would use it to travel quickly to all corners of his empire, bot woe unto him who dared climb aboard without Huang-Di’s permission. When one of his advisers decided to take it for a spin, he returned the same day but being many years older than he had left. This sounds too much like the time dilation effect of faster than light travel to ignore.
Multiple sources claim that after his hundred-years reign ended, the Yellow Emperor simply summoned the metal ‘dragon’ and ascended to the heavens. This could be a metaphor for death or it could literally mean the extraterrestrial emperor climbed aboard his flying machine, waved goodbye to the subjects he had so graciously helped evolve, and went back to his own star system.
It is worth mentioning that Alpha Leonis, also known as Regulus, was seen as an important celestial body in ancient times. The Babylonians called it Sharru (The King) while in India it was called Maghā, meaning The Mighty. Millennia ago, ancient Persian astronomers saw Regulus as one of the four ‘royal stars’ of the monarchy and referred to it as Miyan – The Center.
Being the initiator of the Chinese civilization must have been hard work, so it makes sense for history to sing songs of praise to the Yellow Emperor, but was he human or not? He successfully introduced alien concepts that had never been heard of before him and allegedly owned and operated technological marvels that only an advanced, space-faring civilization could produce.
His birth is said to have been an actual descent from the Xuanyuan star, accompanied by a “thunderclap on a clear day in the skies.” The metallic dragon could have been a flying craft similar to the ones we see today, and we’re left wondering whether UFOs are responsible for the representation of the strongest, wisest mythical creature in Chinese lore.
This is an artistic reproduction of a relief found in a labyrinth on the island Jotuo in China.
The star Huang-Di allegedly came from was held in high regards by many ancient peoples. Could it have been the place of origin of many of mankind’s civilizing heroes, from Gilgamesh to Quetzalcoatl, and from Viracocha to Osiris?
Since childhood, I’ve always been fascinated with the subject of cryptozoology. The term itself was coined by the late scientist Bernard Huevelmans, who offered it in reference to the search for biological organisms as-yet unrecognized by science, but which are nonetheless represented in various belief systems (often folk traditions among indigenous cultures, for instance).
While reports of things like “sea monsters” and mysterious “wild men” in the remote forests are often eye-grabbing, they also represent the most sensational kinds of stories offered in the broader discussion of cryptozoology. Because of this, over the years I’ve grown to be more careful in my approach to the subject, as with similarly “fringe” topics like unidentified flying objects, etc.
Of course, some stories about sea monsters or wild men might be capable of bearing fruit; however, most often this ends up being of the lowest-hanging variety. In other words, deep, explorative cultural and biological studies seldom form the basis for what is offered as evidence of these creatures. Instead, what makes its way into the pages of books is tantamount to modern folklore, borrowing from existing stories that are well known in the cryptozoological literature, or the incorporation of new ones that build onto an already well-worn mythos.
By contrast, if we really wanted to take time to examine the varieties of unknown species waiting to be discovered on this planet, we would need to look no further than limestone caves that flourish beneath states like Kentucky and Tennessee. By some estimates, there are as many as several hundreds of unexplored subterranean systems in this region of North America, each probably teeming with tiny–or even microscopic–new lifeforms. However, “microscopic” is much harder to sell, whether in books or on reality television shows.
The point I’m making here is that, as far as the search for undiscovered animals, there is plenty yet to be found, although the likelihood that many of those will be exceptionally large (let alone manlike) becomes increasingly rarer with every passing year, and the acquisition of new knowledge about our planet. We have scoured our world, and our oceans, in search of new organisms, and while many new discoveries do turn up on a frequent basis, we continue to see little vindication for the classic “monsters” that have haunted our imaginations since time immemorial.
At this point, I should offer a caveat since there are, from time to time, what I feel to be good cases that lend substance to the idea that one or two “mystery monsters” may be out there. One of my favorites takes us back to Halloween 1983, where a group of construction workers at Stinson Beach, California, observed what they described as being a “giant snake” swimming several meters off the coast for a period of several minutes. I had the opportunity to interview one of the primary witnesses, Marlene Martin, who adamantly maintained that the creature was large, dark colored, and by all observations resembled a massive aquatic snake (further details of this incident can be read about in my MU post from last year).
Of course, the Stinson Beach incident is a modern corollary for countless similar stories from earlier times; accounts of oceanic creatures of serpentine appearance have been a mainstay in America since its founding, with stories the likes of the Gloucester sea serpent of 1817, and an earlier series of sightings around Cape Ann, Massachusetts, that occurred as early as 1639.
North America is by no means the only region of the world with legends about large, mysterious creatures; nor are such reports confined to our oceans. Consider the fact that reports of primal creatures, which often are likened to being “wild men,” stem from a remarkably diverse collection of regions around the world. The following examples make reference to different varieties of cultural beliefs involving such creatures; the first comes to us from a 1978 Nature article titled, “Yeti or Wild Man in Siberia?” (Nature, 271:603, 1978):
Reports from Russia tell of a creature known locally as the “Chuchunaa” which is over 2 m tall, clad in deerskin, and unable to talk, although it does utter a piercing whistle. A man-eater, the Chuchunaa often steals food from settlements. Observers say that the creature has a protruding brow, long matted hair, a full beard, and walks with its hands hanging below its knees. Soviet scientists speculate that the Chuchunaa represents the last surviving remnant of the Siberian paleoasiatic aborigines that retreated to the upper reaches of the Yana and Indigirka rivers. The last reliable sightings were in the 1950s, and this animal may now be extinct.
The next, from China, denotes the creature known as Yeren in various parts of the country, as discussed in the New York Times article, ”It’s Tall, It Has Wavy Red Hair and Chinese Keep Hunting for It,” (NYT, p. 5, January 5, 1980). It reads:
“Spurred by reports of large (6 -feet tall) animals with wavy red hair walking on two legs, Chinese scientists have been combing the thick forests of Shennongjia, in Hubei Province. Many footprints 12-16 inches long as well as samples of hair and feces have been found. So far, though, no photos or specimens.”
The next instance is a most interesting excerpt, which appeared in 1982 in Myra Shackley’s “The Case for Neanderthal Survival: Fact, Fiction or Faction?” published in the journal Antiquity (56:31). It reads as follows:
All continents have their tales of wild men, abominable snowmen, sasquatch, etc. Most anthropologists give little credence to these stories. Shackley, however, has assembled considerable evidence for the reality of the so-called Almas (plural form: Almasti), primitive men who closely resemble Neanderthal Man, or at least what we think Neanderthal Man looked like. Abundant, internally consistent data come from an east-west band running from the Caucacus, across the Pamir Mountains, through the Altai Mountains, to Inner Mongolia. Even today, sightings of these creatures are rather common; and several scientists have seen them. One incident occurred in 1917, when the Reds were pursuing White Army forces through the Pamirs. The troops of Major General Mikail Stephanovitch Topilsky shot an Almas as he was emerging from a cave.
“The eyes were dark and the teeth were large and even and shaped like human teeth. The forehead was slanting and the eyebrows were very powerful. The protruding jawbones made the face resemble the Mongol type of face. The nose was very flat …the lower jaws were very massive”In some instances the Almasti have even associated with modern man; and cases of successful interbreeding have been reported. After reviewing the mountains of evidence, Shackley feels that the Almasti are very likely surviving Neanderthals, because the physical characteristics of the Almasti and reconstructed Neanderthals are basically identical. This long review article also discusses the many Chuchunaa sightings from northern Russia — perhaps another relict population of Neanderthals.
As can be seen from the preceding reports (and their publication dates), the notion that some small groups of “wild men” had remained undiscovered in remote areas of the world was once given at least some serious consideration. However, more recent genetic studies that have examined the scant physical evidence available leave us with far less to imagine: in every case, the genetic evidence points to bears, rather than mystery hominids, existing primally at the outermost skirts of the modern world.
How can we reconcile the richness of these cultural traditions from around the world, with the lacking physical evidence for the existence of such creatures? It is difficult to make sense of, on account of the demands of modern science, which require indisputable physical proof before any credible argument can proceed.
Yet eyewitness reports, anecdotal though they are, shouldn’t be ruled completely out of hand; especially those which contain what are, at times, a remarkable degree of detail. Arguably, my favorite from recent memory involves an observation made in the early 1990s by Russian scientist Arkady Tishkov, who watched a strange, upright-walking apelike creature in the Himalayan mountains for a period of two hours in September of 1991:
“About midday, on the top of a moraine ridge at a distance of about 400 feet (120 m), I noticed a human-like animal sitting by a boulder on the sunlit side. My position was lower on the slope, and at first I did not see the full silhouette. A little later, however, I observed the animal in full. It had the following characteristics: erect, bipedal posture; dark brown color; cone-shaped head; no visible neck; long forelimbs; and short and slightly flexed hind limbs. When first observed, the creature was squatting in what seemed an unnatural position for an animal, with its back touching the sun-warmed surface of the boulder.”
A lengthier presentation on the Tishkov encounter can be read here.
We could discuss reputable articles and reasonably constructed eyewitness reports all day, but ultimately there is no clear resolution here. Hence, many in the scientific community would feel most comfortable concluding that if so little evidence exists, then there are probably no such creatures. I have never felt that this is the most logical way to reconcile the two opposing elements to the ongoing cryptozoological mystery; still, at what point will the remarkable observations–many of which no doubt involve valid and real circumstances–be complemented by equally remarkable physical specimens, which will settle the debate once and for all?
Stories about cryptids truly are a cultural phenomenon, stemming from places all around the world. For my part, I do hold onto some hope that certain technological advancements of the coming years may help us settle the debate over the existence of some of these creatures. Whether small microbial lifeforms or larger beasts lurking beyond the regions known well to us in modern times, the field of cryptozoology does bear certain promise for the patient and persistent among us.
In a world that grows seemingly ever-smaller as science teaches us more, it is likely just a matter of time before the next big (or microscopic) discovery in the frontiers of biology.
Japan’s Epsilon-3 rocket launched from the Uchinoura Space Center in the southern prefecture of Kagoshima lit up the sky in a dazzling display.
Japan's space agency has successfully launched its Epsilon-3 small rocket on January 18, 2018 carrying an Earth observation satellite developed by Japanese electronics firm NEC.
The rocket has put the satellite into Earth orbit at an altitude of around 500 kilometers.
Below two short videos of the launch of the Epsilon-3 rocket.
Scientists have created the first map of a colossal supercluster of galaxies known as Laniakea, the home of Earth's Milky Way galaxy and many other. This computer simulation, a still from a Nature journal video, depicts the giant supercluster, with the Milky Way's location shown as a red dot.
In space, we're used to dealing with large distances and objects. In the cosmic scheme of things, Earth is small. Even in our solar system, we are easily dwarfed by the planet Jupiter (more than 1,000 Earths would fit in the planet, according to NASA) and our sun (more than a million Earths would fit in there, according to Cornell University).
Even our sun looks puny when it is compared to the biggest stars we know of. The sun is a G-type star, a yellow dwarf — pretty average sized on the cosmic scale. But some "hypergiant" stars are much, much larger. Perhaps the biggest star known is UY Scuti, which could fit more than 1,700 of our suns. (Note that the margin of error is roughly 192 sun-widths, so at the lower end of the margin UY Scuti would move several ranks down the list of the biggest stars.) UY Scuti is only about 30 times more massive than our sun, however, so that shows that mass and size don't necessarily correlate in space.
Progressing up the list of big cosmic objects, other things to consider are black holes and, in particular, supermassive black holes that typically reside in the center of a galaxy. (Our Milky Way hosts one that is about 4 million times the mass of the sun.) One of the biggest supermassive black holes ever found resides in NGC 4889, which has a black hole roughly 21 billion times the mass of the sun.
There are things out there bigger than even supermassive black holes. Galaxies are collections of star systems and everything that is inside those systems (such as planets, stars, asteroids, comets, dwarf planets, gas, dust and more). Our own Milky Way is about 100,000 light-years across, NASA says; a light-year is the distance light travels in a year. It's difficult to characterize what the largest galaxies are, because they don't really have precise boundaries, but the largest galaxies we know of are millions of light-years across. The biggest known galaxy is IC 1101, which is 50 times the Milky Way's size and about 2,000 times more massive. It is about 5.5 million light-years across. Nebulas, or vast clouds of gas, also have impressively large sizes. NGC 604 in the Triangulum Galaxy is commonly cited as one of the largest; it's roughly 1,520 light-years across.
Now at last we are starting to approach the biggest structures in the universe. Galaxies are often bound to each other gravitationally in groups that are called galaxy clusters. (The Milky Way, for example, is part of the small Local Group that comprises about two dozen galaxies, including the Andromeda Galaxy.) At first glance, astronomers thought that these structures were the biggest thing out there. In the 1980s, however, astronomers realized that groups of galaxy clusters are also connected by gravity and connected in a supercluster.
What is the biggest supercluster?
The biggest supercluster known in the universe is the Hercules-Corona Borealis Great Wall. It was first reported in 2013 and has been studied several times. It's so big that light takes about 10 billion years to move across the structure. For perspective, the universe is only 13.8 billion years old.
The structure first came to light as the research team (led by Istvan Horvath of the National University of Public Service in Hungary) was looking at brief cosmic phenomena known as gamma-ray bursts. It is thought that they come from supernovas, or massive stars that explode at the end of their lifetimes.
Gamma-ray bursts are thought to be a good indication of where huge masses of stuff lie in the universe, because big stars tend to congregate in dense areas. The first survey showed gamma-rays particularly concentrated about 10 billion light-years away in the direction of the Hercules and Corona Borealis constellations.
But it's a puzzle as to just how that big structure came to be. A 2013 article from Discovery News (a partner site to Space.com) pointed out that this structure appeared to go against a principle of cosmology, or how the universe formed and evolved. Specifically, this principle says that matter should be uniform when seen at a large enough scale. The cluster, however, is not uniform.
"I would have thought this structure was too big to exist. Even as a coauthor, I still have my doubts," Jon Hakkila, an astronomy researcher at the College of Charleston in South Carolina, said in a 2014 press release. He said there was a very small chance the researchers saw a random number of gamma-rays in that location, but it is far less than one in 100.
"Thus, we believe that the structure exists," he added. "There are other structures that appear to violate universal homogeneity: the Sloan Great Wall and the Huge Large Quasar Group ... are two. Thus, there may very well be others, and some could indeed be bigger. Only time will tell."
Large objects in our solar system
While the solar system is puny compared to the scale of the Hercules-Corona Borealis Great Wall, here is a list of some of the largest types of objects in our own solar system.
Largest planet: Jupiter, roughly 88,846 miles (142,984 km) at its largest diameter, which is about 11 times the diameter of the Earth.
Largest moon: Ganymede, which coincidentally orbits Jupiter, is roughly 3,273 miles (5,268 km) in diameter and is a little larger than the planet Mercury.
Tallest volcano: Olympus Mons on Mars, roughly 15 miles (25 km) high and three times the height of Mount Everest on Earth. (Olympus Mons is also considered the highest mountain.)
Largest canyon: Valles Marineris on Mars, more than 1,865 miles (3,000 km) long, as much as 370 miles (600 km) across, and 5 miles (8 km) deep.
Largest crater: Utopia Planitia on Mars, which has an estimated diameter of 2,050 miles (3,300 km). It was the general landing area of the Viking 2 spacecraft that landed there in 1976.
Largest asteroid: 4 Vesta, which is 330 miles (530 km) across. It is located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
Largest dwarf planet: Pluto is the largest dwarf planet, with a diameter of 1,473 miles (2,370 km). It was once thought to be smaller than dwarf planet Eris, but Pluto's measurements were confirmed up close by the New Horizons spacecraft in 2015.
Editor's note: This article was corrected on Jan. 19 to include the size of galaxy IC 1101.
The meteor that caused a huge fireball in the skies above southern Michigan Tuesday night (Jan. 16) was only a few feet in size, researchers have said, but its speed was enough to shake the ground as it exploded in the atmosphere.
Reports about the meteor's appearance poured in on social media and to the American Meteor Society overnight. The meteor occurred around 8:10 p.m. CST (9:10 p.m. EST) and registered as a 2.0 magnitude seismic event, according to an alert issued with the National Weather Service.
"This was an explosion in the atmosphere, not an earthquake, and it produced a seismogram that is very different from what you get from a small, regional earthquake," Larry Ruff, a seismologist at the University of Michigan, said in a statement from the university. "Seismologists who are experienced enough can tell that it's not an earthquake because the character is very different." [Photos: Hunting Meteorites from Florida Fireball in Osceola]
Ruff oversees a seismic station at Ann Arbor on the University of Michigan campus, and has been working there since 1982. He said in 35 years, he's never seen an atmospheric event produce this strong of a seismic signature.
David Gerdes, an astrophysicist at the University of Michigan, said Earth gets hit by about 1,000 visible meteors every second, but most of these objects are only the size of sand grains.
The University of Michigan recorded this seismogram when a bright fireball lit the sky on Jan. 16, indicating a 2.0 magnitude seismic event.
Credit: University of Michigan
"Meteors that penetrate deep enough into our atmosphere to produce the large visible and audible burst like we experienced last night come from objects with diameters of about one meter or more, and are more rare," Gerdes said in the statement.
"Last night's event was recorded by dashboard cameras, security cameras, lightning sensors, and seismological sensors from many locations," he added. "These data will help us form a much better picture of this object's size and trajectory, and if and where any fragments reached the Earth."
The meteor appears here as the bright light on the left.
Credit: T. Masterson
No hazards from this meteor
While the meteor was wowing the public across Michigan, Michael Liemohn, also at Michigan — who studies space hazards such as solar wind — spotted the meteor from his car. He said the object in the atmosphere (also called a "bolide") was much smaller than the 56-foot (17-meter) object that shattered over Chelyabinsk, Russia, in 2013, injuring hundreds of people and causing property damage.
"This was probably a rock of only a few feet in diameter," he said in the same university statement. "The primary way that a bolide can be dangerous is broken glass. Weird, but true. They are moving at thousands of miles per hour through the atmosphere, so, supersonic speeds, and they create a sonic boom that can reach the ground. If this bolide had been a slightly bigger rock, then it could have broken windows."
Researchers at the university said that an object of 1 meter (3.2 feet) in size hits Earth every few months, a 10-meter (33-foot) object strikes every few years or decades, and a 100-meter (330-foot) object roughly every few thousand years.
This "Did You Feel It?" map from the U.S. Geological Survey shows where people felt the ground shake as the meteor flew overhead on Jan. 16.
Credit: U.S. Geological Survey
Liemohn added that NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO) and its partner telescopes are designed to look at very large asteroids, especially those that are bigger than a house. However, smaller objects tend to escape everyone's notice because they are too small to see until they are close to Earth. While PDCO hasn't spotted an imminently threatening object so far, NASA is working on technology to deflect a potentially hazardous asteroid — such as using lasers, or shooting it with a missile.
Ted Bergin, who chairs the astronomy department at Michigan, researches the molecular origins of life and examines how stars and planets are formed. He pointed out that meteors, while small, have an important role in helping astronomers understand the history of the solar system and the universe.
"These rocks are the leftovers of planet formation — they never made it into a planet like our own," he said. "Because of that, they contain inside them the history of our own origins and can tell us how a planet like our own was born."
Editor's note: If you captured an amazing photo or video of the Michigan meteor and would like to share it with Space.com for a story or gallery, send images and comments to: spacephotos@space.com.
THE PROFESSIONAL UFO SKEPTIC WHO BELIEVED IN ALIENS
THE PROFESSIONAL UFO SKEPTIC WHO BELIEVED IN ALIENS
'The Close Encounters Man’ tells the unlikely story of how the government’s astrophysicist debunker became the phenomenon’s most expert defender.
If you’re jonesing for an extraterrestrial, you should check outThe Close Encounters Manby Mark O’Connell. O’Connell, a writer for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and founder of the UFO blog High Strangeness, set out to write “a UFO book people wouldn’t need to hide from other people.” He found his ideal subject in J. Allen Hynek, the astronomer hired by the United States Air Force in 1948 to debunk the reports of strange objects in the sky flooding in from across the country. Eventually Hynek broke with his handlers and became the first scientist to lend credence to the UFO phenomenon. The author of 1972’s The UFO Experience: A Scientific Study, he would go on to found the Center for UFO Studies in 1973, present a speech on flying saucers to the United Nations in 1978, and develop the “close encounter” scale that would inspire Steven Spielberg’s popular Close Encounters of the Third Kind (“a huge boon to his work,” O’Connell told me. “They shot a scene where the little aliens grab Hynek’s pipe from him and stick it up their noses, but it was cut down to a six-second cameo.”)
In telling the life story of Hynek, the “astro-beatnik,” O’Connell winds up with a stunning panorama of the UFO movement—from fringe conspiracy theorists to amateur astronomers to agnostic scientists—as well as its colossal impact on pop culture and modern science. I recently spoke with O’Connell over the phone about Hynek’s unique story of skeptic turned believer, the scientific study of the inexplicable, and what makes a good UFO witness.
VICE: What had to happen for a scientist as disciplined as Hynek to reach an epiphany and come around to a belief in flying saucers?
Mark O’Connell: It was a gradual process punctuated by traumatic moments. He had been involved in the Air Force’s first UFO study, Project Sign, where he simply looked over the collected UFO reports and classified as many as he could as misidentified astrological objects like comets or meteorological phenomena like strange clouds, or normal things like aircraft or weather balloons. At the end, there were about 20 percent of the cases left unsolved. He just put those aside, thinking with enough time and resources we could probably explain those away as well. So he filed the report, went back to teach at Ohio State and Wesleyan Universities.
What led to Hynek getting involved with UFOs again?
Three years later, the Air Force’s UFO studies were reinvigorated under a new commander who wanted to take a fresh look at things. When he discovered Hynek was still teaching about 90 miles up the road, he paid him a visit to hear more about the work he’d done. And Hynek was shocked to discover it hadn’t faded away. People were still seeing and reporting close encounters, and there remained a consistent 20 percent that couldn’t be explained. The numbers never changed, but his thinking changed.
How did Hynek’s thoughts on UFOs change?
Shortly after that he gave an address to the Optical Society of America in Boston in 1952. He said, “Look, this is something we need to study that could represent an entirely unknown realm of nature, and as scientists we ought to be curious enough to want to study it.” And that was earthshaking. But he often outraged the other side too, like in the infamous swamp gas case in Michigan of 1966. Over a hundred witnesses had seen floating lights in the nighttime, and it caused huge national furor, made headlines all over the country. So the Air Force sent Hynek in to investigate. After three days of intense investigations, Hynek—a guy who went where the facts lead him and nowhere else—concluded that these people had quite possibly seen swamp gas. Everyone in Michigan was deeply offended to be shown up nationally as crackpots. So Hynek said, “You know, I’m not going to carry water for the Air Force any more,” and went his own way and decided to begin conducting his own research. And, by the way, one of the things he said to the Optical Society was something that’s always stuck in my mind: “Ridicule is not part of the scientific method, and the American public should not be taught that it is.”
Where’s the line between a conspiracy theorist and a fact-based skeptic who becomes skeptical even of other skeptics?
I don’t think we’ve found that line and that was one of the frustrations of Hynek’s career. There was a brief period in the early 1980s when his Center for UFO Studies was really thriving. They had money coming in—they had a lot of support from the scientific establishment and were able to dedicate resources to investigating UFO cases. But over time they became less exciting to other UFO people. They were grabbing fewer headlines; financing fell apart; and the center wasn’t able to do nearly as much. So I think Hynek’s efforts to bring the phenomenon into the sunlight and devote scientific study to it never had the opportunity to fully blossom. His goal was to cross that line and bring those two sides together. He came close, but I think he never quite achieved it.
What were Hynek’s chief takeaways about the study of UFOs?
Hynek observed that a meteorologist can’t study a tornado in a lab, only the results. He thought the same thing about UFOs: You have to get a little creative when you’re researching something as off the wall as UFOs, which do seem to deliberately make it hard for us to understand them. I compare it to the “Confuse-a-Cat” sketch from Monty Python. We’re the confused cat, and we need to be shocked out of our stupor by something that seems to have little to do with our version of reality. And so many of us who write and think about UFOs have to reach for new frameworks to define the issue and then study it.
How has our relationship with UFOs changed in the present time as compared to Hynek’s heyday?
It’s changed quite a bit. One of the sad things about my book—and maybe this makes a case for writing a sequel—is that Hynek passed away in 1986, and it was exactly a year later that the entire UFO field went through a complete paradigm shift with the publication of Whitley Strieber’s Communion [which was later made into a movie starring Christopher Walken]. Strieber was already a successful horror writer at the time, right up there with Stephen King and Peter Straub. In Communion, he tells the true—according to him!—story of his alien abduction while he and his family were staying at their cottage in upstate New York. So all of a sudden, the alien encounter narrative was flipped on its head. Up to that point, close encounters, when they were reported, generally took place in isolated locales—a lonely country highway or a deserted farm out in the boonies where there would be very few people to see what was happening. Now, afterCommunion, the aliens are appearing in your bedroom at night, a scenario Budd Hopkins and several other researchers confirmed. Now whether that shift is conscious or whether it points to some change in how we see ourselves, who knows?
If on one side of the spectrum we have Carl Sagan and on the other, say, ErichVon Däniken, who theorized that ancient culture and religion was created by alien astronauts,where do we place Hynek?
I would put him maybe close to the center, but more on the Sagan side. They both had a lot of contempt for UFO charlatans. So yeah, he would definitely put himself far from the Von Däniken side, but he also would have thought Sagan was being closed-minded and intellectually dishonest to a degree.
What can ufology bring to modern science?
The ability to use imagination as part of the scientific process. We hear all the time from NASA how, just recently, we’ve discovered a planet that has five or six other planets in its orbit or how the Tabby Star dims in such a way as to suggest an alien megastructure. We have all these wild, seemingly impossible things that are now proving to be true. At the same time, we have people—and I’m not knocking them because I love and respect the work they do—like Neil deGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye the Science Guy, who’re crusading for scientific education, but will draw the curtain on UFO stuff because it “makes us look silly.” I think we need to get past that, because it doesn’t make you look silly, it makes you look like someone who is interested in learning more about the world around us and finding the borderline of science and studying the things that science could not explain. And I think that’s a pretty good approach for any scientist.
What makes for a good UFO eyewitness?
A keen sense of observation is key. A strong linguistic capability is very helpful because people who see UFOs are trying to describe something unheard of in human experience and need to be able to develop a new language. Too often you see people unable to describe what they’ve seen and experienced simply because there are no words for it, at least not yet.
I’ve been haunted by the fear that there is no vast conspiracy guiding the government, only stupidity and bungling. To what extent are you able to believe in the military’s ability to orchestrate certain cover-ups, as opposed to just lose things or mishandle data?
Hynek made a good distinction: “You can cover up knowing something or you can cover not knowing something.” I think government obfuscation is a big part of the story, but for many people that translates into “Oh, they’re hiding something from us.” One of the first important UFO writers, Donald Keyhoe, was provoked by the fact that nobody in the Air Force would return his calls. His reaction was, “Ah ha, they’re covering something up!” Well, no, they just didn’t want to talk to you.
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
Recent work by J.W. McCormack appears in Conjunctions, the Culture Trip, the New York Times, and the New Republic.
Close Encounters Manby Mark O’Connell will be published on June 13 by Harper Collins.
NASA werkt aan nieuwe energiebron voor toekomstige ruimtereizen
NASA werkt aan nieuwe energiebron voor toekomstige ruimtereizen
Vivian Lammerse
En deze Kilopower-reactor gooit hoge ogen.
Stroom is een essentieel onderdeel voor de mensen die afreizen naar de ruimte. Denk maar aan het simpel aandoen van een lamp, maar ook bij het uitvoeren van experimenten. Het genereren van elektriciteit is daarnaast ook noodzakelijk om astronauten weer veilig te laten terugkeren naar de Aarde. En een betrouwbaar en efficiënt energiesysteem is daarom broodnodig.
Kilopower Op dit moment is NASA aan het experimenteren met een Kilopower-reactor. Volgens NASA is deze nieuwe krachtbron veilig, efficiënt en kan het voldoende energie leveren voor toekomstige verkenningsmissies in de ruimte. Zo zou deze lichtgewicht generator tot tien kilowatt elektrisch vermogen kunnen leveren voor zeker tien onafgebroken jaren. Dat is genoeg om twee gemiddelde huishouders van stroom te voorzien. Voor de toekomstige Marskolonisten een fijne gedachte.
Rode planeet Het grote voordeel van Kilopower is dat het overal energie kan bieden, waar mensen – of robots – ook naartoe gaan. “We willen een energiebron ontwikkelen die extreme omgevingen aankan,” zegt NASA-onderzoeker Lee Mason. “En met Kilopower strekt ons bereik uit over heel Mars, zelfs op de noordelijke breedtegraden waar zich water bevindt.” Wat dat betreft is Kilopower een stuk betrouwbaarder dan bijvoorbeeld zonnepanelen. Op Mars varieert namelijk de kracht van de zon in de loop van de seizoenen sterk. Zo kunnen er bijvoorbeeld voor maanden zandstormen over Mars razen.
Het prototype van de Kilopower-reactor.
Afbeelding: NASA
Maan De onderzoekers denken ook dat de Kilopower-reactor goed zal gedijen op de maan. “Daar kan Kilopower worden ingezet om te helpen zoeken naar hulpbronnen in permanent beschaduwde kraters,” legt Mason uit. Ook zou de reactor tegen de enorm koude maannacht kunnen, die wel veertien dagen duurt.
In deze uitdagende omgevingen is de Kilopower-reactor volgens de Amerikaanse ruimtevaartorganisatie perfect voor de klus. Om hier zeker van te zijn, voeren de onderzoekers verschillende testen uit. Eind maart volgt het laatste en grootste experiment, waarbij de reactor voor 28 uur op vol vermogen zal draaien.
Scientists used the Blue Waters supercomputer to show that a black hole’s relativistic jets and accretion disk both may be spinning – and precessing over time – around an axis separate from the black hole itself.
The video above shows a first-of-its-kind simulation – produced using the Blue Waters supercomputer – demonstrating that a black hole’s relativistic jets follow along with the precession of a black hole’s tilted accretion disk.
These scientists said:
At close to a billion computational cells, it is the highest resolution simulation of an accreting black hole ever achieved.
Relativistic jets – that is, jets containing particles that move near the speed of light – tend to be associated with the central, supermassive black holes of some active galaxies, radio galaxies and quasars. They tend to be located many billions of light-years away and may extend outward from supermassive black holes across millions of light-years of space.
Black hole accretion disks – while akin to earthly hurricanes and while theorized and discussed by scientists for decades – are also highly complex systems. Both the relativistic jets and the accretions disks of black holes are located so far away that it’s impossible to observe many details about them. That’s why scientists use computer simulations to study them.
Nearly all previous simulations assumed accretion disks and jets aligned with the spin of the black hole. But, in reality, most galaxies’ central supermassive black holes are thought to harbor tilted disks — meaning the disk rotates around a separate axis than the black hole itself.
The recent simulations by the Blue Waters supercomputer – located on the campus of the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana – are the first to show the jets aligned with the accretion disks and also to show the jets’ streams gradually changing direction in the sky, or precessing. The scientists who ran the simulations said this is:
… a result of space-time being dragged into the rotation of the black hole. This behavior aligns with Albert Einstein’s predictions about extreme gravity near rotating black holes, published in his famous theory of general relativity.
Physicist Alexander Tchekhovskoy at Northwestern is a co-author of the study, which was published in the peer-reviewedjournal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Tchekhovskoy said:
Understanding how rotating black holes drag the space-time around them and how this process affects what we see through the telescopes remains a crucial, difficult-to-crack puzzle. Fortunately, the breakthroughs in code development and leaps in supercomputer architecture are bringing us ever closer to finding the answers.
Bottom line: Scientists used the Blue Waters supercomputer to show that a black hole’s relativistic jets follow along with the precession of its tilted accretion disk. In other words, both may be spinning around an axis separate from the hole itself.
Astronomers looked back to a time only 800 million years after the Big Bang and found whirlpool shapes in small, very young galaxies.
A simulation of rotating disc, resulting in a whirlpool shape, much like that of our Milky Way and other spiral galaxies via R. Crain (LJMU) and J. Geach (U.Herts)/ ALMA.
At last week’s meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Washington D.C., astronomers from University of Cambridge in England reported looking back to a time soon after the Big Bang and discovering swirling gas in some of the earliest galaxies. That is, these small galaxies – observed as they appeared nearly 13 billion years ago – already spun like a whirlpool, similar to our own Milky Way and many other spiral galaxies. These astronomers said it’s the first time they’ve detected movement in such young galaxies, so early in the history of the universe.
The researchers – led by Renske Smit from the Kavli Institute of Cosmology at the University of Cambridge – used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) to conduct this research. The team said it expected more chaos in the structure of these early galaxies.
They were surprised to find these newly born galaxies swirling and rotating in a whirlpool motion.
Hubble Telescope image of the night sky where the galaxies were found, plus 2 zoomed-in panels of the ALMA data.
Image via Hubble (NASA/ESA), ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), P. Oesch (University of Geneva) and R. Smit (University of Cambridge).
Light from distant objects takes time to reach Earth, so observing objects that are billions of light years away enables us to look back in time and directly observe the formation of the earliest galaxies. The Universe at that time, however, was filled with an obscuring ‘haze’ of neutral hydrogen gas, which makes it difficult to see the formation of the very first galaxies with optical telescopes.
Smit and colleagues including Stefano Carniani, also at Cambridge, used ALMA to observe two small newborn galaxies, as they existed just 800 million years after the Big Bang. By analysing the spectral ‘fingerprint’ of the far-infrared light collected by ALMA, they were able to establish the distance to the galaxies and, for the first time, see the internal motion of the gas that fuelled their growth.
The astronomers also found that – despite their relatively small size, about five times smaller than the Milky Way – these galaxies were forming stars at a higher rate than other young galaxies. Smit commented:
In the early universe, gravity caused gas to flow rapidly into the galaxies, stirring them up and forming lots of new stars. Violent supernova explosions from these stars also made the gas turbulent.
We expected that young galaxies would be dynamically ‘messy’, due to the havoc caused by exploding young stars, but these mini-galaxies show the ability to retain order and appear well regulated. Despite their small size, they are already rapidly growing to become one of the ‘adult’ galaxies like we live in today.
The astronomers said the data from their project on small galaxies paves the way for larger studies of galaxies during the first billion years of cosmic time.
Artist’s concept of whirlpool movement in a galaxy, via Amanda Smith/ University of Cambridge.
Bottom line: Astronomers from University of Cambridge in England used the ALMA telescope in Chile to identify small, very young galaxies – only 800 million years after the Big Bang – already taking on a spiral shape.
The team of Larry Atkins, Robert Ward and Darryl Landry made the finds on an isolated Michigan lake — they declined disclosing the exact location so as not to draw unwanted attention to the lake and its residents. In an interview with Space.com, Atkins said he plans on continuing the hunt for at least the next week.
The first find happened around 9 a.m. EST (1300 GMT), and Atkins discovered a second one himself just 15 minutes later. "It looked like a perfect black charcoal briquette, with a little snowdrift on top," Atkins told Space.com Thursday. Based on his two decades of experience hunting meteorites — fragments of rocks that remain after some space-rock fireballs break up in the atmosphere — he said there was no question it was from space. The rock showed up clearly on the fresh ice, although from a distance Atkins did question whether it was a small pile of leaves. [Small Michigan Meteor Packed a Seismic Punch, Experts Say]
Meteorite-hunter Larry Atkins poses with one of the meteorites found on Jan. 18, 2018, two days after a meteor caused a spectacular fireball in the Michigan night sky.
Credit: Darryl Landry
The finds had masses of between 20 and 100 grams, and were small enough to "fit in the palm of your hand," Atkins said. He added that from a quick look at the meteorites, they all appear related and they all looked like ordinary chondrites — the most common type of meteorite found on Earth. The team has already picked out one sample they plan to send to the Field Museum in Chicago, Atkins said. The rest they will keep for their personal collections, they said.
Meteorite-hunter Robert Ward poses with one of the meteorites found on Jan. 18, 2018, two days after a meteor caused a spectacular fireball in the Michigan night sky.
Credit: Darryl Landry
Fellow team member Robert Ward also flew in from Arizona, arriving at 1:30 a.m. EST (0530 GMT) Jan. 18. By 3 a.m., he was already scouting for possible locations, based on radar information his team received from the American Meteor Society and NASA. His first find came around 10 a.m. — another chondrite, he said. Ward gave a phone interview to Space.com yesterday (Jan. 19) while out on the ice, scouting for more meteorites.
"The data was spectacular — it was a very quick discovery and everything came together," said Ward, referring to the amount of information available to help him make the discovery. He has searched for meteorites since age 13, roughly 28 years ago, and has made 600 distinct finds on all continents except Antarctica. "I'll be here until Sunday, but I may come back out … later in a few weeks."
Picture of a rock that meteorite-hunters say likely came from a meteor that exploded in the atmosphere over Ann Arbor, Michigan Jan. 16, 2018.
Credit: Larry Atkins
Public and professional participation
The excitement of the fireball sent people out into the Michigan cold in hopes of finding a piece of space. Among them was University of Michigan seismologist Larry Ruff, who thought it would be a fun idea to venture out in the fresh snow and go meteorite hunting. He didn't find anything, but enjoyed the experience, he said.
"It's been really cold here, but today was one of the warmer days," Ruff told Space.com in an interview Jan. 18, explaining that temperatures then were as high as 20 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 7 degrees Celsius). "That explains why everyone was happy to get out of the house and look for some meteorites."
Ruff searched in a park along with fellow Earth sciences professor James Gleason, who specializes in the composition of meteorites. The professors met lots of other wannabe meteorite-finders, too. Ruff joked that he was jealous that others had made the first finds, but added, "the debris field area is so huge, and somebody has to make a find."
Ruff, who oversees the Ann Arbor seismic station at the University of Michigan, said the fireball produced one of the strongest seismic waves he had ever seen. He added that "seismic wave" did not mean an earthquake, but signified a disturbance in the atmosphere.
Sightings across the Midwest
The American Meteor Society has received 657 reports about the fireballsince it lit up the skies Tuesday night (Jan. 16), according to their website, with observers reporting from a number of states, including Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania. Some observers even saw it from the province of Ontario, in Canada.
"This was a very slow moving meteor — speed of about 28,000 miles per hour (45,000 km/h)," the AMS added in a news release issued Wednesday (Jan. 17). "This fact, combined with the brightness of the meteor (which suggests a fairly big space rock), shows that the object penetrated deep into the atmosphere before it broke apart (which produced the sounds heard by at least 77 observers)."
The composition and size of the meteor isn't well-understood yet, but early reports suggest that it was only a few feet in size, rather than the impressive Chelyabinsk bolide diameter of 17 meters (51 feet). When that bolide exploded over Russia in 2013, it injured hundreds of people and caused property damage, mainly because the sonic wave from the meteor shattered glass.
Meteorites range from the durable to the delicate. If the Michigan bolide was made of lesser stuff than iron or stone, exposure to the elements will erode any fragments quickly. That's why Ruff said it's important to get outside quickly, to make sure as much evidence is gathered as possible.
A rock, pulled out of the snow, that meteorite-hunters say likely traces back to a fireball that exploded over Ann Arbor, Michigan Jan. 16, 2018.
Credit: Larry Atkins
Record of the early solar system
Over 50,000 meteorites have been found on Earth alone, according to NASA. Of those, about 99.8 percent come from asteroids — small, rocky bodies in our solar system. This means that meteorites serve as a record of the early solar system, since asteroids are leftover fragments from the small bits of rock and gas that formed the planets roughly 4.5 billion to 4.6 billion years ago.
"The study of meteorites tells us much about the earliest conditions and processes during the formation and earliest history of the solar system, such as the age and composition of solids, the nature of the organic matter, the temperatures achieved at the surface and interiors of asteroids, and the degree to which materials were shocked by impacts," NASA officials said.
This fireball over Michigan was too small to cause damage, but past events on Earth have. A meteorite strike on Earth about 66 million years ago is one of the principally cited causes for the dinosaurs' extinction. The impact left behind a 180-mile (300 kilometer) crater called Chicxulub, which is in the Yucatan Peninsula. Another well-known impact site is Meteor Crater in Arizona, which is about 0.6 miles (1 km) across. Craters are also found all over the solar system — on the moon, Mars and many other locations.
NASA has a Planetary Defense Coordination Office charged with looking for potentially hazardous objects careening toward Earth. They haven't yet seen an object that poses an imminent threat to life on Earth, but NASA and its partners continue searching, just in case. Scientists are also working on several technologies to deflect or destroy threatening asteroids, such as lasers or missiles.
Though NASA’s Cassini spacecraft was vaporized in Saturn’s atmosphere back in September (RIP), it’s still revealing fascinating insights about the planet and its moons from beyond the grave. Two new papers using data from the zombie orbiter has found that Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, has “sea level” just like Earth.
At face value, our planet and the Saturnian moon couldn’t be more different. Titan has a green, eerie glow and electric sand. Earth has cats and things that are nice/not mostly terrifying. But oddly enough, Titan is the only other world in the solar system that has stable liquid on its surface.
In December, researchers from Cornell University published two studies in the Geophysical Research Letters — one about Titan’s topography and the other about its bodies of liquid. In the latter, the team describes how they used Cassini data to find that Titan’s bodies of water “follow a constant elevation relative to Titan’s gravitational pull,” according to NASA.
Titan
Cassini measurements reveal that Titan’s three seas are somehow connected beneath the surface, and that hydrocarbons flow similarly to the way water does on subterranean Earth. Smaller lakes seem to crop up hundreds of meters above sea level on the alien moon, similar to some lakes on Earth, and there’s “common liquid level” that the researchers were able to find.
“We’re measuring the elevation of a liquid surface on another body 10 astronomical units away from the sun to an accuracy of roughly 40 centimeters,” the study’s lead author Alex Hayes, an assistant professor of astronomy at Cornell, says in a statement. “Because we have such amazing accuracy we were able to see that between these two seas the elevation varied smoothly about 11 meters, relative to the center of mass of Titan, consistent with the expected change in the gravitational potential. We are measuring Titan’s geoid. This is the shape that the surface would take under the influence of gravity and rotation alone, which is the same shape that dominates Earth’s oceans,” said Hayes.
So while none of us are ever actually going to Titan, it’s comforting to know that our planet has a pal out there that it’s a little similar to, even if Titan is kind of like Earth’s Waluigi.
Hi there. You’ve made it to the bottom of this story! Speaking of which… we’re giving away an epic $5,000 ski trip to Banff, Alberta. Click here to enter! ⛷
This is what it looks like to land on Saturn’s moon Titan.
But the origin of the object, dubbed Oumuamua, has finally been explained by academic Fabo Feng at the University of Hertfordshire.
The Breakthrough Listen project announced in December it planned to conduct more tests on the strangely shaped space object after the initial investigation revealed no sign of alien life.
But now Mr Feng thinks he may have discovered the asteroid’s origins, reported Express.co.uk.
WIKIPEDIA
PATH: Trajectory of ʻOumuamua through the inner Solar System
Oumuamua, which is also described as an interstellar, may have come a nearby group of young stars, he said.
He added: “Reconstructing the object's motion, my research suggests it probably came from the nearby 'Pleiades moving group' of young stars, also known as the 'Local Association'.
“It was likely ejected from its home solar system and sent out to travel interstellar space.”
The mysterious rock is the first foreign object in the solar system to be spotted.
It’s still unknown how long it has been traveling for.
It was spotted by the Pan-STARRS1 telescope in Hawaii on October 19 and travelling at about 95,000 kilometres per hour.
Mr Feng added: “I simulated how it has probably travelled through the galaxy and compared this to the motions of nearby stars.
“I found the object passed 109 stars within a distance of 16 light years.
“It went by five of these stars from in the Local Association, a group of young stars likely to have formed together, at a very slow speed relative to their movement.”
Mr Feng went on to explain that the interstellar has a particularly slow speed compared with most objects in the galaxy.
He added that this suggested that it was of a very young age and hadn’t travelled far, as similar objects were likely to speed up with age.
Despite being the only interstellar spotted in the solar system, Mr Feng believes it is possible there were millions of similar objects that haven’t been seen yet.
He said: “My research suggests there are likely more than 46million similar interstellar objects crossing the solar system every year.
“Most of them will be too far away for us to see with our current telescopes.
“But new telescopes and surveys should soon be able to find these interstellar messengers, which may be sending us important information about how stars and planets formed.”
A small asteroid passed relatively close to Earth this month, having been discovered just six days earlier. This might sound scary, but it’s unusual that such an object would actually collide with the Earth.
Each year about 50,000 tonnes of extraterrestrial material (rocks and dust) hits our planet. This comes as tiny pieces – even if it all came at once, it would be only slightly larger than the “lorry-sized” asteroid that passed us in January.
But while scientists can readily spot fairly large asteroids greater than about a kilometre across, what risk do such smaller asteroids that may be more difficult to track pose? Should we worry?
It is widely believed the dinosaurs were wiped out 65m years ago by an asteroid impact. The environmental changes that it caused – a rapid rise in atmospheric temperature and global forest fires, followed by plummeting temperatures and acidified ocean waters – were a consequence of the size of the asteroid, probably about 10km across.
This is almost three orders of magnitude larger in diameter, and about 30m times heavier, than the year’s worth of asteroids that hit us today.
The Earth had a brush with an object estimated to be around 20 metres across almost five years ago over Chelyabinsk in Russia. Nobody saw it coming. Spectacular footage of the incoming fireball was recorded by commuters on their way to work, shocked to see the dark February morning lit by something originally thought to be a missile.
The rock exploded in the atmosphere, with many meteorite fragments scattered across the region. The largest piece, of about 600kg, was recovered several months later in an ice covered lake. Although many people were hurt when the object powered its way through the atmosphere, the injuries mostly came from window glass shattered by the atmospheric shock wave it caused.
The inhabitants of the Chelyabinsk region had a lucky escape – no crater was created by the asteroid because it burst into pieces about 30km up in the atmosphere. Luckily, this is the most likely situation for an object that size.
Meteor Crater in Arizona.Kevin Walsh/wikipedia, CC BY-SA
It is not until an asteroid is about 50 metres across that a crater is produced on impact. Even when it is two or three kilometres across – the size of Meteor Crater in Arizona – it is not near large enough to cause destruction on the global scale of the dinosaur extinction event. But it would certainly cause local problems if the impact was in an inhabited area. Imagine the asteroid that created the Meteor Crater – literally and figuratively – hitting central London, Washington or Mumbai.
Monitoring threat
There are several international observing programmes using automated telescopes specifically dedicated to mapping all “Near Earth Objects”. These are asteroids with a closest approach to the sun of less than 1.3 Astronomical Units – one such unit is the distance between the Earth and the sun. A special watch is kept for “potentially hazardous objects”, which are Near Earth Objects over 150 metres in diameter with orbits that cross that of the Earth.
Fortunately, practically all of these objects are in stable orbits, and are not designated hazardous. Asteroids with sizes down to about five metres across can now be observed. Although, as the Chelyabinsk event illustrated, there are still objects that evade the watchers. Part of the reason that the Chelyabinsk object went undetected, was because it came into the atmosphere at a very low angle from the direction of the sun. But the main reason was the sheer number of such objects, and the relatively short time (about a decade) that we have been actively tracking them.
It is salutary to look at the number of detections of Near Earth Objects. The Minor Planet Center maintains a database of observations, keeping a running total which, by the end of December 2017, stood at over 17,500. A further 28 have already been spotted this month. You can get an idea here where all these objects are relative to the Earth and the sun – I guarantee that you will be more than a little perturbed when you see how surrounded we are by these missiles.
One of the major problems that civilisation has is that while we are becoming incredibly efficient at spotting Near Earth Objects, we still cannot do anything about one that might be on a collision path with the Earth. NASA currently has a project, DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test), to redirect a threatening asteroid at the preliminary design phase. A spacecraft, about 1.5 metres across, will be aimed to crash into an asteroid (Didymos B) about 140 metres across. Didymos B orbits a primary body, Didymos A. The aim of the project is to change the orbit of Didymos B around its binary partner, while not altering the orbit of Didymos A around the sun.
DART is scheduled for launch in December 2020, intercepting Didymos in October 2022. So we have fewer than five years to wait before we find out whether we can protect our planet from its unruly neighbours.
For now, while small asteroids certainly can pose some danger, the threat is more regional than that posed by larger asteroids. So there is no need (yet) to start stockpiling baked beans and bottled water against our imminent demise by asteroid attack. The 50,000 tonnes of space material that hits Earth each year falls mainly as dust grains less than half a millimetre across. And given that we are all still here (at the time of writing…), it poses no threat to humanity.
Deze wetenschappers denken een piramide te hebben ontdekt op Mars. Lees hier over hun opmerkelijke vondst
Deze wetenschappers denken een piramide te hebben ontdekt op Mars. Lees hier over hun opmerkelijke vondst
Al lange tijd vragen wetenschappers zich af of er leven is of ooit is geweest op Mars. The Cydonia Institute heeft nu afbeeldingen gevonden van vermeende kunstmatige structuren op het Marsoppervlak.
In de kloof Candor Chasma op de rode planeet troffen de onderzoekers een driehoekige piramidevormige formatie aan, die sterk lijkt op de zogeheten Reuleaux-piramide.
De formatie is duidelijk te zien op vijf foto’s die zijn gemaakt door de Mars Global Surveyor en de Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Intelligentie
Volgens de geologen en aardwetenschappers zijn er twee mogelijke verklaringen. De formatie kan zijn ontstaan als gevolg van natuurlijke mechanismen of zijn achtergelaten door een intelligentie.
(MRO/NASA/JPL/University of Arizona)
Het ontwerp van de driehoekige piramide is uitzonderlijk als je kijkt naar de geometrie en symmetrie, aldus de onderzoekers.
Ze merken op dat soortgelijke monumenten op aarde worden gebouwd door moderne ingenieurs en worden gevonden in landen als China.
Meer foto’s
Ondanks natuurlijke afzettingen en erosie zijn de zijden van de formatie erg symmetrisch. De onderzoekers achten de kans dan ook klein dat de piramide is ontstaan door natuurlijke processen.
De kans is groot, zo stellen ze, dat de formatie een kunstmatige oorsprong heeft. “We raden de NASA en de Universiteit van Arizona aan er meer foto’s van te maken met de Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter,” zeggen ze.
Belangrijke kandidaat
Als ook die foto’s wijzen in de richting van een kunstmatige oorsprong, zou de formatie een belangrijke kandidaat moeten zijn voor het onderzoek naar potentiële archeologische voorwerpen op Mars, besluit het team.
Did Ancient Mars Host an Alien Civilization? US Congressman Asks NASA Panel (Video)
Did Ancient Mars Host an Alien Civilization? US Congressman Asks NASA Panel (Video)
Is It Possible That Ancient Mars Was Host To An Alien Civilization?
This is exactly the question that Rep. Dana Rohrbacher, R-Calif., asked of a NASA panel of planetary scientists on July 18, 2017. To be clear, there is no official evidence that this is the case. Mars, as far as we know, did not host any alien civilization in the past.
Mars Was Very Different Billions of Years Ago
The Mars we know today is not the Mars of the past. Ancient Mars likely had rivers, lakes, and possibly oceans. It’s not an impossible scenario to believe that life, in some form, once existed there. That being said, the existence a full-blown intelligent civilization is another story. It took earth almost 3.8 billion years to develop intelligent life. Mars is only about 4.5 billion years old. Life would have had to begin very early in the planet’s history to have enough time to develop into something capable of meeting our definition of a ‘civilization’.
Based on what we know, ancient Mars could have looked something like this, especially if life had taken hold.
Ancient Martian Alien Civilization: Unlikely, But Not Impossible
As a rule of logic, it’s nearly impossible to disprove a negative. Though the panel of NASA scientists said it would be extremely unlikely, they didn’t quite say it was an impossibility. We understand a bit about Martian history, but our scope of research is obviously limited. If life on Mars had developed and then suffered some extinction event a few billion years ago, there would be very little evidence left today. There’s also the question as to whether humans would be able to recognize alien life at all.
What Convinced Congressman Rohrbacher to Ask This Question?
Judging from the reaction of the young man sitting behind the congressman when he finally asked the question, it’s likely that he was asking on his behalf. It’s no secret that Congressman Rohrbacher isn’t a scientist. He does, however, sit on the Committee on Science Space and Technology and has been consistently pro-NASA relative to his other Republican counterparts. He is also keen on having NASA send humans back to the moon.
The Video
You can see the congressman’s question in the video below as well as the response from NASA scientist Dr. Kenneth Farley. Farley is quick to correct Rohrbacher in that Mars was very different billions of years ago vs. thousands of years ago as the question was posed. A few billion years is a long time. If an alien civilization existed on Mars billions of years ago, the time has most likely wiped that slate clean.
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )
EXCLUSIF : Un Ex-agent britannique en charge d’enquêter sur les OVNIs dit que les Extraterrestres EXISTENT et qu’il y a une DISSIMULATION en cours
EXCLUSIF : Un Ex-agent britannique en charge d’enquêter sur les OVNIs dit que les Extraterrestres EXISTENT et qu’il y a une DISSIMULATION en cours
EXCLUSIF : Un Ex-agent britannique en charge d’enquêter sur les OVNIs dit que les Extraterrestres EXISTENT et qu’il y a une DISSIMULATION en cours
UN ENQUÊTEUR qui a passé des années à se pencher sur le phénomène OVNI pour le Ministère de la Défense (MoD) a parlé exclusivement à Express.co.uk sur les revendications que des aliens intelligents vivent ici sur Terre et l’histoire explosive est dissimulée par les dirigeants mondiaux.
Nick Pope a travaillé pour le ministère britannique de la Défense de 1985 à 2006, et entre 1991 et 1994, il a mené des enquêtes approfondies sur toute menace potentielle de défense posée par le phénomène des OVNI.
Le projet a été stoppé et il n’y a pas eu de menace.
Aujourd’hui basé aux Etats-Unis, M. Pope parcourt le globe en prenant la parole lors de conférences sur les ovnis et les extraterrestres, tout en décrivant dans des documentaires ce qu’il a découvert.
Cependant, lorsqu’il s’agit de révéler ses véritables croyances sur l’existence d’extraterrestres intelligents et leur présence sur Terre – mais caché par un camouflage à l’échelle planétaire, comme le pensent des milliers de théoriciens et de prétendus chercheurs de vérité – M. Pope a toujours joué un rôle de premier plan.
Pendant des années, des croyants aux extraterrestres ont affirmé que le gouvernement américain, et peut-être d’autres, ont rencontré des aliens de passage sur Terre et leur ont permis d’opérer dans des bases souterraines cachées, d’où ils effectuent des recherches sur notre planète.
En échange de cela, le gouvernement reçoit la technologie qui leur a permis d’arriver ici.
Diverses théories suggèrent même qu’une de nombreuses espèces extraterrestres vivent ici, y compris des reptiliens, des gris et des “grands blancs” ou pléiadiens de type humain.
L’astronaute de la NASA Edgar Mitchell et l’ancien ministre canadien de la Défense, Paul Hellyer, font partie des plus grands adeptes de ces théories.
Express.co.uk a demandé à M. Pope de dévoiler pour la première fois son point de vue sur cette théorie et d’autres théories, et il ne s’est pas retenu.
L’homme de 52 ans a révélé qu’il est convaincu que les extraterrestres existent, quelque part dans l’Univers.
Toutefois, dans un coup porté aux chasseurs d’ovnis, il a déclaré qu’il n’était PAS convaincu qu’il y ait eu des preuves “fumantes” qu’aucun d’entre eux n’ait jamais visité la Terre.
Et, il a catégoriquement dit qu’il ne croit AUCUNE des théories du complot que des extraterrestres secrètement cachées dans des bunkers top-secrets travaillent conjointement avec les gouvernements mondiaux.
Scientifiquement, il n’est pas convaincu que les extraterrestres pourraient même atteindre la Terre.
S’il y a des OVNIs provenant d’autres planètes, ils “ne seraient que des sondes automatisées ou des engins contrôlés par l’intelligence artificielle”, a-t-il ajouté.
Les États-Unis avaient auparavant nié tout intérêt pour les OVNI depuis les années 1960, mais le Pentagone a maintenant confirmé l’existence du Programme avancé d’identification des menaces aériennes (AATIP).
M. Pope a déclaré: “Comme la plupart des gens qui s’intéressent au phénomène OVNI, j’ai réfléchi soigneusement à mes croyances à la lumière des révélations récentes concernant le projet de surveillance des Ovnis du Pentagone.”
“L’histoire était sans doute très importante. Le gouvernement américain a constamment déclaré qu’il ne s’intéressait pas aux OVNIs et que les observations d’OVNIs n’étaient pas prises en considération.”
“Nous savons maintenant qu’il y avait un intérêt officiel et que les observations faisaient l’objet d’une enquête.”
“De plus, le projet AATIP du Pentagone avait accumulé des preuves intrigantes: témoignages de militaires, vidéos d’avions militaires poursuivant des objets non identifiés, alliages et autres matériaux qui proviennent d’incidents d’OVNIs non spécifiés.”
Il a dit que certaines personnes impliquées dans ce projet du Pentagone en sont venues à croire qu’un certain nombre de ces objets non identifiés étaient d’origine extraterrestre.
M. Pope a ajouté: “C’est une grande affaire, et cela devrait conduire à un recadrage du débat sur les OVNIs. Pour le moment, cependant, il n’y a toujours pas de preuve définitivement concluante.”
“A bien des égards, l’AATIP n’était pas différent du projet du gouvernement britannique sur les OVNIs, que j’ai dirigé dans les années 90: nous aussi avons eu de nombreux cas avec des témoins militaires; nous avons eu des photos et des vidéos et de temps à autre, nous avons discuté de la possibilité que certaines de ces observations soient d’origine extraterrestre”.
Alors, qu’en est-il de la question?
Il a dit: “Je ne peux toujours pas exclure cette possibilité, et j’aimerais que ce soit vrai: le monde serait beaucoup plus intéressant avec des extraterrestres que sans.”
“Cependant, bien que j’aie vu des preuves intrigantes, je n’ai pas encore vu de preuves définitives.”
“En fin de compte, même si je suis sûr qu’il y a de la vie ailleurs dans l’univers, je ne sais pas si on nous rend visite ou non.”
“Si c’est le cas, je soupçonne qu’il s’agit de sondes automatisées, ou d’engins exploités par une sorte d’intelligence artificielle.”
“Même s’il y a des extraterrestres de chair et de sang quelque part, le rayonnement cosmique et l’immensité du temps nécessaire pour parcourir des distances interstellaires excluent probablement les formes de vie biologique qui font de tels voyages – à moins qu’il n’y ait un moyen de contourner ce qui semble être la barrière absolue de la vitesse de la lumière.”
M. Pope a dit pour l’instant que des concepts comme la déformation de l’espace-temps ou l’utilisation de vortex “sont de la science-fiction et non des faits scientifiques, donc si nous recevons la visite d’extraterrestres, il s’agira probablement d’intelligence artificielle et non d’entités biologiques”.
A dash cam video caught the fireball as it made its way down to Earth.
Commuters and drivers had something other than the road to watch Wednesday night.
Motorists not only in the Fort but across most of northern Alberta spotted a flash of bright light in the sky around 5:22 p.m. Soon afterwards, videos of the event started to pop up online. One of those was the Fort’s own Corbet Kratko.
He was heading home from work when he spotted the fireball. Thankfully, he had his dash cam running.
“I thought it was pretty cool,” he said. “I was thinking to myself ‘I wish I had a camera on me’. I saw it and phoned my wife and said ‘I just saw a meteor. It’s pretty neat. I wish I had a picture for you’ and just as I’m saying that to her I thought ‘wait a minute, my dash cam’.”
Kratko said he’s seen a few meteorites in his lifetime or at least partially including the one that flew over Alberta back in 2008 and light up the night sky. He said he was outside at the time and caught how bright the fireball was.
Frank Florian, director, planetarium and space sciences with the TELUS World of Science in Edmonton, said the meteorite that came down was brighter than Venus when it came through the planet’s atmosphere. Despite what some might believe, Florian confirmed what people were seeing was a meteorite and not a UFO.
He believes the meteorite mostly likely landed just north of Fort McMurray.
“When you get a bright fireball like this passing through Earth’s atmosphere from space, it does create quite a stir especially when it occurs during a time when people are using transport going home,” he said. “It’s not completely rare and in fact during the spring period...there’s more fireballs seen during the spring time than any other time of the year. There was another one in Michigan the night before. You might be saying are these associated? The fact is there’s things flying down on the Earth every single day. It just so happens the Earth has a lot of water, a lot of uninhabited places so a lot this stuff gets unnoticed.”
Florian likened the meteorite coming into Earth’s atmosphere like a brick hitting a solid wall. The meteor then breaks apart and when it hits the air, it causes that streak of light. He said air that can’t get out of the way fast enough heats up and causes a flash.
With people have more access to technology like dash cams, Florian said more people are coming forward with videos of fireballs. He said more eyes on the sky only helps astronomers.
Since the metoerite fell during the winter, Florian suspected it will be difficult to get the to possible crash site. He urged anyone who might be snowmobiling in the Fort McMurray area to keep an eye out for possible meteorite fragments.
Florian also asked any witnesses to file a report at the Meteorite and Impact Advisory Committee of the Canadian Space Agency website. Just scroll down the left side and look for the section on fireballs.
It would be quite exciting to listen to answers about aliens and UFOs from somebody who had really flown to space and had spent some time in Cosmos. When NASA astronaut Col. Jack Fischer was asked about aliens and UFOs and what other astronauts think about the extraterrestrial life and its existence, Fischer answer was quite simple but interesting. He said that he had not seen any aliens or UFOs yet. He said that he had the wish of encountering aliens or UFOs and if he would have managed to do so, then he would have taken photos. I haven’t! I wish I had. If I had, I would’ve taken pictures; I’d be rich, but I haven’t yet,” said Fischer.
But Fischer believes that there might be other worlds in the universe where there is possibility of the presence of alien life. According to him, as there are innumerable numbers of stars in the Universe, it should not be confirmed that our Earth is the only bearer of life. Fisher stated, “I definitely believe that there are others out there because when you see how many stars there are you can’t possibly think we’re the only ones.”
As Fisher has said that he believes that there is chance of the presence of alien life and UFOs in other stars systems, it can be said that like him many more astronauts might have the same belief about aliens. Astronaut Fisher told all these things at the NASA Glenn Research Centre where he addressed hundreds of people and answered many questions related to space, Mars mission as well as aliens.
When asked about his take on missions to Mars, Fischer said that astronauts will soon travel to Mars and that the path to the Red Planet runs right through Cleveland. He said that he is eagerly waiting to see the summer testing of NASA’s new and most highly advanced Orion spacecraft which will be sent to Mars in the upcoming days. Fisher has spent four and a half months in the International Space Station and came back to earth in the month of September last year.
Sovershenno Sekretno, a very popular and respected Russian newspaper, published an article in its October 2011 issue. The author is Vladimir Kucharyants, writer and journalist. The title is (in English) Worlds of Professor Ludvig.
Professor Genrikh Mavrikiyevich Ludvig was a highly educated Russian scientist, an inmate of Stalin’s concentration camps, a philosopher, a scholar of ancient languages, daring architect, a teacher, a freethinker who lived in the stifling ideological climate of Communism…a person who did not break down under enormous pressure, torture, and betrayal.
Vladimir Kucharyants was his student in the 1960s, but only in recent years has discovered the scope of Professor’s Ludvig’s knowledge, ideas, and legacy. There is much more that needs to be discovered, and the Russian writer continues his quest. He is still not sure who Genrikh Ludvig really was: a phenomenally educated scientist who possessed encyclopedic knowledge; a mystic; a person who was ordained into secret knowledge.
Those who research the UFO phenomenon and ancient astronauts hypothesis will learn from the Sovershenno Sekretno article that Professor Ludvig was able to study amazing ancient manuscripts during his sojourn in the Vatican’s library (in the 1920s). There he read about extraterrestrials who had visited the Earth in antiquity; subsequently, he began his research of Maya civilization, and interpreted their symbols to be spaceships and spacesuits. In addition, Professor Ludvig mentioned that the library contained manuscripts about alchemy and ancient codes.
The Sistine Hall of the Vatican Library.
(Credit: Maus-Trauden/Wikimedia Commons)
When the NKVD (KGB) arrested him in 1938, Professor Ludvig was accused of being a Vatican (but also Turkish, Polish, German and American) spy. He survived the concentration camps and torture, and carried his incredible knowledge, language skills (he was fluent in 20 languages, including ancient ones), ideas and beliefs with him, through the years full of suffering and ordeals. He was informed on or denounced to the secret police by his wife.
Professor Ludvig prison picture.
(Credit: Sovershenno Sekretno)
Kucharyants mentions that Professor Ludvig showed his students photocopies of the Vatican’s ancient manuscripts ( containing information about extraterrestrials that had visited our planet) with drawings, described to them the hidden essence of ancient myths; he told them of the Fiery Pillar that destroyed an advanced ancient civilization; he showed the students photos of the fortress walls discovered in Babylon, melted with the horrendous temperature and believed that nuclear blasts could cause this.
Professor Ludvig was very much interested in Sumerian civilization and possessed great knowledge about it; he discussed the esoteric meaning of pyramids in Egypt (he considered them to be sort of “energy machines”); he studied the Etruscan civilization; he knew about Cabbala.
A Gulag labor camp.
(Credit: www.gulag.eu)
Professor Ludvig was also an inventor, and designer of military technology. He helped his country, even during his imprisonment. During his days as an inmate of the GULAG, during World War II, he had at least 17 inventions to his name: such as the construction of military airfields in marshy areas; a noiseless underground station for testing aerial engines; a bomb thrower for close distance tank warfare; and many more. His reward was extension of the prison sentence in 1942 for another ten years, after he was denounced for his criticism of Stalin’s policies inside the concentration camps.
Professor Ludvig in the 20s.
(Credit: Sovershenno Sekretno)
Ludvig knew the secrets of herbs and their esoteric medicinal properties, and once this knowledge helped him survive, when he had to cure the wife of the concentration camp commander, or face death.
There is much more information in the Sovershenno Sekretno article (for example, his friendship with another great and highly talented Russian scientist Alexander Chizevsky, whose work I have described in my articles). I urge all those who are interested in the ancient astronauts hypothesis to learn more about Professor Ludvig. I will also try to discover more, although there are few sources available.
Genrikh Mavrikiyevich Ludvig who passed away in 1973, had fantastic intellect, and made incredible discoveries. I am sure his former student Vladimir Kucharyants, who was able to uncover Professor’s notes and writings from the 1930s, will find more documents and materials.
With the recent revelation by the Pentagon and their admission that there has been an ongoing program to investigate Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon; the fact that Montana has had several cases of interest within that context came to mind.
First and foremost is the Mariana UFO incident from August 1950 when Nicolas Mariana filmed 16 mm color movies of two UFOs that appeared as shiny, circular craft. It has withstood years of research conducted by a slew of investigators, including the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP), the Air Force, and Dr. Robert M. L. Baker, as well as others, without being debunked, and is believed to be one of the strongest cases supporting the existence of unidentified flying objects and remains unexplained.
Another extraordinary case in Montana happened at Malmstrom Air Force base in March 1967 when two maintenance crews reported seeing UFOs in the early morning hours over the E-Flight (missile) silos. Later that morning, one of the Minuteman missiles had gone off alert; meaning it had become inoperable. This was at one of the two sites where the maintenance crews had been stationed during the night.
Thinking this to be due to the crews doing maintenance or perhaps even neglecting their duty, crew commander, Figal, looked into the incident. Just as inexplicably, the entire flight of ten ICBMS went inoperable also; with all the missiles being reported a “No-Go” at this point. After a check was conducted, it was found that each of the missiles had gone off alert status due to a guidance and control fault and not due to a power outage. It has been conjectured that perhaps the UFO had caused the missiles to become inoperable, as the cause was unknown.
Malmstrom Air Force Base missile maintenance team removes the upper section of an ICBM at a Montana missile site.
(Credit: U.S. Air Force/ John Parie)
I discovered this next case, Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) Case #55741, after I became MUFON’s State Director of the Montana chapter through the Case Assistance Group. I was doing a bit of inventory and getting some background information on the types of cases that Montana had been dealing with. Even though I had been a Field Investigator for Michigan for over seven years, this was my first stint as a State Director, thus I wanted to be as prepared as I could. Montana, with its “big sky,” fewer city lights to block out the stars and breath-taking mountain ranges, is a sky-watcher’s dream and definitely different than what I was used to living in an urban area.
This incident, listed on the database as a CE-2, happened at around midnight on May 10, 2004 when an entire Army Special Forces unit saw an unknown spherical shaped object through night vision goggles while on security duty in Kabul, Afghanistan. Kabul, the largest city in Afghanistan, is the capital of Kabul Province and is located along the eastern sector of the country. It has a population of 3.3 million people and is the largest city in Afghanistan. Geographically it sits 5876 feet above sea level between the Hindu Kush Mountains along the Kabul River. The climate, which tends to be cooler than rest of the Southwest Asia due to the elevation, is semi-arid with most of the precipitation occurring in the winter months, usually as snow.
Kabul, Afghanistan
(Credit: Google Maps)
In his report, the Montana resident stated that while out on detail in Kabul, Afghanistan, he and an entire Army unit of fifteen men witnessed a UFO. The witness stated he was unsure of the exact date but felt it was around May 10th of that year. He stated that this craft was “huge” and was so close they could have thrown a rock at it and hit it. He said it seemed to come out of nowhere and floated over one of the mountains from the south which was east of the base they built. The object made no noise. The bizarre thing was that he could not see it with the naked eye, but it could be seen through his night vision goggles. He described the object has having the appearance of a light bulb but was a sphere and was about the size of the moon in comparison. He said it had a translucent appearance but was glowing, lighting up the surrounding area with its lights. When they saw it, they stopped and looked in amazement and awe.
As they watched it, it was hovering about 50-100 feet in the air, moving slowly about five to ten mph. It was about 100 yards from the outside perimeter of the base camp and as they were watching the craft, their commander was at the base camp, about a quarter of a mile to the southwest of their position. The commander could also see the object. He got on the radio and announced to the unit to “get back to work, its nothing,” meaning the craft they were looking at.
The squad leader was in the passenger seat and his friend was driving. He stated they were “pulling roaming security” from one traffic control point to the other from the south of the base to the north of their base camp. After their commander told them to go back to work, they watched this craft for about ten more minutes before they had to turn around and head back north. The craft stopped about ¼-mile northeast of their position and appeared to stop over campfire that some locals had made.
The UFO then shot out a beam at their camp, but they couldn’t see the base of the fire from where they were, just the flickering of it on the back of the mountain. They could not see what was happening down on the ground with that beam of light. In the meantime, their squad leader stopped watching and wanted to go back to work, so the specialist turned the Humvee around and they started driving north to the north T.C.P.
US Army (USA) Soldiers use a High-Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV) to cross a river during a fact-finding mission, in the Organ Province of Afghanistan, during Operation ENDURING FREEDOM.
(Credit: US Department of Defense)
The witness stated he wanted to keep watching the object, but they lost sight of it when they left because a hill blocked their view; which was the same hill that blocked the beam they had seen. After a minute of driving north he observed that the object had taken off from over the local’s campsite. He stated it took off at a rapid speed, making in a 90-degree angle straight up until they could no longer see it. To him it appeared that the lights on the craft seemed to have a delayed reaction because the craft took off so fast, what he said was an alarming rate. It made dashes of light across the sky as it did, then it was gone. His report to MUFON was the first time that he had told anyone about this incident besides his family.
William Puckett, was the lead investigator for this case and did an excellent job investigating this reported sighting. He concluded at that time that this was an Unknown and closed the case on April 10, 2014. I looked over the information that was listed on the report and listened to the audio clip interview given by the witness. I felt him to be credible, giving good details in a coherent, factual manner. I didn’t detect anything in his manner of speaking that would indicate intentional deception.
Given the increased interest in cases involving military personnel with the revelation that the Pentagon has had a program to investigate UFOs, maybe this next case needs to be looked into further. One thing that stood out when listening to his interview was that he mentioned being in the Paktika Province of Afghanistan, not Kabul and that the mission was secret. Another question I had was that if the object could only be seen through infrared glasses, were they all wearing them? He states that all fifteen of them saw the object. Also notable is the fact that his commander, who was at the base camp, was seeing the object too a quarter of a mile away, so it’s possible that there were many more witnesses to this object.
As it is stands now, it is just one of the thousands of cases reported by military personnel who have either witnessed or interacted with a UFO. While doing research of the MUFON CMS database, 157 such cases were found where the military was somehow involved; either by witnesses stating UFOs were chased by military craft, usually F-16s, or former military personnel were reporting their own experiences to MUFON. Thus, like those 157 cases that I personally found amongst the files, this case remains unknown. Nevertheless, this case stands out as significant if only for the fact that these men were Special Forces Security Unit, and by virtue of their training, were excellent and reliable observers; even if they hadn’t been on duty and on high alert. While it is only the opinion of this Field Investigator, and no supporting evidence has been found, like videos or photos, it might be worthwhile to make further attempt at contacting the four others listed in the report in an effort to get a clearer picture of this sighting. While these three cases may be exceptionable, they may not be the last.
Lunar Fountain? Accessible Ice Could Lurk in Moon's Lava Tubes
Lunar Fountain? Accessible Ice Could Lurk in Moon's Lava Tubes
By Samantha Mathewson, Space.com Contributor
New images from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) suggest there is an underground network of lava tubes beneath the lunar surface that could offer astronauts easy access to water.
The stunning new photos show multiple small pits in a large impact crater known as the Philolaus Crater, which is located near the north pole of the moon. Researchers said these pits are likely lava tube "skylights" — entrances to underground tunnels that were once filled with lava.
Ancient volcanic deposits on the moon suggest the lunar interior has a substantial amount of water.
Credit: Olga Prilipko Huber
The underground tunnels could also provide access to subsurface ice, and in turn, water. Astronauts would therefore be able to use this water resource during future missions to the moon, said a new study from the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute and the Mars Institute. [Photos: The Search for Water on the Moon]
"The highest-resolution images available for Philolaus Crater do not allow the pits to be identified as lava tube skylights with 100 percent certainty, but we are looking at good candidates considering simultaneously their size, shape, lighting conditions and geologic setting," Pascal Lee, planetary scientist at the SETI Institute and the Mars Institute, said in a statement.
This series of images shows the location of some of the newly-discovered potential lava tube skylights at Philolaus Crater, near the moon's North Pole.
The Philolaus Crater is approximately 43 miles (70 kilometers) wide and located about 340 miles (550 km) from the moon's north pole. The pits appear to be small, rimless depressions, measuring between 50 and 100 feet across (15 to 30 meters), with completely shadowed interiors, according to the statement.
The pits identified on the floor of the Philolaus Crater are located along sections of winding channels thought to be collapsed lava tubes, also known as sinuous rilles.
Earlier research identified over 200 pits across the moon's surface, but the new images are the first to identify possible skylights located in the moon's polar region, where water ice accumulates, the study said. Therefore, the newfound skylights would offer easier access to subsurface ice, alleviating the need to excavate the lunar surface, the researchers said.
"This discovery is exciting and timely as we prepare to return to the moon with humans," Bill Diamond, president and CEO of the SETI Institute, said in the statement. "It also reminds us that our exploration of planetary worlds is not limited to their surface and must extend into their mysterious interiors."
Formed about 1.1 billion years ago, Philolaus Crater is relatively young, which makes it a great target for studying the moon's recent evolution, the researchers said in the statement.
Lava tube skylight candidates at Philolaus Crater near the moon's North Pole.
Credit: NASA/Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter/SETI Institute/Mars Institute/Pascal Lee
Also, the crater is located on the nearside of the moon, which means that it would offer future lunar missions the benefit of direct communications with Earth, according to the statement.
Going forward, the researchers plan to further investigate Philolaus Crater to confirm whether or not the pits are lava tube skylights, and if the underground network of tubes actually contains water ice.
"This is an exciting possibility that a new generation of caving astronauts or robotic spelunkers could help address," Lee said. "Exploring lava tubes on the moon will also prepare us for the exploration of lava tubes on Mars. There, we will face the prospect of expanding our search for life into the deeper underground of Mars where we might find environments that are warmer, wetter and more sheltered than at the surface."
Their findings were presented Jan. 11 at NASA's Lunar Science for Landed Missions Workshop, which is held at the Ames Research Center.
Colored areas on this map show spots with elevated water content compared with surrounding terrain on the moon's surface. Yellow and red indicate the richest water content.
Credit: Milliken lab/Brown University
Editor's Note:This article was corrected to note that the potential lava tubes were sighted by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), not Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).
Earth Resides in Oddball Solar System, Alien Worlds Show
Earth Resides in Oddball Solar System, Alien Worlds Show
By Elizabeth Howell, Space.com Contributor
The Kepler-11 system has a sun-like star with six orbiting planets.
Credit: Tim Pyle/NASA
Our solar system may be an oddball in the universe. A new study using data from NASA's Kepler Space Telescope shows that in most cases, exoplanets orbiting the same star have similar sizes and regular spacing between their orbits.
By contrast, our own solar system has a range of planetary sizes and distances between neighbors. The smallest planet, Mercury, is about one-third the size of Earth — and the biggest planet, Jupiter, is roughly 11 times the diameter of Earth. There also are very different spacings between individual planets, particularly the inner planets.
This means our solar system may have formed differently than other solar systems did, the research team suggested, although more observations are needed to learn what the different mechanisms were. [The Most Intriguing Alien Planet Discoveries of 2017]
"The planets in a system tend to be the same size and regularly spaced, like peas in a pod. These patterns would not occur if the planet sizes or spacings were drawn at random," Lauren Weiss, the study's lead author and an astrophysicist at the University of Montreal, said in a statement.
The research team examined 355 stars that had a total of 909 planets, which periodically transit across their faces (as seen from Earth). The planets are between 1,000 and 4,000 light-years away from Earth.
After running a statistical analysis, the team found that a system with a small planet would tend to have other small planets nearby — and vice-versa, with big planets tending to have big neighbors. These extrasolar systems also had regular orbital spacing between the planets.
"The similar sizes and orbital spacing of planets have implications for how most planetary systems form," researchers said in the statement. "In classic planet-formation theory, planets form in the protoplanetary disk that surrounds a newly formed star. The planets might form in compact configurations with similar sizes and a regular orbital spacing, in a manner similar to the newly observed pattern in exoplanetary systems."
In our own solar system, however, the story is very different. The four terrestrial planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars) are very widely spaced apart. The team pointed to evidence from other research that Jupiter and Saturn may have disrupted the structure of the young solar system. While the statement did not specify how, several other research studies have examined the movements of these giant planets and their potential impact on the solar system.
Each of the exoplanets examined in the study was originally found by Kepler, which launched in 2009 and continues to send data today. But more-detailed information was obtained with the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii; Weiss is a member of the California-Kepler Survey team there, which is examining the light signatures of thousands of planets discovered by Kepler.
Weiss said she plans a follow-up study at Keck to look for Jupiter-like planets in multiplanet systems. The aim is to better understand if the presence of a Jupiter-size planet would alter the position of other planets in the same system.
"Regardless of their outer populations, the similarity of planets in the inner regions of extrasolar systems requires an explanation," researchers said in the statement. "If the deciding factor for planet sizes can be identified, it might help determine which stars are likely to have terrestrial planets that are suitable for life."
Mars hogs the spotlight. But nearly half of all sun-like stars are predicted to harbor Venus-type planets that most likely are lurking just inside the inner edge of any given solar system’s habitable zone.
Credit: NASA
Global view of Venus captured in the ultraviolet spectrum by NASA's Mariner 10 spacecraft.
Trouble is, sixty years into the Space Age, planetary scientists are still largely clueless about how the temperature and pressure vary with altitude; the dynamics of its deep atmosphere as well as its planetary interior. Understanding these two key points, say astronomers, could help them explain how our own Venus morphed from what four billion years ago might have been a planetary Valhalla into a real hellhole. That is, a planet with temperatures approaching 735 degrees Kelvin at the surface, surface pressures 92 times that of Earth and an atmosphere that is 96.5 percent carbon dioxide.
Yet understanding these two key points remain crucial to interpreting data from potential extrasolar earths and super-earths at the inner edge of extrasolar habitable zones. That is, the nearest point where such terrestrial planets can maintain liquid water and surface temperatures that would foster clement conditions conducive to the onset of life as we know it.
Without a reliable research baseline for Venus, upcoming missions like NASA’s TESS (the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) and the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will produce data that researchers may not be able to accurately interpret. That is, if we are ever going to be able to say with any certainty when, why and how long any given Venus-type planet across the galaxy may have had liquid water and clement weather.
As I noted here previously, as a star’s luminosity grows over time, Venus-type planets are briefly in the habitable sweet spot early in their history. That is, before their stars’ growing luminosity drives water off its surface and out of its atmosphere and turns what may have been a promising climate into a runaway greenhouse of the sort we see on our own Venus.
It’s a problem outlined in a new paper just published on the academic physics research website arXiv.org. "Venus: The Making of an Uninhabitable World" was submitted by scientists from the U.S., Canada and NASA in response to a solicitation by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences for white papers regarding the future of astrobiological research.
Stephen Kane, the paper’s lead author and a planetary astrophysicist at the University of California at Riverside and colleagues, argue that this forthcoming plethora of new data on exo-Venuses needs corroboration and verification using data on our own Venus. Trouble is, the kind of data from our solar system’s Venus doesn’t yet exist.
As the authors note, “an improved sampling of pressure, temperature, composition, and dynamics of the Venusian atmosphere as a function of latitude would aid enormously in our ability to study exoplanetary atmospheres.” They note that in particular, planetary scientists need new direct measurements of the deuterium to hydrogen ratios within and below our sister planet’s clouds in order to better constrain how much water was actually present during Venus’ storied history.
In terms of where things went wrong, Kane argues that we do have a better understanding of mars than Venus. He says that’s not just because of the amount of Martian missions, but also because the mars interior cooled relatively quickly leaving the geological history in a more preserved state.
“Venus has a complex geological history including resurfacing events that make it difficult to trace the history of the planet back without more surface data,” said Kane.
In fact, Kane says understanding Venus is more important than understanding Mars if seeking to get a handle on what makes some earth-size planets habitable and others not.
“Our sister planet provides an ideal laboratory for us to investigate an alternative Earth where a runaway greenhouse would have prevented any chance of life,” said Kane.
Does the planetary science community have a blind spot when it comes to Venus?
But he says the larger issue is that exoplanet community can often have a blind spot for planetary science. Interestingly, he says that’s because most of the exoplanet detection techniques have their origins in stellar astrophysics.
“So, we find ourselves at a point where we have stellar astronomers discovering terrestrial planets without the needed tools to interpret their data,” said Kane. “Fortunately, this is forcing a much-needed collaboration between the exoplanet and planetary science communities.”
To date, Kane cites three Venus missions as most important.
— The Soviet's Venera 9 lander because it successfully landed on the surface in 1975 and became the first mission to return pictures from the surface of another planet.
— NASA’s Magellan because it performed detailed radar mapping of the Venusian surface, giving us our first comprehensive topographical map of Venus.
— The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Venus Express provided insights into the planet’s atmospheric dynamics and presented possible direct evidence of ongoing volcanic activity at the surface.
But now, Kane says researchers really need another Venus orbiter mission with a glider and lander components in order to gather new data that would help them correctly model the transition of a habitable atmosphere to a runaway greenhouse.
Kane says at present that ability is hampered by our lack of knowledge of the atmospheric chemistry that occurs in the high-pressure environments of Venus.
“We desperately need to obtain better measurements of the Venusian surface compositions, ideally with seismic data that would allow us to model the interior,” said Kane.
He says researchers’ current ability to understand the interiors of terrestrial exoplanets is hampered by the lack of knowledge about the percentage of Venus' composition that consists of rocky materials, such as silicates and metals.
“For the Earth, these relative compositions are similar to the sun, but for Venus, we just don't know,” said Kane.
As for the best example of a true extrasolar Venus to date?
Of more than forty extrasolar Venus-type planets currently known, Kane says the one that’s most like our own Venus lies some 220 light years away in the constellation of Cygnus. There, every nine days, the roughly earth-sized planet Kepler-1649b circles its parent low-mass, Red dwarf star in a very short nine-day orbit. The incoming radiation the planet receives from its star is the same that Venus receives from the Sun, says Kane.
As for what puzzles Kane most about our own Venus?
Kane says the most obvious puzzle is Venus’ retrograde clockwise rotation, who explains that the planet’s primordial rotation rate was probably counter-clockwise, like almost everything else in the solar system.
“The fact that it now rotates slowly backward points to an interesting past that can be explained by a possible giant impact early in its history, or perhaps caused by friction with [its] incredibly dense atmosphere.”
But was Venus was ever truly habitable?
Assuming that Venus did indeed have liquid water oceans, Kane says we can hypothesize that the water evaporated and was disassociated in the upper atmosphere by ultraviolet radiation from the Sun.
Kane says Venus’ other main puzzle is the nature of the so-called "stagnant lid" surface of Venus. It doesn’t have tectonic plates like Earth, but instead has a single crust that is occasionally ruptured by volcanoes.
Venus’ surface age, now estimated to be some 500 million years old, indicates that it was rapidly resurfaced in the past. Kane says that makes it difficult to know how that process worked or what the previous (possible water-bearing) history of Venus may have been.
Earth became habitable as early as 4 billion years ago, right after it cooled and formed liquid water oceans, says Kane.
“it is very possible that Venus was similarly habitable at that time,” said Kane.
Discovering when the current surface became a stagnant lid, says Kane, would be of enormous aid in constraining just how long Venus may have been habitable.
UFO secrets SOLVED: Experts reveal if 2018 is the year of ALIEN discovery
UFO secrets SOLVED: Experts reveal if 2018 is the year of ALIEN discovery
EXPERTS have had their say on the significance of 2017's UFO sightings and whether they mean an alien breakthrough could be imminent in an exclusive chat with Daily Star Online.
It has been a fascinating year in the search for alien life.
We have seen objects appear close to the International Space Station, UFOs stalking planes in Merseyside and groundbreaking NASA discoveries.
So, with many believing 2018 could be a breakthrough year, Daily Star Online has sat down with two world-leading experts to hear their thoughts.
GETTY
UFOs: Will we see alien life in 2018?
Nick Pope is a former Ministry of Defence employee best known for the role he undertook in investigating UFO sightings for the British Government.
In an exclusive chat, Nick revealed what he thought of a clip – shown above – allegedly showing a UFO.
Observers believe the footage shows a US spy plane encountering a 130ft flying object with 20 flashing lights near Cyprus.
And Nick claims it may be genuine, admitting: “This is an absolutely fascinating video.
“This is a case from the MoD's UFO files. Not only did I work on these real life X-Files, but I've been the public face of a ten-year project to declassify and release most of this material.
“The investigation into this incident was undertaken by my predecessors, but I'm aware of the case. It was a genuine unknown.
“Incidents like this, where there were multiple military witnesses and highly classified investigations show that whatever the truth about UFOs, the mystery raises important defence, national security and air safety issues.
"It's a perfect illustration of how the media and the public were misled.”
Despite hope it could change in the year to come, there has been a lot of concern among the UFO community as to whether NASA is hiding evidence of extraterrestrial life from the public.
The video below is just one of many from this year that space boffins claim are attempted cover-ups.
Nick believes these kind of clips have a lot of contributing factors as to whether they are UFOs, but also believes NASA has no reason to hide anything.
He said: “It's notoriously difficult to judge the size, distance and speed of an object in space.
“I think UFO hunters misunderstand agencies such as NASA and ESA. Far from being the sort of organisations that would cover up evidence of an extraterrestrial presence, they'd shout it from the rooftops.
“These people want to find aliens, not hide evidence of them."
Partly agreeing with Nick, Philip Mantle believes that with the technology available these days, we should be doing a better job at capturing UFOs.
Mantle, a highly regarded and active British researcher of UFOs, said: “The question is why, despite the millions of cameras that are available do we still have poor quality film and photos of alleged UFOs?
“The fact is that the percentage of UFO reports that remain unidentified is well under 1%.
"In short, genuine UFO sightings are extremely rare, therefore the chances of actually capturing one of film is almost, but not quite, impossible."
The video below – that appears to show a mysterious green orb floating above a mountain – is an example of UFO footage captured poorly, Philip believes.
He added: “In our modern society today there are CCTV cameras everywhere and countless millions of mobile phones that have as a built in feature the ability to to take still photos and videos.
“But when it comes to UFO video footage the results, and let's be honest, are poorer than ever.”
Nick agrees that while there have been an increase in the number of sightings, many of them are in fact, far from UFOs.
He said: “Firstly, there's a lot of hoaxing in this subject. However, even where we can be sure the images are genuine, they're often indistinct, and ambiguous.
“In most cases these are misidentifications of aircraft, drones, satellites, meteors, fireballs, stars and planets, Chinese lanterns, weather balloons and all sorts of other other objects and phenomena.
“In other cases, they're the result of lens flare, other reflections, dust or dirt on the lens, or a technical problem with the camera.”
In 2018, scientists hope to obtain the 1st-ever direct image of a black hole’s event horizon. They’re targeting the 4-million-solar-mass black hole at the heart of our Milky Way.
In mid-December, scientists with the Event Horizon Telescope – an international collaboration that’s created a virtual Earth-sized telescope, with the goal of capturing the first direct image of a black hole – reported on a the long-awaited shipment of hard disk drives from the South Pole. They’re now busily analyzing the data on these drives, which is expected to be a key component in giving us the first-ever direct image of a black hole sometime in 2018. As a December 19 article at news.com.au reported:
The data is in. The numbers are being crunched.
The Vox.com video above explains that nearly all images we see of black holes are artist’s illustrations. The ones that aren’t illustrations show, at best, the effects of black holes on the space around them, for example, stars in tightly bound orbits, gas heated to high temperatures, or relativistic jets.
So what are scientists with the Event Horizon Telescope expecting to see?
Sites of participating components of the Event Horizon Telescope.
As most of us know, black holes are truly black. That is, they are regions containing so much mass squeezed into so little space – regions of such powerful gravity – that no information or light or anything can escape, even if moving at the fastest speed known to exist in our universe, the speed of light.
Astronomers with the Event Horizon Telescope aren’t aiming to capture the black nothingness of a black hole itself (that’s not possible), but instead a black hole’s event horizon, the sphere-like point-of-no-return surrounding a black hole.
What the @ehtelescope expects to find in 2018 - a silhouette in the glow of radiation at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. Simulation by 2017 Jansky Fellow Kazunori Akiyama.
Which black hole then? Naturally, they’ll want to image the black hole that appears biggest from Earth. The first logical choice is Sagittarius A* – pronounced Sagittarius A-star – a 4-million-solar-mass black hole located at the center of our home galaxy, the Milky Way. This supermassive black hole is about 27,000 light-years from Earth.
The secondary target of the Event Horizon Telescope is much, much farther away, some 50-60 million light-years from Earth. It’s the supermassive black hole at the center of M87: the largest galaxy in our home galaxy cluster, the Virgo cluster. How can it appear big to us, at such a great distance away? It contains over 6 billion solar masses. This black hole is so big it could swallow our solar system whole.
Artist’s concept of the Milky Way galaxy, showing the location of the supermassive black hole in relationship to our solar system’s location, via ZMEScience.
This historic image – first direct image of a black hole’s event horizon – will give scientists a chance to see what, until now, they’ve been able to explore only theoretically. An event horizon itself is, after all, just a theoretical construct. We don’t know for sure event horizons actually exist (although, clearly, scientists are confident they do). As Ethan Seigel asked in a comprehensive article on this subject, in Forbes around New Year’s:
Will it appear as General Relativity predicts? There are some incredible things to test:
– whether the black hole has the right size as predicted by general relativity, – whether the event horizon is circular (as predicted), or oblate or prolate instead, – whether the radio emissions extend farther than we thought, or – whether there are any other deviations from the expected behavior.
… For any fan of astrophysics, black holes, and General Relativity, we’re living in the golden age. What was once deemed ‘untestable’ has suddenly become real.
Stay tuned! This announcement, when it comes, will be big.
Simulated view of a black hole in front of the Large Magellanic Cloud.
A new topographic map of Titan, plus a new study showing that Titan’s seas lie at an average elevation – a sea level – just as Earth’s do.
Two new studies from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York show, once again, similarities between Earth and Saturn’s moon Titan. The first is a new global topographic map of Titan. The second, which builds on the first, shows that the liquid lakes and seas on Titan follow a constant elevation relative to Titan’s gravitational pull. In other words, just as Earth’s oceans lie at an average elevation that we call sea level, so do Titan’s seas.
Both studies are based on data from the Cassini spacecraft, which orbited Saturn – occasionally making close flybys of its large moon Titan – from 2004 to 2017. Both are published (here and here) in the peer-reviewed journal Geophysical Research Letters.
Paul Corlies is first author on the topography study, which resulted in an end-of-mission map of Titan via Cassini. The map revealed several new features on Titan, including new mountains, none higher than about 2,300 feet (700 meters). Corlies said:
The main point of the work was to create a map for use by the scientific community.
And he said that, within 30 minutes of the data set being available online, he began to receive inquiries on how to use it.
New map, part of the Titan “end of mission” topography study. Only about 9 percent of Titan was observed by Cassini in a way that resulted in relatively high-resolution topography, with with another 25-30 percent of the topography imaged in lower resolution. The rest was constructed via interpolation, that is, via a method of constructing new data points within the range of a discrete set of known data points. Click here for more of the study’s maps.
One of the early uses of the new topographic work came from Corlies’ professor at Cornell, Alex Hayes. His study shows that Titan’s seas follow a constant elevation relative to Titan’s gravitational pull — just as Earth’s oceans do.
This is the latest finding that shows remarkable similarities between Earth and Titan, the only other world we know of in our solar system that has stable liquid on its surface. The twist at Titan is that its lakes and seas are filled with hydrocarbonsrather than liquid water, and water ice overlain by a layer of solid organic material serves as the bedrock surrounding these lakes and seas.
… Smaller lakes on Titan, it turns out, appear at elevations several hundred feet, or meters, higher than Titan’s sea level. Lakes at high elevation are commonly found on Earth. The highest lake navigable by large ships, Lake Titicaca, is over 12,000 feet [3,700 meters] above sea level.
The new study suggests that elevation is important because Titan’s liquid bodies appear to be connected under the surface in something akin to an aquifer system at Earth. Hydrocarbons appear to be flowing underneath Titan’s surface similar to the way water flows through underground porous rock or gravel on Earth, so that nearby lakes communicate with each other and share a common liquid level.
Titan’s Ligeia Mare, shown in here in data obtained by the Cassini spacecraft, is the second-largest known body of liquid on Saturn’s moon Titan. It’s filled with liquid hydrocarbons, such as ethane and methane, and is one of the many seas and lakes around Titan’s north polar region. Image via NASA JPL-Caltech/ ASI/ Cornell.
Bottom line: Scientists at Cornell have conducted two new studies of Saturn’s moon Titan. Both use Cassini spacecraft data. The Cassini mission ended with a plunge by the spacecraft into Saturn in September 2017. One study resulted in end-of-mission topographic maps. The other showed that Titan’s hydrocarbon-filled liquid lakes and seas maintain a constant “sea level.”
An astronaut aboard the International Space Station (ISS) took this photograph of a massive vertical cloud formation — known to meteorologists as cumulus castellanus — above Andros Island.
These towering columnar clouds are part of the genus cumulonimbus. The cloud name castellanus comes from the similarity to the crenellated towers or turrets of medieval castles. The International Cloud Atlas (World Meteorological Organization) classifies clouds of this type as either Altocumulus castellanus or Stratocumulus castellanus, depending on the base cloud height from which they develop. Regardless of the nomenclature, these clouds develop due to strong vertical air movement typically associated with thunderstorms.
Part of the Bahamas archipelago, Andros Island is divided by large estuaries into three sections. North Andros, Central Andros, and South Andros are each comprised of several smaller islets and cays that are connected by smaller estuaries. Together, Andros Island is the largest in total area (2,300 square miles or 6,000 square kilometers) of all 700 islands in the Bahamas.
A couple of days ago I reviewed here at Mysterious Universe the newly-revised edition of David Weatherly’s book, Black Eyed Children (you can find the review here). Of the various people who commented here at MU and at my Facebook page, one of them asked me what I think the Black Eyed Children really are. Well, I have to confess that I have no firm conclusion as to what they are or where they are from. It’s tough too to figure out their agendas. But, I will say that – as I see it, at least – there is a direct connection between the Black Eyed Children and the Men in Black. No, I’m not talking about the BEC being the offspring of the MIB – it’s much more complicated than that. What I can say is that there are certain threads which weave their ways through various accounts of both phenomena. Let’s take a look.
One of the most intriguing aspects of the Black Eyed Children phenomenon is that in just about every case on record when the BEC specifically turn up at peoples’ homes, they ask to be invited in. They’re hungry. They’re lost. They want to use the phone. They’re homeless and they need somewhere to sleep. Of course, this very much parallels the old legends and tales of blood-sucking vampires, who cannot cross the threshold until given permission to do so. As for the Men in Black, there are more than a few examples of them trying to find a way into the home without resorting to force. Both groups seem to have the ability to control or manipulate the human mind, to the extent that people find themselves inviting them in, even though they know they really shouldn’t.
The clothing is not too different, either. The MIB typically wear black suits and black fedora hats. The BEC wear black hoodies. The skin of the Men in Black is often described as looking like plastic. Their skin is wax-like, lacking lines and creases. Very much the same can be said for the Black Eyed Children. In some cases, the witnesses have described the faces of the MIB as doll-like. Or mannequin-like. Animals react to both – and not in a positive way. Fear is the general response.
Disturbingly, there are those cases where people fall sick – sometimes dangerously so – when confronted by the Men in Black and by their female counterparts, the Women in Black (see this link as a perfect example). In his Black Eyed Childrenbook, David Weatherly relates the accounts of a number of people who fell ill after encountering the BEC. Both the MIB and the BEC seem to have the ability to affect electrical equipment. Bad luck hovers ominously around those who have had the misfortune to cross paths with these black-garbed characters.
Odd, weird and menacing phone calls – often in the dead of night – have been reported in the wake of a visit from the BEC or the MIB. One of the issues that I have not seen too much attention given to is that of a worrying affect on short-term memory. But, such reports do exist. Of course, this may be a side-effect of the trauma and fear surrounding the encounter, since stress can affect memory. But, I have a few cases on record where people noted problems with recall for a period of up to several weeks after the encounter. The only connection between these people was the fact that they had been confronted by either the BEC or the MIB.
None of the above gives us any real insight into the true nature and origin of the Men in Black or the Black Eyed Children. But, what I would say is that there are enough similarities to make me conclude that we’re dealing with things that are part and parcel of each other.
In Nederland is bijzonder snelle computer in gebruik genomen bij een sterrenwacht in het Drentse Westerbork. De ARTS, zoals de machine heet, heeft een rekencapaciteit van twee petaflops. Dat betekent dat hij 2 biljard (miljoen maal miljard) berekeningen per seconde kan uitvoeren. De bouw van de supercomputer kostte ongeveer een miljoen euro.
Bij Westerbork staan verspreid over drie kilometer twaalf telescoopschotels op een rij die constant beelden maken van de ruimte. De computer moet in die metingen zoeken naar zogeheten snelle radioflitsen, mysterieuze signalen van buiten onze Melkweg. Zo’n flits duurt een paar milliseconden, en de eerste werd ontdekt in 2007. Sindsdien zijn er pas enkele tientallen gezien, hoewel er mogelijk duizenden flitsen per dag plaatsvinden.
Het is niet bekend waar de flitsen vandaan komen en hoe ze worden veroorzaakt. “De flitsen zijn miljarden jaren geleden uitgezonden. In de paar millisecondes verspreiden ze net zo veel energie als onze zon in een dag. Als ze van zo ver nog zo fel kunnen flitsen, moeten ze heel fel zijn geweest”, zegt hoofdonderzoeker Joeri van Leeuwen van het wetenschappelijke instituut Astron.
Probleem
Het probleem is alleen dat wetenschappers niet weten waar ze moeten kijken. Zodra ze uitgerekend hebben dat ergens een flits is geweest, is het al veel te laat. “En als je niet weet waar je moet kijken, grijp je altijd mis. Daarom zal onze computer meteen een alarm sturen bij een signaal. Dan kunnen andere telescopen naar de bron zoeken”, zegt onderzoeksleider Joeri van Leeuwen.
De supercomputer bekijkt 20.000 afbeeldingen per seconde en leert zichzelf om daar flitsen in te herkennen. Daarvoor gebruikt hij tweehonderd grafische processoren uit spelcomputers. Wetenschappers hopen dan één flits per week te ontdekken.
ANPVorig jaar kreeg deze 50 jaar oude radiotelescoop van Astron een tweede leven.
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Burning “Impact” Crater found next to Highway Torreón – Saltillo, Mexico
Burning “Impact” Crater found next to Highway Torreón – Saltillo, Mexico
Yet another mystery, on January 17, 2018 a burning and smoking crater has been found next to the highway Torreón – Saltill, between kilometers 165 and 164, in the state of Coahuila, in the northeast of Mexico.
The media speculates that a meteorite has smashed into the ground leaving the burning crater, which measures 8 meters diameter and is 8 meters deep, however, pieces of the supposed meteorite have not been found.
So far, there is no official confirmation on this event!
UFO Activity recorded during the Taylor Michigan Incident on Jan 16, 2018 (Original Footage)
UFO Activity recorded during the Taylor Michigan Incident on Jan 16, 2018 (Original Footage)
There was a real meteor in Michigan but there was an event that was separate from the meteor. The meteor happened in New Haven and the city where the beams were coming down is Taylor on the same night and it is NOT the same event.
Interesting detail; Taylor is a very small city but was visited by presidents Bush, Obama, and Clinton. What could be the reason that 3 presidents have visited this small City?
But it gets even weirder; during that night on January 16, 2018 a security camera recorded very strange activities in the night sky over Taylor.
The footage shows at first a spacecraft flying back and forth. Then there were five different spacecraft that appeared to be friendly to each other flying back and forth at about the same altitude. They appeared to be above the atmosphere at night, with the sun reflecting off of them brightly. They faded in and out, which would indicate that they were doing maneuvers in space with the craft reflecting more or less sunlight depending on which way they were turned. It was obvious UFO activity, Jim Stone Freelance Reporter and Investigator Jeffery Pritchett wrote in their articles.
The woman who had set up the security camera published the video on her YT channel, named Lucky Puppy with the title: “Meteorite? I don’t think so…” on January 16, 2018 and wrote:
Around 8:08pm, January 16, 2018, everyone in our community and nearby communities (more than 60 mile radius) reported seeing a bright flash of light in the sky and many people heard a loud BOOM. II thought it was lightning and thunder and then I started thinking... that's silly, it's like 10 degrees outside and clear. I called my daughter, who was driving home and she saw it too and she also saw a bright light, like a beam of light in another direction. I checked our outdoor security cameras and this is what I found.... --Let me tell ya, I love living in the country but this creeped me out a little bit. I'm just glad all my kids here have 4 legs and LOTS of teeth. LOL What do you think it is. To be clear, I, personally, don't believe in aliens.
But surprisingly, after 1 day the video suddenly was removed or more likely it got banned. If you take a look at her channel Lucky Puppy then it becomes clear that this channel is not any sort of a UFO hoaxer. The video was not a hoax.
There is something going on in space right now! There is an active UFO activity going on right now!
Whether the UFOs are black budget spacecraft or alien spacecraft, the UFOs were operating in a way that made it obvious they were for deep space.
It is quite possible that the UFO activity is related to the strange beams and all other strange activities currently going on in and outside the US.
Despite the video has been removed, we have, thanks to “Romans 6:14” who has recorded the footage of Luck Puppy, the original video of the unique UFO activity over Tayler in the night of January 16, 2018.
I think it might be safe to say that there is a nuclear war on the horizon, whether in space or on earth and someone knows about it, and it won’t be happening without interference.
Mysterious UFO Appears To Show Porthole Window and Occupants
Mysterious UFO Appears To Show Porthole Window and Occupants
A photo that was reportedly taken on January 12, 2018, near Orlando, Florida appeared to show a flying saucer craft with a porthole window in a large rectangular shape and two occupants. The photographer, who uses the pseudonym JP, believed that the occupants were two Nordic human-looking aliens who he claimed were communicating with him telepathically.
JP said that while at a residence, he received a telepathic communication where he was told to go outside and look up into the sky at 6 o’clock. He believed the voice in his head that he heard was the Nordics.
He stated that the Nordics asked him if he wanted to see them. It was the time he negotiated with them if he could take a photo that he could use for Disclosure.
JP said the Nordics that contacted him are working with the US Air Force, doing missions around Antarctica in outer space, and giving an overwhelming technology to the Air Force.
He added that the technology could manipulate any point in the air and open up a wormhole to other planets. He further stressed that this technology works in flashes, which provides a flash like a lightning bolt but minus the noise.
When JP went outside after hearing the voice, he saw them. He managed to take some photos and saved them on his phone.
Unidentified flying objects appeared on camera on a live television news broadcast. The video clip shows a panel of presenters discussing the top news of the day. As they are conversing, they are not aware that something amazing is taking place in the background.
The footage shows two UFOs moving across the sky in the background before changing direction entirely and turning aside suddenly into the distance.
The hosts appear not aware and continue their broadcast.
The clip appeared on KOIN 6, a US television station, and was soon afterwards uploaded to YouTube channel The Hidden Underbelly.
Viewers were amazed to see that UFOs are now showing up on the news cameras as well. Some critics say that it was just a lens flare, but many believe that it was the real deal.
The UFO video comes following a series of reported UFO sightings recently.
UFO activity caught on tape over Las Vegas 17-Jan-2018
UFO activity caught on tape over Las Vegas 17-Jan-2018
Triangle-shaped UFO caught on tape over Summerlin near Las Vegas, Nevada.
Witness report:
I was driving my parents to the casino. All witnessed a ufo triangle fly above my car. Dropped them off and drove home to get camcorder. I taped the objects for over an hour.
Top 10 UFOs sightings in Scotland including Loch Lomond, Loch Ness and mysterious new spot in Glasgow
Top 10 UFOs sightings in Scotland including Loch Lomond, Loch Ness and mysterious new spot in Glasgow
Alien enthusiasts reckon these intriguing finds are extraterrestrial - are they right?
By Jamie Johnson
Scotland's not short on unexpected sightings - but is the truth out there?
(Image: Getty)
Unidentified Flying Objects have been spotted over Scotland for years and Glasgow locals got very excited when a mysterious flashing figure lit up the sky earlier this month.
Despite nay sayers dismissing the intergalactic space crafts things as drones, comets, airplanes or satellites, the public love a good conspiracy theory, so we've compiled a list of the top 10 UFO sightings in Scotland.
10: Glasgow, 2009
Could this be a UFO?(Image: MUFON)
In at number 10 is this effort from Glasgow.
A seasoned Glaswegian stargazer, who regularly surveys the heavens through his telescope and binoculars, spotted something very out of the ordinary back in August 2009.
He was examining the skies with his binoculars, when he saw a perfect cube appear, move, accelerate backwards and then disappear.
The spotter said: "I saw a perfect cube appear right before my eyes! I was looking at Zubeneschamali, which is the beta star in Libra, when the cube just came out of nowhere
"Speechless, I quickly spotted it with the binoculars, through which I saw a brilliant perfect cube with an illuminated border.
"It changed colour from blue to aqua-green and stopped cold."
Record Verdict:He talks a good game, but the photo quality lets this entry down.
9: Bannockburn, 2017
The sight of a UFO in the sky left one Stirling resident unable to sleep at night(Image: Stirling Observer)
A Bannockburn woman who spotted a UFO flying over the town says she has been left unable to sleep at night.
The 42-year old contacted the Stirling Observer to detail her jaw-dropping sighting in Hillpark, Bannockburn.
She said: “The size of it was unreal. It was about 20ft away from and I’d say it was about 100ft in diameter.
“I love looking at the sky, I do it all the time.
“For about a week, I could see lights in the sky. I could see that it had windows and had red lights flashing.
“Even if it was a military thing, why was it coming down a quiet street?
“I know it sounds crazy, but I would say it was a spaceship.
“I thought it was an aeroplane at first but when it tilted forwards it was a circular shape.
“I could see writing on the top of it as well, like Egyptian hieroglyphs.
“It has been a few sleepless nights for me since it.
“I was kind of in to UFOs and that sort of thing a bit before.
“When I saw it in between the two houses, I had to run in to the house because I was a bit scared.
“I went back out for another look and it wasn’t moving very fast and there was no noise coming from it.”
Record verdict: Top marks for the Egyptian hieroglyphs, but this picture is far too unclear to be certain of a UFO sighting.
8: Shetland, 2013
Joiner Steven Slane, 41, works for oil and gas company Petrofac at the Sutton Voe Oil terminal in the Shetlands.
Steven took the pictures on the afternoon of January 27, 2013 and couldn’t believe his eyes when he looked at them later that night.
He said: “I’d taken the pictures earlier it the day because I saw some nice scenery as I was coming along the road from Southern Voe towards Southerness and the sun was setting.
“It looked very nice so, even although it was very cold, I just stopped and took a couple of photographs in quick succession.
“It was only late on in the evening when I was having a wee look at the photos that I noticed something different in the second picture.
“I was a bit surprised and shocked when I noticed the strange shape.
“It looked like there was something flying up with a propeller at the bottom, in the shape of an inverted Eiffel Tower or a parachute. It must have appeared in seconds, or even less.”
He added: “I didn’t know what the heck it was and although I don’t believe in aliens or UFOs, I was a bit freaked by it and thought there was something strange.
“It would be good to find out more about it, if anyone has any ideas.”
Record Verdict: I don't think that's a UFO, Steven. It looks like a cloud.
7: Irvine, 2016
Heather Stewart spotted this mysterious object near her home in 2016(Image: Heather Stewart)
Mystery still shrouds an unusual object spotted in Irvine's skies in October 2016.
The image of the UFO taken by a Bourtreehill resident has led to a hoard of online speculation as to what the object could be.
Heather Stewart, 35, said: "You just sort of dismiss it at first but I looked out and I couldn’t believe it. It was like a big moving fireball.
“But after seeing it, I went to see if there were any plane crashes or anything like that and I’ve been looking on the internet as to what it could have been.”
Record Verdict:That looks a lot like a Chinese lantern, Heather.
6: Hamilton, 2015
The Hamilton UFO was spotted at 6.35pm on July 13 2015(Image: Mutual UFO)
The Hamilton UFO was spotted at 6.35pm on July 13 last year.
The picture was taken from a car and appears to show two strange white objects floating in the sky.
The uploader simply said: “Was driving when uncle told me he could see UFOs.”
They have not said which road they were driving on but it appears to be a main road passing a wooded area of the town.
Record Verdict:It looks like the UFO has got its full beams on in the middle of the day.
5: Glasgow, 2009
This object scared stargazers in Glasgow, who thought it was headed toward them(Image: MUFON)
This picture was uploaded after a sighting on Christmas day 2009.
The spotter says they were with a friend in a town near Glasgow and walking towards a residential area when a round, glowing object overhead began moving rapidly towards them.
They say it moved too fast to be a Chinese Lantern and was not a star or a comet.
They posted to MUFON: "It was like nothing we had seen. Much too big to be a star, definitely not a comet, too fast to be a Chinese lantern.
"As it became closer overhead it slowed down and descended before ascending very rapidly and vanishing into the clouds.
"We were both quite scared by it and shaking a little, even though we did not see it close up we both thought because of the direction and speed it was going it may land on top of us.
"We uploaded the photographs that were taken to our computer and they turned out pretty blurry, mainly because the zoom on the camera was not so good and possibly because of the speed of the object.
'It was not a windy evening, quite still and the object made no noise, and had no wings or anything like that."
Record Verdict:This looks like the planet Mars. It's probably tthe planet Mars.
4: Glasgow, 2018
'UFO' SPOTTED IN THE SKIES ABOVE GLASGOW
In at number four is our most recent sighting.
Ian Andrew, who filmed the object told the Record: "I noticed it a few nights last week and again at 1am this morning.
"Where I stay the view of Glasgow is tremendous. I spotted the red and green light in the sky. Its not flying about, it's just hovering.
"As soon as I saw it I felt like I had to film it because I no idea what it could be.
"It's only when you zoom right in you can see how it doesn't look like a plane or anything. I knew it was something that didn't look right.
"I don't think its a drone as its too high, its very high in the sky. I thought it was something to do with measuring the weather, but its been there off and on for a couple of days.
"I'm not interested in space I don't even watch Superman or anything.
"My girlfriend was here and she saw it too, I was a bit shocked to be honest."
Record Verdict: That looks like a satellite to me, Ian.
3: Loch Lomond, 2015
Now we're into the proper stuff.
This video, which was uploaded on to YouTube last week by Tom Hall, shows a bright white light moving very slowly above the treeline and hills for around 15 minutes.
The bright object can be seen hovering above the horizon before slowly descending towards the right.
Tom, who captured the light in Kinlochard in the Trossachs, said he didn't believe the object to be a plane, helicopter or a Chinese lantern and there was no noise throughout the encounter.
Record Verdict: It's the closest we've come so far, but could it be a drone?
2: Moray Firth, 2016
Reg Connon saw this wonderful sight in 2016(Image: Facebook)
Reg Connon uploaded some pictures from Macduff on the Moray Firth coast, and asked "Last night about 10pm dot in the sky - any ideas what it is?"
The (more than 120) answers he got ranged from an aeroplane reflecting the sun to a passing International Space Station, aliens landing in a UFO and even Superman.
Some thought it was a meteor and others blamed a 'second coming'.
The most plausible explanation came from Steve Balfour, who worked out which plane it could have been.
Record Verdict:This was a very good effort, until Steve Balfour gave us a very good alternative to aliens.
1: Loch Ness, 2015
Call off the search, we have found real-life UFOs, and they were trying to rescue Nessie.
It all makes sense now.
This picture is definitive proof that UFOs exist(Image: Caters)
Stunned Alan Betts was on holiday with his wife, Anna, and her parents when the group captured this extraordinary image of two mysterious disc-shaped objects flying over the famous freshwater loch in the Scottish Highlands.
The picture was taken by Anna's mum Tatiana, but it wasn't until Alan and his wife returned to their home in York and started looking through their holiday snaps that the bewildered couple discovered the strange white shapes hovering over the loch.
Alan, 48, who is the director of a refrigeration company based in Bradford, said he was usually very sceptical about UFOs but couldn't offer an explanation for the spooky picture.
He said: "Our Akita dog, Yuka, was strangely unsettled that night, he never barks but I remember we were laughing at the time saying that he'd seen Nessie because he was looking outside from the cottage window and barking at the sky.
"We couldn't see anything at that time though.
"We had been very lucky with the weather and were stunned with the view we had, it was almost constant sunshine but then that day, when we got back to the cottage after a day of sightseeing, the weather suddenly changed.
"We'd not seen it change that quickly before, which is why my mother-in-law went outside to take a general landscape picture.
"After the holiday we were looking through the pictures on our PC, as they were taken on a digital camera.
"On the PC screen the resolution was better and then we saw the objects when we zoomed in.
"We were in shock.
"I can't offer any logical explanation, I am probably one of the most sceptical people you could find about things like this but I just can't explain what it is. I know what it looks like though.
"We showed the pictures to Anna's parents who were as shocked as us - and her dad is probably more sceptical than me."
In 1983, U.S. Army personnel stationed near Rendlesham in Suffolk saw a strange, metallic triangle
(Picture: The Rendlesham UFO Incident)
Did American airmen in Britain really see an eerie, triangular spacecraft – with lights looking like a ‘glowing red eye’ – landing near Suffolk in 1980?
The Rendlesham Forest incident is still making headlines today – decades after the News of the World reported it on the front page saying ‘UFO LANDS IN SUFFOLK’.
It’s been the subject of multiple films and documentaries, with a new TV series planned by Sony this year – and even today, the revelation (by one witness) of ‘missing hours’ during the incident, sent shockwaves around the world.
What’s unique about the incident, sometimes described as ‘Britain’s Roswell’, is the detailed accounts by serving military personnel.
A series of real-life reported UFO sightings in Britain near an air base used by the U.S. Air Force will be the basis of a new drama series, “Rendlesham.” London-based producer Eleventh Hour Film will make the series and Sony’s international TV production arm has come on board.
The events unfolded over two nights in December 1980, in Rendlesham Forest, near RAF Woodbridge, which at the time was used by the American Air Force.
Two American servicemen, John Burroughs and Jim Penniston, claimed to have seen strange lights like a ‘huge red eye’ in the woods in Rendlesham in Suffolk.
They approached the lights, initially thinking it was a downed aircraft, but Sergeant Penniston later described seeing a ‘craft of unknown origin’.
Retired Colonel Charles Halt made a dictaphone recording as the events unfolded, and has since claimed that RAF radar personnel also detected the craft – but were unwilling to give statements until they retired.
Doctor Who director andDa Vinci’s DemonswriterJoe Ahearneis developing a UFO drama with Sony’s international production division andFoyle’s WarproducerEleventh Hour Films.Sony Pictures Televisionhas partnered with Jill Green’s UK firm onRendleshamand the Hollywood studio will take the international rights to the series.Rendleshamis inspired by a “real-life” UFO incident, which took place at a US air base close to the village of Rendlesham, Suffolk in 1980…
Halt claims to have written statements from RAF personnel saying that they too detected an unknown craft.
Halt told the BBC, ‘I have confirmation that (Bentwaters radar operators)… saw the object go across their 60 mile scope in two or three seconds, thousands of miles an hour, he came back across their scope again, stopped near the water tower, they watched it and observed it go into the forest where we were.
‘At Wattisham, they picked up what they called a ‘bogie’ and lost it near Rendlesham Forest.
‘Whatever was there was clearly under intelligent control.’
Colonel Charles Halt made a dictaphone recording at the time, saying: ‘While in Rendlesham Forest, our security team observed a light that looked like a large eye, red in colour, moving through the trees.
‘After a few minutes this object began dripping something that looked like molten metal.’ The soldiers made drawings and descriptions of craft which resemble classic ‘flying saucers’.
Sceptics claim that the marks of the UFO’s landing are, in fact, rabbit holes – and that the lights came from a nearby lighthouse, or from aircraft.
Rendlesham
Former Ministry of Defence UFO expert Nick Pope claims that an MOD investigation of the site showed radiation ‘significantly higher than the average background’ – as if a UFO had landed with ‘tripod’ landing gear.
Nigel Watson, author of the UFO Investigations Manual, said, ‘Even today ufologists squabble over what really happened at Rendlesham Forest in late December 1980. Did an alien spaceship land here?
‘Were the US airmen who saw the UFO fooled by the light from a nearby lighthouse? Was it a smokescreen to hide a nuclear incident or some other type of covert operation? Or was it a hoax?
Watson says that American authorities seem to have taken the incident seriously – giving servicemen medical payouts related to the incident.
‘Health problems and lots of other weird incidents have certainly been associated with Rendlesham. US airman John Burroughs, who said he saw the UFO on the night of Boxing Day 1980, received a medical payout from the US Veteran’s Association that confirmed he had received some physical harm from this craft.
‘Ever since the incident he has had heart problems and was fitted with a pacemaker. John and fellow witness Jim Penniston both claim to have suffered Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder after seeing the three-metre craft, covered in hieroglyphics land in the woods.’
Rendlesham UFO: Βασικός μάρτυρας «σπάει» για πρώτη φορά τη σιωπή του και αποκαλύπτει τι συνέβει
Film director Daniel Simpson, director of The Rendlesham UFO Incident, said he investigated evidence including audio recordings.
He said, ‘It is my belief that the USAF did actually see something that is from another world or dimension.
‘Former witness Lt Col Charles Halt has gone on record to state this also.’
Simpson told Starburst Magazine, ‘It’s one of, if not the, biggest UFO incident ever recorded along with the Roswell case and it took place over 3 consecutive nights.
‘I think that the fascination in the case is amplified as a result of the witnesses being multiple USAF personnel, with the addition that one of those people was a Lieutenant Colonel who made an audio recording on a dictaphone as the events unfolded.’
In 1983, U.S. Army personnel stationed near Rendlesham in Suffolk saw a strange, metallic triangle
(Picture: The Rendlesham UFO Incident)
Did American airmen in Britain really see an eerie, triangular spacecraft – with lights looking like a ‘glowing red eye’ – landing near Suffolk in 1980?
The Rendlesham Forest incident is still making headlines today – decades after the News of the World reported it on the front page saying ‘UFO LANDS IN SUFFOLK’.
It’s been the subject of multiple films and documentaries, with a new TV series planned by Sony this year – and even today, the revelation (by one witness) of ‘missing hours’ during the incident, sent shockwaves around the world.
What’s unique about the incident, sometimes described as ‘Britain’s Roswell’, is the detailed accounts by serving military personnel.
A series of real-life reported UFO sightings in Britain near an air base used by the U.S. Air Force will be the basis of a new drama series, “Rendlesham.” London-based producer Eleventh Hour Film will make the series and Sony’s international TV production arm has come on board.
The events unfolded over two nights in December 1980, in Rendlesham Forest, near RAF Woodbridge, which at the time was used by the American Air Force.
Two American servicemen, John Burroughs and Jim Penniston, claimed to have seen strange lights like a ‘huge red eye’ in the woods in Rendlesham in Suffolk.
They approached the lights, initially thinking it was a downed aircraft, but Sergeant Penniston later described seeing a ‘craft of unknown origin’.
Retired Colonel Charles Halt made a dictaphone recording as the events unfolded, and has since claimed that RAF radar personnel also detected the craft – but were unwilling to give statements until they retired.
Doctor Who director andDa Vinci’s DemonswriterJoe Ahearneis developing a UFO drama with Sony’s international production division andFoyle’s WarproducerEleventh Hour Films.Sony Pictures Televisionhas partnered with Jill Green’s UK firm onRendleshamand the Hollywood studio will take the international rights to the series.Rendleshamis inspired by a “real-life” UFO incident, which took place at a US air base close to the village of Rendlesham, Suffolk in 1980…
Halt claims to have written statements from RAF personnel saying that they too detected an unknown craft.
Halt told the BBC, ‘I have confirmation that (Bentwaters radar operators)… saw the object go across their 60 mile scope in two or three seconds, thousands of miles an hour, he came back across their scope again, stopped near the water tower, they watched it and observed it go into the forest where we were.
‘At Wattisham, they picked up what they called a ‘bogie’ and lost it near Rendlesham Forest.
‘Whatever was there was clearly under intelligent control.’
Colonel Charles Halt made a dictaphone recording at the time, saying: ‘While in Rendlesham Forest, our security team observed a light that looked like a large eye, red in colour, moving through the trees.
‘After a few minutes this object began dripping something that looked like molten metal.’ The soldiers made drawings and descriptions of craft which resemble classic ‘flying saucers’.
Sceptics claim that the marks of the UFO’s landing are, in fact, rabbit holes – and that the lights came from a nearby lighthouse, or from aircraft.
Rendlesham
Former Ministry of Defence UFO expert Nick Pope claims that an MOD investigation of the site showed radiation ‘significantly higher than the average background’ – as if a UFO had landed with ‘tripod’ landing gear.
Nigel Watson, author of the UFO Investigations Manual, said, ‘Even today ufologists squabble over what really happened at Rendlesham Forest in late December 1980. Did an alien spaceship land here?
‘Were the US airmen who saw the UFO fooled by the light from a nearby lighthouse? Was it a smokescreen to hide a nuclear incident or some other type of covert operation? Or was it a hoax?
Watson says that American authorities seem to have taken the incident seriously – giving servicemen medical payouts related to the incident.
‘Health problems and lots of other weird incidents have certainly been associated with Rendlesham. US airman John Burroughs, who said he saw the UFO on the night of Boxing Day 1980, received a medical payout from the US Veteran’s Association that confirmed he had received some physical harm from this craft.
‘Ever since the incident he has had heart problems and was fitted with a pacemaker. John and fellow witness Jim Penniston both claim to have suffered Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder after seeing the three-metre craft, covered in hieroglyphics land in the woods.’
Rendlesham UFO: Βασικός μάρτυρας «σπάει» για πρώτη φορά τη σιωπή του και αποκαλύπτει τι συνέβει
Film director Daniel Simpson, director of The Rendlesham UFO Incident, said he investigated evidence including audio recordings.
He said, ‘It is my belief that the USAF did actually see something that is from another world or dimension.
‘Former witness Lt Col Charles Halt has gone on record to state this also.’
Simpson told Starburst Magazine, ‘It’s one of, if not the, biggest UFO incident ever recorded along with the Roswell case and it took place over 3 consecutive nights.
‘I think that the fascination in the case is amplified as a result of the witnesses being multiple USAF personnel, with the addition that one of those people was a Lieutenant Colonel who made an audio recording on a dictaphone as the events unfolded.’
ALIEN TERROR: Retired teacher convinced ETs came for her and husband in 'car horror'
ALIEN TERROR: Retired teacher convinced ETs came for her and husband in 'car horror'
A FORMER teacher is convinced aliens were behind a terrifying experience which the saw the car she and her husband were travelling in mysteriously grind to a halt on a busy road.
Alien believer Jean Bradley claims her car ground to a halt after seeing bizarre lights in a field.
Jean Bradley, 79, from Rugby, Warwickshire, has told of the living nightmare on the A5.
She and husband, John, were driving past the New Inn, near Rugby, when the electrics and the engine of the vehicle suddenly cut out, bringing them to a standstill in the busy main route.
She said: "Lorries continued hurtling past, we were terrified the car might be struck. I was crying out in fear.
"Then, I noticed lights in the field next to our car, and, initially assumed they belonged to a farmer working late, although I thought it unlikely. “But the lights disappeared suddenly and the car began working again."
There appears to be no actual evidence that aliens were involved, however, there have been many claims of cars failing in the UK and the USA after the occupants reported seeing mysterious UFO balls of light above them.
Getty
There have been reports of UFOs stopping vehicles for years.
I noticed lights in the field next to our car, and, initially assumed they belonged to a farmer working late, although I thought it unlikely. But the lights disappeared suddenly and the car began working again.
Jean Bradley
The Warminster Thing UFO case of the 1960s, in Wiltshire, is one of the most notable.
Several motorists reported engine failures after witnessing the bizarre floating lights, only for them to start again once the UFO disappeared.
These included:
* August 20 1965: A couple on a motorcycle felt it stall as two white spheres of light hovered overhead, changing colour
* Oct 8, 1965, 12.25am; A woman driving towards Warminster felt her car lose power after seeing a bright orange ball before the vehicle stopped. She then saw a dark object rise from a nearby field, sparking red and blue, before the engine started up again.
* September 7 1965, 8pm: Major William Hill's car cut out and was "shaken by air vibrations". He got out and heard a whining, crackling noise.
* Approx. 1967: A businessman driving past Clay Hill felt his car become hot and heard a high-pitched noise before the engine failed. He got out and saw a glowing white disc overhead before it sped off.
* August 25 1975: A serviceman driving near Warminster reported to a police patrol that his car malfunctioned after seeing a bright-red light in the sky
However, in 2006 a Ministry of Defence (MoD) investigation into UFOs carried out in the 1990s was released addressing claims of them affecting people's vehicles.
Investigators concluded that meteors not fully burning up in Earth's atmosphere could trigger all the events people experienced in Warminster, including seeing strange lights, cars failing, and psychological effects.
The report described them as "buoyant plasmas" formed from meteors not fully burning up during entry to the atmosphere.
They are visible to either the naked eye or radar or both.
Bizarrely, the report said the presence of these plasmas could even cause malfunction in vehicle engines and radios, as experienced at Warminster, when in "close proximity".
Yet, Mrs Bradley is now a confirmed conspiracy theorist who believes aliens exist and are here on earth, but governments cover it up for fear of the panic the truth could cause.
She has now told her story, which happened on an undisclosed date, in her new book - 'People Must Know the Truth,' reports Rugbyadvertiser.co.uk.
It calls for the disclosure of the truth from the authorities and for other believers to come forward and add their voice to the campaign.
Her research led her to believe Rugby may be a hot spot for UFO activity, possibly owing to old radio masts in the area.
There is no confirmed evidence for the existence of aliens. However, more people are starting to believe in the cover up theory, particularly after it emerged in December the US Pentagon ran a secret research program into UFOs and video taken by a US Navy pilot of a suspected alien craft emerged.
If you’re out hunting pieces of the meteorite that shook Michigan on Tuesday 16, Darryl Pitt, curator of the Macovich Collection of Meteorites, has an offer you can’t refuse: be the first to bring him a 2.2 pound (1 kilogram) chunk of the space rock, and he’ll pay you $20,000.
Dashboard picture of the meteorite over Michigan. Image via WeekFacts.
Pitt is taking inspiration from video games and sending Michiganians out on a quest for fame, glory — and fortune. Pitt, who’s also a meteorite consultant for auction house Christie’s and one of the largest private collectors of meteorites in the world, is putting up a reward of $20,000 for the first man, woman, or child who can bring him a 2.2-pound or more of the meteorite that crashed in Michigan three days ago.
He described the yet-to-be-retrieved space rock as a “winning extraterrestrial lottery ticket,” adding that the time is now for would-be treasure hunters to turn their efforts into a handsome profit.
Starter quest
“It’s better to go out there and find them sooner, because the longer they’re on the ground, the more they tend to blend in with Earth rocks,” said Pitt. “I really want this to be found and the only way that’s going to happen is if there are more boots on the ground.”
Preliminary NASA estimates place the meteorite that struck Michigan at around 6 feet in diameter (1.8 meters), and the force of its impact roughly around 10 tons of TNT. However, until we get our hands on a sample of the rock, we won’t be able to refine these estimates or determine exactly where it came from.
That’s the main reason Pitt issued his reward for the meteor. Furthermore, he’s a Michigan native who grew up in Southfield and studied at the University of Michigan and has a strong interest in space rocks. He remarked how unique it is for bystanders to witness an impact firsthand, saying that the event heightened public awareness and helped make central lower Michigan a hotbed for meteorite hunters.
He adds that it isn’t very common for him to offer a reward for meteorites, simply because there aren’t many known meteor events where the public is aware of its specific trajectory and location.
“Earth is bombarded regularly by materials, but two-thirds of those materials end up in the ocean, and a very large percentage lands in uninhabited areas and places where you can’t find it,” Pitt said.
The fate of this meteorite is still far from settled, however. William Cooke, the head of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office in Huntsville, Alabama, says that the meteorite was spotted after 8 p.m. on Tuesday. He estimates that the meteor fragmented about 20 miles (32 kilometers) above the surface “give or take 5 miles.” You can see it happening here:
Those are about the only clear answers we have so far. NASA couldn’t reliably track the rock after that, as the material released as it broke apart screened the rock from radar.
On Wednesday, the agency released a narrowed-down impact area to the west of Hamburg Township in Livingston County (which seems to be pretty accurate). A better-defined search area would give residents a relatively solid chance of finding meteorite material, Pitt says, although the likelihood, as usual, remains fairly small.
Aspiring questees should take heart, however, and not falter in the face of unfriendly odds. We don’t know what the Michigan meteorite is made of, Pitt explains, but it could teach us a lot about the universe.
“We know that there are many meteorites that contain amino acids or building blocks of proteins of life that have never been seen before on Earth. They’re very important, fascinating objects.”
In the end, both Pitt and Cooke would like to remind everybody they must always ask permission from the owners if their search leads them to private properties. You can contact Pitt via his email or at 917-213-8265.
New excavations from the Aegean Sea have revealed the impressive sophistication of the Greek Bronze Age. Archaeologists have uncovered a number of monuments, including ones built from massive imported rocks.
The Isle of Keros was a busy place during the Bronze Age.
Image credits: Phso2 / Wikipedia.
The findings were made on the small, relatively unknown isle of Keros. Keros lies somewhere between Greece, Turkey, and the island of Rhodes. Not much is going on today on Keros, but four to five millennia ago, things were much different. Scientists have previously found evidence of ritual activities dating from 4,500 years ago, rituals which involved marble figurines. Now, archaeologists have found evidence that one of the island’s promontories was almost entirely covered by remarkable monumental constructions, built using stone brought painstakingly from Naxos, some 10 km away. Professor Colin Renfrew of the University of Cambridge, co-director of the dig, believes the narrow promontory offered a great view over the sea.
The island must have been an extremely important place. In total, more than 1000 tons of stone were imported, and archaeologists have found evidence that pretty much every flat bit of the island was built upon. The complex is the largest of its kind ever found in the area. The dig also revealed, two metalworking workshops, full of metalworking-related objects and debris. Within, archaeologists found a lead axe, a mold used for making copper daggers, as well as dozens of ceramic fragments (such as tuyères, the ceramic end of a bellows, used to force air into a fire to increase its temperature).
It’s not just the sheer size and mass of the constructions, but the level of technological advancement is also impressive. Underneath the stairs and within the walls, archaeologists uncovered sophisticated systems of drainage, indicating an advanced level of urban planning, and careful design of the structures. The team is now trying to figure out whether the drainage system was for water management or more like a sewer system. The settlement was named Dhaskalio.
Excavations underway on Dhaskalio, off Keros. Image credit: Cambridge Keros Project.
To make things even more impressive, the people of Dhaskalio were also knowledgeable farmers. Dr. Evi Margaritis of the Cyprus Institute is currently analyzing the soil on Keros for seeds, burnt wood, and animal and fish bones to see what locals were eating.
“Dhaskalio has already provided important evidence about the cultivation of olive and grape, two key new domesticates that expanded the horizons of agriculture in the third millennium. The environmental programme is revealing how agricultural strategies developed through the lifetime of the site.”
This won’t only provide agricultural and cooking information — it might also show what trading networks locals established. Since Keros was so small and hilly, it probably couldn’t sustain itself, and food was brought from other places.
“Keros was probably not self-sustaining, meaning that much of this food was imported: in the light of this evidence we need to reconsider what we know about existing networks to include food exchange”.
Mould for a copper spearhead, just after discovery during the excavation
Image credit: Cambridge Keros Project.
At a time when access to raw materials and skills was very limited, establishing such a finessed complex is no easy feat. The Dhaskalians needed to have not only the technology but also the power and will to make something so special on such a small and inconspicuous island. It was truly a time of change, and a time when society as we know it today was starting to shape up. Dr. Michael Boyd of the University of Cambridge concludes:
“What we are seeing here with the metalworking and in other ways is the beginnings of urbanisation: centralisation, meaning the drawing of far-flung communities into networks centred on the site, intensification in craft or agricultural production, aggrandisement in architecture, and the gradual subsuming of the ritual aspects of the sanctuary within the operation of the site. This gives us a clear insight into social change at Dhaskalio, from the earlier days where activities were centred on ritual practices in the sanctuary to the growing power of Dhaskalio itself in its middle years”.
It’s not just the Dhaskalians who were technologically advanced — modern archaeologists are also bringing the best they have to the table. The data is recorded digitally, using a new system called iDig – an app that runs on Apple’s iPads. Lab results are also recorded on the same app, which means that anyone working (on or off the site) has instant access to the data. As diggings reveal new structures, 3D models are created using a technique called photogrammetry. At the end of the digs, the trenches will be recorded in detail through laser scanning.
Check out the most bizarre creatures found in antarctica! This top list of rare and mysterious creatures discovered in the ice and the ocean is very strange!
10. Tardigrade
Tardigrades return from the dead
The tardigrade, also known as the water bear is nearly indestructible. Discovered in the late 1700s, this strange microscopic creature is an eight legged, clawed animal found around the world, even in the frozen tundra of Antarctica.
Cited as the most resilient creature that exists, this little micro-animal can survive everything from above boiling temperatures to even the cruel conditions of outer space. Intense pressure and radiation aren't even enough to take down this little guy. They can survive thanks to a host of interesting adaptations, including a protein that shields radiation damage to DNA. Even more fascinating is that researchers were able to transfer this protein to human cells and it was able to prevent x-ray damage to DNA by up to 40%!
The Tardigrade is able enter a state called Cryptobiosis in which metabolic processes stop. It is a state similar to death whenever conditions become too intense to overcome. This amazing creature feeds on plant and animal cell fluid as well as the fluid of some bacteria and is can be found in many patches of moss around the world.
9. “Hoff” Crab
Deep In Antarctic, The Hoff Crab 'Gardens' Bacteria With David Hasselhoff-Esque Hairy Chest
When it isn´t scuttling in slow-motion across the beach, the ´Hoff´crab finds its home deep in the thermal vents in between South America and Antarctica. It is named after famous Baywatch and Knight Rider star David Hasselhoff, due to the crabs unusually hairy chest. Despite being in one of the coldest locations on Earth, the ocean depths near Antarctica, the noble ´Hoff´crab has to endure scorching temperatures at over 300°C (570°F).
This is because the thermal vents that they call home are actually the product of undersea volcanos and they heat the ocean and release chemicals into the water that the crab has to endure. It does this because it is not the only creature to survive these conditions, the volcanic gases are a breeding ground for bacteria. The ´Hoff´will trap these bacteria within it´s hairy chest for a tasty treat. Though called the ´Hoff´crab these animals are actually a type of squat lobster and were only recently discovered but already seem to have the support of their namesake who tweeted several references to the hairy, antarctic creatures.
8. Elephant Seal
View Original Elephant Seal Image
The aptly named Elephant Seal braces the sub-zero antarctic conditions as the resident heavyweight. As one of the largest carnivores alive today, the elephant seal can weigh close to 9000 pounds! They are easily recognized as males have a trunk-like nose that is used for various calls. Often living in close proximity to penguin colonies, the elephant seal is a territorial animal and males often fight each other for the right to mate with females. Often this will lead males to go long periods of time without eating as they remain on their territory to protect it from others.
Known for being one of the seals species that spend the most time on land, the elephant seal can spend weeks without entering the water. Their huge bodies provide lots of blubber which can be used to keep warm and provide nourishment when food conditions are low. Though intimidating, they are still prey to the well coordinated orcas that patrol the Antarctic waters.
7. Sea Pig
Meet the Sea Pig, a Creature That Feasts on Sunken Corpses
The noble sea pig is a close relative of the sea cucumber. This little guy is pudgy and pink just like his land counterpart. The sea pig however is just a little smaller at under six inches long on average, but it makes up for it in numbers. In fact, sea pigs make up a majority of the weight on many ocean floors including many parts of Antarctica. Being one of the few creatures that can survive the intense pressure of the ocean above, the sea pig has a soft body with inflatable limbs that help it maneuver the sea bed.
These animals feed on leftover remnants of living creatures that have fallen into their home and hundreds will often gather around the husk of a dead whale that falls from above. Though they gather in large numbers they are not known to be social animals with each one simply sensing food along the ocean floor. Interestingly they will all face the same direction, though scientists are still unsure as to why.
6. SEA SPIDERS
Giant Sea Spider
At 1,300 species, some sea spiders (an arthropod from the order Pycnogonida) can grow up to 3 feet long in the cold waters of Antarctica! Sea spiders in the Pacific are a lot smaller and are not related to terrestrial spiders. They live in seafloor habitats and feed on coral, sponges, and worms.
5. Basket Star
Basket Star - Juvenile Gorgonocephalus eucnemis. Typical size: 1” diameter (with arms extended) ID: White with tan or brown markings. Branching arms.
This beautiful brittle star, Gorganocephalus, was filmed expanding its curly, branching arms out over about a minute. It was found with its arms intertwined with an octocoral. Posed here, it is able to filter feed on food floating by in the water above the seabed.
4. Chinstrap Penguins
Chinstrap Penguin Social Behavior
The Chinstrap Penguins are the most numerous penguins in the world. It is estimated there are 12 to 13 million located on the barren islands of the sub-Antarctic Regionand the Antarctic Peninsula. Chinstrap Penguins live and breed in large colonies. They often live on large icebergs on the open ocean.
3. Antartic Squid
Antarctic squid.
The colossal squid, sometimes called the Antarctic or giant cranch squid, is believed to be the largest squid species in terms of mass. It is the only known member of the genus Mesonychoteuthis.Wikipedia
Outside the breeding season, skuas take fish, offal, and carrion. Many are partial kleptoparasites, comprising up to 95% of the feeding methods of wintering birds, by chasing gulls, terns and other seabirds to steal their catches, regardless of the size of the species attacked (up to three times heavier than the attacking skua). The larger species, such as the great skua, also regularly kill and eat adult birds, such as puffins and gulls, and have been recorded as killing birds as large as a grey heron.[5] On the breeding grounds, the three, more slender northern breeding species commonly eat lemmings. Those species that breed in the southern oceans largely feed on fish that can be caught near their colonies. The eggs and young of other birds are an important food source for most skua species during the nesting season.[6]
In the southern oceans and Antarctica region, some skua species (especially the south polar skua) will readily scavenge the carcasses at breeding colonies of penguins and pinnipeds, sometimes taking live penguin chicks. In these areas, skuas seem to defer to the considerably larger giant petrels.
1. Artic comb Jelly
Chrysaora melanaster is a jellyfish found in the Arctic.
Jellies like this can be very abundant in Southern Ocean surface waters and it is widely suggested that they will be amongst the big winners in the more acidic, warmer ocean that results from high levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
“ We are happy and excited to report, two meteorites from the Jan 16th fall have been found in Michigan today. Congratulations to Robert Ward and Larry Atkins on the first two reported finds.https://t.co/owanBvLM0Qpic.twitter.com/HUVQFelTEj — AMSMETEORS (@amsmeteors) January 18, 2018”
Let’s get to the big news first. Did you know you can make money hunting for meteorite fragments? According to the Detroit Free Press, Darryl Pitt, a meteorite consultant to Christie’s auction house, is offering $20,000 for 1 kg (2.2 pounds) of recovered meteorite – whole or pieces. Not bad work if you can find it … and if you’re interested in finding it, the place to look today is in Michigan – specifically, somewhere northwest of Detroit in Hamburg Township.
Tuesday’s news of a meteor passing over metro Detroit and exploding in the atmosphere over Livingston County has brought out meteorite hunters like Ward to search for the precious stones. NASA scientists say the meteor broke up about 20 miles over Earth and showered most of its fragments along a 2½-mile swath in the Hamburg Township area of Livingston County.
That’s where you’ll probably still find Robert Ward, owner of Robert Ward Meteorites, and Larry Atkins, owner of Cosmic Connection Meteorites, although neither gave the specific locations of where they found the fragments. (pictures here and video here) That’s most likely where you’ll also find Darryl Pitt, who will be looking as well as buying, as he told the Detroit Free Press.
“Meteorites are exceedingly rare. And every meteorite that’s found here, every single one, it’s gonna sell for at least its weight in gold.”
He’ll be looking for things that seem out of place in the environment, hoping to find pieces before the hordes of amateur hunters show up, especially when the weather warms up and the snow melts. If those finders can’t find Pitts, other buyers are setting up starting on Saturday at the Cranbrook Institute of Science, 39221 Woodward Ave, Bloomfield Hills, which is on the north side of Detroit.
A meteorite sample, not one from Michigan.
Pitts’ offer of $20,000 for a kilo of meteorite breaks down to $20 a gram or $568 an ounce. While he didn’t give an exact weight, Ward said his specimen was about the size of a pecan and a halved pecan weighs about 1.5 grams, so he’s obviously not hunting meteorites just for the money.
“It’s a really spectacular specimen. Two days ago, this was hundreds of thousands of miles past the moon, and now I’m standing here holding it in my hand. It’s been a real good day.”
Ward is also really good at it. He’s a freelance planetary field researcher and knew precisely where to look, finding his first piece just 15 minutes after he started looking.
“We had really good data on this one. The seismic data lined up with Doppler data and the witness data. Everything came together on this one.”
That seismic data – a 2.0 earthquake was felt as the meteorite passed over – had some conspiracy theorists questioning if this was a true meteorite or something else, since experts said it disintegrated in the atmosphere and made no earthquake-causing impact. It was later determined that the atmospheric pressure wave generated when the meteor hit the atmosphere was what registered on the seismometers.
Or did it? What would be worth more – a kilo of meteor or a kilo of spaceship debris? Keep looking, people!
The strange Hampshire sighting is being investigated by the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) across the Atlantic in the US.
The man, who has not been named by MUFON, said he and a colleague saw the lights in the sky while at work.
In a witness report, he said: “I went outside with my workmate to get some materials out of the van and noticed one light slowly move around the back of a building.
“Then another one appeared from behind the building at a set distance that did not change.
“Seconds after another three appeared as if they was already there but were not lit up.”
MUFON
The mysterious UFOs could have been crane lights, it is suggested.
He said after about a minute, they began to “slowly swing around, as if a crane had lights on it and it turned around 220 degrees.”
Seconds after another three appeared as if they were already there but were not lit up.
The man, who has not been named, said: “At this point two lights where visible and after another minute or two, the two visible lights got further and further away.
“One stopped and one seemed to carry on barely being a visible light source.”
He said they appeared to swing around again in formation.
The man said: “At this point we ran back inside the building to try and get a better view from the roof.
I think could be lights from a tower/mobile crane. There are many similar examples.
Scott Brando
“With the fog we could not see anything so ran back down at which point they where nowhere to be seen.”
He ruled out helicopters as there was no noise or civilian aircraft as there were no flashing lights.
He said: “It couldn’t have been search lights shining up from the ground as we could clearly see the lights’ surface area getting wider as it shone down meaning the light source was in the sky.
“The sighting lasted around 30 minutes and I managed to take around four minutes of video.”
Tyler Glockner, who runs conspiracy theory YouTube channel Secureteam10, said in a new video about the sighting they were like the famous Phoenix Lights sighting above Arizona, Texas, in 1997.
Mr Glockner said: "This is something truly mysterious here and I cannot come up with an explanation.
"Just looking at it at face value there are multiple objects that are luminated.
Scott Brando is a UFO debunker who runs website ufoofinterest.org.
He said the lights and their movement showed that it was probably just the lights from a crane.
Mr Brando tweeted: "About the five mystery lights filmed above #Basingstoke, I think could be lights from a tower/mobile crane. There are many similar examples.
"There are many people who disagree with the possible explanation (lights from a crane), forgetting that misty conditions can cause misrepresentations."
Grant Bruce agreed and posted on YouTube: "It moves like a cranes boom."
Paul Taylor put an alternative theory on YouTube: "Not a UFO. This is just down the road from me. It's a floodlight drone that is used for security purposes over AWE (A) Atomic Weapons Establishment, Aldermaston.
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UFOs could be 'War of the Worlds' threat to Earth claims pilot at centre of Pentagon probe
UFOs could be 'War of the Worlds' threat to Earth claims pilot at centre of Pentagon probe
A FORMER US Navy pilot, whose UFO sighting was investigated by a top-secret Pentagon team, has said the phenomenon should continue to be probed in case it poses a "War of the Worlds" style threat to Earth.
David Fravor from Toledo, Ohio, was flying a F/A-18F super hornet off the coast of San Diego while the US Navy tracked mysterious UFOs for two weeks in November 2004.
It was before a bizarre encounter with one of the objects that was later investigated by a multi-million dollar top secret government program looking at mysterious aerial threats.
Details of the Department of Defense Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification £16.5million secretive programme investigating the threat posed by UFOs, and Mr Fravor's case, were revealed last month.
Cmdr Fravor and Lt Cmdr Jim Slaight were two pilots each in an F/A-18F super hornet on a routine training mission 100 miles out over the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego when it happened.
They were with the USS Princeton guided missile cruiser and SS Nimitz supercarrier at the time.
Mr Fravor said it was at the end of a two-week period when the Princeton had been tracking mysterious "Tic Tac-shaped" aircraft that appeared suddenly at 80,000 feet, before shooting down towards the ocean.
They stopped at 20,000 feet and appeared to hover, before dropping off range or heading back upwards.
Speaking to Bostonglobe.com about the implications of the case, known as the Nimitz UFO, Mr Fravor said:“I think the story needs to be told. We need to stop making jokes and start paying attention to it.
YouTube
UFO ENCOUNTER: David Fravor witnessed something bizarre.
“This is not a US problem. This is a global issue. Why aren’t we investigating these things?
"If it’s like ET, then it’s all good. If it’s like ‘War of the Worlds’ or ‘Independence Day,’ then not so much.”
Mr Fravor warned his experience with the UFO had shown him whatever was controlling it had much more superior technology.
He said: "Our technology is way, way behind. I know what I saw, oh yeah it reacted to us."
According to a report from the New York Times, the US Government-funded programme investigated reports of UFOs between 2007 and 2012, including the mysterious Nimitz case of November 2004.
Mr Fravor previously said he looked down to the water and saw waves breaking over an object below the surface.
Hovering about 50 feet above this was a white UFO, about 40 feet long and oval.
Mr Fravor said: "The craft was jumping around erratically, staying over the wave disturbance but not moving in any specific direction."
He launched a "circular descent" to look more closely, and it started to fly up to meet them.
Mr Fravor said: "It accelerated like nothing I’ve ever seen."
The Government-funded investigation into reports of UFOs ran between 2007 and 2012 under military intelligence official, Luis Elizondo, on the fifth floor of the Pentagon’s C Ring.
He is now part of the To The Stars Academy, set up by former Blink 182 singer Tom DeLong, to research UFOs.
Chris Mellon, who served for almost 20 years in the US federal government in a series of national security positions roles under presidents Bill Clinton and George W Bush, is also part of the academy.
He agrees more needs to be done to understand the UFO threat.
Referring to the Nimitz encounter, he said: "The pilot’s capture gun camera footage and infrared imagery of the object.
"They are outmatched by a technology they’ve never seen.
"The chairman of the Armed Services Committee and his counterparts and other congressional oversight committees can easily request a briefing to confirm the veracity of this story and the existence of other events of a similar nature.
"If the oversight committees have not already been briefed on this event and others like it they clearly should be.
"How else can they adequately assess threats to our forces ad our military requirements?"
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EXCLUSIVE: Ex-government UFO agent says aliens DO EXIST and addresses ‘cover-up’ claim
EXCLUSIVE: Ex-government UFO agent says aliens DO EXIST and addresses ‘cover-up’ claim
AN INVESTIGATOR who spent years pouring over the UFO phenomenon for the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has spoken exclusively to Express.co.uk about claims intelligent aliens are living here on Earth and the explosive story is covered up by world leaders.
Nick Pope worked for the British MoD from 1985 to 2006, and between 1991 to 1994 ran extensive enquiries into any potential defence threat posed by the UFO phenomenon.
The project was shut down with the conclusion there was no threat.
Now based in the US, Mr Pope tours the globe speaking at UFO and alien-related conferences, as well as describing on documentaries what he has unearthed.
However, when it came to revealing his true beliefs about whether intelligent aliens exist and are here on Earth - but hidden by a global cover up as thousands of conspiracy theorists and so-called truth seekers believe - Mr Pope has always played a close hand.
For years alien believers have claimed the US Government, and possibly others, have encountered visiting aliens, and allowed them to operate unseen in hidden underground bases, from where they research our planet.
In return for this, government’s assess the technology which allows them to get here.
Various theories even suggest a vast array of species live here including reptilians, greys, and the human-like "Tall Whites" or Pleiadians.
High profile believers have included the later NASA astronaut Edgar Mitchell and Paul Hellyer, a former Canadian Minister for Defence.
Express.co.uk asked Mr Pope to come clean about his view of this and other theories for the first time, and he did not hold back.
Nick Pope*Getty
Former MoD UFO investigator Nick Pope has given candid answers to his beliefs on aliens.
I don't believe any of the conspiracy theories that say aliens are already here on Earth, and that they're secretly working with various governments.
Nick Pope
The 52-year-old revealed he is convinced aliens exist, somewhere out there in the Universe.
However, in a blow to alien hunters, he said he is NOT satisfied there has been any "smoking gun" evidence that any have ever visited Earth.
And, he categorically said he does NOT believe ANY of the conspiracy theories about aliens secretly hidden in top-secret bunkers and working with global governments.
Scientifically, he is not convinced that aliens could even make it to Earth.
If there are any UFOs arriving from other planets, they "would only be automated probes or craft controlled by artificial intelligence," he added.
We quizzed Mr Pope in the wake of last month's revelations that the US Department of Defence (DoD) had been engaged in a top-secret project to look at the potential threat of UFO from 2007 to 2012.
The US had previously denied any interest in UFOs since the 1960s, but the Pentagon has now confirmed the existence of the Advanced Aerial Threat Identification Program (AATIP).
Mr Pope said: "Like most people who take an interest in the UFO phenomenon, I've thought carefully about my beliefs in the light of the recent revelations concerning the Pentagon's UFO project.
"The story was undoubtedly a major one. The US government had consistently stated they had no interest in UFOs and that UFO sightings weren't being investigated.
"We now know that there was official interest, and that sightings were being investigated.
"Moreover, the Pentagon's AATIP project had amassed some intriguing evidence: testimony from military witnesses, videos of military jets chasing unidentified objects, and alloys and other materials that it's claimed came from unspecified UFO incidents."
He said some of the people involved with this Pentagon project came to believe that a number of these unidentified objects were extraterrestrial in origin.
Mr Pope added: "This is a big deal, and should lead to a reframing of the debate about UFOs. For the time being, however, there's still no smoking gun.
"In many ways AATIP was no different from the British government's UFO project, which I ran in the Nineties: we too had numerous cases with military witnesses; we had photos and videos - on occasion taken with gun cameras from RAF jets; and from time to time we discussed the possibility that some of these sightings might be extraterrestrial in origin."
He said: "I still can't rule out that possibility, and I'd love it to be true: the world would be far more interesting with aliens than without them.
"However, while I've seen some intriguing evidence, I've yet to see any definitive 'you can take it to the bank' proof.
"So the bottom line is that while I'm sure there's life elsewhere in the universe, I don't know whether or not we're being visited.
"If we are, I suspect we're dealing with automated probes, or craft operated by some sort of artificial intelligence.
"Even if there are flesh and blood aliens out there somewhere, the cosmic radiation and the immense time required to travel interstellar distances probably rules out biological lifeforms making such journeys - unless there's a way around what seems to be the absolute barrier of light speed."
Mr Pope said for the time being, concepts such as warping spacetime or using wormholes "are science fiction and not science fact, so if we're being visited by extraterrestrials, we're probably dealing with machine intelligence and not biological entities”.
Mr Pope added: "I don't believe any of the conspiracy theories that say aliens are already here on Earth, and that they're secretly working with various governments."
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NASA is Preparing the World for Extraterrestrial Contact
NASA is Preparing the World for Extraterrestrial Contact
A couple of months ago top US astronomers gathered in front of congress to let them know that extraterrestrial life exists without question.
Their main argument was the size of the universe, emphasizing that there are trillions of stars out there, with one in every five most likely harboring an Earth-like planet.
It’s also important to keep in mind that planets do not have to be “Earth-like” in order to harbor life.
THE number of habitable worlds in our galaxy is certainly in the tens of billions, minimum, and we haven’t even talked about the moons. And the number of galaxies we can see, other than our own, is about 100 billion.”
– Seth Shostak, Senior Astronomer at California’s SETI Institute (source)
This time, NASA and the Library of Congress have teamed up bringing together scientists, theologians, philosophers and historians from around the globe for a two day symposium in order to discuss how to prepare the world for extraterrestrial contact, whether it be microbial organisms or intelligent beings.
“We’re looking at all scenarios about finding life. If you find microbes, that’s one thing. If you find intelligence, it’s another. And if they communicate, it’s something else, and depending on what they say, it’s something else!
“The idea is not to wait until we make a discovery, but to try and prepare the public for what the implications might be when such a discovery is made. I think the reason that NASA is backing this is because of all the recent activity in the discovery of exoplanets and the advances in astrobiology in general.
“People just consider it much more likely now that we’re going to find something — probably microbes first and maybe intelligence later. The driving force behind this is from a scientific point of view that it seems much more likely now that we are going to find life at some point in the future.”
– Astronomer, symposium organizer and former chief NASA historian, Steven J. Dick. (source)
One of the theologians present was Brother Guy Consolmagno, who is the new president of the Vatican Observatory Foundation. This is what he had to say:
“I Believe [alien life exists], but I have no evidence. I would be really excited and it would make my understanding of my religion deeper and richer in ways that I can’t even predict yet, which is why it would be so exciting.” (source)
He is urging the public not to be so surprised when extraterrestrial life is discovered, because it will be discovered. He even said that he would be happy to baptize them, if it’s intelligent extraterrestrial life that’s discovered. The Vatican has been very open to the idea of intelligent extraterrestrial life, and they’ve expressed these views for a very long time.
Earth is not the center of the universe, it’s not flat, and it’s looking very likely that the next major paradigm shifting revelation will be the fact that we are not alone in the universe.
It’s great to see the mainstream world gather, discuss and prepare for this possibility and ultimate reality, and it’s a great seg-way to create more awareness about the world of secrecy, the world’s within our world that deal with projects the human race knows nothing about.
The Other Probability – Intelligent Extraterrestrial Life is Already Here
All of the information I’ve provided below is probably old information for CE fans that regularly visit our site. This information is from a previous article I wrote earlier in the year, I thought it would be fitting to cut and paste it here for our new readers. You can find more CE articles on the UFO/Extraterrestrial topic by visiting our exopolitics section HERE.
In the United States alone, at least half of all Americans say that we’re not alone in the universe. Fifty percent of Americans already believe that there is some form of life on other planets, while only seventeen percent think that there isn’t. A quarter of Americans believe that intelligent extraterrestrial visitors have already come to Earth and have been doing so for a long time. (source)
Here’s one of them:
“Yes there have been crashed craft, and bodies recovered. We are not alone in the universe, they have been coming here for a long time.” (source) (source)
– Apollo 14 Astronaut, Air Force Captain and Founder of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, Dr. Edgar Mitchell
There are multiple reasons why the extraterrestrial question continues to gain popularity. People are starting to ask questions about the world around them, utilizing critical thinking and investigation. After thoroughly investigating this topic your conclusions will be similar to the conclusions of the majority, we are not alone, and we are being visited.
1. The Size of the Universe
How often do you look up into the night sky and wonder just how many stars, planets, galaxies and more are out there? Space has been a high area of interest that has always fascinated scientists, philosophers, musicians and pretty much just about everyone.
What is it about deep space that grabs our attention so much? To think about just how big the universe is can really put things into perspective.
Counting the stars in the universe is like trying to count the number of sand grains on a beach, not possible.
Although estimates vary among different experts, the general consensus is that there are at least between 100 billion and 200 billion galaxies in our universe. Think about that for a moment, and now throw in billions of stars in each galaxy! (source) This number could very easily be in the trillions for all we know.
Take the Milky Way Galaxy for example, which measures to about 120,000 light years across (it would take light that many years to travel across the galaxy), and contains up to 400 billion stars. Again, that’s billions of galaxies that contain billions of stars. (source)
Scientists estimate that at least 10 billion habitable Earth-sized planets exist in the milky way alone ( one galaxy out of billions), but it’s important to keep an open mind as to what type of conditions and environments some unknown extraterrestrial like forms could thrive in. They all don’t necessarily have to be Earth-like.
Given our estimation of the size of the universe, or multiverse (whatever you want to call it), odds are we are not alone.
2. Whistle Blowers
The past few years have seen a surge of whistle-blowers that’ve come out and said some remarkable things. Bradley Manning, Edward Snowden and Julian Assange have received the most attention, but the reality is that there are hundreds of whistle blowers who have come forward with verified credentials and backgrounds.
Mass survelience and the security state is not the only thing shocking people around the world, it’s the fact that many of these whistle blowers claim that we are not alone in the universe. It wouldn’t be so hard to ignore if it wasn’t for the backgrounds these people have in their respected fields.
The first one that comes to mind is Paul Hellyer, Former Canadian Defence Minister, the man responsible for unifying the Canadian Air Force, Army and the Navy into one united force now known as the Canadian Forces.
For someone with such a background to come out and make these extraordinary claims definitely grabbed the attention of many people.
“Decades ago, visitors from other planets warned us about the direction we were heading and offered to help. Instead, some of us interpreted their visits as a threat, and decided to shoot first and ask questions after. Trillions of dollars have been spent on black projects which both congress and the commander in chief have deliberately been kept in the dark.” (source)
”In one of the cases during the cold war, 1961, there were about 50 UFOs in formation flying South from Russia across Europe. The supreme allied commander was very concerned and was about ready to press the panic button when they turned around and went back over the North Pole. They decided to do an investigation and they investigated for three years and they decided that with absolute certainty that four different species, at least, have been visiting this planet for thousands of years. There’s been a lot more activity in the past two decades, especially since we invented the atomic bomb.” (source)
Paul Hellyer isn’t the only one making extraordinary statements, at least a dozen NASA astronauts have done the same. Just like Dr. Edgar Mitchell’s quote, other astronauts have said some remarkable things. Let’s take a look at a few (out of many) examples.
“There is abundant evidence that we are being contacted, that civilizations have been monitoring us for a very long time. That their appearance is bizarre from any type of traditional materialistic western point of view. That these visitors use the technologies of consciousness, they use toroids, they use co-rotating magnetic disks for their propulsion systems, that seems to be a common denominator of the UFO phenomenon” - (source) – Dr. Brian O’leary, Former NASA Astronaut and Princeton Physics Professor
“In my opinion I think they were worried that it would panic the public so they started telling lies about it. And then I think they had to tell another lie to cover their first lie, now they don’t know how to get out of it. Now it’s going to be so embarrassing to admit that all these administrations have told so many untruths, it would be embarrassing getting out of it. There are a number of extraterrestrial vehicles out there cruising around.”
(source) – Gordon Cooper, Former NASA Astronaut, Aeronautical Engineer and test pilot. One of the seven original Astronauts in Project Mercury, the first manned space program of the United States
The list goes on and on, the latest in NASA Astronaut statements about UFOs came from the 2005 International Space Station (ISS) Commander, Leroy Chiao. You can read more about that HERE.
Here is a video of John Podesta who was recently appointed as councilor to Barack Obama supporting UFO disclosure.
Some of the most extraordinary statements about UFOs and extraterrestrials come from persons who have held some of the highest positions known. Those who would be in a position to ‘know’ about possible extraterrestrial encounters.
“Behind the scenes, high ranking Air Force officers are soberly concerned about UFOs. But through official secrecy and ridicule, many citizens are led to believe the unknown flying objects are nonsense”
- Former head of CIA, Roscoe Hillenkoetter, 1960 (source)
“There is a serious possibility that we are being visited and have been visited for many years by people from outer space, by other civilizations. Who they are, where they are from, and what they want should be the subject of rigorous scientific investigation and not be the subject of ‘rubishing’ by tabloid newspapers.”
(source) – Lord Admiral Hill-Norton, Former Chief of Defence Staff, 5 Star Admiral of the Royal Navy, Chairman of the NATO Military Committee
“Everything is in a process of investigation both in the United States and in Spain, as well as the rest of the world. The nations of the world are currently working together in the investigation of the UFO phenomenon. There is an international exchange of data.” – General Carlos Castro Cavero (1979). From “UFOs and the National Security State, Volume 2″, Written by Richard Dolan
The list of military whistle blowers is huge, there are hundreds of them and hundreds of quotes to choose from. To view military whistleblowers (with verified backgrounds) give a press conference at The National Press Club about UFOs deactivating nuclear weapons, click HERE. You can also look up Dr. Steven Greer and the disclosure project.
The list of quotes from all fields, from many people is outstanding. I could literally fill pages upon pages so I’ll stop here, I think you get the picture. These quotes by whistleblowers and people with prestigious backgrounds leads perfectly into the next point as to why almost everybody knows that we are not alone in the universe.
“There is another way whether it’s wormholes or warping space, there’s got to be a way to generate energy so that you can pull it out of the vacuum, and the fact that they’re here shows us that they found a way.”
(source) - Jack Kasher, Ph.D, Professor Emeritus of Physics, University of Nebraska
In this clip, it seems he (Dr. Jack Kasher) is referring to FREE ENERGY.
“This thing has gotten so highly-classified…it is just impossible to get anything on it. I have no idea who controls the flow of need-to-know because, frankly, I was told in such an emphatic way that it was none of my business that I’ve never tried to make it to be my business since. I have been interested in this subject for a long time and I do know that whatever the Air Force has on the subject is going to remain highly classified”
– Senator Barry Goldwater , Chairman of the Senate intelligence committee(source)
3. The Evidence of UFOs
Within the past few years, dozens of governments admitted to allocating resources and having programs to study the UFO phenomenon. For instance, in Canada the RCMP, Transport Canada, and the Department of National Defence recently admitted to tracking UFOs and investigating them. (source)
They’ve been doing it for years, accumulating thousands upon thousands of UFO related documents. Many of these documents have since been officially released.
HERE is the latest batch of UFO files released from the United Kingdom.
Documents released by the National Security Agency (NSA) reveal what is recorded when a UFO is being tracked on radar. HERE is one example. HERE is a four page U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency and NSA report describing a particular encounter in great detail.
“As the F-4 approached a range of 25 nautical miles it lost all instrumentation and communications. When the F-4 turned away from the object and apparently was no longer a threat to it, the aircraft regained all instrumentation and communications. Another brightly lighted object came out of the original object. The second object headed straight toward the F4. ”
You can read more about the radar tracking of UFOs HERE.
HERE is a Wikileak cable that describes how some politicians already know we are not alone in the universe. You can read more about that HERE.
Again the list goes on and on and thousands upon thousands of UFO related documents are now available in the public domain.
For a summary of more documents that have been declassified and made available, a video done by UFO Richard Dolan does a great one in 10 minutes. To watch it click HERE and see what type of information is out there.
4. Mass Mainstream Media Attention
Media outlets of all kind are covering the topic, almost every movie that comes out these days has something to do with space or some kind of extraterrestrial intelligence. We’ve been bombarded with the topic for a while now so it’s not hard to see how it’s on the minds of many.
The most recent case of mainstream extraterrestrial ‘noise’ was made when scientists recently spoke to the house Committee on Science, Space and Technology. Dan Werthimer of the SETI Research Centre at the University of California, Berkeley, recently called for more funding to be allocated to the search for extraterrestrial life since he is “close to 100 percent” certain that we are not alone. (source)
In mid 2013, the same committee held a hearing about exoplanet discoveries, but perhaps one of the largest UFO/extraterrestrial hearings came at the National Press Club, which also took place in Mid-2013.
At this event, hundreds of researchers, activists and military/ agency/ political witnesses representing ten countries gave UFO/extraterrestrial testimony to six former members of the United States Congress about events and evidence indicating an extraterrestrial presence engaging the human race.
Former Sen. Mike Gravel (D-Alaska), and 2008 presidential candidate said that there is “an extraterrestrial influence that is investigating our planet. Something is monitoring the planet and they are monitoring it very cautiously.” You can learn more about the citizens hearing here.
Apart from these events, UFOs are constantly a topic of interest in today’s mainstream news. Unfortunately, most mainstream media outlets that cover the topic seek out to ridicule it rather than investigating it properly.
To view military whistleblowers (with verified backgrounds) give a press conference at The National Press Club about UFOs deactivating nuclear weapons, click HERE.
There are millions of people out there claiming to have contact with extraterrestrial beings. This has played a large role in spreading the influence of extraterrestrial interest across the world. All of us seem to be naturally fascinated with the unknown, especially when it comes to space. It seems like human nature.
Neuroscience can now explain what happens to our body when we meditate, but it’s something we all knew to be beneficial before the science. Is extraterrestrial life similar? Is it something we all feel deep down inside, something we don’t need proof for? (Even though the proof is there).
Besides the thousands of videos available on YouTube, there is some very fascinating officially documented UFO footage available for us to see. Click HERE to see raw footage of a UFO showing up in Norway for scientists at their observatory.
Click HERE and HERE to see film from the 1991 NASA STS-48 Discovery Space Shuttle mission. It’s some of the best, officially documented UFO footage that’s out there today.
HERE is a video that made headlines once released. It came from straight front the Mexican Air Force. Do a quick UFO search on youtube and you’ll see many fakes, but many real videos of unknown aerial objects. Final Thoughts
A few years ago the question was “Do UFOs exist?” Today that question has been answered, and the presence of UFOs performing maneuvers that defy our laws of physics has been well documented. The question has more so shifted to, “Is that an extraterrestrial space craft?”
It’s nothing to fear, in my opinion they’ve been around forever. They have been aware of us long before we have been aware of them. As speculated with our ancient civilizations in Earth’s brief past, perhaps they will one day interact with humanity again. I guess we will see.
Perhaps some groups are concerned about our planet, and come here further pushing the idea that we need to start changing the way we are doing things here. Perhaps one day soon we will find out.
I definitely believe that a good chunk of these UFOs are of extraterrestrial origin. I also believe that many of these crafts are “ours.”
WETENSCHAPWie op 4 februari toegang heeft tot een professionele telescoop, zal een uniek schouwspel kunnen waarnemen: op die dag zal een enorme asteroïde rakelings langs de aarde scheren. Nou ja, rakelings: ze blijft normaal gezien op 4 miljoen kilometer afstand, wat voor NASA dicht genoeg is om het object als ‘potentieel gevaarlijk’ te beschouwen.
Het gevaarte kreeg de swingende naam ‘Asteroid 2002 AJ192’ en is maar liefst 1,12 kilometer groot. Groter dus dan de Burj Khalifa - het hoogste gebouw ter wereld telt ‘maar’ 828 meter. Binnen twee weken zal het met een snelheid van bijna 108.000 km/u per uur langs de aarde scheren, op zo’n 4 miljoen kilometer afstand. Dat lijkt ver, maar is voor NASA voldoende om de asteroïde als ‘potentieel gevaarlijk’ te bestempelen.
Ieder object dat dichterbij komt dan 8 miljoen kilometer en groter is dan 30 meter valt immers onder die noemer. Dat wil echter niet zeggen dat de wetenschap zich zorgen maakt. “We weten als sinds de ontdekking in 2002 dat het ding op dit moment voorbij zou vliegen. Het mag dan een erg grote asteroïde zijn, deze gebeurtenis is voor ons vrij routineus. Er vliegen elke dag wel objecten langs de aarde, en vaak komen ze dichter in de buurt dan dit exemplaar.”
100 jaar veilig
Ze houden het ding wel nauwgezet in de gaten. Omdat je natuurlijk nooit weet of ze uit hun baan raken - NASA houdt zo meer dan 1.000 asteroïden en kometen in het oog - maar ook omdat je er veel uit kan leren. “We weten de omvang van het ding bijvoorbeeld niet honderd procent zeker, omdat we dat vanop afstand enkel kunnen berekenen aan de hand van lichtreflectie. We zullen onze schatting dus kunnen bevestigen.”
Volgens wat we nu weten van het heelal zal de komende 100 jaar geen enkel object echt voor problemen zorgen. Maar voor het geval er ineens wel eentje op de aardbol afstevent, werkt NASA aan het DART-project. Dat staat voor Double Asteroid Reflection Test en is een methode om asteroïden of kometen uit hun baan te duwen. De eerste testen met het systeem staan gepland voor 2022.
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Airplane Passenger captures strange object over California/Nevada
Airplane Passenger captures strange object over California/Nevada
A strange object has been captured by an airplane passenger during a flight from Seattle to Las Vegas on January 11, 2018.
The photographer states: I was taking scenery pictures (aircraft left) on the mostly clear, late afternoon, although there was intermittent cloud cover below.
Suddenly I briefly saw an object coming our way much closer than other aircraft. I thought it had to be an airplane coming too close, but I never saw what looked like an aircraft.
My camera was already at the window so I quickly got a few pictures without focusing as there was no time. It went by and over/behind us without any time to adjust my glasses to see it plus take pictures.
I was wondering, what did I just see? I wasn't sure if maybe the object in the sky had something to do with Nellis AFB, or something from Area 51, or was it just an airplane with an optical illusion.
There was no comment from the cockpit and I don't know if anyone else saw it. I'm not sure if we were traveling over California or Nevada. About 20 minutes later we were going over Mt. Charleston. We touched down in Las Vegas approximately 35 minutes after seeing the object and by that time it was dark.
Upon landing, the aircraft sounded like it was shaking completely apart. The passengers commented with concern. I have traveled hundreds of thousands of miles and I have never observed an object like that before. Mufon case 89658.
Filer’s Files #2 – 2018 Paranormal Increasing - PART I
Object photographed over New Braunfels, Texas on December 11, 2017
Filer’s Files #2 – 2018 Paranormal Increasing - PART I
In special reports, this week’s files cover: Paranormal Activity on the Increase, Alien Intrusion, Alien Life Forms May Be Inside Earth, Cylinder above the International Space Station, and Space.com UFO Legacy: What Impact Will Revelation of Secret Government Program Have?
Unidentified Aerial Phenomena sightings were reported over California, Florida, Kansas, New York, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wisconsin..
Unidentified Aerial Phenomena sightings were reported over Brazil, Canada, France, India, Mexico, and England in the United Kingdom.
The Filer Research Institute feels the scientific study of UFOs is for the benefit of humankind and is an important endeavor. The US Air Force investigated UFOs publicly for more than twenty years under Project Blue Book; and I continue this advanced research. I believe the God of the universe has spread life throughout the cosmos and UFO’s are visiting us in ever-increasing numbers.
I wish you all a most Happy New Year and Forward these files to your friends and neighbors.
UFOs and possibly related abductions are being reported over many countries throughout the world such as China, United Kingdom, India, Italy, Chile, Singapore, Australia, etc. There are too many to give detailed reports. Some researchers assume the visitors are from other planets but there is some evidence they live on Earth.
Additionally ghost hunters are reporting increased activity in Georgia and other places. Religious organizations are reporting an increase in demonic-like activity. These reports may not be related to extraterrestrials. However, one only has to look at hundreds of books written in the Middle Ages to see a startling relationship in the various stories. We could be dealing with several different phenomena that are unwanted visitors to people’s homes.
Last week, I received a call from a very successful woman in Southern New Jersey. She saw a ghost like creature coming into her bedroom a few days before Christmas. The woman had a nightmare of being raped by the entity. She had ugly black bruises on her inner thighs and had and other indications of being mistreated. The bruises appear as a small hand might have caused them. Hold all fingers of your hand together as if you were trying to pick up a small object. Press hard into your inner thigh and you get an idea of how bruises would look. The witness saw a luminescent scary form about the size of an average man. Many stories fit the old incubus and succubus legends. She felt she awaked after being levitated off the bed and suddenly dropped. Although her husband is a light sleeper, he appears to have been unconscious. The woman screamed loudly, but her spouse did not awake. The entity left the room with her screaming and praying. They seem to come from another world, a realm beyond our physical world. Obviously the couple is very upset about the intruder. They are successful college educated people who met a different form of intelligence. The bruises and the violations are real.
We have had two weeks of unusually cold weather that crippled much of North America while suspicious fires ravaged homes in California followed by mud slides that killed thirteen. Terrorists continue to kill. Additionally, 64,000 young Americans died last year from drugs mostly heroin raised and brought in from Mexican Drug Cartels to most cities in the US.
Alien Intrusion
It is obvious various types of evil exists in our world that includes abductions. Gary Bates is an Australian who now heads up the U.S. office of Creation Ministries International, and is one of the few evangelical Christians who researchers UFO phenomena. He has a new film, “Alien Invasion”, which takes a look at UFO sightings and alien abduction. Bates suggested that the idea the extraterrestrials are visiting us from other planets, and secretly abducting humans does not cohere with his Christian belief system. Rather than ETs, he argues there are other-dimensional visitations and encounters, in which beings can manifest themselves physically, sometimes creating negative or traumatic situations.
These interdimensional or supernatural beings have always co-existed with us, he cited, and split off from the original creation as fallen angels. The Bible indicates that a spiritual battle is taking place between supernatural beings. Young church members in Philadelphia reported seeing sword fights between angelic like creatures.
Millions of people have seen UFOs and many even recall personal encounters with strange entities. The popular view is that these are advanced aliens visiting us from far away, but this compelling new documentary takes a deeper look at the events, the beliefs, the experts and the people who have shaped our views in the “otherworldly.”When one examines this phenomenon, one of the most disturbing but powerful affirmations of the spiritual realm, Christianity and the Bible becomes clearer. This documentary seeks to solve one of the most haunting and persistent mysteries of our time by addressing UFO sightings in every country, things seen on radar, alien abductions, government cover-ups, and even a “new” religion.
Alien Life Forms May Be Inside Earth
Suppose someone claimed that we are not running out of petroleum? Or that life on Earth began below the surface of our planet? Or that oil and gas are not “fossil fuels”? Or that if we find extraterrestrial life it is likely to be within, not on, other planets? You might expect to hear statements like these from an author of science fiction. But what if they came from a renowned physicist, an indisputably brilliant scientist who has been called “one of the world’s most original minds”?
In The Deep Hot Biosphere, Thomas Gold sets forth truly controversial and astonishing theories about where oil and gas come from, and how they acquire their organic “signatures.” The conclusions he reaches in this book might be at first difficult to believe, but they are supported by a growing body of evidence, and by the indisputable stature and seriousness Gold brings to any scientific enterprise. In this book we see a brilliant and boldly original thinker, increasingly a rarity in modern science, as he develops a revolutionary new view about the fundamental workings of our planet. Thomas Gold is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the Royal Society, and an Emeritus Professor at Cornell University. Regarded as one of the most creative and wide-ranging scientists of his generation, he has taught at Cambridge University and Harvard, and for 20 years was the Director of the Cornell Center for Radiophysics and Space Research.
Dr. Gold, proposes the striking theory that “a full functioning… biosphere, feeding on hydrocarbons, exists deep within the earth, and that a primordial source of hydrocarbons lies even deeper.” Most scientists think the oil we drill for comes from decomposed prehistoric plants. Gold believes it has been there since the earth’s formation, that it supports its own ecosystem far underground and that life there preceded life on the earth’s surface.
Our visitors may be from underground or under the sea rather than from planets millions of miles away.
Life forms so alien that scientists may simply not have recognized evidence of their existence could inhabit the Earth, according to Dr. Tom Gold. Organisms based on silicon — completely unrelated to all the carbon-based life man has encountered so far — may live at great depths. He suggest that scientists should take the possibility more seriously. Gold, who is a member of the Royal Society, previously predicted that vast amounts of more conventional bacteria live miles down within the Earth’s crust. Scientists initially dismissed the idea, but many now agree with him.
Every known living organism, from bacteria to mankind, is based on the chemistry of carbon, which forms the complex molecules such as DNA that are central to our existence. Scientists believe that if extraterrestrial life is found, the chances are that it, too, will be carbon-based. Silicon has many chemical similarities to carbon, prompting scholars and science fiction writers to dream up new life forms. Gold is often right in his scientific predictions. Times Newspapers Ltd.
Some abductees report advanced insect types of life forms. Insects are the most successful and important multi-cellular organisms on our planet and may have developed advanced life forms that live underground.
Researcher Arkadiusz Jadczyk writes, “ An Alien presence on our planet is real and those who choose to close their eyes to this reality do so at their own peril.” In recent times, major motion pictures and television shows have increased public awareness of the subject.
The latest Star Wars Movie has over a billion in sales in a couple weeks indicating an underlying belief in the subject. However, the approach taken by the media has generally tended to place the subject in the realm of science-fiction entertainment. The news media systematically ridicules reports and the tabloids exaggerate the reports to the point of absurdity so that the public has no idea that the stakes in this game are real and it is being played for keeps. The book, Clear Intent,by Lawrence Fawcett and Barry J. Greenwood (Prentice-Hall, 1984), provides massive, overwhelming and irrefutable evidence based on the government’s own documents that our highest public officials and the elite of our security and intelligence organizations have been deliberately and persistently lying to tax-paying citizens on the subject of Aliens for the last 50 years or more.
These beings can plunder our world, our lives, our very minds, at will. But, one must wonder why they are going to so much trouble to persuade us to accept their total control if they could take it at will.Perhaps they can only plunder us physically. I have encountered cases where the aliens seemed to come off very badly in the interaction and no further contact ensued. I am finding more and more evidence that those who think they are psychic or who have prophetic “dreams” or visions, or other psychic experiences are, in fact, being regularly visited by aliens.
Jaques Vallee extrapolates on the great number of possible sightings and/or contacts. He conjectures that there must be literally millions including those unreported for fear of ridicule as well as those unremembered, perhaps because of mind control techniques. He then goes on to say that he finds it difficult to believe that members of a civilization with space/time travel capabilities would come in such numbers to do “stupid” things like abduct people and perform primitive experiments or examinations on them. I have to agree. Our doctors and scientists can perform many of the procedures attributed to the aliens with far less pain and trauma.
We are not dealing with materialistic, earth based technology here! For God’s sake, these guys walk through walls, float people out of their bodies, control minds, paralyze bodies, influence weather etc. etc. All of these abilities are those we have historically attributed to angels or demons. The Apostle Paul wrote in II Corinthians:
“…for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light, So it is not surprising if his servants also masquerade as ministers of righteousness. Their end will correspond with their deeds.”
The abduction phenomenon is inter-generational and the children of an abductee will all be abductees as will their children, and so on. Therefore the abduction phenomenon keeps up with population growth and more people are being abducted than ever before. Abductions begin in childhood and continue into old age. It is difficult to know frequency. People only remember a handful of their experiences and do not know how many times they have been abducted. Abduction events appear to be at least once a month.
Cylinder above the International Space Station
ISS – I had just got a new mobile phone and was talking to my sister one evening while watching a live feed of the ISS. At the time it was passing over the earth in daylight and as I watched I thought I noticed 2 marks on my screen. I then realized they were actual small objects which were not always easy to see in the light. However when the ISS went into darkness I could see a oblong/cylinder object a long way off in the distance. Although it looked small I decided to try film it on my phone. You can actually make it out in the distance. I carried on my conversation and kept an eye on the screen and noticed that 2 objects seem to be very slowly rising up towards the ISS. One was the cylinder the other a sphere. It went on like this for a while when suddenly the sphere started moving quickly towards the ISS. I was so surprised I panicked I managed to turn the flash on at the same time! So what looks like the sun is actually the flash on my camera.
I could still make out the cylinder so decided if it got closer I would be ready. Whoever was in charge of pressing the button for the blue screen must have been on their break because I filmed it for almost 6 minutes and I don’t think I’ve seen one that lasts that long! In that time it definitely moves closer to the ISS and has some kind of pulsing light running down the length of it. Afterwards I decided to go online to see if anyone had caught anything like it and discovered a video on Youtube titled ISS-Possible alien craft downloaded by Streetcap1 in 2014 To me it looks like the same object. If these are crafts I’ve never seen any like them. Regards Clive Moorhouse
Space.com UFO Legacy: What Impact Will Revelation of Secret Government Program Have?
By Leonard David, Space.com’s Space Insider Columnist | January 9, 2018 07:15am ET
Believers in aliens visiting Earth’s friendly skies via Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) couldn’t ask for more: A secretive government group backed by federal “black money,” a talkative former U.S. military intelligence official, fighter-jet video of odd objects doing out-of-this-world maneuvers and a space mogul purportedly housing leftovers of unidentified aerial craft.
It all has the feel of sliding open a top drawer in a new “X-Files” TV episode.
Yes, “the truth is out there,” a maxim made all the stranger by reports last month by both The New York Times and Politico Magazine of the secretive Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program, or AATIP for short. Along with the reporting, a video was released by the Department of Defense showing a 2004 encounter near San Diego involving two Navy F/A-18F fighter jets and an unknown object. [UFO Watch: 8 Times the Government Looked for Flying Saucers]
Behind the scenes
AATIP was originated by then-United States Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who garnered taxpayer dollars to start the program in 2007, along with the support of the late senators Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) and Ted Stevens (R-Alaska).
But behind the scenes is Robert Bigelow of Bigelow Aerospace, a Harry Reid political donor in Nevada. A hefty chunk of the AATIP’s $22 million budget over five years was reportedly given to Bigelow’s company to hire subcontractors and carry out research for the program.
Now toss into the mix Luis Elizondo, the former intelligence officer who ran the AATIP, which initially was under the wing of the Defense Intelligence Agency. He resigned from the job last October, advising CNN post-departure that it was his personal belief “that there is very compelling evidence that we may not be alone.”
Elizondo also told CNN that the craft studied by AATIP “are displaying characteristics that are not currently within the U.S. inventory nor in any foreign inventory that we are aware of.” [7 Things Most Often Mistaken for UFOs]
Turning point
Jan Harzan, the executive director of the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), sees the eye-opening reporting as a “turning point in the study of UFOs.” He said his organization is excited about the events beginning to unfold “and feel[s] the public and everyone on this planet should be as well.”
MUFON has been investigating and researching the UFO phenomenon since 1969, Harzan said. The group’s analysis of over 100,000 UFO reports over the past five decades has shown three things to be true, he has stated:
UFOs are real
UFOs represent extremely advanced technology
Tremendous breakthroughs will happen if we make it safe for our scientists and engineers to study this phenomenon unimpeded. These breakthroughs involve the fields of propulsion, energy, communication, biology and consciousness, to name just a few.
The recently released fighter-jet camera video of craft off the coast of San Diego “is just the tip of the iceberg,” Harzan said. “Our military vaults are full of such videos and data on these objects. Now that the spill gates have been opened a little, it is time for the rest to come out in an orderly fashion,” he added, “and in so doing make it safe for our scientists and engineers to study this phenomenon without fear of ridicule or retribution, but with funding provided by Congress and private industry.” [UFO Watch: 8 Times the Government Looked for Flying Saucers]
Reported UFOs take on all shapes and sizes.
Credit: UK National Archives sightings chart circa 1969.
No national security threat
The new revelation about the AATIP is evidence that the U.S. government has been researching and taking this issue seriously for decades, despite claiming no interest in the phenomenon since 1969, said Alejandro Rojas, spokesman for the Scientific Coalition for Ufology (SCU).
Indeed, between 1952 and its termination in 1969, the U.S. Air Force’s official UFO-investigation program, known as Project Blue Book, came to the following set of conclusions: No UFO reported, investigated and evaluated by the Air Force has ever given any indication of threat to our national security; there has been no evidence submitted to or discovered by the Air Force that sightings categorized as “unidentified” represent technological developments or principles beyond the range of present-day scientific knowledge; and there has been no evidence indicating that sightings categorized as “unidentified” are extraterrestrial vehicles.
Advanced technology
Rojas endorses the scientific study of the UFO phenomenon and believes that all information regarding unidentified aerial objects should be released so that the data can be properly analyzed by the scientific community.
“Remember, the ‘U’ is for unidentified, not alien,” said Rojas, who is also director of operations for Open Minds Production.
“We don’t know what these things are,” Rojas told Space.com. “Just because we get uncomfortable with the idea of aliens does not mean we should not investigate when the people who pilot our most advanced technology say they encounter something that outclasses their aircraft. It would be highly negligent not to investigate.”
Another striking point in the recent disclosure, Rojas added, is that the incidents “are very similar to events that have been recorded by the U.S. Air Force and other governments for decades.”
Tone of evidence
There is one head-scratcher: Why release this information now? Some see it as a trial balloon to take the pulse of citizens’ reactions. Is the public being set up for the really big news about alien visitors?
“I can’t say I know why things are coming out at this time,” said Stanton Friedman, a retired nuclear physicist and a long-time investigator and lecturer on the UFO phenomenon.
“I appreciate the courage of those former officials who came forth,” Friedman said. He criticized debunkers who advocate listening for alien signals “but ignore the tone of evidence of alien visitors.”
Small program, little to show
Robert Sheaffer is a writer and one of the leading skeptical investigators of UFOs.
In his summary of recent events, Sheaffer notes that Robert Bigelow has been a strong believer in UFOs and alien visitors all his life. He was a campaign contributor to Sen. Reid and some of Reid’s causes and persuaded Reid that the military budget ought to include funds for the study of UFOs.
The AATIP is a small program by Pentagon standards, Sheaffer said; it ultimately spent just $22 million over five years.
“Who knew it apparently only takes three senators to set up a secret Pentagon project?” Sheaffer said.
Funding for the AATIP activity was discontinued in 2012, Sheaffer said, “because it was not producing any results, just reams of paper, although the investigation is reported to still be continuing, but without funding, if that is possible.”
“They have only released two very blurry infrared videos of objects that appear to be distant jets, without sufficient information to do a really good analysis of them,” he added. “So, ultimately, all you have are a few UFO believers in and outside government who were able to get away with funneling a few million Pentagon dollars to themselves for UFO research, and have very little to show for it.” [Ten Alien Encounters Debunked]
Bigelow Aerospace president Robert Bigelow has a long-standing interest in UFOs.
Credit: Bill Ingalls/NASA
UFO artifacts
Sheaffer said that what is really interesting is the statement in The New York Times story that, under Bigelow’s direction, the aerospace company “modified buildings in Las Vegas for the storage of metal alloys and other materials that Mr. Elizondo and program contractors said had been recovered from unidentified aerial phenomena.”
If that’s true, Bigelow supposedly has actual artifacts from UFOs, Sheaffer said, “and in fact has such a large quantity that he needs to modify his buildings to accommodate them? That is just utterly bizarre. We need an explanation of exactly what buildings were modified at federal expense, and what do they contain?” he said.
Purpose of the program
“Threat identification is obviously an important task,” said Steven Aftergood of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, D.C.
“But the fact that this program was initiated at the request of Senator Reid — not the Air Force — suggests that national security was not the paramount motivation here,” Aftergood said. This impression, he said, is reinforced by the fact that a constituent of Sen. Reid (Robert Bigelow) received funding through the program.
“It is somewhat dismaying to see how quickly ‘unidentified’ aerial phenomena are publicly interpreted and portrayed as UFOs of possibly extraterrestrial origin,” Aftergood concluded. His advice: “Collectively, we should all be becoming more intelligent and more perceptive, not more stupid and gullible.”
Serious study
“It is complicated, and I am still trying to make sense of things,” said Mark Rodeghier, president and scientific director of the J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies in Chicago, Illinois.
The center was started by Hynek, who served as the astronomical consultant to Project Blue Book. Hynek himself was initially dubious of the whole UFO business, but after culling through hundreds of reports by witnesses, he became convinced UFOs were worthy of serious study.
In broad terms, the outing of the AATIP and its investigation of military UFO sightings “confirms something that has been believed for many years … that these sightings are still happening,” Rodeghier said. “We just were not learning about them.”
Blip in UFO history?
Rodeghier said he hopes the core of AATIP information that has been gathered can be released to the public and made available for scientific analysis. “It would be extremely disappointing and frustrating if these reports are not released for scrutiny. We need high-quality data about UFOs to do better science,”Rodeghier said.
“If those reports are never released, all of this is going to be blip in UFO history,” he added. “But even if it’s only a blip in history, it’s still a darn interesting blip.”
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Filer’s Files #2 – 2018 Paranormal Increasing - PART II
Filer’s Files #2 – 2018 Paranormal Increasing - PART II
UFO Sightings in the United States
California Object
Huntington Beach— Coming out of the door at my job to make a phone call on December 22, 2017, I saw a jet trail in the sky, and it was glowing. It stretched, then plumed, then multiple explosions were going at the front and rear of where the north south stretching jet line originated. I began yelling for people to look at the sky, in a parking lot , very busy, AND NO ONE WOULD LOOK UP, with a 2 exceptions. My coworker heard me yelling, thinking I was fighting with someone? And he began filming, he googled what it was, Elon musk’s rocket re entering the atmosphere, so, there you have it. I have the photos. There was a lot going on , can’t be more specific, and I had to go back to work, saw nothing depart, I observed for 40 minutes, and as I left the explosions had ended, and smoke in a plume that looked like a giant whale shaped mother ship kept glowing 100 times the size of the many lights moving around in no succession, or pattern. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Florida Disc
Deltona— We invested in a cheap telescope about two months ago. My fiancé and I love to watch the skies and bit after 9 PM on December 31, 2017. we saw a red light come from the ground and go up into the skies and disappear. It was not fireworks and not a plane. I have captured 2 photographs on my Nikkon. We also noticed more red and orange lights last night. If interested in seeing my photos and maybe having a chat, please email me back. I am so excited to see someone else that is seeing what we are. I was beginning to think I was going crazy.
Here are the pictures I took at 8:12 PM Sunday, December 31 2017, We watched it come from the ground and go up. It did not make a sound and was not fireworks. Note: The photos were taken from 8:12 to 8:13 PM. This time was used to catalog the report. Thanks to William Puckett, Director Http://www.UFOsnw.com
Kansas Rod
Driving between Pratt and Dodge City heading west at dusk on January 11, 2018. I noticed a large glowing yellow rod of light. I thought it was an airplane exhaust trail being lit by sun. It didn’t change or dissipate or move with the clouds. I noticed an airplane exhaust trail headed towards it coming from the east, at which time the object ceased to be glowing yellow, and was grey but kept its shape. Object began to move away keeping a vertical bearing staying in front of the airplane. It kept it’s rod like shape but appeared smaller as it moved away. After object was out of sight, multiple jet engine exhaust trails criss crossed the area for 30 minutes.
The initial glowing object seemed quite large considering it was very far away and much larger than the jet trails from the criss crossing planes that came after the rod left. The original “rod” had clear borders and did not dissipate like a chemical trail from a plane would, and it had a definite top and bottom border both while glowing and when turned grey. I was half way between Pratt and Dodge City KS, with the object to the west and south of my position. I stopped to try and photograph it when it was a grey rod moving away. I believe the object was quite large, and sat on top of the lowest band if clouds. The whole episode lasted an hour
Attached picture is not of the object I saw, but the closest image I found on the internet. Thanks to MUFON CMS
New York Object
Queensbury — On November 9th, 2017 at 6:45 PM a couple of relatives, saw an UFO that they cannot explain. The couple were just getting home when Mindy saw some lights above a tree line. She called her husband to come out. They both observed an object about 20-30 feet long above the tree line but could not see an outline. It had 6 green lights, that looked like windows several feet apart. The object had no sound and it was hovering at the same height the whole time. As the object hovered it was emanating amazing continuous lights like cork screws. They were going through the trees n all directions. After three minutes of observing and being mesmerized, Randy went into the house. It was freaking him out and didn’t want to have anything to do with it any longer. Mindy looked north east and also saw a green glowing flashing ball of light that just disappeared. This is an accurate artist rendering of what they saw. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Tennessee Disc
Memphis — I’ll start off by mentioning this occurred sometime between 6:45 – 7:00 p.m. on January 7, 2018) lasting for 30 – 45 seconds, My sister and I were outside our house and I noticed a green light stretching horizontally in the distance across the night sky, but this was emitting from a tall building less than five miles away. This building is covered in green lights, and come nighttime it turns on and basically becomes a gigantic green light bulb. This building is over 30 stories high, so the light was illuminating the sky above it. area. After a minute or so, I saw this dark figure seemingly emerge out of nowhere above the green light.
I knew just from the sheer size of it that it wasn’t anything man made, so I pointed it out to my sister and she saw it immediately. It remained behind the clouds, but the light emitted from the building and into the clouds resulted in the UFO being exposed for a brief moment. The craft did not reflect any light. It was an oval-shaped, disk-like shadow sticking out like a sore thumb in the sky. It was much larger than any sort of airplane or aircraft that I’m aware of by a long shot. I had an enormous rush of adrenaline rushing through me. Thanks to MUFON CMSCMS
Texas Triangle
New Braunfels– I’ve been fooled by flying drones in the past. Just want to submit this picture to see what you think it is.
I took this photo on December 11, 2017 at sunset.
Drones normally do not have multiple lights.
Thanks to MUFON CMS
”Washington Light
Spokane— I was on my way to work and my first turn was down a hill (My city is in a river valley). I saw these three bright lights in the sky not much higher than my current elevation on April 21, 1014.. I drove down the hill and pulled off at a convenient place and took out my iPhone 4s cell phone. I began to record these slow moving objects. I propped my cell phone on the hood of my truck so the images wouldn’t be too shaky. I saw what looked like a Gonzaga University Police car. I was hoping to catch the lights again on a bridge over a valley on my way to work. But, I never saw the slow moving lights again. I have 10 years in Security and was on my way to work at an airport. These lights were not on any flight path. Thanks to MUFON CMSCMS
Wisconsin Lights
Cameron— While driving west on hwy8 towards Cameron I noticed what looked like chemtrails I the sky on January 6, 2018.
I decided to take pics to show somebody. After I took them I zoomed in and noticed the UFO lights in them. They were caught on 3 of the pics.. one behind clouds. This happened around 12:30 pm. Awesome I think I caught a UFO! Thanks to MUFON CMS
Worldwide UFO Sightings
Brazil Red Light
Caxias do Sul — 1. On the balcony of my apartment. 2. I was watching New Year’s fireworks. 3. Building antenna. 4. The light changed in intensity and blinked. Suddenly it moved down, beyond my vision field. 5. I was calm, trying to get the best object’s picture. 6. It moved behind a building and I didn’t see anymore.
Thanks to MUFON CMS
Canada Light
I was smoking outside in the back of my house and noticed this orange ball kind of gliding just below the clouds it looked like can’t really judge the distance probably over 5 km. But noticed it like I said going across the sky then stopped. And it disappeared behind my garage roof and when I moved to see it again it was gone.
Thanks to MUFON CMS
France Light
Cavaillon – During the night of 24th to 25th of December 2017, leaving my mother’s house I was driving on the “road of Avignon” when I saw in the sky three orange balls. They are not stars, they are too big, but thry are not planes. The 3 balls moved so as to form an isoceles triangle. Getting closer and closer the light melted into the sky. Then a second light disappeared.There was only one stationary bright and continuous bright light on the sphere. When I looked back again, I simply lost sight of it. It took me 5 minutes to realize I really could not explain it. For me, it was UFOs.
The next day my beautiful sister said “My friend and I saw them too!” I searched on the internet and saw two testimonies resembling mine, one in Vedene, the other in Ile-sur-sorgues. Thanks to MUFON CMS
India Red Light
Nagpur— On 6th of January 2018 I was working on my laptop at 06:50 PM when there was a blackout due to power cut in our locality. I moved out on to the roof to look around and saw an unusual glowing red light over the terrace of a building. It appeared like towers warning lights for planes. It was at such a low altitude as the. light slowly started to ascend. I thought somebody might be testing their drone cameras or something. After rising a meter or so the light just disappeared. Since it looked unusual I took out my cell phone (Motorola Moto E2) and pointed its camera towards the sky. It came quite close to my vantage point. Hovered there for two to three seconds then disappeared momentarily and reappeared again just above the same spot where it disappeared. Hovered there for a while and then disappeared again. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Mexican Lights
Cancun — This photo was taken before boarding the flight back home on September 7, 2004, and I only noticed the object in the background sky above the plane. When looking at the pictures back home I’m presuming it’s probably a meteorite but always wondered as it does appear to have a solid structure next to the light. I did send it somewhere else about 10 years ago but never heard anything back and the recent boom in UFO related events reminded me of this. So will let you have a look and see what you think. Thanks to MUFON CMS
UK Light
Derby — Lying in bed I always look at the stars on January 8, 2018, I noticed it by the flashing lights thought be a plane or helicopter but went outside – no noise. Staying in one place so not a plane. I was a bit excited and I tried to zoom in on phone camera can see it changing colors. Video footage – unable to zoom I first noticed it about 1 AM, it’s seems to of dropped in height a slight bit (1:36am) Can still see it. Thanks to MUFON CMS
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I have put out these files for twenty years; and I’m a disabled veteran with poor eyesight due to cataracts and macular degeneration so forgive any spelling errors. As you read this I’ve had heart surgery on my clogged arteries at Deborah Hospital on December 5, 2017. I plan on continuing these files as the operation is successful but has taken a couple weeks to recover. It has been a pleasure writing these files for twenty years, that I feel is the most important endeavor of mankind. We could use your help in paying for web costs, Wi-Fi , internet, etc.
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* Hi reader, it seems you use these files a lot; I think that’s great and hope you find it useful. I’m sure you’re having a busy day, so I’ll get straight to the point: today we need your help. It’s a little awkward to ask, but we depend on donations averaging around $25. If you donate just $3, you would keep Filer’s Files thriving for years. The price of a coffee is all I ask. Please take a minute to keep us growing. I have put together a DVD of the last twenty years of Filer’s Files for you with hundreds of great photographs and UFO sightings that will explain the phenomena and the importance to your life and your family. Additionally, I have included my book within the DVD that includes George Ritter’s exciting abduction story told by Linda Moulton Howe. Broadcaster David E. Twichell joined me to write the book. We are asking for a donation of only $50 that includes next year’s subscription and our book. Please include your e-mail address and mailing address.
Our research is uncovering amazing truths by solving challenging projects deemed too difficult by other firms. We have had some success in finding missing persons. We could use your help in getting more results from our research. I have put together a DVD of the last seventeen years of Filer’s Files for you with hundreds of great photographs and UFO sightings. Additionally, I have decided to include my book within the DVD that includes George Ritter’s exciting abduction story told by Linda Moulton Howe. Broadcaster David E. Twichell joined me to write the book. We are asking for a donation of only $50 that includes next year’s subscription and our book. Please include your e-mail address and mailing address.
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According to NASA, A Skyscraper-Sized Asteroid Hurtling Toward Earth Is ‘Potentially Hazardous’
According to NASA, A Skyscraper-Sized Asteroid Hurtling Toward Earth Is ‘Potentially Hazardous’
A massive kilometer-wide asteroid is hurtling towards our planet at a speed of 107,826 km per hour.
Asteroid AJ129 2002, which will pass eerily close to our planet on February 4 at a speed of 107,826 km per hour has been classified by the International Astronomical Union as “potentially hazardous” for Earth.
Potentially hazardous objects are either asteroids or comets with an orbit such that it has the potential to make close approaches to the Earth and is of a size large enough to cause significant regional damage in the event of an impact.
The asteroid measures approximately 1.1 kilometers in diameter.
Image Credit: Shutterstock
Astronomers place potentially hazardous asteroids with some threat from impacting our planet in the next 100 years are listed on the Sentry Risk Table.
Reports indicate that as of March 2017 there are 1,786 known potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs) and only 205 have an observation arc shorter than 30 days. Of the known PHAs, 157 are believed to be larger than one kilometer in diameter.
As noted by the Mail, the speed the speed the asteroid is traveling at is nearly 15 times faster than the world’s quickest manned aircraft – the hypersonic North American X-15, which traveled at 4,520mph (7,300kmh).
The asteroid measures approximately 1.1 kilometers, which makes it larger than the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa of Dubai, which is 800 meters high. According to NASA calculations, the asteroid should pass a distance of 4.2 million kilometers from Earth, which is understood as a fairly close distance on the cosmic scale.
Taking this into consideration, astronomers note how asteroids within a radius of fewer than 7.4 million kilometers of our planet are defined as “dangerous”.
Scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (USA) warn that if the asteroid hits the Earth, the consequences would have a “very severe global” consequence and would last several years.
In case of an impact, the Earth would likely become a much darker place, colder and dry.
In the “worst case”, the soot would remain in the atmosphere for about 10 years, while the dust would take six years to settle. Average temperatures around the world would drop to 8 ° C.
However, despite the fact AJ129 2002 has been deemed a potentially hazardous asteroid, NASA does not estimate that this asteroid will impact our planet now.
You can find out more about NEOs and potentially hazardous space objects by visiting this link.
Compact remote Raman system developed at UH. Shown, members of Sharma and Misra's team. Credit: UHM.
Shiv Sharma
Anupam Misra
Researchers at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa (UHM) School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST), in collaboration with NASA, have developed an innovative new spectroscopy instrument to aid the search for extraterrestrial life. The new instrument is designed to detect compounds and minerals associated with biological activity more quickly and with greater sensitivity than previous instruments.
Shiv Sharma and Anupam Misra, researchers at the Hawai‘i Institute for Geophysics and Planetology (HIGP) in SOEST, and team developed the new instrument, which improves on an analytical technique known as micro-Raman spectroscopy. This technique uses the interaction between laser light and a sample to provide chemical composition information on a microscopic scale. It can detect organic compounds such as the amino acids found in living things and identify minerals formed by biochemical processes on Earth that might indicate life on other planets.
“Our instrument is one of the most advanced Raman spectrometers ever developed,” said M. Nurul Abedin of NASA Langley Research Center, who led the research team. “It overcomes some of the key limitations of traditional micro-Raman instruments and is designed to serve as an ideal instrument for future missions that use rovers or landers to explore the surface of Mars or Jupiter’s icy Europa moon.”
The researchers report that their new system, which they call the standoff ultra-compact micro-Raman (SUCR) instrument, is the first to perform micro-Raman analysis of samples four inches away from the instrument with 17.3-micron resolution—finer than a human hair. The new spectrometer is significantly faster than other micro-Raman instruments and extremely compact. These features are important for space applications and could also make the instrument useful for real-time biomedical and food analyses.
“Micro-Raman spectroscopy is being explored for detecting skin cancer without a biopsy and can be used to for food analysis applications such as measuring caffeine in drinks,” said Abedin. “Our system could be used for these applications and others to provide fast chemical analysis that doesn’t require sending samples off to a laboratory.”
Designing for space
For space exploration, the instrument had to be small and light to minimize fuel use during the nine-month journey to Mars or the six-year journey to Europa; but also robust enough to withstand the harsh conditions in space.
The SUCR instrument uses the direct coupled Raman system design previously developed at UHM by Sharma, Anupam and others for remote chemical detection of samples over 100 meters away from the instrument in daylight. To create the SUCR instrument, the researchers modified the collection optics of the previously developed system to acquire spectra of samples closer to the instrument. They also further reduced system’s footprint by using a miniaturized spectrometer—small enough to carry with one hand.
The compact instrument connects all the optics directly to the spectrometer, which significantly improved performance compared to fiber-coupled Raman systems because less signal is lost.
Fast analysis in daylight conditions
The new instrument offers several important improvements to previous micro-Raman spectroscopy instruments, which require samples to be collected prior to analysis and measurements to take place in the dark. The team carefully designed the optics of the system to enable fast analysis under daylight conditions and to produce a strong Raman signal that isn’t as prone to interference as traditional systems.
In room light on conditions, they used SUCR to analyze minerals and organic compounds that might be associated with life on other planets, including included sulfur, naphthalene, mixed samples, marble, water, calcite minerals and amino acids.
Because of the speed of the system, the team is hoping to create a Raman map of an area 5 by 5 millimeters in only one minute. Doing this with a traditional micro-Raman system would take several days.
As a next step, the researchers plan to test their SUCR instrument in environments that mimic those found on Mars and other planets. They will then begin the validation process to show that the device would operate accurately under conditions found in space.
New biggest radio telescope to help detect alien signals
New biggest radio telescope to help detect alien signals
China plans to build another big radio telescope that could boost the quest to determine if we're alone in the universe, and solve other long-standing mysteries.
China plans to amp up its ability to search for aliens, dark matter, gravitational waves and other mysteries of the universe by building the world's largest fully steerable radio telescope.
China's Five hundred meter Aperture Spherical Telescope is being used to watch the galaxies and listen for possible intelligent civilizations beyond our solar system.
Xinhua
The country already hosts the world's largest radio telescope, the Five hundred meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST). It and Puerto Rico's Arecibo Observatory are basically huge stationary dishes built into the landscape. But fully steerable radio telescopes like the Green Bank telescope in West Virginia (currently the largest of the type) can be moved and rotated to aim at specific targets.
China approved plans for the new telescope this week. It will be located in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and known as the Xingjiang Qitai 110m Radio Telescope (QTT). It will have a steerable dish 10 percent larger in diameter than that of the Green Bank observatory with the ability to cover 75 percent of the sky.
"The antenna, the world's largest, will be able to trace the origins of any signals received," Song Huagang of the Chinese Academy of Sciences said in a statement.
FAST can cover some frequencies that are lower than what QTT is able to cover, but the two huge radio telescopes will also have overlapping coverage in the range between around 150 MHz and 3 GHz.
Doug Vakoch of METI International, which searches for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) and develops potential messages for E.T., said this overlap is significant because it includes the so-called "water hole" of particular interest to SETI researchers.
"It's a quiet space between prominent spectral lines created by hydrogen and hydroxyl, the constituents of water that is so central to life on Earth," he explained via email. "The partially overlapping frequency range of the QTT and FAST means that the detection of a candidate signal by one telescope can be followed up immediately by the other instrument, assuming the data is being analyzed in real time."
But the value of QTT, Vakoch adds, may not be so much in its ability to search for signs of distant advanced civilizations, but in how it will contribute to unraveling other natural mysteries of the universe. During its tria testing phase, FAST already managed to discover two pulsars.
We'll still have to wait to see how effective the tag-team operation of FAST and the QTT will be at picking up alien signals and who knows what else, though: QTT isn't scheduled to go into operation until 2023.
The Alien Wow Signal, 72 sec, at 1420.4556 MHz, New View! Aug 1977, UFO Sighting News.
Top secret files reveal probe into UFO spotted near Blackpool’s Central Pier.
Top secret files reveal probe into UFO spotted near Blackpool’s Central Pier.
This 'UFO', taken close to Blackpool's Central Pier, was investigated by the military, but deemed to be a kite
MICHAEL HOLMES
Military top brass were called in to investigate pictures of UFOs taken by a holidaymaker in Blackpool.
But after looking for signs of ET, they dismissed the photographs as a close encounter of the BIRD kind.
This 'UFO', taken close to Blackpool's Central Pier, was investigated by the military, but deemed to be a seagull
Details of the sighting were released by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) after it declassified large swathes of its top secret dossier on UFOs.
The three snapshots were sent to the RAF’s Air Command unit by a tourist, who said: “I have recently downloaded some photos ... which upon closer inspection revealed some aircraft which I could not identify at the time [or] could hear or see.”
But after being scrutinised, internal documents revealed experts didn’t believe the ‘aircraft’ came from another world.
“Everyone who has seen them think that two of the photos look like stunt kites that have broken loose from their control strings, or perhaps we cannot quite see the attached strings in the photos,” an email from a wing commander, whose name was redacted, said.
This 'UFO', taken close to Blackpool's Central Pier, was investigated by the military, but deemed to be a kite
“That would explain the lack of noise reported by the photographer. The third looks like a seagull head on.”
But they added: “However, clearly without being there we can’t be definitive.
” The air force said no manaoeuvres were taking place in Blackpool at the time and date, 2.51pm on Friday, October 3, 2008, the pictures were taken close to Central Pier.
UFO expert Dr David Clarke previously told the BBC he didn’t believe the MoD’s files contained ‘any solid evidence we have been visited by intelligent life’. He said: “The vast majority of reports are ordinary things seen in extraordinary situations. So many things can be interpreted as unusual, you’ve got to eliminate all that noise and see what’s left.
” The 'UFOs' were later deemed to be a kite and seagull (Picture: Morgan Byrne)
He continued: “There are many good examples of puzzling things, for example seen on radar by the military, that need investigating.”
Deux OVNI rectangulaires filmés au-dessus du Pôle Nord
Deux OVNI rectangulaires filmés au-dessus du Pôle Nord
Une étonnante et inexplicable vidéo a été récemment mise en ligne. Ces images nous montrent deux objets non identifiés et de forme oblong se déplaçant au-dessus de l'atmosphère terrestre. Certains l'ont saluée comme « la meilleure séquence d'OVNIS qui soit ».
Cette vidéo a été publiée sur YouTube par Jeffrey Boyd Jr sous le titre « La NASA repère deux OVNI ». Lorsque la caméra zoome sur ces incroyables engins et commence à les suivre, on remarque qu'ils sont parfaitement rectangulaire et de couleur sombre.
Ces OVNI ont été filmés par l'agence spatiale Américaine alors qu'ils traversaient le Pôle Nord. Fait rare, ces images sont d'une grande qualité, si bien qu'il paraît être même possible de distinguer des fenêtres !
Beaucoup d'internautes ont été littéralement stupéfaits par cette affaire.
L'un d'entre eux a posté hier : « Sices images sont véridiques, c'est la meilleure vidéojamais publiéejusqu'ici. »
La chaîne YouTube « The Strange » était également en admiration devant de telles preuves :
« Si vous avez des doutes sur les OVNIS, regardez ces imagesde laNASA.Elles nous révèlentdeux objets volants non identifiés,en haute-définition! »
« Ce n'est pas une blague ou un canular. »
« Regardez ces images avant qu'elles nedisparaissent! »
Certains ont fait remarquer que ces OVNI ressemblaient à l'étrange engin en forme de cube observé dans l’État du Texas au début de l'année 2017.
Scott Brando est un démistificateur dans le domaine de l'ufologie et qui dirige le site Web ufoofinterest.org s'est intéressé à cette affaire.
Pour lui, ces deux objets seraient deux satellites de la mission GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) de la NASA qui ont été envoyés en orbite pour surveiller les changements climatiques. Afin d'étayer ses dires, il pense avoir retrouvé la vidéo originale.
LA NASA A-T-ELLE ACCIDENTELLEMENT FILMÉ LA MEILLEURE OBSERVATION D'OVNI?
LA NASA A-T-ELLE ACCIDENTELLEMENT FILMÉ LA MEILLEURE OBSERVATION D'OVNI?
Dans les images vidéo, un objet mystérieux - avec un design particulier en forme de plaque - semble quitter l'atmosphère de la Terre provoquant un débat massif dans les réseaux sociaux. Qui était? Véhicule extraterrestre? Ordures spatiales? Certains sont convaincus que c'est la dernière preuve que la Terre est visitée par des êtres extraterrestres, tandis que d'autres restent sceptiques.
Depuis la vidéo sur YouTube a grimpé, il a suscité beaucoup de controverse tant parmi ceux qui soutiennent l'idée qu'il pourrait être un objet extra-terrestre, parmi ceux qui sont assez sceptiques sur le sujet, et comme une plaisanterie suggèrent que « les ovnis envisagent d'entrer dans notre espace aérien devrait s'enregistrer et payer des impôts. "
La vérité est que dans de nombreux cas, seuls des fragments de vidéos sont libérés dans lesquels ces objets mystérieux sont visibles. Cependant, le fait que la NASA interrompre ses émissions en direct est ce qui suscite plus de méfiance parmi ceux qui sont désireux de trouver de nouvelles preuves de l'existence de la vie extraterrestre, les ovnis et la façon dont nous faisons tous partie d'un complot massif . AVEZ-VOUS TOUJOURS VISITÉ LA TERRE?
"Les êtres intelligents des autres systèmes d'étoiles visitent et visitent notre planète Terre. Ils sont connus de diverses manières en tant que Visiteurs, Autres, Gens d'Etoiles, Et, etc. ... Ils visitent la Terre maintenant; Ce n'est pas une question de conjecture ou de pensées mélancoliques. "- Theodor C. Loder III, Ph.D., professeur émérite des sciences de la Terre, Université du New Hampshire.
One question keeps popping up, though: Who will build homes for the colonists?
It turns out the German Aerospace Center (part of the Institute for Roboticsand Mechatronics) has been working on this question for several years, and their answer is "a six-foot-tall robot named Justin."
Justin (also known by its full name, 'Rollin' Justin') is a four-fingered bot on wheels designed to help with household tasks, as well as construction and maintenance.According to the official website:
"Rollin' Justin's compliant light-weight arms and four-finger hands make it an ideal platform for research into sensitive, ambidextrous manipulation. The mobile base allows autonomous operation over a long range. Motion detection sensors and stereo cameras enable 3D reconstruction of the robot's environment. Unstructured, variable and dynamic environments require the robot to act independently and without human support. On the other hand, the robot must be able to work safely with people. Its multiple actuated degrees of freedom allow Rollin' Justin to pursue several goals at the same time..."
Because Justin is equipped with remarkably advanced AI, it can carry out tasks without human supervision—meaning that even if communications are cut, Justin will keep working.
Here he is in action:
Of course, there are alternatives to building permanent homes with the help of robots like Justin.
One of the major downsides of having a robotic workforce (or a 3-D-printed house) is that the machinery has a strong likelihood of breaking down in the Martian environment, meaning more resources and machinery will be needed to repair it all. Sci-fi writer Morgan Gendel came up with a different strategy: inflatable Mars habitats.
Whatever strategy wins the race to build homes on Mars, we just hope the colonists don't go space-crazy on the way there.
Boeing's Hypersonic Plane Design Travels at 5 Times the Speed of Sound
Boeing's Hypersonic Plane Design Travels at 5 Times the Speed of Sound
Matthew Loffhagen
Boeing
The world is about to get a lot smaller, as a major aerospace company makes a move towards creating superfast air travel.
Boeing's "Son of Blackbird", designed as a successor to the SR-71-Blackbird, isn't a reality just yet, but early concept designs for the plane suggest that it could reach speeds of up to Mach Five, or 3,836 miles per hour. To put this into context, the original Blackbird is capable of 2,200 mph, while the average commercial jet will only make it to around 560 mph.
Flying at Mach Five isn't a big deal - plane prototypes have managed it before. The big challenge is actually getting a plane up to that speed, and then decelerating afterwards so that it can land safely. In the words of Boeing's chief scientist for hypersonics, Kevin Bowcutt, who said the following to Aviation Week:
"It’s a really hard problem to develop an aircraft that takes off and accelerates through Mach 1 all the way to Mach 5 and beyond."
A previous test saw a plane prototype achieve Mach 5.1 for a period of a few minutes, but it only achieved this speed by being launched, like a giant rocket, out of another aircraft. Even then, the prototype quickly ran out of fuel and crashed into the ocean, suggesting that this may not be the safest way to travel just yet.
Even so, Boeing seems keen to take their initial concept design and turn it into something a little more concrete, and given the company's track record for very quickly turning design briefs into prototypes, it's worth assuming that they'll manage this sooner, rather than later.
As with other ongoing Boeing endeavors, there's an element of pressure to getting aircraft up to reliably hypersonic speeds - plenty of other companies, and even NASA, are also working on improving planes so that they're able to fly faster, thanks to developments in nanotube technology and other new ways of speeding things up while aircraft are in the sky.
While the Son of Blackbird is intended as a military plane, it's worth assuming that before long, much of this new technology will also filter down into Boeing's other creations. Ideally, we'll see hypersonic planes becoming the norm for civilian passenger flights and cargo shipments, meaning that getting from one side of the world to the other could become a lot easier and quicker.
Hopefully, this will mean that we'll all be able to travel the globe (and beyond) with greater speed, and it'll be a lot less time consuming to ship items from one country to another. While this new technology will probably be incredibly expensive at first, eventually it'll make sense for airlines to offer competitive prices for customers, as faster speeds become the norm, rather than the exception, in air travel.
We're still no closer to solid teleportation, but if a four hour flight can become just an hour or two in the air, everybody wins - so long as these changes in air travel are also offset by better fuel solutions that are less harmful for the environment. The carbon footprint for airplanes is bad enough as it is.
If you've always wanted to visit a distant part of the world, but you don't want to have to sit on a plane for a full eighteen hours, it might be worth keeping an eye on what Boeing is up to.
Mysterious booms shaking houses… Strange sounds in the sky… What the heck in going on in our sky in underground?
Strange Trumpet Sounds from Sky in Texas on January 8, 2018
Strange sounds from the sky. U.K on January 15, 2018
Strange Sounds in the sky of Regina, Canada on January 2, 2018
A mystery loud boom shocked and panicked residents after a suspected thunder storm roared through Merseyside, UK on January 15, 2018. Although the sound was heard around Merseyside, most reports centred around the Wallasey area. A resident reports: ‘All of my neighbours were out of their houses trying to figure out what it was. They thought there had been an explosion.‘
There have been multiple reports of a loud “boom” and the ground shaking in the Midland Valley area of Aiken County in South Carolina on January 8, 2018… But no earthquakes were reported on the USGS website.
mystery booms around the world in January 2018
Out of nowhere, just this pow. Just this huge explosion… A mysterious “boom” rattled North Oak Cliff, North Texas on January 11, 2018 and residents have no idea what exactly it was or what it could mean. The explosive noise was heard around 8:34 p.m.. Some reported seeing a flash first, then the loud noise.
Residents of Fannin and Gilmer counties in Georgia were trying to find the source of what is being described as a loud explosion. The boom that took place had enough force that some residents were reporting their homes shaking from the blast.
Strange Sounds in the sky in January 2018
A mystery boom shook houses in Pewamo, Michigan on January 1, 2018 at about 4 p.m. Reports came from all over northeast Ionia County from Carson City, down to Westphalia, Lyons, Muir. So far, there are no definitive answers as to what caused it. Speculation ranged from someone playing with dynamite to an earthquake to an attack by North Korea. Another explanation could be that the sound came from a frost quake.
In the YouTube clip, the camera follows the objects as they shoot along together, before zooming in on to one of them for a close up view.
Jeffrey Boyd Jr, who posted the video, entitled the startling clip "NASA sat two UFOs! Close ups, Wtf is this?"
In a blurb for the video he said: "NASA sat feed catches two objects, UFOs? "Cruising from North Pole! Closeup! Great resolution, very clear. Has windows? What is this?"
Some YouTube viewers were stunned.
One posted yesterday: "If this is legit, it's the best footage out there so far. Impressive."
YouTube
HIGH DEF: The cubes were described as the 'best UFO footage' ever.
If this is legit, it's the best footage out there so far. Impressive.
YouTube poster
Another said: "Wow, just wow."
Beyond The Strange YouTube channel was also in awe.
A message posted on the site read: "If you have any doubts about UFO's watch this NASA footage of two Unidentified Flying Objects on the screen, in Hi-Def!
One poster was so amazed, he said it had to be fake.
He said: "I can tell you right now that's fake... anyone can tell."
However, before people start thinking it is proof of the infamous "cube UFO over Texas," the truth of the matter can be revealed.
Many suspected UFO sightings have legitimate explanations such as blurred birds, balloons, out of focus planets, lens flares, or as in this case satellites.
YouTube
This 'cube UFO' said to have been filmed over El Paso, Texas, was exposed as a fake.
Scott Brando is a UFO debunker who runs website ufoofinterest.org.
He recognised the objects as two satellites from the NASA GRACE mission (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment), which were sent into orbitto monitor climate change.
He also found the original NASA video that the clip was recorded from confirming what they were.
With the hashtags hoax and fake news, Mr Brando tweeted: "This video shared on #YouTube is easily explained: those objects are twins satellites from #NASA GRACE mission (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment)."
The footage was captured from a plane window during a flight in the United States which reportedly passed above the infamous Nevada base.
We see what looks like bright lights piercing through the clouds as the plane travels above them.
There seems to be two separate objects visible and they flash their lights before disappearing.
According to witnesses, the plane had to change course to avoid the unknown phenomenon.
SG/YOUTUBE
UFO? The strange lights were captured above Area 51
The footage was captured during the closing stages of a journey from Wisconsin to Los Angeles.
The popular flight route passes close to the notorious Homey Airport, commonly referred to as Area 51.
A witness said: “Saw this 30 minutes before we landed. My guess was we were near Area 51.
“The lights grabbed the attention of everyone onboard. It was fairly cloudy and these lights would pierce the clouds even when we were in them deeply.
“I figured a reflection from solar panels at first. But the blinking was synchronised and penetrating.
“Shortly after we became parallel to the lights, which appeared to be below us or near the ground, the pilot turned away to put distance between us.
“He then re-altered course after a while. To me it seemed like a correction to resume but we were 30 minutes from landing so I'm not sure.
“The video you see is towards the end of the sighting as the plane moves away after the course correction.”
Area 51 is a highly classified remote airforce, which is rumoured to be involved in futuristic spacecraft development and alien testing by conspiracy theorists.
Updated | Conspiracy site UFO Sightings Daily has already been quite busy in 2018, announcing that recent NASA photos of the surface of Mars have provided evidence of seashells along with numerous alien structures and statues including an Egyptian sphinx. Since a number of tabloids and conspiracy-friendly destinations around the internet have gleefully begun spreading the good word, let's take a moment to set the scientific record straight.
"I found evidence of an ancient ocean today," wrote Scott C. Waring, UFO Sightings Daily's proprietor, before describing the physical attributes of the purported seashells. "This is not the first time a seashell has been found on Mars, but closer to being the 15th time. Just go to google, and search Seashell on Mars. It will surprise you."
This is the point at which you may imagine a narrator voiceover telling you, in a grave voice, that it will not surprise you. A current Google search for such seashells shows (aside from the recent flurry of news spawned by Waring's new announcement) that people have indeed been claiming to see them on Mars for some time.
The most concise explanation for this is that Mars is a giant rock, on the surface of which sits a high volume of tiny rocks; so way more than 15 of them are likely going to look sort of like seashells. Last year, after U.S. Representative Dana Rohrabacher, a Republican from California, asked members of a NASA panel to comment on whether there were ancient civilizations on Mars's surface, NASA project scientist Ken Farley diplomatically stated that there was no such evidence, and that its existence would be "extremely unlikely."
There is indeed evidence of an ancient ocean on Mars, but Waring was not the one who found it. NASA scientists announced in 2015 that a liquid ocean had once covered nearly one-fifth of the Red Planet's northern hemisphere—meaning it contained more water than the Earth's own Arctic Ocean. The presence of liquid water on the Red Planet is one of the factors that makes it among the most promising places in our solar system to search for signs of microscopic life, according to NASA.
"The evidence of alien life is in most photos of Mars and other planets, but the work must be put in to find the details," Waring wrote. On that one, we might be able to agree.
Waring, who once claimed on his site that an "ancient head" had been found on Mars resembling then-President Barack Obama's (I mean, see for yourself, but suffice it to say it does not) mysteriously shut down his site for a period of 2017, according to the Houston Chronicle. However, he returned shortly after and has been going about business as usual for some time now.
“Don't those all just look like rocks to you?” NASA representative Guy Webster told Newsweek via email in response to a request for comment on the claims. “They do to me. It can be fun to point out 'faces,' 'statues,' 'seashells' and other shapes in rocks that were sculpted by erosion...The hundreds of thousands of raw images made easily available to the public from America's Mars rovers give plenty of opportunity for people who like to do so.”
The scientific name for the common phenomenon of seeing shapes and designs where there are none is pareidolia. Our brains see a blank canvas, like clouds or tea leaves or the surface of the moon or Mars, and autocomplete with imagery that is familiar to us to help make sense of them. Understandably, it’s something that comes up with NASA photos quite a lot.
This article has been updated with a comment from NASA.
What has the U.S. government been hiding about UFOs?
What has the U.S. government been hiding about UFOs?
Dom Armentano
The mystery into whether or not we’re alone in the universe has been a constant question for over 6 decades and it looks like the Defense Department wanted some answers. For more on the story here is Zachary Devita. Buzz60
(Photo: CONTRIBUTED PHOTO)
On Dec. 16, three experienced journalists posted a bombshell story on the New York Times website: The Pentagon had authorized a secret research project (2007-2012) to study unidentified flying objects.
Even more importantly, Luis Elizondo, the Pentagon project coordinator and a career intelligence officer, later asserted that in his opinion some UFOs were real objects and appeared to demonstrate a technology that the U.S. did not have and did not understand. To highlight that point, the Pentagon also released “gun camera” film of a Navy pilot’s 2004 close encounter with an objectthat displayed wildly unconventional flight characteristics.
The mainstream media was caught completely off guard by the sensational Pentagon revelations, although they should not have been. Some breathlessly opined that never before had a U.S. intelligence agency acknowledged UFOs were solid objects that defied conventional explanation. Well, not exactly. While that assertion is true in some narrow sense, the belief that the U.S. intelligence community had been unaware of the exotic nature of UFOs until the recent Pentagon study is just totally bogus.
In point of fact, they have known about the unconventional nature of the phenomenon for decades and have chosen to hide the bulk of that information (dozens of military gun camera films, for example) from Congress and especially from the American people.
Contrary to the media coverage of the Pentagon story, the U.S. defense and intelligence communities actually have known about the exotic nature of UFOs since at least 1947. There exists, for example, a once-secret document (dated Sept. 23, 1947) written by Gen. Nathan Twining (Air Material Command) that acknowledges reported flying discs “are real and not visionary or fictitious” and that the discs “must be considered evasive when sighted ... which lends belief to the possibility that some of the objects are (intelligently) controlled.”
And since the U.S. military had dozens of reports from experienced military pilots and FAA controllers and ground personnel that the discs could hover, turn on a dime and then accelerate at incredible speeds — unlike any technology that existed then or now — it was implicit even in 1947 that these flying objects were not ours.
In short, the deep intelligence state has known for at least 70 years that some UFOs were real; yet it has chosen to keep the information in support of that conclusion either confidential or simply denied that it even existed. But a decades-long public policy of secrecy and denial on a subject as important and mind-bending as UFOs is foolish and dangerous in the extreme and puts our entire democratic process at risk.
If any of this commentary sounds familiar, it should since I first raised these issues in a series of articles published by TCPalm in 2008. In those articles, I pointed out there was substantial evidence gathered over many decades that some UFOs were likely extraterrestrial; the intelligence community was withholding that information; and the reasons for the secrecy likely related to fears of a public panic or to national security concerns since many important UFO sightings had occurred in the vicinity of U.S. defense installations and nuclear weapon storage facilities.
Despite any possible national security concerns, several prominent public figures, most notably Hillary Clinton, have called for more increased transparency on the subject of UFOs. Curiously, my call for disclosure in 2008 went over like a lead balloon. Most of my professional colleagues in law and economics thought I had lost my mind (even though I had studied the phenomenon for almost 40 years); and the Cato Institute abruptly ended its 20 year affiliation with me (as an adjunct scholar) one day after my first UFO article appeared. So much for courage and open inquiry in the academy.
The good news is these perverse attitudes are changing somewhat. The New York Times' Pentagon project revelations have created an important opportunity for more serious media coverage of past and current government UFO research. We must take advantage of that opportunity now and push for open Congressional hearings and full disclosure.
Dom Armentano is professor emeritus in economics at the University of Hartford (Connecticut). He lives in Vero Beach.
A bright meteor briefly swept across the sky over parts of the U.S. Midwest and Canada on Tuesday, weather and geology agencies said, and then caused a powerful explosion that rattled homes and onlookers.
The meteor was seen across the region in places such as Ohio, Michigan and Ontario at about 8 p.m. local time and registered a 2.0 magnitude tremor about 4 miles (7 km) east of Saint Clair Shores in Eastern Michigan, the United States Geological Survey said on its website.
The meteor occurred at 8:10 p.m. CST and caused a 2.0 magnitude earthquake, officials with the @NWS wrote in an alert. The American Meteor Society has received 399 sightings of the brilliant fireball. Take a look at some of those sightings: https://buff.ly/2DrngTl
The meteor sighting lit up social media with people posting videos and reaction.
“I can’t believe there was a Meteor! It shook our house and made a large bang! We thought someone hit our house,” Twitter user Jennifer Wilson said in a post.
“I thought for sure I was either seeing the alien invasion or the apocalypse. It’s awesome in retrospect, freaky … in real time,” said a Twitter user who goes by the name Crash.
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The mystery of three recent earth-shaking explosions in Russia, Dallas and the U.S. Midwest is not their cause – even diehard skeptics are calling them meteors or bolides. What’s mysterious is why such unusually violent and visible space rock events occurred in a space of just nine days. Where is NASA’s meteor alert team? Are we in the middle of an undiscovered meteor shower? Should we expect more? Does Home Depot sell meteor-proof sheds?
On the night of January 7th, 2018, a deep blue light crossed over the heavily-populated, southwestern Russia republics of Bashkortostan, Udmurtia, and Tatarstanin. As is the case in Russia, the incident was picked up on dash cams, showing the darkness change briefly to light as the blue flash passed overhead. The Siberian Times reports the usual denials of manmade responsibly by the Russian military and space program, which are plausible since few if any witnesses reported hearing an explosion or any other sound. Astronomers disagreed on possible causes, with Yuri Nefefyev of the Engelhardt Astronomical Observatory blaming atmospheric electricity, while Sergey Golovkin of the Kazan Federal University Physics Institute speculating it was a bolide that burned up completely in the atmosphere and never hit land. Plenty of pictures … no explanations. That sounds like Russia.
But not Dallas where, on January 12th at around 8:34 pm, a huge boom was heard, with some witnesses reporting a bright flash first and the feeling of percussion afterwards. While there were just a few security cameras catching the event, the video was enough to convince astronomer Ron DiIulio from the University of North Texas that it was either a meteorite or a piece of space debris. Based on the flash and the sound of the sonic boom, Dilulio figured the ‘thing’ was about the size of a grapefruit … far smaller than whatever passed over those Russian republics.
It was probably far smaller than whatever it was that passed over southeastern Michigan on January 16th shortly after 8 pm. Reports of the flash came in to the American Meteor Societyfrom Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Pennsylvania and Ontario, Canada, but the object appears to have hit the atmosphere and broken apart over New Haven, Michigan. While NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office estimated the asteroid to be no more than two yards in diameter when it began breaking up. At least one piece landed in Livingston County, with either the impact or the sonic boom registering as a magnitude 2.0 earthquake.
Three large, multi-witness, explosion-causing meteorites in different parts of the world over a nine-day period. Could they be related? There’s no known meteor shower underway that could have caused them. While the events seem huge to the witnesses, these space rocks were too small to be picked up by the various early warning systems. The old Chinese space station hasn’t dipped low enough to cause any of these. Is it just coincidence or could it be something else?
Should we be worried about this increase in the frequency of large meteorites? With the frequency of incoming missile false alarms lately, the answer is obvious.
DANKZIJ A1 SPREEKT JE HOND OF JE KAT BINNEN 10 JAAR NEDERLANDS ( VIDEO )
DANKZIJ A1 SPREEKT JE HOND OF JE KAT BINNEN 10 JAAR NEDERLANDS ( VIDEO )
Een huisdier zoals een kat of een hond kan meestal heel goed duidelijk maken aan het baasje wat het wil of dat er iets aan de hand is.
Wij nemen aan dat wij weten wat ze bedoelen, maar binnen tien jaar hoeven we daar niet meer aan te twijfelen, want het dier vertelt het ons gewoon in het Nederlands.
De meeste mensen die een hond hebben, begrijpen meestal wat hun dier wil duidelijk maken, maar ze hebben het dier nog nooit Nederlands of Engels horen praten. Want, dan zouden er misschien wel heel verrassende dingen hoorbaar kunnen zijn.
We hebben het regelmatig over de zogenaamde predictive programming van Hollywood, waarbij zij de toekomst in allerlei speelfilms of televisieseries aan ons duidelijk maken.
In dit kader zou het kunnen dat ze ons begin jaren zestig van de vorige eeuw al aan het voorbereiden waren op normaal Engels of Nederlands sprekende dieren met de beroemde Mr. Ed, het sprekende paard.
Het team dat daar werkt, denkt nog ongeveer tien jaar nodig te hebben om met AI (Artificial Intelligence) in staat te zijn om het geblaf van een hond of het miauwen van een kat om te zetten in mensentaal, eerst in het Engels. Als dat eenmaal een feit is, dan zullen er uiteraard ook heel snel versies komen in het Nederlands. Of anders heb je een hond of een kat met ondertiteling.
Er wordt aan de universiteit nu gewerkt met de geluiden die een zogenaamde prairiehond maakt. Dit is geen echte hond, want hij behoort tot de familie van de eekhoorns.
Prairiehonden (Cynomys) zijn een geslacht van op en onder de grond levende knaagdieren uit de familie eekhoorns (Sciuridae). Ze komen voor op de prairies van Noord-Amerika.
De dieren kunnen ongeveer 40 cm lang worden en wegen tussen de 1 en 4 kilo. In gevangenschap kunnen ze 8 à 10 jaar oud worden met uitschieters naar 12 jaar. Vers gras is het meest gebruikte voedsel. De naam heeft het dier te danken aan het scherpe geblaf dat het laat horen.
Prairiehonden zijn sociale dieren, die in meerdere familiegroepen samen in één gebied wonen: een zogenaamd prairiehondendorp. Deze dorpen bevinden zich onder de grond, waarbij elke familie zijn eigen ingang heeft met meerdere kamers.
De reden dat deze dieren zijn uitgekozen om mee te werken, is omdat ze een unieke manier van communiceren hebben en dan in het bijzonder wanneer ze elkaar waarschuwen voor een dreiging. Deze dieren kunnen een luid alarmgeluid voortbrengen dat klinkt als het blaffen van een hond. Dit soort geblaf is zo gedetailleerd dat het zelfs de kleinste details weergeeft over het soort bedreiging.
Professor Slobodchikoff heeft het gedrag en geluid van deze dieren inmiddels 30 jaar lang bestudeerd en zegt dat ze door dat onderzoek binnenkort in staat zullen zijn om te begrijpen wat honden en katten proberen te zeggen.
Dit alles zal dan worden ingebracht in een apparaatje dat volgens William Higham, een onderzoeker bij Amazon, binnen tien jaar beschikbaar zal zijn voor het grote publiek. Ze verwachten hiervoor bij Amazon een enorme markt omdat huisdieren natuurlijk een wereldwijd begrip zijn.
Volgens de professor kan het apparaat door de eigenaar van het dier zodanig worden ingesteld/bijgesteld dat er ook geantwoord kan worden op het praten van de kat of de hond.
Het grote voordeel is dan natuurlijk dat we nu denken te begrijpen wat het dier ons wil duidelijk maken, maar met behulp van een dergelijk apparaatje weet je zeker wat wordt bedoeld. Dat zou natuurlijk van belang zijn wanneer het dier iets mankeert en het dit duidelijk wil maken.
Volgens professor Slobodchikoff kan zijn uitvinding ook een belangrijke rol spelen bij dieren met gedragsproblemen.
Maar, niet alle dieren hebben een dergelijk apparaatje nodig, zoals de hond in onderstaande video.
What are these rays of energy beamed down lightning the ground in Michigan?
What are these rays of energy beamed down lightning the ground in Michigan?
At exactly the same time a meteor flashed through the sky in Michigan, the United States Geological Survey reported a 2.0 magnitude earthquake at 8:09 p.m. January 16, 2018.
The mean stream media will have you to believe it was a meteor, but images taken at the moment of the “meteor” event showing something else what seems to be a precise ray of energy beamed down lighting the ground on fire and so far I know a meteor cannot fell at a perfect 90 degrees angle says investigator Jeffery Pritchett.
Not only it seems like two separate incidents have happened on the same day, the meteor did not caused the 2.0 magnitude earthquake, said William Yeck, a research geophysicist at the US Geological Survey's National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colorado. A meteor that explodes in the sky can be explained, (if it was a meteor) but a 2.0 magnitude earthquake and rays of energy beams is something that seems impossible to happen at the same time.
There’s a lot of discussion going on what might have been the rays of energy beams in particular. Was it just the meteor, an energy weapon or it has something to do with an upcoming space war?
Or could it be, according to a mind-bending new Aerospace Defence Forces (ADF) report that circulated in the Kremlin two days ago and says that no known modern scientific explanation can be found as to why one of the oldest discovered comets in our solar system, named 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresák, has mysteriously slowed down to a near stop and began “firing” at Earth with its first “electrical discharge strike”(commonly known as the “Electric Universe Theory”) occurring on 7 January over vast regions of Eastern Russia turning the night sky electric blue and shaking the ground, its then striking Texas, on 10 January, turning the night sky to daylight and shaking the ground and, on 16 January, striking large regions of the United States—most particularly in Michigan.
Researchers in Mexico find the largest underwater archaeological site in the world
Researchers in Mexico find the largest underwater archaeological site in the world
Rejoice archaeology, fans researchers in Mexico have discovered what is considered the largest underwater archaeological site on the planet.
One of the lesser-known corners of the Mayan underworld has finally come to light.
The most extensive system of flooded caves ever recorded has been discovered in Tulum, in the Mexican Riviera Maya.
Some of the artifacts discovered by divers.
A group of explorers of the Mayan Great Aquifer project has found that the Sac Actún and Dos Ojos systems are connected, which has opened a new passage in an underground labyrinth that measures about 347 kilometers. The researchers have found hundreds of archeological objects that show a robust Mayan culture presence in the region, as well as extinct animals.
“This immense cave system represents the most important submerged archaeological site in the world,” says Guillermo de Anda, specialist of the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) and director of the research.
The cenotes (from the Maya word dzonoot), as the immense natural pits, sinkholes or eyes of water are referred to in Mexico, occupied a central place in the Mayan cosmogony.
They were revered as the underworld and the third level of the Mayan universe, after heaven and earth, but without a negative connotation like hell in Christianity.
The ancient Maya considered this a ‘very powerful, magical region, where the supernatural reigns, where the gods and deities lived, where good and bad coexist, and it was also where men came from,’ says De Anda.
The cenotes were, in the words of the researcher, “the main stage of the myth of creation” of that civilization, which extended from the southeast of Mexico to Honduras and El Salvador.
Furthermore, the findings give an account of that mystical sense.
The massive underwater cave system is a treasure trove containing the history of the Yucatan Peninsula.
Researchers found remains of Mayan pottery vessels, objects that date back to colonial times and funerary or sacrificial contexts, which researchers are still analyzing.
There were also human remains and a large number of animals such as giant sloths, bears, tigers and ancient horses.
“It is a time tunnel, which transports us into a time 12,000 and 10,000 years ago,” says De Anda.
The difficult access to the cenotes has helped that the archaeological materials are preserved in optimal conditions for their study, without alterations or wear by the contact of men.
Researchers at the Great Maya Aquifer needed ten months to decipher the connection between the two flooded cave systems, which they have described as an “intense” work season that began in March of last year.
Some members of the team, such as head diver Robert Schmittner, have spent more than 20 years scouring the underwater galleries and 14 years looking for the connection between the great caverns.
“We had come very close before, we were once a meter away from connecting both systems,” says Schmittner.
“It was like walking the veins of a body, a labyrinth of paths that joined and separated and we had to be very careful,” the diver added while speaking about the water passages, which in some cases were only one meter deep, having also deeper parts reaching 120 meters underground.
Historic discovery. Image credit: Reuters.
The discovery was made on January 10 and being united; the “new” system has adopted the name of Sac Actún (from the Maya ‘white cave’), the larger of the two and the Dos Ojos system has ceased to exist.
Sac Actún was until a couple of days ago the second largest system of cenotes, behind Ox Bel Ha that translates into Spanish as three waterways, which measures about 270 kilometers and is also located in the Riviera Maya.
Despite the finding, the researchers continue exploring the connections of Sac Actún with two other underground systems.
It is estimated that only in the north of Quintana Roo, in the Yucatan Peninsula, there are 1,400 underground kilometers of fresh water, spread over 358 systems, according to the speleological survey of the southern Mexican state. The next steps are the analysis of groundwater and the study of diversity, as well as the adoption of measures to help conserve the site.
Scientists to use robots to look inside the hidden, never-before-seen chamber in the Great Pyramid
Scientists to use robots to look inside the hidden, never-before-seen chamber in the Great Pyramid
With the help of small robots, scientists will try to decipher what secrets are hidden inside the cavities recently discovered in the Great Pyramid of Giza. This exploration process will also see scientists irremediably damage a fraction of the Great Pyramid of Giza.
Are we on the edge of one of the most important archaeological finds of the century?
Many researchers are convinced we are about to make an unprecedented discovery inside the Pyramid, one that may shed light on the real reason the great Pyramids was built in the first place.
This is the ‘Great Void’ inside the Great Pyramid which may hide a mystery throne made of Alien material.
Using muon detectors and thermal scanning, the ScanPyramid project reported the discovery of two previously unknown cavities within the Great Pyramid in November of 2017.
The largest cavity is at least 30 meters long and is located on the giant corridor (Grand Gallery) that extends to the king’s chamber. The smaller cavity, on the other hand, is located behind the north face of the pyramid and consists of a corridor whose length is uncertain.
Now, researchers plan to carry out more tests with muon detectors and are developing robots, miniature robots, that will have the ability to look inside the cavities by means of high-resolution cameras.
Currently little or nothing is known about the cavities inside the monument.
When the Pyramid was finished, this is what it may have looked like.
“There is a big difference in whether the shape of the major cavity is horizontal or has an inclination,” said Mehdi Tayoubi, president, and co-founder of the Institute for the Preservation and Innovation of Cultural Heritage, one of the institutions involved in the ScanPyramid project.
“If the cavity is tilted, for example, it could be a corridor similar to the Grand Gallery. But if it is horizontal, then we would be faced with the presence of one or more cameras never explored before.“
“In addition, the smallest cavity, which is presumed to be a passageway, may have been connected to a larger cavity in ancient times,” he added.
Damaging an ancient monument in the name of science
As the new tests with muon detectors begin, another team led by Jean-Baptiste Mouret, a researcher at the French National Institute for Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, will build two robots that will perform an “invasive exploration” of the alleged secret chambers.
According to Mouret, his team will make a small perforation of 3.8 centimeters in circumference to break through and insert the robots into the cavities.
“First we will make a reconnaissance, for this we will send a robot in the form of a tube with a panoramic sweeping camera and lights. The objective is to probe what is on the other side of the wall and obtain high-resolution images.”
“If there is something promising on the other side, then we will extract the recognition robot and insert the explorer robot. For this last ingenuity, we are designing an inflatable airship that is compressed during insertion and inflated remotely once inside the chamber, “explains the French researcher.
“The airship will allow the robot to fly and take pictures more quickly and efficiently, without the need to move on the ground.”
Before the robots begin their work, scientists must gather more data on the dimensions and location of the chambers something that could take more than a year—in order to know where to drill the access hole.
Likewise, the Ministry of Antiquities must give final approval to begin the task that will irremediably damage a tiny fraction of the Great Pyramid.
“We are working hard on the design of the robot to generate as little damage as possible.
We hope to be able to convince the Ministry of Antiquities that this is the right technology for the next step. Meanwhile, we will use the time to test our robots in other places,” concludes Mouret.
Great Pyramid of Egypt Void Update - NEW Exploration Robot Revealed
Richard Emblin, the editor-in-chief of major Columbian newspaper The City Paper, had clicked pictures of a mysterious object hovering in the skies of South America. He apparently believed it was a shape-shifting UFO, but netizens proved him wrong.
Emblin has been at the receiving end of some serious mockery online because after he published the photos, it turned out that what he believed was an extraterrestrial craft was actually just a balloon!
Emblin had clicked three pictures from the balcony of his home. The object seen in the image appears to be in the shape of number "8".
The pictures were then published on the website of his newspaper. The photos left people baffled and even created a stir amid UFO-related websites.
Conspiracy theorists, Ufologists and alien hunters speculated the pictures to be possible evidence about Earth being visited by extraterrestrials.
Some seemed to agree with Emblin. "A shape-shifting UFO has been caught on camera by a newspaper editor in Chile. That doesn't sound like balloons to me," said UFO hunter Tyler Glockner from the YouTube channel secureteam10.
But according to the report by Express.co.uk the Emblin were apparently a child's golden birthday balloon which was shaped in number 8.
"Ever seen a balloon they sell at the graduation/party store with different numbers and letters? This is one of them! Post something credible," one of the commentators was quoted by the Express as saying.
"Aww some poor little eight-year-old lost his birthday balloon," posted another commentator.
"It's a number 'eight' mylar balloon, you can buy silver and gold ones at any party shop. Some kid isn't going to be happy!" said another commentator.
Emblin took umbrage to this. "I take my journalistic ethics very seriously. I do not manipulate my images. On Sunday, April 12 (2015), I stepped out onto my balcony, which faces East, and is located in the Rosales neighbourhood of Bogotá," the Express quoted him as saying.
Emblin is a pilot and also has published articles in TIME, Der Spiegel, and The New York Times. He said the mysterious object he caught on camera is not any kind of plane, hot air balloon flight or drone.
"I know my planes. Up close and at great distances. I know how to distinguish the sound of an Airbus A 340 to a Boeing 777. I have studied flight maps, flight routes and flightaware. I understand these machines. I admire them. There was no fuselage, no winglets, no sound. This was no plane," he said.
"It was very evident to me that this was a UFO. No drone. No Sunday morning balloon flight over a capital in which only official helicopters (police and army) can patrol. I could discern that the object shifted its shape. Could rise and fall quickly, and zip from one end of the city in a matter of seconds.
"The black dot seemed to have rings. It then tilted, shifted to one side, and disappeared."
Fireball Over Michigan: Did Meteor Really Cause an Earthquake?
Fireball Over Michigan: Did Meteor Really Cause an Earthquake?
By Laura Geggel, Senior Writer
The earthshaking rumblings felt in Michigan last night weren't an earthquake, but rather vibrations from a booming noise caused by a meteor whizzing overhead, according to the National Earthquake Information Center (NEIC).
On Tuesday evening (Jan. 16), people in Ohio, Michigan and Ontario, Canada, were treated to the awe-inspiring view of a meteor streaking across the night sky. At 8:09 p.m. local time in southeastern Michigan, hundreds of people reported hearing a loud boom from the meteor and feeling the ground shake, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).
"People described it as a booming noise, and that's what the seismometers would have picked up," said John Bellini, a geophysicist at the NEIC in Golden, Colorado. [When Space Attacks: The 6 Craziest Meteor Impacts]
It's not uncommon for non-earthquake vibrations to register on seismometers. For instance, the instruments can record shaking from thunderstorms, heavy construction and even trucks moving on the highway, Bellini said.
A loud boom from a meteor caused the ground to shake in southeastern Michigan. The meteor was recorded here as a bright light.
In this case, the meteor's boom — its sound waves — were recorded as a magnitude-2.0 event on a nearby seismometer located about 5 miles (8 kilometers) southwest of New Haven, Michigan. But this measurement doesn't express how much energy the meteor released as it flew overhead, Bellini said.
"There's no way to translate the actual energy from an air blast into seismometers," Bellini said. "They're not designed to measure vibrations coming from the air."
In fact, given that the event wasn't a real earthquake, "I'm not sure why we even have it up there," he joked. "We just put it out there because we saw reports coming into our system about some vibrations in Michigan."
So far, 330 people have reported feeling the ground shake on the "Did You Feel It?" USGS website.
This "Did You Feel It?" map from the U.S. Geological Survey shows where people felt the ground shake as the meteor flew overhead on Jan. 16.
Credit: U.S. Geological Survey
Earthquakes are extremely rare in Michigan. The USGS has recorded just four earthquakes in the state since 1973, when the agency began measuring earthquakes in Michigan: a magnitude-3.5 earthquake in 1994; a magnitude-2.5 one in 2010; and magnitude-3.3 and magnitude-4.2events in 2015. Two mining explosions also shook the ground as magnitude-2.5 and a magnitude-2.7 events in 2015 and 2016, respectively.
This isn't the first time a meteor or meteorite (a meteor that lands on Earth) has caused the ground to shake. The Chelyabinsk meteor registered as a magnitude-4.2 event when it streaked over Russia on Feb. 15, 2013, according to the USGS.
“Immortality Drive”: A Time Capsule Carrying ‘Immortal DNA’ That’s Safeguarded On The ISS
“Immortality Drive”: A Time Capsule Carrying ‘Immortal DNA’ That’s Safeguarded On The ISS
When Richard Garriott traveled to the ISS in 2008, he decided to carry along the so-called ‘immortality drive,’ a microchip specifically designed to function as a futuristic time capsule should a catastrophic event happen on Earth. The Immortality drive includes a list of some of humanity’s greatest achievements; as well as messages and writing from Earth. The time capsule also includes the digitized DNA sequences of countless personalities from Earth, from Professor Stephen Hawking, comedian Stephen Colbert to Garriott himself.
The immortality drive, a futuristic time capsule that will keep our species ‘alive’ in case of a catastrophic event on Earth. That is, of course, someone or something recovers the Immortality Drive before the Space Station comes crashing to Earth due to lack of engine maintenance.
Image Credit: Shutterstock
The natural human impulse of life and subsistence has been shaped through cultures at every moment of history. Evidence of that is our civilization. If we look back at history, from the first cave paintings, o the most advanced scientific research, man has always sought immortality. We looked at the Gods as immortal beings, powerful deities and we’ve always wanted to be like the gods. Immortal. Powerful. Untouchable. Preserved in the universe for an infinite time.
Now, there’s a chance we might actually be preserved as a species for future millennia.
Perhaps the most important point of mankind’s search for immortality is represented by the project “Immortality Drive”, which has created an immortal DNA capable of being stored forever.
The video game designer and pioneer of space tourism, Richard Garriott, developed a microchip that stores the sequenced coding of the DNA of several people, selected for various reasons, but perhaps mainly to function as a backup of the human species, in case of extinction.
The device will act as our species’ time capsule, which will make sure that our history is recorded in the universe, for anyone to find.
The immortality drive, which is basically a large memory device was launched to the international space station on board the Soyuz 1 spacecraft in 2008.
The microchip also contains a copy of George’s Secret Key to the Universe, a children’s book authored by Stephen Hawking and his daughter, Lucy.
Oh but… due to the fact that the Immortality drive is stored on board the ISS, if humanity does go extinct, someone or something would actually have to enter the ISS and recover the drive before the space station goes crashing into Earth due to a lack of engine maintenance.
Among other personalities, the genetic information of Stephen Hawkins is included in the immortality drive. The cosmic time capsule also features Entrepreneurs: • Kevin Rose, founder of Digg, Pownce, and Revision3 • Tim Draper, venture capitalist and viral marketing innovator • Robert Scoble, technology evangelist and business blogger.
Athletes: • Scott Johnson, Olympic gold medal gymnast • Matt Morgan, American Gladiator and professional wrestler.
Musicians: • Joe Ely, singer, songwriter, and guitarist • Stephen Bruton, producer and blues guitarist • Eric Johnson, guitarist and instrumental composer • Patrice Pike, singer, songwriter, and reality show participant.
Writers: • Tracy Hickman, novelist and game designer (Dragonlance, The Darksword Trilogy, The Death Gate Cycle) • Scott Murphy, television and screenwriter (Angel, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Flash Gordon) • Clifford Green, screenwriter (Spacecamp, The Seventh Sign) • Christiana Miller, television writer (General Hospital, Star Trek: Voyager) • Daniel Fiorella, television and radio writer, magazine contributor (Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers, A Prairie Home Companion, Mad Magazine, Cracked) • Doug Molitor, television writer (Sliders, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, X-Men: Evolution) • Ian Abrams, television writer and producer, director of the screenwriting and playwriting program at Drexel University. • Melvyn B. Sherer, television writer and Andy Kaufman collaborator (Married with Children, Happy Days, Small Wonder) • Steven Melching, television and screenwriter (Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Men in Black: The Series, X-Men: The Animated Series) • Heather E. Ash, television writer (Stargate SG-1)
In August of 2011, researchers discovered SN 2011fe, a type 1a supernova 21 million light-years away in galaxy M101 (images show the galaxy before and after the supernova, with the supernova circled at right). Studies using type 1a supernovas as “standard candles” to measure how fast the universe expands (the Hubble constant) produce a result in conflict with other data used to infer the cosmic growth rate.
Unless you are a recent arrival from another universe, you’ve no doubt heard that this one is expanding. It’s getting bigger all the time. What’s more, its growth rate is accelerating. Every day, the universe expands a little bit faster than it did the day before.
Those day-to-day differences are negligible, though, for astronomers trying to measure the universe’s expansion rate. They want to know how fast it is expanding “today,” meaning the current epoch of cosmic history. That rate is important for understanding how the universe works, knowing what its ultimate fate will be and even what it is made of. After all, the prime mission of the Hubble Space Telescope when it was launched in 1990 was to help determine that expansion rate (known, not coincidentally, as the Hubble constant, named for the astronomer Edwin Hubble).
Since then evidence from Hubble (the telescope) and other research projects has established a reasonably precise answer for the Hubble constant: 73, in the units commonly used for this purpose. (It means that two independent astronomical bodies separated by 3.26 million light-years will appear to be moving away from each other at 73 kilometers per second.) Sure, there’s a margin of error, but not much. The latest analysis from one team, led by Nobel laureate Adam Riess, puts the Hubble constant in the range of 72–75, as reported in a paper posted online January 3. Considering that as late as the 1980s astronomers argued about whether the Hubble constant was closer to 40 or 90, that’s quite an improvement in precision.
But there’s a snag in this success. Current knowledge of the universe suggests a way to predict what the Hubble constant ought to be. And that prediction gives a probable range of only 66–68. The two methods don’t match.
“This is very surprising, I think, and very interesting,” Riess, of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, said in a talk January 9 at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society.
It’s surprising because astrophysicists and cosmologists thought they had pretty much figured the universe out. It’s made up of a little bit of ordinary matter, a lot of some exotic “dark matter” of unknown identity, and even more of a mysterious energy permeating the vacuum of space, exerting gravitational repulsion. Remember that acceleration of the expansion rate? It implies the existence of such energy. Because nobody knows what it is, people call it “dark energy,” while suspecting that its real name is lambda, the Greek letter that stands for “cosmological constant.” (It’s called a constant because any part of space should possess the same amount of vacuum energy.) Dark energy contributes something like 70 percent of the total mass-energy content of the universe, various lines of evidence indicate.
If all that’s right, then it’s not all that hard to infer how fast the universe should be expanding today. You just take the recipe of matter, dark matter and dark energy and add some ghostly subatomic particles known as neutrinos. Then you carefully measure the temperature of deep space, where the only heat is the faint glow remaining from the Big Bang. That glow, the cosmic microwave background radiation, varies slightly in temperature from point to point. From the size of those variations, you can calculate how far the radiation from the Big Bang has been traveling to reach our telescopes. Combine that with the universe’s mass-energy recipe, and you can calculate how fast the universe is expanding. (You can, in fact, do this calculation at home with the proper mathematical utensils.)
An international team’s project using cosmic microwave background data inferred a Hubble constant of 67, substantially less than the 73 or 74 based on actually measuring the expansion (by analyzing how the light from distant supernova explosions has dimmed over time).
When this discrepancy first showed up a few years ago, many experts believed it was just a mirage that would fade with more precise measurement. But it hasn’t.
“This starts to get pretty serious,” Riess said at the astronomy meeting. “In both cases these are very mature measurements. This is not the first time around for either of these projects.”
One commonly proposed explanation contends that the supernova studies are measuring the local value of the Hubble constant. Perhaps we live in a bubble, with much less matter than average, skewing expansion measurements. In that case, the cosmic microwave background data might provide a better picture of the “global” expansion rate for the whole universe. But supernovas observed by the Hubble telescope extend far enough out to refute that possibility, Riess said.
“Even if you thought we lived in a void…, you still are basically stuck with the same problem.”
Consequently it seems most likely that something is wrong with the matter-energy recipe for the universe (technically, the cosmological standard model) used in making the expansion rate prediction. Maybe the vacuum energy driving cosmic acceleration is not a cosmological constant after all, but some other sort of field filling space. Such a field could vary in strength over time and throw off the calculations based on a constant vacuum energy. But Riess pointed out that the evidence is growing stronger and stronger that the vacuum energy is just the cosmological constant. “I would say there we have less and less wiggle room.”
Another possibility, appealing to many theorists, is the existence of a new particle, perhaps a fourth neutrino or some other relativistic (moving very rapidly) particle zipping around in the early universe.
“Relativistic particles — theorists have no trouble inventing new ones, ones that don’t violate anything else,” Riess said. “Many of them are quite giddy about the prospect of some evidence for that. So that would not be a long reach.”
Other assumptions built into the current cosmological standard model might also need to be revised. Dark matter, for example, is presumed to be very aloof from other forms of matter and energy. But if it interacted with radiation in the early universe, it could have an effect similar to that of relativistic particles, changing how the energy in the early universe is divided up among its components. Such a change in energy balance would alter how much the universe expands at early times, corrupting the calibrations needed to infer the current expansion rate.
It’s not the first time that determining the Hubble constant has provoked controversy. Edwin Hubble himself initially (in the 1930s) vastly overestimated the expansion rate. Using his rate, calculations indicated that the universe was much younger than the Earth, an obvious contradiction. Even by the 1990s, some Hubble constant estimates suggested an age for the universe of under 10 billion years, whereas many stars appeared to be several billion years older than that.
Hubble’s original error could be traced to lack of astronomical knowledge. His early overestimates turned out to be signals of a previously unknown distinction between different generations of stars, some younger and some older, Riess pointed out. That threw off distance estimates to some stars that Hubble used to estimate the expansion rate. Similarly, in the 1990s the expansion rate implied too young a universe because dark energy was not then known to exist and therefore was not taken into account when calculating the universe’s age.
So the current discrepancy, Riess suggested, might also be a signal of some astronomical unknown, whether a new particle, new interactions of matter and radiation, or a phenomenon even more surprising — something that would really astound a visitor from another universe.
LITTLE MOON, BIG WORLD Watching the tiny ice moon Europa cross in front of Jupiter helped astronomers reveal Europa’s watery plumes. This artist’s impression superimposes real visible images of Jupiter and Europa with ultraviolet data from the Hubble Space Telescope showing the plumes (blue).
OXON HILL, Md. — Astronomers may soon know for sure if Europa is spouting off. After finding signs that Jupiter’s icy moon emits repeating plumes of water near its southern pole, astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope hope to detect more evidence of the geysers.
“The statistical significance is starting to look pretty good,” astronomer William Sparks of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore says. He presented preliminary results on the hunt for the plumes at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society on January 9.
Sparks’ team started observing Europa on January 5, hoping to catch it passing in front of Jupiter 30 times before September. Hubble can detect active plumes silhouetted against background light from Jupiter. If the plume repeats as often as it seems to, “it’s essentially a certainty we’ll see it again if it’s real,” Sparks said.
Europa hosts a vast saltwater ocean buried under a thick icy shell. In 2012, astronomers using Hubble spotted high concentrations of hydrogen and oxygen over Europa’s southern hemisphere — signs that Europa was spitting water into space (SN: 1/25/14, p. 6). Later efforts to find those signs using the same technique yielded nothing.
But using Jupiter as a backdrop for the plumes, Sparks and his colleagues spotted several eruptions (SN Online: 9/26/16) — once in March 2014, again in February 2016 and possibly also in March 2017, Sparks said.
Bull’s eye
The spot where Europa’s plumes appear to originate (left, with the green oval showing the 2014 occurrence and the blue oval showing the 2016 occurrence) is also the warmest spot on the icy moon’s surface, shown in a heat map from the Galileo spacecraft (right, with lighter yellow contours showing relatively warmer regions).
W.B. SPARKS ET AL/ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL LETTERS 2017
Maps of Europa’s heat and ionosphere made by the Galileo spacecraft in the 1990s show the plumes’ location was warmer than the surrounding ice. It also had an unusually high concentration of charged particles, perhaps the result of water splitting into hydrogen and oxygen. Both observations support the idea that some ocean is escaping at that spot.
“If it’s a coincidence, it’s a hell of a coincidence,” Sparks says.
Citations
W.B. Sparks et al. Evidence of plumes on Europa from far-ultraviolet observations with HST. 231st meeting of the American Astronomical Society, Oxon Hill, Md., January 9, 2018.
W.B. Sparks et al. Active cryovolcanism on Europa?Astrophysical Journal Letters, Vol. 839, Published April 13, 2017. doi: 10.3847/2041-8213/aa67f8
Professor Stephen Hawking Reveals 3 Ways We Can Travel In Time
Professor Stephen Hawking Reveals 3 Ways We Can Travel In Time
So… time travel is possible… at least theoretically.
Traveling in time has been one of the greatest fantasies of the human being for centuries. It is a popular trend in movies and science fiction series, and the idea has inspired novels from Charles Dickens’ The Christmas Tale, to Charlton Heston’s The Planet of the Apes masterpiece.
So… is time travel achievable? If we take a look at the last couple of years, we will notice quite a few scientific studies that have researched the idea of traveling in time.
We’ve written about the idea of time travel, and the studies which have looked into the possibility of traveling in time quite a few times in the past.
We covered an article that suggests how scientists found out that ‘mathematically’ time travel is possible.
“People think of time travel as something as fiction. And we tend to think it’s not possible because we don’t do it,” said Ben Tippett, a physicist, and mathematician from the University of British Columbia, said in a UBC news release, adding “But, mathematically, it is possible.”
According to a number of scientists, there are ways by which we could travel in time.
Image Credit: Shutterstock.
By using Einstein’s Theory of General relativity as the basis for a hypothetical device which they named a Traversable Acausal Retrograde Domain in Space-time (TARDIS), scientists have come up with a mathematical model of a theoretical time machine box that has the ability to move back and forth through space and time.
Interesting comments about Time travel were made by Astrophysicist Ethan Siegel of Lewis & Clark College wrote the Forbes blog Starts With A Bang: “While we still haven’t discovered the conditions we need to travel back in time and find the necessary means by which we can create a large enough system for humans to do so, ‘nothing is forbidding it’ in the laws of theoretical physics.”
But perhaps the scientist who most embraces the idea of time travel as a possibility is astrophysicist Professor Stephen Hawking who suggests there are three ways we can travel in time.
According to the famous British astrophysicist, there are at least three (hypothetical) ways in which it would be possible to travel through time.
The first one would be to travel in time through a wormhole, a central figure of theoretical physics that quantumly represents a point in spacetime that connects with another. If we were to find a way to enter a Wormhole, we could then create a tunnel between two points in space-time.
The second theory according to Professor Hawking would only allow us to travel to the future, and it would mean the traveler would have to approach a black hole, capable of dramatically slowing down time, and then returning to Earth, where time would have passed normally.
Finally, the British scientist proposes that the most viable alternative to building a time machine would be to build a device capable of moving around the Earth at the speed of light, which would allow the life of its passengers on board to pass 7 thousand times faster than on Earth, allowing a shift to the future.
Settling a long debate, astrophysicists at Goethe University Frankfurt now say neutron stars can’t exceed the mass of 2.16 suns.
Gravitational-wave emission from a collapsing star, via Goethe University.
In 2016, when the twin LIGO detectors made their first historic observation of gravitational waves, astronomers heralded the news both as a confirmation of Einstein’s general relativity and also because, as they love to say, the detection:
… opened a new window on the cosmos.
And indeed that window has begun to crack. On January 16, 2018, astrophysicists at Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany described how they used observations of gravitational waves to answer a question that’s plagued scientists since the 1960s, when they first discovered neutron stars, or stars composed predominantly of closely packed neutrons. By definition, a neutron star has a very small radius (about the diameter of an earthly city) and very high density (a teaspoon of neutron star material would weigh about 10 million tons). A typical neutron star mass is about 1.4 suns.
Notice all the abouts in those last couple of sentences? Now, for the first time, astrophysicists are saying they’ve succeeded in putting more precision into those numbers, by calculating a strict upper limit for the maximum mass of neutron stars. They say that, with an accuracy of a few percent, the maximum mass of non-rotating neutron stars cannot exceed 2.16 solar masses.
The research results were published in the peer-reviewedAstrophysical Journal Letters, and, according to these scientists:
Just a few days later, research groups from the USA and Japan confirmed the findings, despite having so far followed different and independent approaches.
What happens to a neutron star that does exceed its mass limit? In that case, the neutron star collapses into an even more compressed and vastly more exotic object known as a black hole.
Physicist Luciano Rezzolla at Goethe University Frankfurt and his students Elias Most and Lukas Weih conducted the study. Their statement explained:
The basis for this result was the ‘universal relations’ approach [described here] developed in Frankfurt a few years ago. The existence of ‘universal relations’ implies that practically all neutron stars ‘look alike,’ meaning that their properties can be expressed in terms of dimensionless quantities. The researchers combined these ‘universal relations’ with data on gravitational-wave signals and the subsequent electromagnetic radiation (kilonova) obtained during the observation last yearof two merging neutron stars in the framework of the LIGO experiment.
In the near-term future, these scientists expect more observations via gravitational-wave astronomy, which will further reduce uncertainties about neutron stars’ maximum mass. In the meantime, they said, their result is a good example of the interaction between theoretical and experimental research. Rezzolla commented:
The beauty of theoretical research is that it can make predictions. Theory, however, desperately needs experiments to narrow down some of its uncertainties. It’s therefore quite remarkable that the observation of a single binary neutron star merger that occurred millions of light-years away – combined with the universal relations discovered through our theoretical work – have allowed us to solve a riddle that has seen so much speculation in the past.
Bottom line: Settling a long debate, astrophysicists at Goethe University Frankfurt now say neutron stars can’t exceed the mass of 2.16 suns. Add more mass, and a neutron star becomes a black hole.
A brilliant fireball lit up skies in the U.S. state of Michigan Tuesday night and caused the equivalent of a magnitude 2.0 earthquake.
Lucky skywatchers were dazzled by a brilliant fireball that briefly lit up the night sky over Michigan and neighboring states on Tuesday (January 16, 2018) and caused the equivalent of a magnitude 2.0 earthquake, according to the United States Geological Survey.
The American Meteor Society has received 398 reports of the fireball, which happened at 8:10 p.m. CST (01:10 UTC). The fireball was seen primarily from Michigan but was also seen from Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Missouri and Ontario (Canada). According to the American Meteor Society:
This was a very slow moving meteor – speed of about 28,000 miles per hour (45,000km/hour). This fact, combined with the brightness of the meteor (which suggests a fairly big space rock), shows that the object penetrated deep into the atmosphere before it broke apart (which produced the sounds heard by at least 77 observers). It is likely that there are meteorites on the ground near this region.
Over the past three years, a lot has changed for the city of Cape Town. Seated in a geologic bowl beneath Table Mountain and historically fed by heavy winter precipitation, the South African metropolis has been known as a haven of abundant natural water. This year, however, Cape Town may be the first major city in the world to run out of water.
A three-year drought in the region around Cape Town has caused levels in its water-supplying dams to drop dangerously low. Experts have predicted that the city will reach “day zero,” a point at which the dams drop below 13.5 percent of their combined capacity,on April 21.
If that happens, all non-emergency municipal water supplies will be turned off except in the poorest neighborhoods. Residents will be required to source their water from one of 200 available collection sites. Each resident will have access to 6.6 gallons per day, a maximum enforced by armed guards charged with keeping the peace.
For now, the city is working on water recycling projects and constructing three desalination plants, which they hope to have up and running by March. It is also enforcing a water limit of 23 gallons per person per day.
Time Magazine reports that the Cape Town drought has led to a backlog of orders for water storage tanks, and according to the publication, “unwashed hair is now a symbol of upright citizenship” in the city.
In a controversial move, Cape Town has even produced a live water-monitoring mapthat displays how much water properties are using in order to encourage — or shame — residents into matching their neighbors’ good habits.
“The potential water-saving benefit for all of Cape Town of making water consumption indicators publicly available outweighs any privacy issues at this stage of the crisis,” Zara Nicholson‚ spokesperson for Mayor Patricia de Lille, told Cape Town Etc. “This behavior-modification tool attempts to acknowledge good savers and encourage those who have yet to join the efforts.”
Climate Change, Today
If the situation caused by the Cape Town drought sounds like the beginning of a Mad Max-esque dystopia to you, you’re not alone.
Above all else, the Cape Town drought and its implications for residents may be a stark reminder that climate change is not a future concern — it’s a reality of our present, happening at this very moment.
As with any single weather or climate event, it’s difficult to blame the Cape Town drought solely on our dependence on fossil fuels. Climate change just isn’t that simple. Yet just as experts are making progress in connecting individual events, such as hurricanes, to climate change, analysis has shown that Cape Town’s regional drought was likely worsened by human actions.
The #Capewatercrisis continues, this is the latest photos of Theewaterskloof dam, its scary to see how barren it is, where there was once water is now dust and sand. #CapeDrought#87litres Hopefully winter 2018 comes to the party.
The chances of extreme drought are increasing in the Western Cape region overall. While wet and snowy years will still happen, the area is trending toward being dry and drought-prone. Local climate trends certainly have something to do with this, but so do globally increasing temperatures and shifting weather patterns.
Indeed, research has found that hotter, drier weather is becoming more common across the globe.
One study predicts that nearly 74 percent of global populations will be threatened by dangerous heatwaves by the close of the century, and we could even see record-high summer temperatures every other year as soon as 2030. In 2015, NASA satellite data found that one-third of global groundwater reservoirs were over-stressed by human use, suggesting a grim outcome if we do not learn to use water more sustainably.
Cape Town is just one example of these predictions spilling over into reality.
Belangrijkste archeologische onderwatervondst ter wereld gedaan in Mexico. Deze grot zit boordevol Maya-geheimen
Belangrijkste archeologische onderwatervondst ter wereld gedaan in Mexico. Deze grot zit boordevol Maya-geheimen
Onderzoekers hebben in Mexico de langste onderwatergrot ter wereld ontdekt. De recordgrot is ongeveer 347 kilometer lang.
Het kostte onderzoekers van de projectgroep Gran Acuifero Maya vele maanden om het doolhof van gangenstelsels in kaart te brengen.
In de grotten zijn verschillende voorwerpen van de Maya’s gevonden. “Dit geeft ons een mooi inzicht in de oude nederzettingen van de Maya-cultuur,” zei directeur Guillermo de Anda.
The finding has been described as ‘amazing’
(Reuters)
Boordevol geheimen
Hij sprak van een ‘verbazingwekkende’ vondst.
“De tunnels zitten boordevol geheimen over de Maya’s,” klonk het verder. Er zijn onder meer overblijfselen van uitgestorven fauna, keramiek en graven van de Maya’s gevonden.
Het team van ingenieurs, archeologen en andere wetenschappers is al meer dan 10 maanden bezig met het project. Daarbij onderzoeken ze het ondergrondse netwerk van de Mayapiramides in Mexico.
The experts through the tunnel could lead to a natural sinkhole
Reuters
Belangrijkste
De ontdekking wordt gezien als de ‘belangrijkste archeologische onderwatervondst ter wereld’.
Wetenschappers hadden al jaren een vermoeden dat er onder de mysterieuze piramides in Mexico een labyrint van ondergrondse rivieren en grotten schuilgaat.
Verborgen kamers
Het grottenstelsel zou toegang kunnen verschaffen tot verborgen kamers in het hart van de geheimzinnige bouwwerken.
De Maya’s gebruikten de grotten als heilige plekken en gooiden er allerlei voorwerpen en offers in. De komende jaren zal worden onderzocht wat er precies allemaal ligt.
Orbital pollution might not enjoy the attention and awareness that other inevitable catastrophic disasters like climate change or asteroid impacts do, but it won’t be long before humanity will have to confront the fact that according to NASA estimates, over half a million pieces of debris are currently spinning around the Earth at speeds up to 17,500 mph. Most are smaller than a marble, but a few tens of thousands of objects are believed to be the size of a softball or larger. Given the scope of the orbital pollution problem, it’s kind of a miracle that orbital pollution has yet to cause a major catastrophe either in space or down here in gravity land. Space junk does occasionally fall to Earth unannounced, or even announced as in the case of the Chinese Tiangong-1 space station which is set to fall to Earth sometime soon wherever it happens to end up. Here’s hoping I don’t win that lottery.
Chinese space agencies aren’t sure when – or where – the space station will come down.
Speaking of Chinese space junk, scientists at China’s Air Force Engineering University have developed a new concept they believe could help clear up the increasingly cluttered zone of space surrounding our planet. The concept involves a satellite housing an incredibly powerful laser which could autonomously detect and hone in on individual pieces of space junk, obliterating them into dust or blowing them far out of Earth’s orbit.
A picture of orbital debris taken during the first mission to the ISS sparked a host of theories about an alien “black knight” satellite.
The technology hasn’t been tested yet, but the Chinese scientists have conducted simulations which serve as a proof of concept for their idea. According to their publication in The International Journal for Light and Electron Optics, the researchers believe their simulation “provides necessary theoretical basis for the deployment of space-based laser station and the further application of space debris removal by using space-based laser.” Hmm…space based laser you say…
What could go wrong?
While ridding the Earth of its orbital pollution problem sounds great and all, the concept isn’t without its critics. Military watchdogs have noted that China (as well as all the other superpowers) have been busy testing space weaponry designed to take out adversaries’ satellites in order to gain battlefield advantage by disrupting GPS or communications. Several satellites have also been destroyed or gone missing under mysterious circumstances lately, leading some to believe there might already be a shooting war in space. Could this “space junk laser” actually be a weapon in disguise? For that matter, what military technology isn’t a weapon in disguise?
REVEALED: Shock truth about Pentagon UFO picture which convinced world aliens may exist
REVEALED: Shock truth about Pentagon UFO picture which convinced world aliens may exist
EXCLUSIVE: Express.co.uk today reveals the shocking truth about a "UFO picture" that played a key role in the staggering "Pentagon UFO" story that has convinced many people "we are not alone" and intelligent aliens may be flying advanced craft on Earth.
The still image of the so-called "white tic tac UFO" was screened during a major conference when former US government and military insiders were brought to together by former Blink 182 singer Tom DeLonge for his new alien research group To The Stars Academy.
The photograph was shown during an October 2017 presentation by academy member Chris Mellon, who served for almost 20 years in the US federal government in a series of national security positions.
Its use appeared to suggest the image showed the "Nimitz UFO" encountered by a US Navy crew off the coast of San Diego in November 2004.
The UFO, which was also captured on Navy radar video camera, was said to "defy the laws of physics" in its movements.
With a large version of the still image behind him on a screen, Mr Mellon told reporters: "Clearly this is not a US experimental aircraft, but whose is it?
"How did it accomplish these feats?
YouTube
LEAD BALLOON? Chris Mellon talks physics-defying UFOs with a suspected helium balloon on screen.
YouTube
UFNO! The To The Stars Academy team under a huge picture of the balloon during the launch.
Truth of the matter is... it was taken in Eccles, Manchester and I investigated the case. Likelihood... it was a novelty balloon, a number 'one'.
Steve Mera
"This story may sound like a sci-fi movie, but it is a true story, and far from being the only one of its kind."
Details of the case went on to make international headlines with the image of the alleged UFO even being screened by US TV news station Las Vegas Now.
However, Express.co.uk can reveal the picture was not taken in San Diego in November 2004, but in Eccles, Manchester, in July 2005.
Worse still, it is not even a UFO, but believed by UFO investigators to be a helium party balloon in the shape of the number one.
The embarrassing revelation has cast doubt among some on the credibility of the To The Stars Academy, which was hailed as a turning point in the quest for the truth about UFOs by many investigators due to the backgrounds of many of its key members.
The academy has been crowdfunding to raise cash to enable its research and has so far pulled in more than $2.3 million (£1.7m) from 2,580 investors.
The picture and others of the same balloon can still be seen in a July 2005 report by Manchester UFO investigator Steve Mera on conspiracy theory website Rense.com.
Mr Mera said he investigated it at the time and later concluded it to be a floating party balloon.
The same article was referenced by Mr Mellon in his presentation, and it may be that it was taken from there in good faith in the belief that it was a genuine image from the Nimitz UFO incident.
At the academy launch in October, Mr DeLonge said its members were "principle players with the highest credentials," however, the balloon revelation has led to claims casting doubt on the ability of the academy for thorough investigation.
In Mr West's view, it shows very poor research on the part of the academy.
He added: "I think the use of that image was a mistake. They are just not very good at investigating."
Getty
Tom DeLonge won UFO researcher of the year in 2017 from Open Minds TV.
YouTube
Tom DeLonge suggested this hoax CGI footage was leaked genuine video of a TR-3B.
It is not the first time pictures or footage used by the academy to show alleged "genuine UFOs" have been called into question.
In November we revealed how Mr DeLonge used hoax CGI footage of an alleged "TR3B triangle UFO", claiming it was a leaked genuine video.
Express.co.uk contacted Mr DeLOnge at the time about the hoax video, but received no response.
We contacted the academy again through its press agency to ask for comment on how the image of the Manchester balloon came to be used as evidence for the Nimitz UFO and we await a response after 48 hours.
The past few weeks have been good for UFO believers. For decades they've clamored for "disclosure"—an admission by the government that it knows of galactic gatecrashers, and that aliens are irrefutably here. This always struck me as a classic argument from ignorance: We lack good evidence to prove our case because it's been hidden.
That wouldn't work in the courts or in science, but hey, it kind of sounds good.
Well, it turns out something was hidden. In 2007 Senator Harry Reid initiated a secret Pentagon program to investigate strange aerial phenomena. It ran for five years and cost $22 million. Finally, the skeptics—those who doubt that we're hosting extraterrestrial visitors—had been shown the error of their disbelieving ways.
Except that the Pentagon study seems to have found no good evidence for visitors. Yes, there was an intriguing military video purportedly showing a cluster of alien craft. But when I watched it, I noticed that the cluster was always in the center of the field of view—which suggests that these "craft" were actually caused by the instruments aboard the plane rather than something in the airspace in front of it. Experts will undoubtedly weigh in.
What would be good evidence of alien presence? Nearly every day I receive an email or phone call from someone who claims to have seen "something very important" (which I've learned from experience is code for "UFO"). They want to chat.
So what do I do? First off, I generally dismiss witness testimony, or, put another way, stories. It's not that I think people are lying. But if someone tells you he saw a ghost at the mall, you'll have a hard time doing much with that information unless ectoplasm hangs out there on a regular basis.
Witness testimony isn't terribly reliable in criminal court cases. It's even less useful for science.
So I ask about physical or photographic evidence. There never seems to be any of the former, but often there is imagery. Some folks won't send it, apparently afraid that I'll sell their pix and deprive them of a Nobel Prize or a photo royalty. The photos I do see tend to show obvious optical effects—often bright lights caused by internal reflections in the lens or color fringes resulting from the workings of the camera's chip. Other photos show diffraction patterns caused by "hunting" of the camera's autofocus system. Many people interpret these patterns as spacecraft markings.
A lot of the images are shot at night, making them particularly hard to interpret. Perhaps daylight is too dangerous for aliens, because then it might be possible to see detail in photos taken of them. I wonder if, when the sun is shining, they hang out underground like bats.
I'm also wary of anthropomorphic touches—for example, when someone says, "They seemed friendly and just want to establish contact" or "They're buzzing our missile silos." The latter is particularly goofy. Any aliens who come from the stars are way ahead of us. If you could visit America 150 years ago, would you spend time inspecting the Union Army's cannon-making factory at Pittsburgh's Allegheny Arsenal?
Hoaxes—and of course there are some—don't seem to be common. The people who contact me all sound pretty sincere. But the one UFO claim that has zero worth for me is: "I know what I saw." After all, if that's what someone asserts, there's no room for discussion.
More than anything, I ask myself if the extraterrestrial explanation is compelling—or merely possible. Is the evidence proof-positive or only puzzling? The latter isn't good enough.
Personally, I'm mystified by the stage illusions of David Copperfield. Did he really walk through that giant fan, or is that only a possibility? Just because I don't know what really happened is hardly reason to conclude that he can saunter through whirling metal blades without chopped Copperfield flying into the audience.
The Pentagon study is certainly interesting, but not because it proves alien visitation. Of course, you can be sure that the "disclosure" folks will soon be claiming that UFO evidence is still being covered up. Conspiracy theories never end.
In the era of Google Earth, when every square yard of the continents has been photographed and put online, it's hardly surprising that we have an unsatisfied craving to explore the unknown, to do what Columbus, Magellan, Cook, and others did a half-millennium ago.
Of course, in the 21st Century, a sailing vessel may no longer satisfy that need. A sailing saucer just might.
'Surprising' UFO Sightings Are Skyrocketing in Italy—And These Government Files Back Them Up
'Surprising' UFO Sightings Are Skyrocketing in Italy—And These Government Files Back Them Up
Justin Joffe
While images of UFOs can often be forged, the Mediterranean UFO Centre (Cufom) has published a new document featuring high-quality photos and videos to back up each sighting.
Cuform President Angelo Carannante says that the images are "suprising and eloquent."
"It seems that in 2017 there has been a leap in quality in the objects sighted, given the unusual clarity of some unidentified flying objects, filmed or photographed, that had been absent for years and seem to be back," he added
Of particular interest to UFO enthusiasts are the skies of Liguria, a crescent-shaped city in the Northwestern part of the country, nestled on the Italian Riviera. Considered a land of sightings not unlike our Roswell, the city has reported sightings going back to the '40s, and has earned something of a reputation for it through films like the 2004 Italian-language B movie, InvaXon - Alieni in Liguria.
The film recounts the story of Pier Zanfretta, a local whose purported 1978 alien encounter during his time as a night watchman changed his life. Zanfretta held his account of meeting a large, terrifying green man and a triangular-shaped UFO even under hypnosis, recounting with painful attention to detail how he was abducted and subsequently contacted by the aliens on multiple occasions.
Most notable, Carannante says, is a significant rise in the reports of flying discs that, after years of absence, seem to have returned.
Citing UFO photos from Lavagna in Genoa, Arco Felice near Naples and a particularly loud one in Civitavecchia that flew 50 meters above sea level, he recalls one particular incident in the summer of 2017 when "the birds flew in a squardron, giving rise to the spectacular flotilla phenomenon during a concert by Ennio Morricone. Cufom's dossier also records sightings from towns all across the country.
Italy's first reported UFO sighting of 2017 came last January, when an unusual bright green spherical object was caught on camera in Salento, changing its shape and color multiple times over a four-year period.
All of this would be business as usual were it not for the fact that UFO sightings in America were uncharted in 2017, too. New York City had an astonishingly high number of sightings, and even professionally-trained pilots failed to identify the crafts they saw in the air. Whether or not its comforting to know, it seems that Italy felt the surge in activity, too.
Stephen Hawking says the Earth will be a fireball by 2600
Stephen Hawking says the Earth will be a fireball by 2600
By Margi Murphy, The Sun
Mastermind Stephen Hawking has warned that the human race will perish on Earth after we turn it into a sizzling fireball in less than 600 years.
He declared that humans must “boldly go where no one has gone before” if we fancy continuing our species for another million years.
If we don’t, the world will become overcrowded and increased energy consumption will turn the planet into a ball of fire because of our soaring energy consumption as the population rises.
Making a video appearance at the Tencent WE Summit in Beijing on Sunday, Hawking appealed to investors to back his plans to travel to the closest star outside of our solar system, with the hope that a livable planet might be orbiting it.
Alpha Centauri is one of the closest star systems at 4.3 light-years away.
Scientists believe it may have exo-planets that could foster life, just like Earth.
Hawking is backing Breakthrough Starshot, a venture to reach this system within two decades using a tiny aircraft that could travel at the speed of light.
He said: “The idea behind this innovation is to have the nanocraft on the light beam.”
“Such a system could reach Mars in less than an hour, or reach Pluto in days, pass Voyager in under a week and reach Alpha Centauri in just over 20 years.”
If successful, a generation may be able to see the probe reach the star.
Starshot Breakthrough’s director, the former head at NASA’s Ames Research Center, also made an appearance in Beijing.
He said: “Maybe if all goes well, sometime a little after the middle of the century, we’ll have our first picture of another planet that may be life-bearing orbiting the nearest star.”
Not far from the beach resort of Tulum, Mexico, lies a cave system called Sac Actun — this may be the largest flooded cave in the world. The discovery was made by a team of divers who found a connection between two underwater caverns in eastern Mexico.
Credit: GAM.
Previously, Sac Actun was measured at 263 km but now, researchers working with the Gran Acuifero Maya (GAM) — a project concerned with preserving subterranean waters in the Yucatan peninsula — say the cave system communicates with the 83-km-long Dos Ojos system. This would make the entire system a unitary 347-km-long (216-mile) cave.
The connection between the two cave systems was identified after speleologists spent months navigating the intricate maze of underwater channels.
Like the vast majority of the planet’s cave systems, Sac Actun lies in limestone rocks. This karst setting occurs when acidic water starts to break down the surface of bedrock, causing cracks and fissures. In time, these fissures start getting bigger and bigger, until they create sinkholes or caves. It’s amazing to think about it, but these incredible features were created by groundwater. Since in the Yucatan area, where the Sac Actun system is located, groundwater is portrayed as flowing in underground rivers, caves also tend to be quite lengthy.
Map of the connection area between Nohoch Nah Chich and Dos Ojos regions.
Cartography by Peter Sprouse.
GAM researchers underscore the importance of the finding in relation to the cultural heritage of the Maya civilization that dominated the area before the Spanish conquest.
Credit: GAM.
Many people are aware of the famous Mayan pyramids and other cultural landmarks. It’s a lesser known fact that the Mayan cities in which these relics were built drew upon an extensive network of sinkholes linked to subterranean waters known as cenotes. Some of these cenotes are known to have acquired a religious significance to the Maya, as well as their descendants.
“It allows us to appreciate much more clearly how the rituals, the pilgrimage sites and ultimately the great pre-Hispanic settlements that we know emerged,” Guillermo de Anda, director and underwater archaeologist on the Gran Acuifero Maya team, told Reuters.
A team of divers have discovered what is believed to be the biggest flooded cave on the planet in eastern Mexico.
By connecting two underwater caverns, the Gran Acuifero Maya (GAM) project identified the 216 mile (347km) cave after months of exploring a maze of underwater channels.
The project, which is dedicated to the study and preservation of the subterranean waters of the Yucatan peninsula, said the discovery could shine new light on the ancient Mayan civilisation.
Near the beach resort of Tulum, the group found that the cave system known as Sac Actun, once measured at 163 miles (263km), communicated with the 52 mile (83km) Dos Ojos system, the GAM said in a statement. Because of this, Sac Actun has now absorbed Dos Ojos.
Guillermo de Anda, the director of GAM and an underwater archaeologist, said the “amazing” find would help to understand the development of the rich culture of the region, which was dominated by the Mayan civilisation before the Spanish conquest.
“It allows us to appreciate much more clearly how the rituals, the pilgrimage sites and ultimately the great pre-Hispanic settlements that we know emerged,” he told Reuters.
The finding has been described as ‘amazing’
(Reuters)
Mr de Anda and his team previously discovered what they believed was a hidden passageway beneath a 1,000-year-old Mayan temple.
The experts thought the tunnel under the Kulkulcan pyramid, which is part of the Chichen Itza archaeological site in Yucatan, could lead to a natural sinkhole linked to subterranean waters, known as a cenote.
The Yucatan peninsula is studded with monumental relics of the Mayan people, whose cities drew upon an extensive network cenotes.
The experts through the tunnel could lead to a natural sinkhole
Reuters
Some cenotes acquired particular religious significance to the Mayans, whose descendents continue to inhabit the region.
Several are thought to have been used by the ancient Mayans for human sacrifices and previous expeditions have found human bones in cenotes beneath Chichen Itza.
The hypersonic spy plane, dubbed SR-72, might already be in production.
Credit: Lockheed Martin Corp.
The SR-71 Blackbird spy plane may be back and faster than ever.
Or maybe not. Ambiguous wording at an aerospace-conference presentation last week suggested that the SR-72, a successor to the infamous Cold War spy plane, might already be in production, but neither the military nor the plane's possible maker, Lockheed Martin Corp., is talking.
Bloomberg reported that Lockheed Vice President Jack O'Banion projected an artist's conception of the hypersonic SR-72 during a talk at the annual SciTech Forum of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics in Florida on Jan. 8. Standing by the image of the sleek gray aircraft, O'Banion reportedly spoke about recent advances in computing and design and then said, "Without the digital transformation, the aircraft you see there could not have been made." [Supersonic! The 11 Fastest Military Airplanes]
The wording implies that the aircraft has, in fact, been made, as does O'Banion's later comments, also in the present tense.
"We couldn't have made the engine itself — it would have melted down into slag if we had tried to produce it five years ago," O'Banion said, according to Bloomberg. "But now, we can digitally print that engine with an incredibly sophisticated cooling system integral into the material of the engine itself, and have that engine survive for multiple firings for routine operation."
No comment
Both the U.S. Air Force and Lockheed Martin declined to confirm the existence of a real hypersonic (more than 5 times the speed of sound) spy plane to Bloomberg. Outside defense experts told the news outlet that the plane could be anywhere in the development process, from the digital design phase to the prototype phase.
The SR-71 Blackbird was a speedy, stealthy spy plane specifically designed to absorb, rather than reflect, radar signals and, hence, remain relatively hidden. Though it's more than 107 feet (33 meters) long, the plane appeared on radar as an object somewhere between the size of a bird and a human, according to Lockheed Martin's history of the plane.
The Blackbird was made from titanium so that it would have the strength to withstand the heat generated while flying at above Mach 3 (2,045 mph or 3,300 km/h), or three times the speed of sound. Developers painted the plane black to dissipate some of the heat, lending the aircraft its "Blackbird" moniker, according to Lockheed Martin. The two-seat SR-71 first flew on Dec. 22, 1964. It was retired in 1990, retaining the record of fastest manned aircraft ever made. According to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, the final flight of the Blackbird now displayed at its hangar in Chantilly, Virginia, set a speed record: The plane flew from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., in 64 minutes and 20 seconds.
The future of hypersonic travel
Lockheed Martin's interest in developing hypersonic "scramjets" — which use oxygen from the environment rather than a tank for combustion in the engine — is no secret, according to Bloomberg. However, the engineering challenges are steep.
Jets like the purported SR-72 could enable the Air Force to make ultrafast bombing runs into enemy airspace without being detected, defense analyst Richard Aboulafia told Bloomberg. Lockheed Martin engineers said in 2013 that they hoped to develop an SR-72 that could fly at Mach 6 (4,603 mph or 7,407 km/h) by 2030.
Secrecy and rumors are the norm in the development of new stealth aircraft. According to a Central Intelligence Agency history of the development of the SR-71, the government tried very hard to keep the development of the original Blackbird classified, but a former U.S. Navy admiral named John B. Pearson said he figured out that Lockheed was up to something by 1961, just three years after the project started. A newspaper in Fort Worth, Texas, also reported the possibility of a new faster-than-sound airplane in 1963.
Editor's Note:This article was updated to indicate that the SR-71 was not hypersonic, but instead could fly at three times the speed of sound.
Scientists observed a repeating fast radio burst three billion lightyears from Earth. The discovery gives clues about the source of these mysterious bursts.
SIGNAL BOOST
Over the past decade, we’ve found out a great deal about what fast radio bursts (FRBs) are — millisecond-long blips of intense radio emissions from deep space — but their origins remain a mystery. Now, astronomers have tracked a repeating FRB to a dwarf galaxy nearly three billion lightyears from Earth, according to a report from the Washington Post.
The international team, which presented its work at the annual American Astronomical Society meeting in January 2018, observed that the radio beam was being contorted by a magnetic field within a cloud of ionized gas, telling us more about the conditions these bursts take place in. The study detailing the team’s results was recently published in Nature.
“We see a sort of ‘twisting’ of the radio bursts caused by an effect known as Faraday rotation,” Jason Hessels, one of the co-authors of the study from the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, told Futurism. “We hypothesize that the source of the bursts could be a neutron star in the proximity of a massive black hole that is accreting material from its surroundings, or maybe that it is a very young neutron star embedded in a nebula (a sort of cocoon around the source).”
“We are basically pushing forward and zooming in even further on where these fast radio bursts are coming from,” co-author Shami Chatterjee, a senior research associate from the Cornell Center for Astrophysics and Planetary Science, told Futurism.
THE MYSTERY OF FAST RADIO BURSTS
When FRBs were first observed, there was some debate as to whether they were legitimate phenomena, or simply interference that was being misinterpreted. Further study established that they are indeed real — just very difficult to observe.
“The biggest issue is the fact that these are millisecond flashes of radiation, and we don’t know where they’re going to go off in the sky,” said Chatterjee. “We think that there’s between five and ten thousand of these flashes going off everyday all over the sky, and yet so far we know only about thirty of these sources. That gives you a sense of the difficulty in terms of finding them, because they just last a millisecond. Radio telescopes don’t have a large field of view; if you’re not looking at the right place in the right time, you won’t see it.”
The first repeating FRB source was spotted in 2016, which provided a much-needed benchmark in the astronomy community’s quest to pinpoint where these phenomena are taking place in order to observe them.
FRBs have captured the imagination of theorists — Chatterjee notes that there are more theories about them than recorded observations — because of the enormous amount of energy involved. In about a millisecond, a burst emits about as much energy as our sun puts out in a day, depending on how broadly it’s being beamed.
“The hope is that eventually, this leads to a step forward in our understanding of physics, in terms of what is a mechanism that can produce this kind of a radio flash with that much energy that we can detect across the universe,” said Chatterjee. “Beyond that, the hope is that once we understand what these radio flashes are, we can use them as tools to study the intergalactic medium.”
Attempts to try and understand what happened in Rendlesham Forest, Suffolk, England in December 1980 have been thwarted by the fact that a sizeable number of official files on the case have been destroyed or have gone missing. Or, rather, that’s the story told to us. It wasn’t long after the events occurred that rumors began to circulate that on the second night of what were three nights of encounters, the U.K. planned to evacuate a very nearby prison HM Prison Highpoint North. Other stories surfaced, suggesting that Blundeston Prison and Hollesley Bay Youth Correctional Center were also primed for evacuation. Clearly, something of a deeply serious nature was going on at the height of the encounters.
One of those who took a deep interest in the Rendlesham Forest events was Lord Hill-Norton, who, from 1971 to 1973 was the Chief of the U.K.’s Defense Staff. He pressed for answers – not just on the case itself but on those evacuation orders too. Just like Roswell, the paperwork was gone. It was on January 23, 2001 that Lord Hill-Norton raised the evacuation issue with the Government’s House of Lords. Hill-Norton wanted answers to what he said were “instructions to prepare for a possible evacuation at some time between 25 and 30 December 1980.”
It didn’t take long for the government to get back to the by-then-retired Lord Hill-Norton. Available records from Blundeston Prison and Hollesley Bay Youth Correctional Center didn’t reveal anything odd at all. HM Prison Highpoint North, however, was quite another story. It turned out the December 1980 log-book from the base could not be found. Log-books for the other months were intact. When pushed for further information, the only thing that was offered by the government was the notion that the log-book had been mistakenly destroyed. Right.
Lord Hill-Norton didn’t stop there: he demanded access to the radar tapes of various military bases in the area, on the nights in question. Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean responded that all of the tapes had been routinely wiped clean: there was nothing to see. A trend was clearly developing.
What was certainly the most amazing – and suspicious – aspect of all this reared its head in May 2011. Freedom of Information Act documents on the Rendlesham Forest case surfaced that caught the attention of not just UFO researchers, by the U.K.’s media, too. The files were notable because of what they said about the case specifically. Rather, they were files which revealed that there was a massive gap in the Defense Intelligence papers where the Rendlesham papers should have been kept. Internal memos released via FOIA legislation showed that the Ministry of Defense suspected that “a deliberate attempt had been made to eradicate the records covering this incident.” Precisely who had done the eradicating was never proved. Like the Roswell files, though, the papers were gone and no-one had any kind of solid answer.
Further files were found to have been destroyed too, not just on Rendlesham but on other cases too. Film-footage of a UFO taken by a military pilot, in U.K. airspace, in 1956, was said by the government to have “probably” been destroyed. In 1999, the crew of a military vessel, the HMS Manchester, encountered a UFO during a naval operation in the North Sea. All aboard were unanimous that they had seen a large, circular-shaped craft flying in close proximity to the ship. I am not exaggerating when I say that the U.K. government failed to respond properly for data on the case because “an unusually strong gust of wind” below the ship’s log-book overboard!
Moving onto Australia, in the summer of 2011, the Australian Department of Defense admitted to having misplaced a UFO file that should have been packed with reports. Natalie Carpenter, of the nation’s Freedom of Information Office, responded to media inquiries by stating that, “The files could not be located and Headquarters Air Command formally advised that this file is deemed lost.”
UFO researcher-author Whitley Strieber made a very good observation, on June 6, 2011: “Last week, the Australian government announced that it has ‘lost’ its UFO files. Thus it joins the United States, which ‘lost’ all the files relating to the Roswell AFB dating from 1947 through 1952, and the United Kingdom, which recently announced that it has ‘lost’ all the files relating to the Rendlesham Forest UFO Case.”
MAN FOTOGRAFEERT UFO EN COMMUNICEERT MET INZITTENDEN ( VIDEO )
MAN FOTOGRAFEERT UFO EN COMMUNICEERT MET INZITTENDEN ( VIDEO )
Je hoort natuurlijk wel eens verhalen over mensen die zeggen dat ze telepathisch contact hebben gehad met buitenaardse wezens.
Maar, wanneer er ook inderdaad foto's zijn om het verhaal te ondersteunen, dan wordt het ineens voor velen een stuk geloofwaardiger.
Op 12 januari 2018 nam een man in de buurt van Orlando in Florida een aantal bijzondere foto's van een UFO, met daarbij een heel opmerkelijk verhaal.
Niet alleen nam hij mooie foto's, maar zag hij via een raam in de UFO ook twee buitenaardsen, twee zogenaamde Nordic aliens, met wie hij telepathisch communiceerde. De man wil zijn identiteit niet helemaal prijsgeven en staat voorlopig bekend onder de initialen JP.
Hij staat in contact met Dr. Michael Salla van Exopolitics, die deze man, ook gezien eerdere contacten, kwalificeert als een betrouwbare getuige, ook omdat er foto's zijn die het verhaal ondersteunen.
Op 12 januari rond zes uur 's avonds krijgt JP telepathisch een bericht door dat hij naar buiten moet gaan en naar de lucht kijken. Dit omdat ze zich dan aan hem zouden laten zien. JP vroeg toen eveneens telepathisch of hij foto's mocht nemen omdat dit toch wel een belangrijk element zou zijn om zijn verhaal later geloofwaardig te maken.
Klaarblijkelijk waren dit aliens waar JP al eerder contact mee had gehad in Brazilië. Dr. Salla bevestigt dat JP al in 2008 contact met hem had opgenomen over deze buitenaardse ontmoeting in Brazilië. Het schijnt dat deze buitenaardsen samenwerken met de Amerikaanse luchtmacht en dat ze missies uitvoeren in de buurt van Antarctica en in de ruimte. Hierdoor heeft ook de luchtmacht de beschikking over voor ons niet voor te stellen geavanceerde technologie.
De manier waarop ze reizen volgens JP en Dr. Salla is, zoals wij al heel lang berichten, door middel van wormholes, ook wel dimensieportalen genoemd. Met deze techniek geven ze de coördinaten van een planeet in, wordt er een dimensieportaal gecreëerd en vervolgens verdwijnt hun schip in het portaal als een soort bliksemflits zonder enig geluid.
Toen JP naar buiten liep, slaagde hij er inderdaad in om een aantal foto's te maken van het ruimteschip van de Nordics.
Via een tekening heeft hij geprobeerd duidelijk te maken waar de inzittenden te zien zijn in het ruimteschip. Die tekening ziet er als volgt uit.
En wanneer je zijn laatst genomen foto helemaal uitvergroot dan zie je de plek waar de aliens zich zouden bevinden.
Enkele uren na het bezoek van de Nordic aliens aan JP begon zijn dochter stuiptrekkingen te krijgen, werd heel erg blauw, koortsig en werd met spoed naar het ziekenhuis gebracht.
Security Guard Captures UFO Video Near China-Russia Border
Security Guard Captures UFO Video Near China-Russia Border
Mysterious UFO hovering in the sky has surprised a security guard at remote border train station. In a video that was released, a dome-shaped object can be seen only for a few seconds before disappearing into the dark sky apparently over the border between China and Russia.
The security guard spotted a strange UFO moving in the sky at a remote train station.
The bizarre footage was recorded between China-Russia border. It shows a dome-shaped object for only a few seconds before vanishing in the night sky.
The unnamed guard was the only one on duty at the train station in Dayangqi Railway, located in north-eastern China.
On the border with southern Russia, the small town usually quiet at night. When the mysterious object came into view, it stood out and caught the attention of the guard.
According to the report of the guard, he saw something flashing in the distance at about 8:10 in the evening.
British UFO Files Finally Out After Years Of Campaign For Transparency By UFO Enthusiasts
British UFO Files Finally Out After Years Of Campaign For Transparency By UFO Enthusiasts
The Government has released the final batch of the British real-life X Files after UFO hunters’ decade-long battle.
The ufologists’ 10-year campaign for transparency came to an end after the declassification of the final three files among a series of reports from the 1970s.
With many delays along the way, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) papers have undergone a series of releases to the National Archives.
However, many are complaining about their accessibility as they are not made available online. To pour through hard copies, one should visit the National Archives in London.
The papers include sketches and pictures of mysterious objects, UFO witness accounts, official and MoD reports of sightings.
However, it does not include the smoking gun evidence of alien that so-called truth seekers were hoping.
Former MoD UFO investigator Nick Pope said that the last three documents look suspicious. He explained that the documents were released on New Year’s Day as if The National Archives tried to sneak out the release when nobody was observing.
Also raising suspicions in the UFO community is the timing of the release, which took place just weeks after the official confirmation that the US Pentagon had maintained a top secret UFO investigation program. Mr Pope suspected there might be coordination between the US and UK government.
Mr Pope, however, is glad that they are finally in the open. While no smoking gun in those files, Mr Pope said there are many exciting sighting reports and other related materials on UFO research.
He added that these recent revelations in the US and the UK only show that some agencies in government took the subject seriously.
Mr Pope is hoping that the scientific community, the media, and the public can have more serious and informed discussions or debates on the UFO phenomenon with less sarcastic comments on the subject.
Flash! Boom! This time a Meteor explodes over Michigan
Flash! Boom! This time a Meteor explodes over Michigan
Many people from around have witnesses mysterious bright flashes in the skies followed by sonic booms and large explosions and the cause is always a meteorite or some sort of space debris according to the official statements, but is that really the case?
Here are three remarkable “Meteor” events that have taken place in recent days.
January 7, 2018: A mysterious bright flash accompanied by large explosions, where even the ground was shaking and felt over thousands of miles in Russia (See here our article on the Russia event).
January 10, 2018: A bright flash and a huge explosion occurred at around eight in the evening left residents of a Dallas neighborhood pondering worst case scenarios for its cause.
January 16, 2018: Sonic booms, rattling windows, and a bright flash of light washed over Michigan and surrounding states.
Globular star clusters contain our galaxy’s most ancient stars. Astronomers didn’t expect to find a 4-solar-mass black hole in one, but … voila!
Artist’s concept of a 4-solar-mass black hole in the globular star cluster NGC 3201, via ESO.
A star in the globular star cluster NGC 3201 is behaving very strangely. It’s being flung backwards and forwards at speeds of several hundred thousand kilometers per hour, with the pattern repeating every 167 days. Astronomers think this star is orbiting an invisible black hole, with four times our sun’s mass. If so, it’s the first inactive black hole to be found in a globular cluster, and the first one found by directly observing its gravitational pull.
Astronomers said this important discovery relates not only to our understanding of the formation of these star clusters and black holes, but also to the origins of gravitational wave events, thought to happen during the merging of two black holes in this mass range.
Our home galaxy, the Milky Way, is know to have more than 150 globular star clusters. They’re symmetrical spheres of tens of thousands of ancient stars, orbiting outside the flat disk of the galaxy and thought to have formed early in the galaxy’s history, at about the same time the Milky Way itself was forming.
About 150 globular star clusters surround our galaxy.
NGC 3201 is thought to be more than 10 billion years old (in contrast to our sun’s age of about four-and-a-half billion years). It’s located in our sky in the direction to the southern constellation of Vela the Sails, at a distance of some 16,300 light-years from Earth. The estimated mass of the whole cluster is about 254,000 times that of our sun.
Astronomers studied this cluster using the MUSE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope in Chile. Lead author Benjamin Giesers of Georg-August-Universität Göttingen in Germany noticed the strange behavior of a particular star in the cluster. He said:
It was orbiting something that was completely invisible, which had a mass more than four times the sun — this could only be a black hole! The first one found in a globular cluster by directly observing its gravitational pull.
Color-composite image of the globular cluster NGC 3201, obtained with the WFI instrument on the ESO/MPG 2.2-m telescope at La Silla.
Hubble Space Telescope image of the central region of NGC 3201. The blue circle surrounds the star that’s behaving strangely, thought to be orbiting a black hole.
The relationship between black holes and globular clusters is an important but mysterious one. Because of their large masses and great ages, these clusters are thought to have produced a large number of stellar-mass black holes — created as massive stars within them exploded and collapsed over the long lifetime of the cluster.
ESO’s MUSE instrument provides astronomers with a unique ability to measure the motions of thousands of faraway stars at the same time. With this new finding, the team have for the first time been able to detect an inactive black hole at the heart of a globular cluster — one that is not currently swallowing matter and is not surrounded by a glowing disk of gas. They could estimate the black hole’s mass through the movements of a star caught up in its enormous gravitational pull.
From its observed properties the star was determined to be about 0.8 times the mass of our sun, and the mass of its mysterious counterpart was calculated at around 4.36 times the sun’s mass — almost certainly a black hole.
Recent detections of radio and X-ray sources in globular clusters, as well as the 2016 detection of gravitational-wave signals produced by the merging of two stellar-mass black holes, suggest that these relatively small black holes may be more common in globular clusters than previously thought.
Giesers concluded:
Until recently, it was assumed that almost all black holes would disappear from globular clusters after a short time and that systems like this should not even exist! But clearly this is not the case.
This chart shows the constellation Vela and marks most of the stars visible to the unaided eye on a clear dark night. The globular star cluster NGC 3201 is marked with a red circle. This cluster can be seen dimly in binoculars and is resolved into many faint stars with a moderate-sized amateur telescope.
Bottom line: Astronomers observed the strange behavior of a star in the globular cluster cluster NGC 3201 and concluded it must be orbiting a four-solar-mass black hole.
Source: “A detached stellar-mass black hole candidate in the globular cluster NGC 3201”, by B. Giesers et al., to appear in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
UFO SHOCK: 'Truth' about 'shape-shifting alien UFO' over Chile snapped by newspaper editor
UFO SHOCK: 'Truth' about 'shape-shifting alien UFO' over Chile snapped by newspaper editor
A NEWSPAPER editor is said to have "put his reputation on the line" by posting pictures of what he believed was a bizarre shape-shifting UFO snapped in the skies above Chile.
Three images taken by Richard Emblin, editor-in-chief of The City Paper, based in Colombia, were revealed on the newspaper's website.
It caused an internet frenzy with many UFO websites sharing the images as possible proof of alien visitations.
They included YouTube channel Secureteam10, which produced a video about the images.
Tyler Glockner, who narrates the channel said: "A shape-shifting UFO has been caught on camera by a newspaper editor in Chile. That doesn't sound like balloons to me."
However, Express.co.uk can reveal that the photojournalist's snaps were likely just a child’s gold birthday balloon in the shape of the number eight.
Mr Emblin, who is also a pilot and has had articles published in TIME, Der Spiegel, and The New York Times, had ruled out the ‘UFO’ being any form of plane, drone or hot air balloon flight.
Richard Emblin
Richard Emblin snapped this 'UFO' that is likely a party balloon.
He said at the time: "I take my journalistic ethics very seriously.
"I do not manipulate my images. On Sunday, April 12 (2015), I stepped out onto my balcony, which faces East, and is located in the Rosales neighbourhood of Bogotá.”
Mr Emblin added as a "frustrated commercial airline pilot" he knew the sighting was not an earthly aircraft.
He wrote: "I know my planes. Up close and at great distances. I know how to distinguish the sound of an Airbus A 340 to a Boeing 777. I have studied flight maps, flight routes and flightaware. I understand these machines. I admire them. There was no fuselage, no winglets, no sound. This was no plane.
"The black dot began to unravel itself. It stopped under the melancholic canopy of cloud and darted south, where it shifted on its side.
Jon Austin
Case closed? The 'UFO' looks remarkably like the party balloon figure 8.
"The spot was not visible on the screen of my iPhone. I tried it look for it again with my eyes, but the black object had shifted in the sky above my building. I though it might head towards the airport, so I grabbed my Nikon 300s and tried to remember where I keep a 500 mm lens...
"...and pointed my lens towards the other side of Bogotá. The object was not one, but two it seemed.
"It was very evident to me that this was a UFO. No drone. No Sunday morning balloon flight over a capital in which only official helicopters (police and army) can patrol.
"I could discern that the object shifted its shape. Could rise and fall quickly, and zip from one end of the city in a matter of seconds.
"The black dot seemed to have rings. It then tilted, shifted to one side, and disappeared."
One reader of his article posted: "Amazing! Why would this man risk his reputation over a ufo article if he didn’t feel what he was seeing was real and worth reporting? I for one believe him."
However, Express.co.uk has seen the "UFO" looks remarkably similar to a gold helium-filled party balloon in the number eight, which are available online.
Express.co.uk sent the case to UFO debunker Scott Brando, who runs website Ufoofinterest.org.
He agreed and said many suspected UFOs had turned out to be helium balloons of various shapes and sizes.
He said: "It is an eight-shaped mylar balloon.
"Mylar balloons reflecting sun light are one of the main UFO misrepresentations, still fooling many people who think they are so-called EBANIs."
EBANIs are Entidad Biological Anomalous No Identificada or Unidentified Anomalous Biological Entities, said by some to be living alien UFOs.
Posters on YouTube agreed it was a balloon:
One said: "Ever seen a balloon they sell at the graduation/party store with different numbers and letters? This is one of them! Post something credible."
Another said: "Aww some poor little eight-year-old lost his birthday balloon."
A third said: "It's a number 'eight' mylar balloon, you can buy silver and gold ones at any party shop. Some kid isn't going to be happy!"
Express.co.uk contacted Mr Emblin via the newspaper website and Twitter and awaits a response.
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )
Dit zijn volgens experts de grootste bedreigingen voor de wereld - HLN.be
Dit zijn volgens experts de grootste bedreigingen voor de wereld -HLN.be
Thinkstock
WETENSCHAP & PLANEETVandaag werd in Londen het Global Risks Report voor 2018 voorgesteld, een rapport waarin risico-experts voorspellen wat de belangrijkste bedreigingen voor onze samenleving zijn. En uit het document blijkt dat bijna 80 procent het risico op een oorlog tussen wereldmachten erg hoog inschat.
Volgende week vindt het World Economic Forum plaats in Zwitserland, een jaarlijkse bijeenkomst van de CEO’s van de grootste bedrijven ter wereld, internationale politici, journalisten en wetenschappers. Ieder jaar wordt daarbij ook een risicorapport uitgegeven, en dat werd vanmorgen alvast voorgesteld. Het Forum baseert zich daarvoor op een enquête die ze bij 1.000 experts heeft afgenomen, de Global Risks Perception Survey.
In het rapport wordt gewaarschuwd dat de risico’s voor onze samenleving alleen maar stijgen. Zo wordt gevreesd voor een achteruitgang van het geopolitieke landschap: “93% van de ondervraagden verwacht dat politieke en economische confrontaties tussen wereldmachten zullen toenemen, bijna 80% verwacht een verhoogd risico omtrent oorlog waarin wereldmachten zijn betrokken”, klinkt het in een persbericht.
AFPDonald Trump en Kim Jong-un
Milieuvervuiling
Maar ondanks de dreigende oorlogen is opnieuw het milieu - net zoals vorig jaar - de grootste bezorgdheid. “De grote milieurisico’s (extreme weersomstandigheden; verlies aan biodiversiteit en aan economische systemen; grote natuurrampen; man-made milieurampen; en het onvermogen om het hoofd te bieden aan de klimaatverandering) werden alle vijf hoog gerangschikt, zowel naar waarschijnlijkheid als naar impact. Extreme weersomstandigheden werden genoteerd als het allergrootste risico.”
Op de derde plaats staan cyberdreigingen. ”Grootschalige cyberaanvallen zijn nu de derde grootste bedreiging op het vlak van waarschijnlijkheid, terwijl toenemende cyber-afhankelijkheid beschouwd wordt als de tweede belangrijkste driver voor het globale risicolandschap over de komende tien jaar.”
Economie gaat er op vooruit
Op economisch vlak gaat het daarentegen wat beter: de experts voorspellen een sterke groei. Maar ze vrezen tegelijk dat we hierdoor onze aandacht voor blijvende structurele risico’s in globale economische en financiële systemen zullen laten verslappen. ”Een sterke economische groei biedt wereldleiders een unieke kans om zwakke punten aan te pakken in de complexe systemen die onze wereld onderbouwen, zoals samenlevingen, economieën, internationale relaties en het milieu.”
David Fravor is a recognizable type. Affable, neatly dressed, with a men’s regular haircut and semi-rimless glasses, he’s a retired military man who works as a consultant in the Boston area. He could be standing in front of you in a Starbucks line and you wouldn’t notice him at all.
But the story he has to tell is literally out of this world.
Thirteen years ago, the Windham, N.H., resident was a veteran US Navy pilot at the controls of an F/A-18-F fighter jet flying off San Diego when he sighted an unidentified flying object and tried to intercept it.
“I want to join on it. I want to see how close I can get to it,” Fravor, 53, said, describing his thinking as he began the pursuit.
Then the object, which looked like a 4o-foot-long Tic Tac candy, “goes whoosh, and it’s gone.” he said. It accelerated rapidly and disappeared like no aircraft he had ever seen in his career.
Fravor has been in the news recently after the New York Times broke the story that the Pentagon had a secret program that investigated reports of UFOs. The Defense Department says it closed down the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program in 2012 after five years, but the program’s backers say it remains in existence, investigating UFO reports from service members while carrying out other duties.
The incident occurred on Nov. 14, 2004. It was about 140 miles southwest of San Diego, Fravor said. The commander of a squadron of more than 300 service members aboard the carrier USS Nimitz, he was flying a brand-new plane with a weapons systems officer in the back seat. Another fighter from his squadron, with pilot and weapons system officer aboard, was flying with him. It was a perfect Southern California day.
The sea was calm, without whitecaps. No clouds marred the sky.
A radio operator from the cruiser USS Princeton directed them to an area where the Princeton had been tracking mysterious objects for two weeks. The objects had been dropping straight down from above 80,000 feet and stopping at 20,000 feet. “They’d hang out for hours, and then when they were done, they would go straight back up,” Fravor said.
When the two fighters got to the assigned location, they spotted a disturbance under the water, Fravor said. To him, it looked like something the size of a Boeing 737 airplane was underneath, causing waves to break over it.
“Then we see this bright white object” above the disturbance, moving erratically, back and forth, left and right, bouncing around like a ping pong ball, he said.
Fravor’s jet and the other jet were circling the spot. The other jet was high, Fravor’s jet lower. Trying to get a closer look at the Tic Tac, he began an easy, circular descent toward it.
The object “starts mirroring me,” beginning its own circular ascent from the ocean, he said.
“It’s at about the 2 o’clock and it’s coming up, and I’m at about the 8 o’clock position coming down,” he said, using the cap of a pen to illustrate the maneuvers during an interview at a suburban restaurant.
At that point, he said, he decided to cut across and head directly toward the mysterious object. He turned, dove, then pulled up his plane’s nose — and it zoomed away.
Fravor then looked for the underwater object, and saw that it, too, had disappeared.
The fighters conferred with the Princeton and were told to head to a rendezvous point 60 miles away. They headed toward it when the Princeton told them that radar had picked up the object again — already at the rendezvous point.
When the two jets got there, the object had disappeared. Why it decided to go there of all places is a mystery, Fravor said.
Nearing the end of a 24-year career in the Navy and Marines, Fravor had plenty of experience encountering other aircraft in the sky, but this one was different, he said. It was bright white, cylindrical, with rounded ends. It had no wings, no windows, no exhaust plume.
And then there was that speed. “It was impressive. It was fast. It was maneuverable, and I’d really like to fly it,” Fravor said he told the executive officer on the Nimitz afterwards.
He came within nearly a half-mile of it, he estimated. He and his back-seater as well as the men in the other plane saw it with their own eyes for 3 to 5 minutes, he said.
“What’s unique about [our encounter] is we physically interacted and chased it,” he said. “We literally engaged it.”
Later, back at the carrier, he told his back-seater, “Dude, I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty weirded out.”
More fighters were launched and, while they didn’t see it with the naked eye, one crew saw it on their radar and video screens, he said. A copy of the video has been released by the Defense Department. (A second video released by the government shows a different encounter on the East Coast.)
In addition to the Princeton tracking the objects, Fravor said, the Nimitz and an E-2 surveillance plane in the area could also see the objects on their radars.
Was there an intelligence controlling the object?
“Oh, yeah,” Fravor said. “It reacted to us.”
Fravor has no idea what the object was or what it was doing. He says he jokes with people that the object was the one that messed up — by being seen and chased when it wasn’t supposed to be.
He got plenty of ribbing back aboard the carrier. But he said he was surprised at the lack of curiosity the Defense Department showed about the encounter, which happened in an area well-known as a Navy training ground.
“I figured someone would come out,” he said. After all, they’d been tracking the objects for two weeks and surely a debriefing would be in order. But no one ever did.
Fravor said if a foreign submarine had surfaced behind a carrier in the area, dire alarms would have been raised and questions would have been asked about how it had penetrated the Navy’s defense.
“And yet now you have many of these objects, like a dozen of them, that are just, at will, just showing up, doing whatever they want, and going away and you can do nothing about it. And no one asks any questions,” he said.
Over the years, it became just a funny story that he would tell friends — until he was contacted several months ago by Luis Elizondo, the man who once headed the Pentagon program, who asked him to tell his story to the Times.
Now he’s glad the issue is making headlines. And he supports the work of the To The Stars Academy of Arts and Science, a new group that Elizondo has joined that aims to raise money for UFO research.
“I think the story needs to be told. We need to stop making jokes and start paying attention to it,” Fravor said.
“This is not a US problem. This is a global issue,” he said. “Why aren’t we investigating these things? . . . If it’s like ‘E.T.’, then it’s all good. If it’s like ‘War of the Worlds’ or ‘Independence Day,’ then not so much.”
He said it appears our existing technology is “way, way behind” and that if we could understand the Tic Tac’s technology it could benefit the world, leading, for example, to new sources of energy.
The $22 million reportedly spent on the five-year Pentagon program was like a “rounding error” in the Defense Department’s massive budget, he said. With better funding, he believes a breakthrough could happen.
“With the right money and the right focus, you can figure this out,” he said. “I think there’s enough brilliant, open minds.”
Fravor describes himself as an average guy — “total middle class from Toledo, Ohio” — who’s somehow managed to have some amazing experiences. (Among other things, he appeared in the PBS documentary series “Carrier” and has flown his jet over the Super Bowl.)
He said his recent appearances in the news have inspired some jests from friends, which he expected. But so far the overall reaction has been positive.
Fravor, who is married and has two grown children, said his neighbors in New Hampshire haven’t said much about it.
One, though, stopped by with a present: a box of Tic Tacs.
Does he think he will ever see a UFO again?
“Never say never. But there’s, what, 7½ billion people in the world? — and I chased it,” he said.
Here’s the video taken by one of the pilots in Fravor’s squadron aboard the Nimitz.
This video of a different encounter between fighter jets and UFOs was also released by the Defense Department.
Material from Globe wire services was used in this report.
Het lijkt erop dat onze technologie ver achterloopt. Piloot die UFO achternazat wil openheid, en wel om deze reden
Het lijkt erop dat onze technologie ver achterloopt. Piloot die UFO achternazat wil openheid, en wel om deze reden
De gepensioneerde marinepiloot David Fravor werd 13 jaar geleden de lucht ingestuurd om een UFO te onderscheppen. Wat hij ook deed, hij kon het object niet bijhouden.
“Het werd bestuurd door een intelligentie,” zegt Fravor tegen de Boston Globe. “Het reageerde op ons.”
Hij had verwacht dat iemand zich over het incident zou uitspreken, aangezien de Amerikaanse marine het object al twee weken volgde. Het bleef echter oorverdovend stil.
Niemand
Als er een buitenlandse onderzeeër was opgedoken, zouden overal alarmbellen zijn afgegaan en vragen worden gesteld, aldus Fravor.
“En toch zijn er veel van dit soort objecten die gewoon verschijnen, doen wat ze maar willen en weer verdwijnen. Je kunt er niets tegen doen,” zegt hij.
“En niemand stelt er vragen over,” vervolgt hij.
Wereldwijd
We moeten hier niet langer grapjes over maken en onze aandacht hierop richten, aldus Fravor.
Hij merkt op dat deze onbekende objecten niet alleen in de VS, maar wereldwijd worden waargenomen en vraagt zich af waarom ze niet worden onderzocht.
Ver achterloopt
Het lijkt erop dat onze bestaande technologie ‘ver achterloopt’, stelt Fravor, toevoegende dat het onderzoek naar de onbekende objecten kan leiden tot bijvoorbeeld nieuwe energiebronnen.
“Als je genoeg geld hebt en de juiste focus, kun je dit achterhalen,” besluit hij. “Ik denk dat er genoeg briljante mensen met een open geest zijn.”
Archaeologists in India believe the might have found the oldest known depiction of celestial objects in a curious example of ancient rock art. The etched stone was found at the Burzahom archaeological site in India’s Kashmir Valley. The stone was unearthed during a 1969 excavation, but has puzzled archaeologists ever since due to its enigmatic depiction of what appears to be two large objects in the sky, possibly twin suns or twin moons. Now, a new study claims that the mysterious carving may depict a particularly bright supernova which occurred around 4,500 BC. Is the Burzahom carving a record of an ancient astronomical event, or is something weirder afoot here?
The stone, left, and a rendering of its etching.
The rock drawing appears to show two hunters closing in on a stag with the help of a dog beneath two large, luminous orbs in the sky overhead. Astrophysicist Mayank Vahia of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai just published the new supernova theory after cross referencing astronomical records with radiocarbon dating of various objects found at the Burzahom archaeological site. The two objects in the rock art appear to have the same brightness and appear side-by-side, ruling out the theory that they might depict the Sun and moon. Vahia instead believes that one of the orbs could be the moon, while the other may be an extremely bright supernova which rivaled the brightness of the moon.
Supernova HB9 as seen today.
In his recently published study of the stone, Vahia concludesthat “only one Supernova remnant, HB9, meets all these criteria and it exploded around 4500 BC with a brightness comparable to the brightness of the Moon.” Vahia goes on to speculate that the two hunters in the image might not be hunters at all, but instead represent the constellations Orion and Pisces, while the animals represent Taurus and the Andromeda galaxy.
Could this be an ancient star chart?
If confirmed, that theory would mean the ancient people at Burzahom possessed astronomical knowledge far more advanced than what archaeological records have previously indicated. Could this be an example of ancient astronomical knowledge, or could this stone depict something stranger? A visit from two orb-shaped UFOs? The memories of ancient astronauts who came from a planet with twin suns? Or could these merely be some sort of decorative elements which have been misinterpreted by modern researchers?
Theres no telling what might have been depicted on the stone.
One question I keep coming back to when covering these kinds of archaeological stories is wondering just how wrong our interpretation of ancient artifact may be. Could future civilizations accurately interpret the meanings of modern street art, the works of Salvador Dalí, or the Statue of Liberty? What would they make of a dead iPhone, a Furby, or a fidget spinner?
Strange UFO with porthole window photographed over Florida
Strange UFO with porthole window photographed over Florida
On January 12, 2018 several images were taken near Orlando, Florida of a flying saucer craft with a large rectangular shaped porthole window.
Credit images: Exopolitics.org
According to the photographer, who uses the pseudonym JP to maintain anonymity, apparently two occupants, Nordic “human looking” extraterrestrials, are standing behind the porthole window, and were telepathically communicating with him.
Article with commentary and analysis of the images is available at: exopolitics.org
It’s no secret that humans have made a mess out of our planet — literally. The most plastic-riddled place on Earth, for instance, is an island in the middle of the freaking Pacific Ocean. Meanwhile, our litter problem has grown to cosmic proportions. NASA estimates that there are millions of fragments of man-made debris zipping in Earth’s orbit at more than 17,500 mph. At such velocities, even a tiny piece of junk like a nut or bolt can wreak havoc on our satellite infrastructure as well as threaten the lives of astronauts.
Since we began sending satellites into space in the late 1950s, we’ve been leaving behind trash with every launch. Every major power has contributed to this growing space junk problem, with China chiefly amongst them most recently. In 2007, some Chinese general had the bright idea to actually test an anti-satellite missile in the field — that is, in Earth’s low-orbit. When China used this test to destroy their own Fengyun-1C weather satellite, the event was one of the worst single contributors to orbital debris, creating some 3,300 fragments. But at least China is trying to make amends.
Scientists at the Air Force Engineering University in China completed a computer simulation that found it feasible to blast orbiting junk with space-based lasers. This kind of solution was first suggested in 2014 when the space junk crisis was becoming more evident. The present simulation confirms this concept can work by calculating how long they would have to target debris and the best angles to do so.
According to the team’s calculations, a space laser would have to emit 20 bursts of light/second for two minutes to destroy debris up to 10 cm in length. Larger debris can also be broken down into more manageable bits or deflected so the new trajectory sends thejunk crashing down Earth’s upper atmosphere.
Space junk is an ever growing problem.
Credit: Quark Mag.
Quan Wen and colleagues at the Air Force Engineering University wrote that a “laser station with the same inclination and RAAN as debris has the highest removal efficiency”, and concluded space debris removal by using a space-based laser is theoretically feasible.
Not everyone is happy about the prospect of having a giant laser system deployed in space, however. Gen. John Hyten, the head of US Strategic Command, warned in March last yearthat the Chinese are “building weapons to operate from the earth in space, jamming weapons, laser weapons” and they’re developing “those capabilities to challenge the United States of America.” The general concluded that “WE cannot allow that to happen.”
China space lasers proposal offers futuristic way to take out space debris
Indeed, a laser weapon in space, even if deployed as a janitor, wont be taken well by the rest of the international community. Luckily, there are other groups working on other ideas. RemoveDebris, a project based at the University of Surrey’s Surrey Space Centre and funded by the European Union, wants to remove debris with instruments akin to a fishing net and harpoon. The European Space Agency (ESA) is toying with using magnets for the same purpose.
Various concepts for cleaning up space junk have been created, but a new one from Chinese scientists is by far the most futuristic. In a recently published paper, the team details a space-based laser station concept that uses lasers to eliminate space junk. The proposal was introduced at a time when space junk has been highlighted as a serious concern, potentially impacting future space missions.
Space junk involves a variety of man-made equipment left orbiting after its lifespan ends. While this isn’t much of a concern for people on Earth, as the junk burns up as it eventually falls back toward the planet, it is a big problem for space missions.
China space lasers proposal offers futuristic way to take out space debris
Space agencies and companies have been calling for effective cleaning solutions to clean up this junk before it causes a catastrophe. In a newly published paper titled “Impacts of orbital elements of space-based laser station on small scale space debris removal,” the team of scientists detail a simulation that indicates such methods could be effective.
The lasers wouldn’t entirely eliminate the space junk, but instead break it down into smaller pieces that pose less of a risk to future space missions. Such a paper is no doubt fueling concerns among some in the US government that China is increasingly working on space weapons that could be used to target US satellites.
Concerns about such weapons were raised by the US military last month by US Strategic Command head Gen. John Hyten, who also accused Russia of building such devices. Chinese surveillance concerns have been a hot topic in Congress again, a reality recently underscored by a bill proposal seeking to ban US government entities from contracting with firms that use Huawei and/or ZTE hardware.
Scientists measuring the age of the universe with a new model are left stumped by discovery
Scientists measuring the age of the universe with a new model are left stumped by discovery
A gravitational wave seems to have confirmed the age of the universe but with intrigue, say experts.
The study of one of the gravitational waves recorded in recent months has allowed estimating the age of the Universe, confirming previous calculations but with an intrigue factor.
The direct detection of gravitational waves from at least five sources during the last two years offers a spectacular confirmation of Einstein’s gravity and space-time model.
Astronomers also gathered information on the massive formation of stars, gamma ray bursts, neutron star characteristics and (for the first time) the verification of theoretical ideas about how very heavy elements such as gold are produced.
According to reports from the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, astronomers used a single gravitational wave event—referred to as GW170817— to measure the age of our universe.
NGC4993, the galaxy hosting the gravitational wave event GW170817 that has been used to measure the age of the universe.
Image Credit: ESA/NASA
Experts at the CfA (Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), Peter Blanchard, Tarreneh Eftekhari, Victoria Villar and Peter Williams were members of a team of 1,314 scientists from around the globe who contributed to the detection of gravitational waves from a merging pair of binary neutron stars, followed by the detection of gamma-rays, and the identification of the origin of the cataclysm in a source in the galaxy NGC4993 detected in images taken with several delays in wavelengths from X-rays to radio.
Furthermore, analysis of the gravitational waves of the event suggests its intrinsic strength.
The observed force is smaller, which implies that the source is about 140 million light-years away.
Experts note that NGC4993, the host galaxy, has an outward velocity because of the expansion of the universe that can be measured from its spectral lines.
Eureka! Moment
Knowing how far away it is and how fast the galaxy is moving allows scientists to calculate the time since the expansion began: aka the age of the universe: between 11,900 and 15,700 million years due to experimental uncertainties.
Scientists note how the age derived from this unique event is consistent with decades-old estimates of observations based on statistical methods that use two other sources: cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR) and galaxy movements.
The first is based on the mapping of the very weak distribution of light that dates back about four hundred thousand years after the Big Bang; while the latter involves a statistical analysis of the distances and movements of tens of thousands of galaxies in relatively recent times.
The fact that a single gravitational wave even allowed the determination of the age of the cosmos is beyond remarkable and is not possible with every gravity wave detection. As noted by a statement by the cFa, in this case, there was an optical identification of the source (so that speed could be measured) and the source was not too distant or too weak.
With a large statistical sample of gravitational wave events of all types, the current range of values for age will be reduced, explain experts.
The Wow part
The new result is intriguing for many reasons. Despite the fact that both CMBR and galaxy measurements are fairly accurate, they appear to be in disagreement with each other at approximately ten percent.
While this could just be an observational error, there are some astronomers who suspect that it might be a real difference reflecting something currently missing from our picture of the cosmic expansion process, perhaps connected with the fact that the CMBR arises from a vastly different epoch of cosmic time than does the galaxy data. This third method, gravitational wave events, may help solve the puzzle.
Scientists Spot Abrupt Deceleration Never Before Seen In A Comet
Scientists Spot Abrupt Deceleration Never Before Seen In A Comet
Observations with NASA’s Swift Space Telescope have revealed an abrupt, unprecedented slowdown in the rotation of a comet.
Images taken in May of 2017 revealed that comet 41P / Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresák—41P for short—revolved three times slower than in March when it was observed by the Discovery Channel Telescope at the Lowell Observatory in Arizona.
This deceleration is the most spectacular change in the rotation of a comet ever seen, and scientists aren’t really sure what is going on.
Comet 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresak near Messier 108 and Messier 97 (Owl Nebula).
According to astronomers, comet 41P orbits our Sun every 5.4 years.
When a comet approaches the Sun, the increase in heating causes the ice on its surface to change directly to a gas, producing jets that throw particles of dust and frozen grains into space.
“The previous record for a comet spindown went to 103P/Hartley 2, which slowed its rotation from 17 to 19 hours over 90 days,” said Dennis Bodewits, an associate research scientist at the University of Maryland (UMD) in College Park who presented the findings Wednesday, Jan. 10, at the American Astronomical Society (AAS) meeting in Washington. “By contrast, 41P spun down by more than 10 times as much in just 60 days, so both the extent and the rate of this change is something we’ve never seen before.”
Scientists note that this material forms an extended atmosphere, called a coma. Ground-based observations established the initial rotation period of 41P in approximately 20 hours at the beginning of March 2017 and detected its deceleration later in the same month.
The comet zipped at a distance of 21.2 million kilometers from Earth on April 1, and eight days later it made its closest approach to the Sun.
Check out this video from NASA:
Swift’s Ultraviolet / optical telescope monitored the comet from May 7 to May 9, revealing variations in brightness associated with material recently expelled to coma.
These slow changes indicated that the 41P rotation period had more than doubled, between 46 and 60 hours.
Estimates of 41P water production, along with small body size, suggest that more than half of its surface contains jets activated by sunlight.
That’s a much larger fraction of active jets than in most comets.
Astronomers suspect that these active areas are favorably oriented to produce pairs that slow down the 41P spin.
“We suspect that the jets from the active areas are oriented in a favorable way to produce the torques that slowed 41P’s spin,” said Tony Farnham, a principal research scientist at UMD. “If the torques continued acting after the May observations, 41P’s rotation period could have slowed to 100 hours or more by now.”
A slow turn can make the comet’s rotation unstable, allowing it to start falling without a fixed axis of rotation.
This would produce a dramatic change in the seasonal warming of the comet and could lead to future outbreaks of activity, NASA reports.
Scientists have created an Artificial Intelligence that can ‘read your mind’
Scientists have created an Artificial Intelligence that can ‘read your mind’
Brace yourself, Artificial Intelligence is becoming more powerful by the minute.
According to a study by researchers from Japan, Artificial Intelligence is one step closer to mind reading machines illustrated in popular science fiction films.
Scientists have recently created a set of ‘deep learning’ algorithm, modeled on the human brain which can, eventually, be used to decipher the human brain.
Japanese scientists have developed an algorithm that can read human thoughts with a disturbing accuracy, according to details from a recently published study available on bioRxiv.
The scary part? Other than the fact that we’ll soon have AI running around reading your mind (joking), is that it isn’t the first time its been done. However, the difference is that earlier methods and results were much simpler, deconstructing pictures based on two main characteristics: Their pixels and basic shape.
Some of the images processed by the AI.
Image Credit Kamitani et al
“Our brain processes visual information by hierarchically extracting different levels of features or components of different complexities,” said Yukiyasu Kamitani, one of the scientists involved in the study. “These neural networks or AI models can be used as a proxy for the hierarchical structure of the human brain.”
Through various tests, artificial intelligence was able to analyze electrical signals from the brain and determine what images each subject was observing or imagining.
In order to achieve this, the system has a set of artificial neural networks, which learn to think like a human brain through simulations.
The study lasted ten months, in which three people viewed images from three different categories such as natural phenomena, artificial geometric shapes and letters of the alphabet.
Comparing 50 different photographs and the result of the magnetic resonances obtained from the brain of each observer, the neural network developed by the scientific team learned to interpret the human thought.
By reconstructing people’s brain patterns, the algorithm was able to define the images they observed, between owls, showcases, red mailboxes and airplanes. In addition, it reproduced images such as swans, leopards, bowling balls or fish that each person imagined.
“Whereas it has long been thought that the externalization or visualization of states of the mind is a challenging goal in neuroscience, brain decoding using machine learning analysis of fMRI activity nowadays has enabled the visualization of perceptual content,” said the research paper.
“Although sophisticated decoding and encoding models have been developed to render human brain activity into images or movies or to the matching to exemplar images or movies (Naselaris et al., 2009; Nishimoto et al., 2011), failing to combine visual features of multiple hierarchical levels, the methods were essentially limited to the image reconstruction with low-level image bases.”
The “GIMBAL” video is the first officially declassified video by the U.S. Government of a true UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon). The location date and time and other factors are not shown in the case of this official video that is under an official chain of custody. Apparently, it wasn’t just one UAP but “a whole fleet of them” as stated in the video.
Shown to the public by To the Stars Academy, formed by a group of former CIA, Congress Intelligence, DOD operatives, Tom DeLonge a rock star (with a negative view about aliens) and scientists like physicist zero-point energy theoretician Hal Puthoff and Steve Justice, an aerospace engineer who until recently held an important position in Skunkworks- Lockheed. They all quit their work posts to come together and form this academy which defines itself as a Public Benefit Corporationwhich is going to develop technologies that relate with advanced spacetime manipulation, enhancing telepathy, alternative methods to launch satellites, education, and entertainment-movie making.
Several more public releases of formerly classified UAP evidence is promised.
The UFO detected was also studied in the Pentagon secret research program that ran from 2007 to 2012. It is termed the “GIMBAL video” and is announced as one of the various declassified pieces of objective evidence that will be shown to the public. Possibly, other countries like England will follow suit.
The date and place of this GIMBAL video encounter was removed as part of the declassification process.
The GIMBAL video is not the event that relates with the USS Nimitz and USS Princeton in 2004.
There also is an important event that relates to the USS Nimitz and battlegroup witnessed and filmed in 2004 during maneuvers close to San Diego, CA, including the USS Princeton was also captured on a FLIR camera.
TTS (To the Stars Academy summarizes some of its characteristics as:
• Low observability in both electro-optical and electromagnetic spectrums.
• No distinguishable flight surfaces.
• Lack of obvious propulsion system.
• Never-before-seen flight capabilities.
• Possible energy or resonance field of unknown nature.
Regarding the USS Nimitz encounter event, in which there was like a “cat & mouse” chase, flying up several thousand feet into the atmosphere, and then quickly coming down to a sudden stop to a few feet above the ocean. Moreover, there was another moment of extreme acceleration (in which the object disappeared from sight in less than 2 seconds).
Retired Commander Navy pilot David Fravor who encountered the UAP with his F-18 fighter considers told ABC news that “it was not from this world.” Source:
The second official declassification and release for the public is this video that related with the USS Nimitz battle group encounter and which has been called “FLIR-1” A classic UFO shape is seen and it seems to turn around.
On December 16th, 2017, under the title “LUIS ELIZONDO REVEALS DETAILS ABOUT PENTAGON’S HIDDEN UFO PROGRAM IN STUNNING NEW YORK TIMES FRONT PAGE EXPOSÉ,” To the Stars Academymade good on its previous announcement that it would soon reveal former secret records of the Government’s UFO research. And it happened through a major news outlet; a major institution, an icon. The Washington Post, Politico, CBS, CNN and other important media outlets have also given the news. The image above shows the formerly classified 2004 Nimitz -related event footage of a UAP also presented in the report.
This constitutes an important step forward to legitimizing the seriousness and reality of what is generally dismissed and ridiculed. For some, it may be disclosure and, for others, a confirmation of what they already knew or suspected. it is both.
As a step forward and – at least an official recognition of the reality of true technological UFOs/UAPs, it may also be a gradual release of information in part to educate the public as per the importance of these issues and, perhaps, to mold their views. It is the beginning of an official admission and of informing the public more about these events but why now?and under what premises? And, who made the decision?
What amounts to an official revelation in the hands of military and intelligence was preceded by an effort that originated in the U.S. Congress: a formal research as at least 22 million dollars were invested between 2007 and 2012 in UFO (UAP) in a Pentagon-based program in cooperation with Bigelow Aerospace. The stated purpose was to ascertain the possible threat of UAPs or at least some UAPs. It was run in secret by former CIA Mr. Louis Elizondo. The secret program was called “Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program” (AATIP). Apparently, no evidence of threat has been found.
Senator Harry Reid and colleagues came up with the funding for the secret program that began operations in 2007 and Mr.Robert Bigelow of Bigelow Aerospace, a long-time UFO/UAP researcher, declared experiencer, former MUFON contributor and researcher of psi phenomena helped to implement it, working as a contractor. The program allegedly ended in 2012 but some sources told the New York Times that it is still running. For the Pentagon, this is a relatively small amount of funds spread over several years but enough to establish the fact that the Government interest in this issue is real. This would also show that this particular secret program is one that followed regular acknowledged funding channels. THE EVIDENCE IT PROVIDES in a formal manner may be necessary to begin INFORMING THE PUBLIC IN AN OFFICIAL AND JUSTIFIED MANNER.
Former Senator Harry Reid (Democrat)
Now institutions, scientists, respectable professionals and members of the intelligentsia will (perhaps gradually but more decisively) have an easier time talking about UFOs as the reality of the issue sinks into collective acknowledgment. Now the complicit restrained smirk of many media reporters affected by the giggle factor worldwide will probably evolve into something less noticeable.
Many of those seriously interested in these issues will jump in joy, hoping that all will be truthful and well; others will decry and raise serious doubts about the intentions and secret plans behind the event and further related announcements.
Perhaps from now on major news organizations and the media will more respectfully attend and re-transmit events like the 2013Citizen’s Hearing on Disclosure which – in spite of its importance – was basically attended by smaller media and news enterprises. Perhaps the revelations are part of medium-level of secrecy, acknowledged secret projects; a “tip of the iceberg” of what is potentially known in the various compartmentalized projects of an even more super secret unacknowledged world. While in the project once directed by Mr. Lou Elizondo one can objectively say that we might be dealing with ETs without being completely certain, within specific project of that other more secretive world located further “down the rabbit hole” we would not even question if we are dealing with other intelligences, time-travel, extraterrestrials-multidimensional beings and technologies connected with the practical modification of spacetime and the key role of consciousness.
Is “some of the rest of the iceberg” as “far out” and hard-to-swallow like some of the issues shared by some whistleblowers like a “jump room to Mars,” “controlling anti-gravity or gravity cancelation since the 1950’s, human forces in possession of ET technology aligning themselves in some secret programs with “Draco and other alleged service-to-self, imperialistic ETs and (in other secret programs) with their adversaries (our protectors)?” And what about the U.S. Navy allegedly possessing a highly advanced space fleet already defending the Earth while facing a “secret space war in alliance with some benign extraterrestrials?” Is much of this information about a Secret Space program (SSP) disinformation or part of an even deeper level of secrecy within some Unacknowledged Special Access Projects(USAPS)? In this issue many of the main researchers and voices of the UFO community disagree with each other and each promotes a different aspect but we need to tie together the kernels of truth whether likable or not; whether popular or not.
Thus, again, how far “down the rabbit hole” might UFO research and the human-ET interface involving the Government (or, perhaps, a secret, parallel Government?) actually be? What is too far out for credible thinkers to seriously consider? Should we remain cautious like the ace reporter and researcher Leslie Kean who (in spite of acknowledging physical objects performing impossible and even intelligent maneuvers) prefers not to assert that this is a clear indication that we are being visited by extraterrestrials? Should we consider the current revelations a reaction against what Dr. Richard Dolan calls a “breakaway civilization” far ahead in technology and views about “reality” that may even possibly be escaping accountability and be out of control?
Will the Roswell incident(s) now also be finally acknowledged in a truthful manner now that some UFO/UAP secrets are being acknowledged? Do the associated aerospace engineers and physicists of To the Stars Academyof Arts and Sciences want to create UFO-like technology because they actually have had no access to the deepest developments that were organized after ET craft materials were recovered?
Will fear against ETs be instilled in the population in order to manage how things are disclosed and handled or perhaps might a False Flag program be activated as Carol Rosin and Dr. Steven Greer have been warning for years? Well, at least the original introductory statements in which Mr. Tom De Longe used the concept of terror in his initial formal To the Stars Academy presentation have been deleted or edited out from the current version of their YouTube presentation….and I applaud that. It may signal that – in spite of Mr. De Longe’s negative view about ETs – his associates do not agree. In fact, it appears that Mr. Lou Elizondo who worked on the secret Pentagon project to detect UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) threats found little evidence of it as was reported to journalist Leslie Kean. The actual name of the project was the “Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program.”
Mr. Lou Elizondo
Further Considerations
As per the plausible intentions of the (physical and/or multi dimensional) intelligences conceibably related to at least some of the UFO/UAP sightings, there are important advances which can shed some light regarding what is called “experiencer” research.
Thus far the results of the anonymous survey conducted by the Edgar Mitchell Foundation on Extraterrestrial and Extraordinary Encounters (FREE) on individuals that consciously remember to have experienced contacts with non-human intelligences in relation to UFO sightings strongly suggest that MOST (approximating or surpassing 90%) of these experiences are not malevolent. Conversely, if there actually were a greater % of “negative,” self-serving entities behind some of the genuine UFOs, it would seem that they would either be unable or unwilling to directly interact with a greater number of human persons and, thus, unable to show up in FREE’s significant survey.
My mind attempts to be carefully open to many possibilities. Hopefully not denying out of vehement dislike and not accepting out of preference. From trusting that so-called “white hats” (those in the know wanting to share more of what they know with the rest of us) have become more influential, to considering that the moves we are witnessing may all seem to be nice but may actually be a plot to control more segments of humanity and the world even further. However, I sense and think that the powers that actually made the decision to reveal what has been revealed (and may continue to reveal) have taken a basically good, well-intended step. If so, the UFO, exopolitical and ET contact communities must try to encourage these individuals and to work with them in a friendly manner.
How the civilian voices (including major UFO and/or human-ET contact and exopolitical researchers) respond, either propitiating reconciliation and further disclosure or further distancing themselves from the various “classified world” forces (thus generating a counter-reaction), will be important for any subsequent unfoldment.
If we respond in a way that contributes to promoting the attitude of self-education in individuals and toward a constructive, connective enhancement of cultural premises and worldviews, in a spirit of doing it for ALL of US, for humanity (and -why not – beyond), even more important revelations (besides acknowledging the reality of UFOs) may be forthcoming sooner because society or societies will have an easier time processing.
If our future is on the line as per the need to understand intimate, non-classical connections with reality, stimuli leading to the backwardness of selfish, animalistic and ethnophobic reactions based on the sensation of threat ought to be minimized whenever possible.
Most ET intelligences interacting with “experiencers” (with different degrees of technological and spiritual development and also operating with various degrees of multidimensional technologies) would quite likely range between being mildly benevolent to highly benevolent toward us, as per the anonymous F.R.E.E. survey (www.experiencer.org). But if we listen to the information allegedly re-transmitted by contactees with very respectful, protective beings like Sixto Paz, Ricardo Gonzalez and several others, this might be due to the fact that Earth is being protected from unwarranted incursions. Some speak of a !quarantine.” Those service-to- self-beings that may still come through (including the few species that interact with Earth humans) could have had bases here before, have a beyond Earth, the exopolitical legal right among civilizations that intervened on Earth in a connected actual or probable past, or – a few – might occasionally be able to “slip through” the protection. These possibilities would perhaps justify the almost unbelievable existence of a secret defense space program in the SSP that has been circulating around. However it might be, the sensation of threat and the belief in the need to first rely on weaponry as a first choice; to rely in the furtherance of social manipulation and control and an old “us vs. them” mentality should not replace the sensation of basic safety based on our spiritual sovereign power as beings essentially sustained by The Supreme Benevolent Source of Being (Non-Dual Being and Consciousness itself). Therefore, maintaining a positive, constructive, healing outlook, including the possibility of reconciliation through LOVE is necessary not to excessively resonate with dichotomous narratives, past and future histories and paths involving those plausible “negative” beings who apparently rely on external technologies to manipulate reality, people, and other beings.
A Unique Opportunity
What we are witnessing ishistorical and should be treated with utmost seriousness and, yet, with hope, while being simultaneously accessible and cautious. Instead of being manipulated by populists catering to simplistic answers and a limited realism let’s try to rise to the challenge beyond further polarization. I think we should be encouraged by the news but neither vehemently chanting “victory” nor crying out loud in pessimism while renewing our dogmatic faith in cynicism.
ALL OF US must grow together with this unprecedented situation and learn to interpret it without extremism.Perhaps the UAP phenomenon and the realization of an intelligence behind it can force us to open up our minds (and hearts) to adapt to the greater connectivity it represents.
We don’t know who is making the decisions to release what has thus far been released or why. For sure, without approval from higher authorities, To the Stars Academy would not have been able to come together and to come out with recently declassified documents and do what they have done.
Could one of the main reasons for allowing this event may be that at least for now a majority of those in control of the UFO and ET classified worlds realize that a window of time or opportunity for a necessary profound cultural change is running out? That cynicism and lack of conviction in principles threaten not only conviviality and the continuity of the liberal world order but the very promise of a livable, civic, democratic future?
Could it be that if humanity is not adequately informed in order to evolve into adopting integrative principles beyond materialism, doctrinal scientific and religious close-mindedness, either-or thinking, extreme nationalism, selfish individualism, relativism and uber competition, it will become so fragmented, erratic and dissolute (unable to tell right from wrong or even care about it) that – without a fierce dictatorial control regime – the continuation of “civilization,” human evolution and order will be lost? Could it be that in an age of intelligent, non-local interconnectedness we simply must change to a historically unprecedented degree?
I don’t know what the most salient facts motivating the cover-up and the gradual-but-now-more-decisive disclosure may be, but we must consider all of the possibilities and, instead of engaging in in-fighting and the creation of further subdivisions inside the UFO-exopilitics-experiencer communities we MUST responsibly assume this opportunity to promote a deeper and more comprehensive understanding, not only among those of us wanting to know the truth about UFOs and ETs (for instance through mutually respectful human-ET contacts and citizen diplomacy), but een a more amical and guiding understanding with those human decision-makers/powers (part of our human family after all) that could be orchestrating the disclosure.
The revelations – while important – seem incipient and perhaps well-intended. More should come later. How much will they tell? How much are we collectively ready to handle a much more extraordinary reality? There might be good intentions behind all this or perhaps a continuation of a non-justifiable “us vs. them,” power-based, mindset. But let’s coordinate more and make great efforts for a positive, constructive, life-enhancing, educational, evolutionary outcome.
How we can bring together harmoniously all the different “pieces of the puzzle,” juggling our own adequate and inadequate biases on a complex, interwoven situation which is normally recognized in a segmented manner requires NURTURING that capacity; coming together in a safe, mutually supportive manner.
Concerned citizens must pay close attention to avoid being sucked into a “false flag” situation, that is into a “we’ll defend you from the evil aliens” situation or into any other consciousness-as-usual, evolution-numbing spin. Nonetheless, we should also try to help classified world leaders to connect with The People and to work together with all of us in a more intelligent, evolutionary manner for the good of ALL of US.
An artist’s conception shows the Habitable Exoplanet Imaging Mission’s space telescope and its starshade. (NASA / JPL Illustration)
Global warming and nuclear blasts may be bad for humanity, but astrobiologists say they could be good indicators of the presence of intelligent life on distant worlds.
The strategy would add a contemporary twist to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or SETI, reflecting the view that Earth is transitioning into a technology-driven geological era some call the Anthropocene.
“Examining the Anthropocene epoch through the lens of astrobiology can help to understand the future evolution of life on our planet and the possible evolution of technological, energy-intensive life elsewhere in the universe,” the researchers write.
Most of the researchers are affiliated with a Seattle-based organization known as the Blue Marble Space Institute of Science, although they may live elsewhere. Lead author Jacob Haqq-Misra, for example, is a meteorologist and astrobiologist who makes his home in Delaware.
The authors also include Woody Sullivan, a professor emeritus at the University of Washington.
Their perspective parallels a study published last year, in which three researchers proposed classifying planetary environments based on their energy potential and usage. Based on their classification scheme, Earth is on its way to becoming a Class V planet, dominated by the activity of a technologically advanced, energy-intensive species.
Adam Frank, a University of Rochester astrophysicist, is a co-author of last year’s study as well as the newly issued white paper.
The white paper basically suggests that telescope projects under consideration by NASA should look for the chemical signatures of other Class V planets.
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, currently due for launch in 2019, is expected to search for signs of life in alien atmospheres. But the researchers focus instead on concepts that are still early in their planning stages, such as NASA’s Origins Space Telescope, Large UV/Optical/IR Surveyor (a.k.a. LUVOIR) and Habitable Exoplanet Imaging Mission (HabEx).
The researchers also called on the NASA Astrobiology Institute to establish a focus group on Anthropocene-themed astrobiology. They said such a group could identify the potential “technosignatures” of alien civilizations.
“The terraforming of otherwise uninhabitable planets within a planetary system is one example of a possible technosignature, where powerful artificial greenhouse gases may be deployed to warm a planet outside the formal habitable zone,” they wrote. “Such planets may be identified from the spectral features of greenhouse gases such as perfluorocarbons (PFCs), which are not known to otherwise occur in high abundances.”
The identification of planetary-scale megastructures would be another example, they said. Just this month, a different team of researchers reported using telescopic observations to rule out the presence of an alien megastructure around a strangely dimming star known as KIC 8462852, or Boyajian’s Star.
Yet another long-lasting technosignature could be the presence of radioactive compounds associated with nuclear fallout. Here on Earth, the first atomic bomb test left just such a signature in 1945, which is seen as heralding the dawn of the Anthropocene Age.
Even if astrobiologists don’t detect the signs of energy-consuming civilizations beyond our solar system, the exercise could well yield payoffs closer to home. The authors point out that getting a better understanding of the theoretical constraints on alien civilizations — and the risks they may face — would improve policy decisions for the future of our own civilization as well.
In addition to Haqq-Misra, Frank and Sullivan, the authors of “The Astrobiology of the Anthropocene” include Sanjoy Som, Brendan Mullan, Rafael Loureiro, Edward Schwieterman, Lauren Seyler, Haritina Mogosanu, Eric Wolf, Duncan Forgan and Charles Cockell. Hat tip to Daniel Fischer.
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16-01-2018
Rendlesham UFO shock theory: Colonel says US airmen COULD have been abducted by aliens
Rendlesham UFO shock theory: Colonel says US airmen COULD have been abducted by aliens
A PREVIOUSLY unseen interview with a US Colonel has revealed he thought it possible two US airmen were abducted by aliens during the alleged Rendlesham UFO encounter.
Retired Colonel Charles Halt was recorded making the claim in Rendlesham Forest, Suffolk, while working on a documentary that was never released.
In the never-before-seen footage, recorded in 2010, Mr Halt is heard stating one officer "may have been abducted" and that the men were "unaccounted for" for hours.
It is thought to be the first time a claim of alien abduction has been made in connection with Rendlesham - dubbed the British Roswell - and Mr Halt did not state it in his official memo to the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) at the time of the incident in December 1980.
Three US officers based at RAF Brentwaters claimed a "triangular shaped craft" landed in neighbouring Rendlesham Forest woodland in the early hours of December 26 1980.
The three - John Burroughs, Bud Steffens, and James Penniston, later told of feeling "static" as they observed the object's flashing lights and hieroglyphic-like markings, sparking conspiracy theories from around the world ever since.
Mr Halt, 77, claimed the officers who first saw the lights and then a UFO "on the floor" could not account for a 40 minute period while searching in the woods when their communication systems went "off air".
Mr Halt, who was base deputy commander at the time, was not present during the first encounter, but was told next morning.
Jon Austin
Colonel Charles Halt (pictured) speculated about an alien abduction at Rendlesham.
He may have been abducted who knows... You know there is lost time, we know that.
Charles Halt
Former British police detective turned UFO investigator Gary Heseltine released the recording made by his wife as he toured the site with Mr Halt.
In the video, Mr Halt says: "He may have been abducted who knows... You know there is lost time, we know that.
"They were not on the radio ... You’ve got men out in the forest that you can’t …. unaccounted for hours."
Mr Heseltine, 57, of Scholes, West Yorkshire, said: “My wife Lynn took quite a few video clips as we walking around the forest.
"It was only recently while watching them again that I picked up on the admission by Halt that Penniston and Burroughs had been missing off air ‘for several hours’.
"I did some research and realised that this admission had never been made public by Halt and so for the benefit of taking the case forward I have decided to release the clip.
"As someone who is just trying to piece together the events in Rendlesham Forest, I think it is in the public interest that they have a right to know such information and hence why I have released the clip.”
Nick Pope, a former investigator of UFOs for the MoD, said: "This is a bombshell statement, coming from someone who was Deputy Base Commander of one of the most sensitive military bases in the NATO alliance, at the height of the Cold War.
Brenda Butler
A more recent "UFO sighting" at Rendlesham woods taken by a local researcher.
"It's one thing to see a UFO, as Halt and many of the men under his command did, but it's quite another to suggest one of your men might have been abducted by aliens.
"A few weeks ago it would have sounded crazy for a senior American military officer to believe such things, but following the revelations about the Pentagon's secret UFO project, maybe it's not so strange after all."
In December it emerged that the Pentagon ran a secret program looking at the threat of UFOs from 2007 to 2012, despite earlier claims it had no interest in the subject since the 1960s.
When approached by Sun Online about the video clip, Halt denied making the comments about abduction.
He said: "I never said anyone was abducted.
"Something happened to the first responders the first night (Dec 25/26) but what it was even they don't know. We do know there was unaccounted time."
To add to the mystery, Mr Halt said on the evening of December 27 1980 that officers had shouted: "It's back, the UFO's back."
He went to investigate with a team who found three 1.5inch "impact holes", damage to the canopies of trees and "higher radiation levels" in the "landing" area.
A plaster cast was later taken of one of the holes, but mysteriously disappeared from a box it was stored in.
He said soon after they saw a mysterious object in a field between the woods and a farmhouse with "a red light moving".
He said: "It came towards us into the forest, moving, bobbing up and down in the trees. It was oval, about 100 to 150 yards away, with a dark centre and red around it.”
He claimed there were "sparks" coming from it and after a minute it "exploded and disappeared".
They then spotted objects in the sky, 3,000 to 4,000ft up.
One was "elliptical”, but became a "full circle".
Rendlesham remains the UK's most baffling unsolved UFO case.
Alternative theories claim the lights came from either the Orfordness lighthouse, military tests, a helicopter carrying a dummy Apollo capsule, or was even a UFO prank by airmen that spiralled out of control.
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Does This Footage Show a 'UFO' in Mexico?
Does This Footage Show a 'UFO' in Mexico?
Several web sites ran with a "UFOlogist's" claim without adding any corroborating information.
CLAIM
Motorists in Mexicali, Mexico, shot footage capturing an extraterrestrial spacecraft.
RATING
UNPROVEN
ORIGIN
Footage allegedly shot in Mexico was promoted online in January 2018 as the first “proof” of extraterrestrial life to emerge during the near year. Pedro Ramírez, who calls himself a “UFOlogist,” posted the video on his Facebook page on 1 January 2018, declaring that it was filmed in Mexicali, the capital of the Mexican state of Baja California:
Ramírez does not claim to have shot the video, and the person(s) doing so can be heard off-camera describing an unidentified object overhead. One woman says, “It’s something made of metal, because the sun is illuminating it.”
In the post accompanying the video, Ramirez wrote:
As we know from the last two months of 2017, Ovni activity does not stop at the Mexican border, we know that Alien indigenous entities are worried because of the recent space launches which they are sure is sending war material into Earth’s orbit, drawn by these events, “They” are monitoring Earth activities in this part of the planet.
This year will be crucial for those of us who closely follow this phenomenon, NASA and the company SpaceX have scheduled different launches into space, some with “suspicious” motives.
Several web sites reprinted a translated version of Ramírez’s remarks, but many of them failed to link to the original post, creating the impression (intentionally or otherwise) that they had interviewed him.
No corroboration has been offered regarding the nature of this “Ovni,” the Spanish-language term for a UFO. At least one other UFO “hoax-buster” has questioned Ramírez’s assessment on Twitter, however, saying that “The video of so-called ‘vertical UFO’ or ‘humanoid-shaped object’ taken in #Mexico has gone viral. There’s a possible explanation like this ‘stormtrooper balloon.'”
It is not unusual for flying objects to be spotted in the skies of Baja California, which sits alongside the U.S. border. As far back as 2013 authorities in nearby Tijuana were planning to use unmanned drones for surveillance and public safety.
Tijuana also promoted itself as a drone “hub” alongside its neighbor city in California, San Diego. In April 2017, the then-Secretary of State for Baja California, Raúl Felipe Luévano Ruiz, called the idea of drones being used for surveillance “viable.”
In January 2018, lawmakers in the Mexican Senate began investigating a proposal that would make the use of drones for crimes or to invade someone’s privacy punishable by up to 12 years in prison.
US Air Force colonel says two airmen involved in British UFO case 'may have been abducted'
US Air Force colonel says two airmen involved in British UFO case 'may have been abducted'
Col. Charles Halt on the 1980 UFO case. Source: BBC - NZ Herald
A new "secret video" obtained by the Sun reveals the airmen involved in Britain's most infamous UFO case may have been abducted by aliens.
British Staff Sergeant Jim Penniston and Airman John Burroughs went to investigate lights in Rendlesham Forest, Suffolk.
When in the woods, they claimed they saw a triangular craft, which Penniston was able to get close enough to touch before it took off.
He claims the craft was "smooth to touch" and covered with strange symbols.
Now, in a "secret" video, retired US Air Force colonel, Charles Halt can be heard saying that Burroughs "may have been abducted" and that the men were "unaccounted for" for hours.
Dubbed the UK's Roswell incident, the encounter happened in December 1980, in the woods just outside the twin Nato air bases of RAF Woodbridge and RAF Bentwaters.
Two nights after Penniston and Burroghs found the UFO, it returned.
In a bid to "debunk" the claims, a team of military experts led by Halt went into the woods to investigate.
To their shock, a beam of light from the UFO hit the ground a few feet away from them.
Halt detailed the incident in an 18-minute audio recording and wrote a memo to the MOD, but defence chiefs said the it was of "no defence significance."
For years, it has been rumoured the pair, who were security policemen, may have been abducted as they were out of radio range for several hours with Central Security Control, but no one involved has ever publicly stated it.
The new footage
Former British police detective Gary Heseltine released the footage from 2010, made for a documentary, which was never published, with Halt and the forest.
During a break in filming, Heseltine's wife captured the two talking about the 1980 events.
Halt says in the video: "He [Burroughs] may have been abducted who knows ... You know there is LOST TIME, we know that? They were not on the radio ... You've got men out in the forest that you can't …. Unaccounted for hours."
, Charles Halt, can be heard stating that Burroughs "may have been abducted" and that the men were "unaccounted for" for hours. Photo / BBC
Heseltine, 57, of Scholes, West Yorkshire, told Sun Online: "My wife Lynn took quite a few video clips as we walking around the forest.
"It was only recently while watching them again that I picked up on the admission by Halt that Penniston and Burroughs had been missing off air 'for several hours'.
"I did some research and realised that this admission had never been made public by Halt and so for the benefit of taking the case forward I have decided to release the clip."
Heseltine, who edits the UFO Truth website, added: "As someone who is just trying to piece together the events in Rendlesham Forest, I think it is in the public interest that they have a right to know such information and hence I have released the clip."
James Penniston says he got so close he even managed to touch the craft, describing it as "smooth to the touch" and covered with strange symbols. Photo / YouTube
Former UFO investigator at the MoD Nick Pope said the revelation was "hugely significant".
"This is a bombshell statement, coming from someone who was deputy base commander of one of the most sensitive military bases in the Nato alliance, at the height of the Cold War.
"It's one thing to see a UFO, as Halt and many of the men under his command did, but it's quite another to suggest one of your men might have been abducted by aliens.
John Borroughs and his colleague Penniston were out of radio communication for several hours. Photo / YouTube
"A few weeks ago it would have sounded crazy for a senior American military officer to believe such things, but following the revelations about the Pentagon's secret UFO project, maybe it's not so strange after all.
"That said, it's not entirely clear to me whether Halt is being deadly serious, whether he's speculating, or if he's simply making a tongue-in-cheek comment."
There have been a flurry of media reports about the mystery object filmed above a road in the northern state of Baja California, with speculation it is "proof aliens are watching our planet".
It was filmed on a mobile phone by a woman who was driving through the Mexican state.
Pedro Ramirez, a local self-styled UFO expert, suggested the clip was proof aliens were monitoring recent rocket launches from Earth.
He said: “You can see that the tubular UFO is flying vertically over the city.
You can see that the tubular UFO is flying vertically over the city.
Pedro Ramirez
“Aliens are aware that we have made a number of space launches recently and have identified that we have been sending up ‘war material’
“This year will be very important for those of us who follow this phenomenon closely.
“Some of these space missions have ‘suspicious objectives’ that alien being are aware of.”
Commentator Andrew LaSane said on Outerplaces.com: "As with every UFO, some are calling the Baja California sighting a hoax, with others saying that it is a man with a jetpack.
"The figure does look like a flying person, but so far there is no alternate footage of the event to validate or disprove what the woman saw or what Martinez confirmed as an alien spacecraft."
However, one UFO expert claims he may have worked out what the link between the object and outer space really was.
Scott Brando, who runs debunking website Ufoofinterest.org, claims the footage shows a helium balloon in the shape of a Star Wars stormtrooper, a novelty gift that is widely available.
He found earlier footage of one floating off into the air, which had a remarkably similar shape once high enough up.
He tweeted: "The video of so-called 'vertical UFO' or 'humanoid-shaped object' taken in #Mexico has gone viral. There's a possible explanation like this 'stormtrooper balloon'."
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Aliens visited earth? You may not believe what you will see in this shocking video – Watch
Aliens visited earth? You may not believe what you will see in this shocking video – Watch
It is a long-debated topic, whether aliens exist. There have been many movies that are dedicated to the extra-terrestrial beings. Also, there have been instances when people from across the world have claimed to see UFO.
It is a long-debated topic, whether aliens exist. There have been many movies that are dedicated to the extra-terrestrial beings. Also, there have been instances when people from across the world have claimed to see UFO. In yet another instance, a strange humanoid-shaped UFO was filmed hovering in the sky alongside a busy road in Mexico. Baffled drivers were led wondering whether they captured evidence of aliens visiting Earth. The captured video and pictures were quickly picked up by conspiracy theorists, as per the Mirror report.
A UFO expert Pedro Ramirez said that a tubular UFO can be seen flying vertically over the city and described it as the first sighting of 2018. The sighting had taken place in the city of Mexicali in the state of Baja California, Mexico.
Meanwhile, there have been sightings in India too. Earlier, in 2015, a schoolboy claimed to have captured photographs of a UFO from his house rooftop in Shyam Nagar, a suburb of Kanpur, on 25 June. However, some people claimed that the photos were most likely created with a photo editing smartphone application.
WATCH
In the same year, in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, a local resident claimed to have taken a photo of a large UFO. However, experts say that a rash of similar photos from other parts of the world depicting the appearance of a UFO similar to the one in the movie Independence Day were most likely “created using digital editing software or even a mobile phone app, as some on the market allow UFOs to be blended into pictures.”
Moreover, the study of crashed UFOs and alien autopsies are part of one of the most popular conspiracy theories about the CIA but the spy agency kept a close watch on sightings of flying saucers over India and its neighbours.
A report from April 1968 – part of the 930,000 declassified documents posted online by the Central Intelligence Agency – details six sightings of unidentified flying objects over Ladakh, Sikkim (then a protectorate of India), Bhutan and Nepal in preceding months, as per the report by Hindustan Times.
12 years of UFO sightings in south London, north Kent and north Surrey
12 years of UFO sightings in south London, north Kent and north Surrey
A picture apparently showing a UFO sighting (PA)
For years, the Ministry of Defence recorded UFO sightings reported by members of the public.
We took a look across the areas all the areas covered by our titles in south London, north Kent and north Surrey and put together a list.
Some of them have more detail than others, but there are some brilliantly vague entries.
For example, "something interesting" was seen in Cobham on June 28, 2008. And on January 15, 2001, somebody in Southfields reported seeing a "very large white light, which turned the sky blue". Presumably they had seen the sunrise.
It is perhaps no surprise that the MoD closed its UFO desk in 2009, claiming there was "no defence benefit" in running the service.
An internal memo read: "The level of resources diverted to this task is increasing in response to a recent upsurge in reported sightings, diverting staff from more valuable defence-related activities."
The upsurge is evident in the list below, with a much larger number of recordings in the latest year.
Here they are, from 1997 to 2009.
2009
Jan 26 at 18:15 - Bromley: Three orange lights in horizontal line above the opposite side of the hill. Stopped car but saw only four lights, two separate at the top & two close together at the bottom. Top two rose and disappeared. Second two moved higher then also vanished.
Feb 8 at 21:00 - Sutton: Five UFOs. Bright round orange lights. Made no noise. Disappeared in direction on London.
Feb 22 - south east London: An object with a white and alternating red lights at an angle. Came from south east London towards Canary Wharf. It stopped in mid-air and an alternating sequence of red lights flashed at 180 degrees. Lights switched side instantly.
Feb 23 at 22:52 - south east London: It was the flashing of a huge object with one normal and two green lights. It was flying low. Only saw it for four seconds than it vanished from sight.
Mar 17 - Croydon: A bright orange light, the size of a helicopter. It looked like a flame or a flare but made no sound. It was moving very slowly.
Apr 25 at 10:15 - Croydon: A bright red light over the house.
Apr 30 at 20:30 - Sutton: A bright green light that whizzed about the sky for an hour. It was very fast and a few planes got in its way.
Jul 28 at 09:30 - Bromley: Saw an orange, yellow object in the sky, with the shape similar to a hot air balloon.
Aug 1 at 10:00 - Croydon: 60-70 lights, suddenly disappearing
Aug 5 - Mitcham: Saw four strange orange lights in the sky following each other. Lights then just disappeared. Lights then seen again moving across the night sky. Went inside and saw the same lights in a three prong triangle.
Aug 31 at 21:45 - Twickenham: Ball of fire in the sky.
Sep 9 at 20:30 - Epsom: Thirty orange globes, in four waves, travelling at a constant speed. May have been lanterns of some kind but they would have been 1-2 Metres in diameter.
Sep 9 at 21:20 - Tooting: Black sphere. Bobbing about half a mile away . Covered with a phosphorus chemical cloud. It goes light grey. Flash of lightening then re-appears. Some of the clouds light up. Various sightings 20:30 and 12:15.
Sep 19 at 19:40 - Bromley: A bright orange light moving across the sky no noise
Oct 17 at 22:45 - Orpington: Twenty-five lights red and orange with vapour trail, disappearing into blue green colours, spinning.
Oct 28 at 21:18 - Hampton Court: Bright orange glow arched over him appeared for 15 seconds then went upwards.
Nov 1 at 17:44 - Beckenham: Three orange objects, then four more joined them.
2008
Jun 7 at 23:00 - Croydon: A strange object was seen in the sky. It was around for several minutes, and then flew off.
Jun 28 Cobham: Something interesting.
Jul 29 at midnight - South Croydon: A UFO.
No Firm Date (message taken on June 30) - New Malden: A UFO, stationary up in the sky for the last few days.
No Firm Date (message taken on October 10) New Malden: Two strange objects in the sky. They were together and then they followed each other.
No Firm Date (message taken on December 15 at 21:00) Coulsdon: Two very strong, clear white lights.
2007
Apr 20 at21:30 - Bexley: There were over fifty lights floating in the sky. They were red/orange in colour
No Firm Date (message taken on May 30 at 22:43) - Clapham: A UFO was travelling from Clapham to Heathrow.
No Firm Date (message taken on September 10 at 20:00) - Epsom: There were about 25 large, extremely bright orange lights in the sky, with one bigger light behind the rest.
2006
Feb 15 at 20:40 - Mitcham: Two bright lights, which were then joined by a third bright light, which then flew alongside them.
Mar 3 - Streatham: Two objects were seen in the sky.
Dec 17 at 18:45 - Cobham: White object moving from North to South. Looked like the object was burning up. Trail behind it that lasted a few seconds.
2005
Feb 21 at 10:00 - Teddington: Something was seen in the sky.
2003
Feb 25 at 23:00 - Southfields: Object, not a plane, not on flight path and not a star.
Jun 21 at 16:43 - Richmond: A doughnut shaped object was spotted moving from left to right, side to side. One side was shiny and reflective, and the other black.
Jun 21 at 12:32 - Wimbledon: Just said something was seen for three seconds. (Didn't specify).
Nov 17 at 02:25 - Bromley: police officers/Police helicopter crew reported there were 20-30 red flashing lights in the sky accompanied by a whirring noise.
2002
Feb 16 at 22:50 - Walton-on-Thames: One oval disc seen, with green and red flashing lights.
Apr 7 at 21:30 - Walton-on-Thames: One round object with red and green flashing lights. Bobbing from side to side.
Apr 8 at 22:00 - Walton-on-Thames: One small disc shaped object with red and green flashing lights.
2001
Jan 15 at 18:00 - Southfields: Very large white light, which turned the sky blue.
Nov 5 at 18:30 - South Croydon: Three to four objects that were smaller than a large aircraft. Were triangular in shape, white and very bright.
2000
May 28 01:30 - Dartford: Six to seven, round, but flat objects. White and fairly bright - clearly visible. They made rapid, random movements.
Sep 24 00:02 - Twickenham: One, possibly two golden lights. Moving incredibly fast, then disappeared.
Oct 30 at 09:00 - Plumstead: Object - size of a small pea at arm’s length, round, illuminated from within, (a sort of glowing white). Looked three dimensionally solid.
Nov 1 at 09:31 - Dartford: One pinpoint of light, quite bright. Erratic movements, from side to side.
1999
Feb 9 at 20:06 - Wandsworth: One object that was hovering.
Apr 15 at 02:19 - Tooting: One circular object. White and bright
Oct 24 at 19:40 - Kingston: Green light was seen projecting from the cloud, followed by a pulsed wave of green light. Very bright. In a Southerly direction.
Nov 29 23:34 - Dartford: Small light, too far away to ascertain shape. Glittering red, green and white. Did not move.
1998
Mar 10 at 20:55 - Cheam: Very bright, pink light. Shot off at high speed.
Apr 28 23:40 - Twickenham: Single white light. It had a faint light behind it. It was moving slowly.
Jul 27 23:20 - Twickenham: One large, circular object, that had blue lights that were spinning.
Sep 5 at 16:30 - Esher: Several pairs of small, elliptical, silver objects descending from the sky.
Nov 4 at 04:00 - Morden: A ball of changing colour, with lots of different coloured lights around it. Made helicopter sounds. It stayed in place for about two hours.
1997
Feb 13 at 17:30 - Croydon: Two objects that had one blue and one orange light. They were very bright. They were stationary and then there was erratic movement.
Feb 14 at 07:45 - Streatham: One airship shaped object. It was black. It was drifting smoothly.
May 19 at 23:17 - Bromley: One round shaped object, double the size of a star. White (pale), but very bright. It was stationary for a while and then travelled straight and level.
May 31 - Wandsworth: One large, star like object. White in colour. Was moving slow from North to South.
Jul 26 at 01:00 - Croydon: One blue, white and grey object. Was a big swirl like a dust storm, then a circle within a circle, like a gas ring. The centre was transparent then changed into a straight line
Aug 2 at 22:18 - Twickenham: Two UFOs. Both were white and were very dim. They were moving West, and making erratic movements.
Aug 2 at midnight - Balham: A football shaped object. It had a very bright light. Left a trail behind it, as it skimmed across the sky. It then disappeared.
Aug 8 at 23:30 - Kingston: Two objects, both the size of a saloon car. Both were very bright. They were bouncing about all over the sky.
Aug 9 at 18:00 - Molesey: One object. Was angular. It was moving Eastwards and was rising in the sky.
Oct 13 at 18:50 - Walton-on-Thames: One star shaped object. White in colour. It moved from South West to North East.
Nov 22 at 05:00 - Beckenham: One, round shaped object. Had red, green and blue colours and was very bright. Was moving East.
Conspiracy theorists warn people after seeing vertical UFO lingering around Mexico (Video+)
Conspiracy theorists warn people after seeing vertical UFO lingering around Mexico (Video+)
Rumors of UFO sighting have been highly prevalent since ages with no solid proof of the presence of intelligent life visiting the perimeter of earthly realms. This is the very first video of UFO sighting after the arrival of this New Year.
The word “Alien” has been ever present in the human society for something that is beyond our understanding. Recently, this topic of extraterrestrial life sparked the interest of common man with the strange object that was spotted in the skies of Baja state located in Mexico. This mysterious object was captured via a cell phone that shows a vertical aligned UFO flying over a city located in this state.
The object in the video isn’t clear enough to prove the presence of an Unidentified Flying Object (UFO). However, one can derive from the video that there is a certain cylindrical object hovering over the city which is aligned in a vertical manner.
Rumors of UFO sighting have been highly prevalent since ages with no solid proof of the presence of intelligent life visiting the perimeter of earthly realms. This is the very first video of UFO sighting after the arrival of this New Year. The clip, shot in the Baja state of Mexico has already started trending on numerous social media platform with conspiracy theorists stating that aliens might be keeping an eye on our activities.
According to a conspiracy theorist, Pedro Ramirez, UFO sightings have increased in number in the recent months due to the fact that space agencies such as SpaceX and NASA have been busy launching space missions on a continuous basis. This continuous space exploration might have attracted the attention of intelligent life beyond our blue planet. You can easily see this tubular shaped UFO flying in a vertical manner over the city. If claims are to be believed, UFO sightings and other alien activities have increased over a few months and especially during the year 2017’s final two months.
Ramirez further added that aliens knew that we have been launching a number of space missions which might be perceived as “War Material” being sent up in the sky. The extraterrestrial beings might be concerned with our increased activities, thereby monitoring the planet to confirm the cause.
The video of this particular UFO sighting was captured by a woman who can be easily heard in the video exclaiming “What is this?” while she continued shooting the object with her phone’s camera. The video garnered around 50,000 shares by netizens all over the web which was a result of concern or indifference in observation.
When you explore the definition of a spaceship or UFO, this latest sighting has all the signs of an extra-terrestrial machine but defied the perception of our knowledge about UFOs. Normally we believe that UFOs are circular discs or saucer-like objects. This is the very first time a vertical one has been seen hovering in the sky.
NASA has always been keen on trying to explore the possibilities of alien life visiting Earth but when it comes to UFO sightings, the organization doesn’t seem as much interested. As per NASA astronomers, most of these sightings don’t even come under the explanation of UFO. For instance, in the year 1972 during the Apollo 16, three astronauts captured an object with a dome on top. Charles Duke, Thomas Mattingly, and John Young speculated this object to be a UFO. However, it turned out to be a spacewalk floodlight which is why most of the UFO sighting does not attract interest from NASA scientists.
As per the judgment over the Mexico sightings is concerned, it is still under consideration. The conspiracy theory behind such sightings might be true for some instances as space missions in the recent months have increased significantly which might be a red flag for the intelligent life living far away from us.
Speculation about extraterrestrials seems to be everywhere these days. [Recently] it was “Tabby’s Star” (more officially known as KIC 8462852), whose mysterious dimming and brightening, according to the latest analysis, is likely due to dust blocking different wavelengths of light rather than “alien megastructures.” Before that came reports of an interstellar asteroid—not a spacecraft—entering our solar system and a UFO monitoring program conducted by the Department of Defense.
The attention given to such stories has some scientists worried, especially as social media amplifies claims of alien contact over other, more prosaic explanations.
“Currently, most SETI-related news seems to be interfering with conventional scientific discoveries, stealing the limelight—without following basic rules of science,” wrote Dutch exoplanet researcher Ignas Snellen of Leiden Observatory, on a Facebook exoplanets discussion group for professional astronomers.
Although he has “great respect for SETI scientists,” Leiden wrote, “there is no place for alien civilizations in a scientific discussion on new astrophysical phenomena, in the same way as there is no place for divine intervention as a possible solution."µ
Visiting spaceship? Nope, just a SpaceX rocket launch over California.
(Elon Musk via Twitter)
...
SETI has a voluntary list of protocols to follow when something interesting is found. The first principle urges researchers to “verify that the most plausible explanation for the evidence is the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence, rather than some other natural phenomenon or anthropogenic phenomenon, before making any public announcement.”
Image was taken by NavCam 1 on September 22, 2017, as OSIRIS-REx completed an Earth gravity-assist maneuver—flying close enough to our planet to steal some momentum and speed up the craft on its way to Bennu. This is the view from 110,000 kilometers (69,000 miles) away.OSIRIS-REx - NavCam1
NASA researchers claim that extraterrestrial life will be entirely different from life on Earth. Scientists believe that extraterrestrial life could exist in forms entirely different from the common earthly model of carbon-based life.
Scientists believe that extraterrestrial life might have entirely different combinations of genetic materials and proteins which would make it hard to understand with our Earthly knowledge.
The earthly form of life has been formed by carbon molecules in two forms. DNA or RNA, the genetic materials which control the functions of cells and the proteins which cater mechanisms of living organisms.
All earthly organisms, excluding virus, are characterized by the presence of DNA made of 4 sugars, adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G) and thymine (T). The difference in length and compositions of double helix DNA in organisms is responsible for the difference between them. Viruses differ from other organisms as their T letter has been replaced by U in genomic sequence. Even though the virus has RNA as their genetic material, they are found to be inactive outside a host body.
Aaron Burton, a planetary scientist of NASA says that DNA is like a language. It has got an alphabet of four letters, A, G, C and T. All the life forms on Earth use the same alphabet from the tiniest microbe to humans like books in a library. Differences are created with the difference in arrangement of the letters. But the entire book would have the combination of same letters giving commonality among existing life.
Scientists have identified 20 amino acids to form proteins in all Earthly organisms. More than 80 amino acids had been discovered in meteors like Murchison meteorite. Researchers are yet to find the significance of these amino acids in forming alien life.
The basic rule of life on Earth has been characterized by Darwinian principles of evolution. According to the theory, living organisms change over time as a result of changes in heritable physical or behavioral traits.
Earthly life vs Alien life
A DNA double helix is seen in an undated artist's illustration released by the National Human Genome Research Institute to Reuters on May 15, 2012. A group of 25 scientists June 2, 2016, proposed an ambitious project to create a synthetic human genome, or genetic blueprint, in an endeavor that is bound to raise concerns over the extent to which human life can or should be engineered.Reuters
Researchers say that presence of inorganic amino acids or salts in meteorites cannot qualify it as a form of life. Carbon forms quadrilateral pyramid structure bonds with molecules to form the sugars and amino acids. This structure would be either left handed or right handed bonds.
Life on earth is characterised by DNA formed by right-handed (D) sugar bonds and amino acids or its constituent proteins formed by left-handed (L)bonds. Scientists believe that all other extraterrestrial lives are be formed by L genetic material bonds and right-handed proteins.
Organisms functioning with L amino acid bond cannot synthesize or utilize Right-handed amino acids. Similarly, R sugars also cannot recognize their left-handed counterparts.
Scientists say that laboratory made L sugars cannot be used by earthly organisms. However, researchers have also found that laboratory made left-handed sugar could function along with right-handed proteins.
Scientists believe that meteorites with 50/50 right handed and left handed sugars are positive signs for extraterrestrial life. It was found that at least one meteorite would fall to Earth every day. These meteorites get contaminated by microorganisms living in the atmosphere.
The earthly microorganisms attached to the meteorite decays any organic or inorganic alien carbon compounds in them. Most part of the meteors burns in the atmosphere, vaporizing any organic compounds in its surface. They may form plasma layers in the upper earth atmosphere or may form anywhere on Earth. Recovery of these foreign objects is difficult as it might have fallen to oceans or any remote locations on Earth.
It was found that meteorite materials are enriched in carbon-13 isotopes while Earthly objects are mainly built of carbon 12 isotopes. Presence of carbon-13 in a polished looking stone is generally considered as a positive sign for it's out of planet origin. All earthly objects would also be contaminated by microorganisms and biological signs of the planet.
OSIRIS-REx
This artist's concept shows the Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security - Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft contacting the asteroid Bennu with the Touch-And-Go Sample Arm Mechanism or TAGSAM. The mission aims to return a sample of Bennu's surface coating to Earth for study as well as return detailed information about the asteroid and it's trajectory.NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission to asteroid Bennu would collect samples from the unadulterated carbonaceous surface of the distant solar object in Kuiper belt. OSIRIS-REx would collect rock samples and soil from the half kilometer wide Asteroid Bennu.
The mission launched in September 2016 will reach its destination in January 2019. The probe will orbit the asteroid for a span of one and half years to map the structures in it, before landing in a significant location to study the region and to collect samples from it.
Astronomers believe that the mission could help in the study of alien life and in finding mysteries behind objects which form the solar system.
Absence of life on Mars, Moon
The planet Mars is shown May 12, 2016 in this NASA Hubble Space Telescope view taken May 12, 2016 when it was 50 million miles from Earth. Earth's neighbor planet makes its closest approach in a decade this month, providing sky-watchers with a celestial show from dusk todawn.Reuters
NASA researchers, however, believe that life was never present on Mars or Moon. Research missions have collected rock samples from these neighbors to our planet and these are sometimes shell rock particles to its surroundings which might sometimes fall on the Earth's surface. But none of the samples have ever shown proof of life on these worlds even though traces of water and other minerals were observed.
Meanwhile, researchers also believe that microscopic life might be present in regions of planets which undergo sedimentation and tectonic activities.
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Alien abduction or KGB? The baffling case of the miner whose body was found on a pile of coal
Alien abduction or KGB? The baffling case of the miner whose body was found on a pile of coal
'Ziggy' Adamski disappeared from his home and his body was found 20 miles away on a coal pile
ByAndrew Robinson
The disappearance of a Yorkshire miner in 1980 left police baffled and prompted ‘alien abduction’ conspiracy theories.
Zigmund Adamski went missing in mysterious circumstances from his home in Thornfield Crescent at Tingley, near Wakefield, in June 1980
The 56-year-old miner at Lofthouse Colliery – who was known to many as ‘Ziggy’ – had set off on June 6 on a walk to the local shops to buy groceries.
It was the last time that Polish-born Mr Adamski was seen alive. His wife Lottie’s initial suspicion was that he had been kidnapped.
Five days after he disappeared, coal yard worker Trevor Parker found his body on top of a 10ft high pile of coal at his father’s coal yard in Todmorden, around 20 miles from Tingley.
Zigmund Adamski who was found dead in Todmorden in 1980.
He was wearing a suit but his shirt was missing, as were his watch and wallet. His clothes were said to be ‘improperly’ fastened and he had only one day of beard growth.
Mr Adamski’s hair had also been cropped short in a ‘roughly cut’ manner.
His body was also covered in burn marks, on his head, neck and shoulders. His face, it was reported, showed ‘absolute terror’ but there were no injuries to explain the cause of death.
The burns were said to be covered in a strange ointment which could not be identified by scientists.
What had happened to him and how did he end up in Todmorden?
Those questions haven’t been answered but this hasn’t stopped speculation and the development of some quite outlandish theories.
At the time, a famous UFO expert, a Polish-American citizen also called Adamski (George) offered up his own theory on what happened to his namesake.
George Adamski, who had previously claimed to have met with friendly aliens, said he believed that Zigmund had been abducted by aliens by mistake.
One tabloid newspaper suggested that Zigmund had been abducted and killed by aliens and his body dumped on top of the coal pile.
Others put forward theories that he had been killed by KGB forces or had been left dazed and confused after being struck by ‘ball lightning’ or some other unidentified phenomenon.
Trevor Parker, man who found the body of Zigmund Adamski under mysterious circumstances in June 1980, pictured September 1981.
The ‘alien abduction’ theories were given a further boost by Alan Godfrey, the policeman who had been called to the Todmorden coal yard when Mr Adamski’s body had been found.
In November 1980, five months after Mr Adamski’s body was found, Constable Godfrey had his own encounter with a UFO less than a mile away from the coal yard.
The respected policeman made a sketch of the UFO and later, under hypnosis, told a story about being taken aboard the UFO and given a physical examination by two non-human entities. The policeman’s UFO story made headlines around the world.
Mr Godfrey, now 70, told the Examiner that the story he told under hypnosis was probably merely a dream, adding: “I never said I was abducted by aliens.”
However, he believes it’s possible that Adamski WAS taken by aliens.
“I am open minded. I can’t rule it out.”
Mr Godfrey doesn’t believe Mr Adamski was murdered, although he said a more senior police colleague in 1980 believed he had been killed.
He thinks that Mr Adamski didn’t die where he was found but had been placed there “by someone or something.”
He added: “He was on top of the coal pile on his back with not a bit of coal on him. His eyes were wide open and he had burn marks. Why would he climb up a stack of coal?”
Although the coroner recorded an open verdict, ruling that Mr Adamski had died of a heart attack, Mr Godfrey says there are unanswered questions.
“There was some ointment on the back of his neck. Samples were sent to a Home Office laboratory which couldn’t identify it.”
Former policeman Alan Godfrey with his book, Who or What Were They?, which includes chapters on the Zigmund Adamski case and his UFO sighting which both happened in 1980
Mr Godfrey said he would never forget the look on Mr Adamski’s face.
“Those eyes were staring up at me. I was looking down on him from a foot away. Those eyes sent a shudder down my spine. They were wide open. He had a look of someone who had seen something or someone that had scared him to death.”
He added: “Something or someone put him on top of that pile of coal. And something scared him to death.”
Later, Mr Godfrey spoke to the pathologist who carried out the post mortem on Mr Adamski’s body.
“He said it was a classic case of someone who had been scared to death.”
The former policeman has no idea how the body ended up on the coal pile.
“How he got there I don’t know. I think something put him there.”
Mr Godfrey, who recently self-published a book which includes details of the Adamski case, said it had similarities with the alleged alien abduction of American logger Travis Walton in Arizona in 1975.
“He (Travis Walton) went missing for five days and he turned up alive. There are similarities.”
Almost 40 years on the case continues to fascinate investigators and those interested in unexplained deaths.
In Tingley local people still talk about the case.
Neil Beecham, who in 1980 was a reporter on the Morley Observer, said: “Mr Adamski’s mysterious disappearance 37 years ago has always troubled me and is a topic of conversation for the tight-knit community of Tingley, even to this day.”
Some commentators have suggested that Mr Adamski may have been abducted – but not by extra-terrestrials.
Ten years ago, two British UFO investigators looked again at the case. According to reports, they discovered that at the time he disappeared Mr Adamski was in the midst of a feud with a family member who was having marital problems and had moved in with the Adamski couple.
The investigators believed that Mr Adamski’s disappearance may have been an abduction linked to the feud.
Mr Godfrey has no information on this angle but said: “We had no reason to suspect any members of the family.”
Les Hewitt, in an article for Historic Mysteries, says the family members believed Mr Adamski had been abducted and held in a barn before having a heart attack.
He concludes: “The bizarre facts of this case – clothes that were improperly fastened, the body dumped atop a coal heap without noticeable disturbance, burns that were reported to be only two days old with an unidentified gel substance, only one day of beard growth, and another strange encounter with a UFO by the police investigator – lead us to imagine all kinds of possible outcomes.”
A writer for website The Iron Skeptic concluded that aliens played no part in Mr Adamski’s death.
“This case is just another example of a story that sounds good at first, but that dissolves under direct scrutiny. As are so many stories of space alien abduction.”
James Turnbull, Coroner who investigated the death of Zigmund Adamski who died under mysterious circumstances in June 1980, pictured West Yorkshire, September 1981.
James Turnbull, the coroner who dealt with Mr Adamski’s death, told the BBC in 2003 that it was the biggest mystery of his career - but he wasn’t convinced by any of the theories relating to paranormal activity.
He said: “The question of where he was before he died and what led to his death just could not be answered.”
The questions are unlikely to ever be answered.
A spokesman for West Yorkshire Police said this week: “The Adamski case is not part of any current investigation by the Protective Services (Crime) department.”
* Alan Godfrey’s book, Who or What Were They? is available through eBay.
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Het is zover: machines kunnen nu officieel beter begrijpend lezen dan mensen (en wat dat betekent) - HLN.be
Het is zover: machines kunnen nu officieel beter begrijpend lezen dan mensen (en wat dat betekent) - HLN.be
Thinkstock
IHLNArtificial Intelligence-programma’s van Alibaba en Microsoft hebben mensen verslagen bij een test begrijpend lezen. Het is de eerste keer ooit dat een machine beter presteert dan een mens op zo’n test.
De test werd gecreëerd door experts van Artificial Intelligence (AI) aan de Amerikaanse Stanford University om de leesmogelijkheden van AI-software te meten. Het wordt gezien als ’s werelds beste in zijn soort. Ook bekende namen als Google, Facebook, IBM, Tencent en Samsung hebben intussen hun AI-modellen bij het Stanford-project ingediend.
De software van de Chinese online retailer Alibaba was vorige week donderdag de eerste die erin slaagde de mens te kloppen op de test. Het werd een nipte overwinning: Artificial Intelligence: 82.44 punten, mens: 82.304 punten. Een dag later slaagde ook de software van Microsoft erin te winnen, met een score van 82.65. In beide gevallen waren de machines beter in het beantwoorden van vragen over moeilijke net ‘gelezen’ teksten. Pranav Rajpurkar, één van de onderzoekers aan Stanford University die de leestest mee ontworpen heeft, spreekt trots van “een grote start van 2018”.
“Een ware eer”, noemt Luo Si, hoofdwetenschapper van natuurlijke taalverwerking van de AI-onderzoeksgroep van Alibaba het. Bij ‘Natural language processing’ (NLP) imiteren machines het menselijke bevattingsvermogen van woorden en zinnen. Deze keer gingen de machines dus ‘erop en erover’.
Jobs
Si erkent in één adem dat de mijlpaal hoogstwaarschijnlijk betekent dat verschillende mensen in de toekomst hun job zullen verliezen aan een machine. De leestechnologie kan immers gradueel toegepast worden op talrijke applicaties zoals klantenservices, tutorials, online antwoorden op medische vragen van patiënten, … “Daardoor daalt de nood aan menselijke input daar op een ongeëvenaarde manier”, aldus Si. Alibaba zette de technologie overigens al eens aan het werk op ‘Singles Day’, ’s werelds grootste shoppingfeest. De technologie werd gebruikt om vragen van klanten te beantwoorden, met succes.
“Deze tests zijn handige maatstaven om te zien hoe ver we staan op het AI-pad”, stelt Andrew Pickup van Microsoft. “Hoewel AI pas echt een voordeel heeft als het in harmonie met de mens wordt gebruikt”, voegt hij toe. Maar Artificial Intelligence verstoort intussen al wel danig het ‘gewone’ leven van de mens: in verschillende sectoren en processen werden mensen al vervangen door robots, auto’s worden zelfrijdend, … De Russische president Vladimir Poetin voorspelde in september dat wie de leider in AI wordt, ook de heerser van de wereld wordt.
WETENSCHAP & PLANEETHet begon in 1545, toen enkele Azteken hoge koorts kregen. Ze klaagden over hoofdpijn en begonnen uit hun neus, ogen en mond te bloeden. De dood volgend binnen drie of vier dagen. De gruwelijke epidemie verspreidde zich razendsnel en vijf jaar later stond het dodental al op 15 miljoen, naar schatting 80 procent van de totale bevolking. Wat het precies was dat de ondergang van de Mexicaanse beschaving veroorzaakte, bleef eeuwenlang in raadselen gehuld. Maar nu beweren wetenschappers dat ze het wellicht toch hebben achterhaald.
‘Cocoliztli’ noemde de lokale bevolking de plaag die hen had getroffen. In het Nahuatl – een taal die de Azteken gebruikten – betekent dat ‘de pest’. Het was een van de dodelijkste epidemieën die de mensheid ooit trof en kwam in de buurt van de Zwarte Dood, de builenpest die in de 14de eeuw naar schatting 25 miljoen mensen het leven kostte in West-Europa, zo wat de helft van de bevolking.
In de daaropvolgende eeuwen werd gezocht naar wat die pest precies was en dat leidde tot hypothesen als waren het de pokken, de mazelen, de bof of de griep. Maar nergens werd hard bewijs gevonden om dat te staven. Wetenschappers kwamen gisteren met een nieuwe these, nadat ze DNA-materiaal geanalyseerd hadden op tanden van enkele van de slachtoffers van wie het lichaam was bewaard. Ze schreven over hun ontdekking in het wetenschappelijke tijdschrift Nature Ecology and Evolution. (lees hieronder verder)
RV Onderzoekster Ashild Vagene aan het werk in het lab.
“De plaag was een van de vele epidemieën die Mexico overspoelden na de aankomst van de Europeanen op het Amerikaanse continent”, aldus coauteur Ashild Vagene van de universiteit van Tübingen in Duitsland. De kolonisten brachten bacteriën mee die de lokale bevolking niet kende en waartegen ze ook geen resistentie hadden. “Het was de tweede van drie epidemieën die een hoge dodentol eisten. Twee decennia eerder hadden de pokken al eens tussen de 5 en 8 miljoen doden gemaakt en een tweede uitbraak van ‘cocoliztli’ roeide tussen 1576 en 1578 nog eens de helft van de resterende bevolking uit.”
Greppels
Fransiscaans historicus Fray Juan de Torquemada maakte een verslag van de periode en omschreef het zo: “In de steden en grotere dorpen werden diepe greppels gegraven. Priesters deden van ’s morgens tot ’s avonds niets anders dan daar lijken naartoe brengen en ingooien.” (lees hieronder verder)
RV
De wetenschappers van de universiteit van Tübingen onderzochten het DNA van 29 van zulke skeletten en ontdekten er sporen in van de salmonella enterica-bacterie, paratyphi C. Die kan een darminfectie veroorzaken, zoals buiktyfus. “Het is de eerste keer dat er direct bewijs wordt gevonden die naar de oorzaak van de ondergang van de beschaving kan wijzen”, aldus Vagene.
Van salmonella enterica is bekend dat het in de middeleeuwen voorkwam in Europa. Heel wat van de salmonellastammen verspreidden zich via geïnfecteerd voedsel of water en kunnen meegekomen zijn naar Mexico met de dieren die de Spanjaarden bij zich hadden, volgens het researchteam. “We hebben alle bacteriële ziekteverwekkers en DNA-virussen getest waarvan we genetische data hebben en vonden alleen salmonella enterica”, aldus coauteur Alexander Herbig.
Kanttekening
Ze maken zelf echter ook een kanttekening. Het is immers mogelijk dat er ziekteverwekkers zijn die niet meer te detecteren waren of die we gewoonweg niet kennen. “We kunnen niet met 100 procent zekerheid zeggen dat salmonella enterica de oorzaak was van de ‘cocoliztli’-epidemie”, aldus onderzoekster Kirsten Bos. “Maar we denken wel dat het een hele sterke kanshebber is.”
ANPMet een geavanceerde 3D-printer, speciaal ontworpen om te werken met levende cellen en biomaterialen, print een medewerker van het Amsterdamse VUmc een oor. De implantaten gemaakt met deze printer zijn speciaal op maat gemaakt voor patiënten die door bijvoorbeeld brandwonden een neus of oor zijn kwijtgeraakt.
MEDISCHEr is geen overtuigend bewijs dat 3D-geprinte implantaten minstens even veilig en doeltreffend zijn als de ‘klassieke’ producten. Dat concluderen onderzoekers van het Federaal Kenniscentrum voor de Gezondheidszorg (KCE) stelden vast dat de bewezen voordelen voor de patiënt (minder risico op complicaties, beter resultaat na chirurgie, enz...) momenteel nog zeer beperkt zijn.
Op dit moment is er evenmin bewijs dat 3D-printen besparingen zouden opleveren voor de gezondheidszorgverzekering, aldus het KCE in een dinsdag verschenen studie.
In de medische sector kent 3D-printen de laatste jaren een toenemende belangstelling en groei. Bij die techniek wordt een product in laagjes door een printer opgebouwd, op basis van een computerbestand. 3D-printen wordt vooral in de orthopedie en de tandheelkunde steeds meer gebruikt.
Volgens de voorstanders zou het gebruik van 3D-implantaten de duur van de operatie inkorten, met een minder vermoeid chirurgisch team dat minder fouten maakt. Daarnaast zouden de ziekenhuizen kosten besparen omdat de operatiezalen minder lang worden ingenomen. De KCE-onderzoekers vonden hiervan echter geen unanieme bevestiging. Het is niet aangetoond dat ze beter, veiliger of meer kosteneffectief zijn dan de ‘klassieke’ implantaten. Er is meer evidentie nodig, aldus het KCE in een persbericht.
Hogere prijs
Het KCE beveelt aan om het gebruik van deze nieuwe hoogrisico-3D-implantaten eerst te beperken tot gespecialiseerde centra en daarbij wetenschappelijke data te verzamelen. “De terugbetaling van een 3D-implantaat aan een hogere prijs dan het bestaande alternatief is in principe enkel mogelijk als de fabrikant kan aantonen dat zijn 3D-hulpmiddel beter is dan dit alternatief. Indien de fabrikant de werkzaamheid nog niet kon aantonen of indien de gevraagde prijs te hoog is, kan het RIZIV de terugbetaling weigeren.
In dat geval kan de kost van het implantaat aan de patiënt worden aangerekend of is het mogelijk dat het ziekenhuis deze draagt. Dit is ook het geval indien de fabrikant ervoor kiest om (nog) geen terugbetalingsdossier bij de ziekteverzekering (RIZIV) in te dienen.”
Het RIZIV zou de veilige 3D-hulpmiddelen waarvoor de toegevoegde waarde (nog) niet is aangetoond, toch kunnen terugbetalen, maar aan hetzelfde bedrag als dat van het reeds bestaande ‘klassieke’ alternatief.
Back in 2012, David Weatherly’s then-much-awaited book, Black Eyed Children was published. So, you may well ask, why am I mentioning this now, six years later? The answer is simple: Just recently, David decided to put out a new version of the book, a revised 2nd edition, and which has a cool cover courtesy of Sam Shearon. If you aren’t fully conversant with the BEC phenomenon, the sub-title to the new edition will give you a good idea of what you can expect in its 240 pages: “The B.E.K.s – They Reside On The Fringes Of The Paranormal. Are They A Diabolical Threat, Or The stuff Of Urban Legend?”
As I have noted in several of my books and articles over the years, the Black Eyed Children are, in many ways, similar to the Men in Black (no, not the Will Smith-Tommy Lee Jones type. The very weird, pale, cadaverous and creepy types are the ones I mean). The BEC so often turn up at night, knock on peoples’ doors and do their absolute utmost to try and get an invite inside. Fortunately, most people get a distinctly weird and creepy vibe from the BEC, something which generally ensures the “kids” don’t manage to get into the home of the targeted person. On occasion, however, some unfortunate souls have seen exactly what the BEC are capable of when they succeed in getting inside.
In his book, David not only provides us with numerous eyewitness-reports of encounters with the BEC, but also theories for what they might be. Those theories that David takes a look at include Changelings, Hungry Ghosts, the Djinn, Alien-Human Hybrids, Tricksters and more. But, there is one particular section of the revised Black Eyed Children that I want to draw your attention to. It’s a brand new section that deals with a man named Brian Bethel.
If you don’t know who Brian Bethel is, I’ll tell you. He’s the guy who really got the BEC ball rolling, after a creepy encounter with a pair of Black Eyed Children in the late 1990s. The location being Abilene, Texas. In the years since Bethel’s story surfaced, numerous others have come forward talking about their own encounters with the Black Eyed Children and that predated Bethel’s experience. But, it was definitely his report that got the wheels turning, so to speak. In that sense, Bethel’s is a very important case. As for what Bethel has to say now, more than twenty years later, let’s take a look.
There is no doubt in my mind that Bethel’s words – revealed at length in the book – are gripping and thought-provoking. And he shares the details of some chilling and sinister things that happened to him in the wake of the 1997 encounter. Bethel tells us how, in the immediate aftermath of the late-night incident, he “felt unsafe” going to sleep. Insomnia gripped him. He experienced what I have termed here at MU in earlier articles as a form of “psychic backlash.” And the list of supernatural negativity and menace goes on and on.
In terms of what Bethel thinks the Black Eyed Children are, he doesn’t waste any time in getting to the point. Indeed, he refers to them as “a predator species” and suggests that “we are the food.” Bethel adds that he believes the BEC are “dangerous entities.” He also concludes that “we have something they don’t, something they desperately want.” That something, Bethel suggests, is the human soul. He also suggests they can be beaten at their own game, particularly as a result of their “strange sets of rules,” such as not being able to get into a home or a vehicle unless specifically invited to do so.
If you are interested in the BEC phenomenon, then I would urge you to get a copy of the revised edition of David Weatherly’sBlack Eyed Children, and particularly so because of the revealing interview with Brian Bethel.
Is there a prize for being designated as the world’s newest (or biggest or fastest-growing) UFO hotspot? Even if there isn’t, the fine folks of Basingstoke, England, may want to put their name in the running. A recent video showing five lights moving in a line is the latest in a string of UFO reports in that southeast England town since 2008, as well as others in the 1980s and 70s. What’s up, Basingstoke?
The latest sighting comes from MUFON and was reported by Express.co.uk, which also noted some of the previous sightings in Basingstoke. Along with the video (seen here), the unnamed witness submitted a report (portions here – misspellings in original)
“i have ruled out them being any kind of servilian craft as these would have had some sort of flashing light on them and with it being dark and foggy we would have seen this. it couldnt have been search lights shinning up from the ground as we could clearly see the lights surface area getting wider as it shon down meaning the light source was in the sky … the sighting lasted around 30mins and managed to take around 4mins of video”
Fortunately, the good people of Basingstoke keep their cellphones locked and loaded. In April 2016, uploaded this video of four red blinking lights he saw near the Basingstoke train station. Chinese lanterns?
They always get the blame from someone
It looks like one common thread in these Basingstoke sightings is the lights. Another witness took this video of a dozen orange lights overhead on a night in June 2008 between 10.40pm and 11.10pm
That time of the night may be a common theme as well. There were reportedly numerous sightings on night in May 2012 at around 10:30 pm. That incident elicited a government response that hints at what at least some of these sightings might be. The RAF Odiham helicopter base is nearby in Hampshire and had choppers in the sky that night, although no one admit responsibility.
Not all of the Basingstoke sightings were lights. A famous photograph (seen here) taken of a sighting in June 2013 of two discs was examined by former Ministry of Defence UFO expert Nick Pope, who said:
“It’s one of the best UFO photos I’ve seen for a while. The shape and colour seems to rule out things like aircraft lights or Chinese lanterns.”
The news report said this was the second sighting in Basingstoke in 2013, following another in February.
Going back to August, 12 1983, a 77-year-old man was fishing on the Basingstoke Canal when he claimed a disc-shaped UFO landed near him and two English-speaking humanoids took him on the ship, examined him and let him go back to fishing because he was “too old.”
Take a young one … like Justin Bieber.
Other than the RAF helicopter base, there doesn’t seem to be anything in Basingstoke that would cause so many UFO sightings. Sure, it has artifacts dating back to the Paleolithic era, but so do many other English towns. There’s no nuclear plant or precious metal mines nearby – it sits on a mound of chalk and clay. It’s the birthplace of Jane Austen. Are aliens fans of her novels?
Whatever the cause, Basingstoke residents are wise to keep their cellphones charged and ready, and always tell humanoids doing probes that you’re older than you look.
Gigantische voorraden water overal op Mars gevonden. Wat betekent dit?
Gigantische voorraden water overal op Mars gevonden. Wat betekent dit?
Wetenschappers hebben op acht plekken op Mars ijs gevonden dat zich dicht bij het oppervlak bevindt. De ontdekte ijslagen bevinden zich soms maar één meter onder de grond.
“Het was verrassend om op deze plekken ijs te zien aan het oppervlak,” zei hoofdonderzoeker Colin Dundas van de Amerikaanse geologische dienst USGS. “Normaal gesproken is het bedekt met een laag stof of regoliet.”
De onderzoekers hebben gebruikgemaakt van beelden van de Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, die al sinds 2006 rond de planeet draait.
Veel meer
Uit de onderzoeksresultaten blijkt dat er veel meer ijs is op Mars dan in eerste instantie werd aangenomen.
De ijslagen zouden puur genoeg zijn om makkelijk in water te kunnen omzetten. Ze bevinden zich echter ver van de evenaar van de rode planeet.
Ook rond de evenaar is ijs gevonden, maar daar bevindt het water zich dieper in de bodem, aldus de onderzoekers.
Kolonie
Al lange tijd wordt gedacht dat op Mars waterijs in de grond zit. In 2002 stuitte NASA’s Odyssey op sporen van ijs en in 2008 haalde NASA’s Phoenix waterijs uit de grond op zijn landingsplek.
Het ijs kan in de toekomst in theorie dienen als watervoorraad voor een menselijke kolonie.
The following image has been captured by a photographer from Cornwall Ontario, Canada and shows a remarkable unidentified flying object that passes the moon. An object that looks like a black knight craft.
The photographer says that he has never witnessed anything like this and wonders whether it could be military, dimensional, other-worldly…
He states: I was out shooting images with my kids on the side of my house, just randomly shooting the moon and clouds. I captured images using a Canon SX60HS which has zoom capabilities allowing you to zoom in on the moons craters.
I did not notice the object while shooting, in this particular moment I was using 3 shot burst and just trying to get the circumference of the moon.
It was only when I was going thru the images when I noticed an object in view of the moon. The object seems to resemble a hat shape, likely metallic, and what I would call a disc with an elevated dome of sorts. It does not look to have many attachments at all.
I was immediately shocked by what I had captured; however, with my kids there I asked them "what do you think this is?" They all respectively said they thought it was a "UFO" or "Spacecraft".
Unfortunately, this was a still image, However, there was no object in the two subsequent images, meaning it was either faster than the shutter speed on 3 burst, or it was there and gone, disappearance.
I was utterly afraid to report this object, photographed in 2015, because I did not want to be subject to ridicule, but some friends and family, who have all encouraged me to report the sighting and get my story out there. Mufon case 89578.
They are all mysterious, for one thing — eye-catchingly weird, yet still just hazy outlines that let the imagination run wild. All have recently generated headlines as possible signs of life and intelligence beyond Earth, of some mind-bogglingly advanced alien culture revealing its existence at last to our relatively primitive and planetbound civilization. Yet their most salient shared trait so far is the certainty they provoke in most scientists, who insist these developments represent nothing so sensational. Ask a savvy astronomer or physicist about any of these oddities, and they will tell you, as they have time and time before: It’s not aliens. In fact, it’s never aliens.
Far from being close-minded killjoys, most scientists in the “never aliens” camp desperately want to be convinced otherwise. Their default skeptical stance is a prophylactic against the wiles of wishful thinking, a dare to true believers to provide extraordinary evidence in support of extraordinary claims. What is really extraordinary, the skeptics say, is not so much the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligence but rather the notion that its existence nearby or visitation of Earth could be something easily unnoticed or overlooked. If aliens are out there — or even right here—in abundance, particularly ones wildly advanced beyond our state, why would incontrovertible proof of that reality be so annoyingly elusive?
To put it more succinctly, as the nuclear physicist Enrico Fermi did more than a half century ago, “Where are they?” Given a 10-billion-year-old galaxy filled with stars and planets, and an Earth less than half that age, Fermi guessed we are unlikely to be the first technological culture on the galactic stage. If just one spacefaring civilization predated our own in the Milky Way, he calculated, even moving at a very languorous pace it should have had more than enough time to visit, explore and colonize every planetary system in the galaxy.
Ever since, practitioners of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) have been brainstorming about why we do not encounter glaringly obvious signposts of an interstellar diaspora: Maybe there are nigh-universal bottlenecks in the odds for the emergence of life, intelligence or high technology, and we are indeed alone. Maybe we are not alone at all, but interstellar travel is so hard that everyone just stays home. Maybe we are being quarantined, and UFOs are dronelike documentarians recording an intergalactic Planet Earth miniseries. Maybe our galaxy is bursting at the seams with alien civilizations, and we simply have not looked hard enough—presuming we are capable of properly looking at all. Even the know-it-alls in the “never aliens” crowd would concede the diversity of possible answers to Fermi’s question says more about our ignorance than our knowledge.
One of Fermi’s SETI-pioneering peers, the physicist Freeman Dyson, once summarized the situation thus: “Our imaginings about the ways that aliens might make themselves detectable are always like stories of black cats in a dark room. If there are any real aliens, they are likely to behave in ways that we never imagined.” Even so, he added, “the failure of one guess does not mean that we should stop looking”—particularly because whatever may keep our skies alien-free would likely keep the rest of the universe free of star-trekking humans as well. Contemplating Fermi’s question is a way of exploring pathways to our possible futures. Finding aliens—or coming up empty in our searches—has profound implications for our own ultimate cosmic fate.
That is something to keep in mind while considering the latest near-hits (or near-misses), detailed below, in the ongoing search for cosmic company.
Dust busts "alien megastructures"
Discovered in archival data from NASA’s Kepler space telescope in 2015 by the Louisiana State University astronomer Tabetha Boyajian, the extreme episodic dimming of “Tabby’s Star,” or “Boyajian’s Star,” inspired speculations it was being engulfed by starlight-absorbing “alien megastructures” (think: a solar power plant the size of a solar system). Those speculations helped Boyajian and colleagues launch a successful Kickstarter project that raised funding for further scrutiny of the star, an effort that jumped into overdrive in May 2017, when the star began another dimming episode. But instead of revealing aliens, those observations—and others from telescopes around the world—found the culprit is probably clouds of submicron-scale dust around the star.
“If these dips were caused by solid, opaque objects, you’d expect them to block light equally at all colors. But we saw that the dips were deeper in blue [light] than they were in the red, which indicates that something more transparent, like dust, is crossing in front of the star,” Boyajian says. “How do we know it’s not solar panels absorbing blue light more efficiently than red light? Well, we don’t, but we do know dust is all over the universe in many different places, and what we now see is what we’d generally expect from dust.” The result mirrors that of another team led by the University of Arizona astronomer Huan Meng, which also flagged dust as the likely cause of the star’s odd behavior in October 2017.
Even so, Jason Wright, an astronomer at The Pennsylvania State University who collaborates with Boyajian on studies of the star, cautions that much more work is needed as dust is not the only remaining explanation. Other possibilities—such as intrinsic fluctuations in the star’s luminosity or even a black hole with a cold and dusty debris disk drifting across our interstellar line of sight—could also still fit the data. In theory, Wright says, even the “aliens” hypothesis is still on the table—although only if their megastructures are improbably adept at mimicking “boring old dust.”
“You don’t want to immediately cry ‘aliens’ like a boy crying wolf every time you see something and don’t understand it,” Wright says. “But with Tabby’s Star that’s not what has happened—she and her team have spent years trying to solve what is a legitimate astrophysical mystery.” The upside of all the public attention, Wright says, is that it has lured many astronomers to work on Tabby’s Star “precisely because all the ‘aliens’ talk annoyed them, and they wanted to find a natural explanation.”
Eavesdropping on 'Oumuamua
Astronomers spotted the sizeable object now called ‘Oumuamua (Hawaiian for “first messenger”) streaking by Earth last October. They determined by its speed and trajectory it had dive-bombed past our sun from the depths of interstellar space, perhaps after cruising through the void for billions of years. Theorists had long predicted icy comets cast away from other stars would someday be detected passing through our solar system, yet ‘Oumuamua did not act like a comet at all—despite passing blisteringly close to the sun, it never sprouted a cometlike tail of evaporating ice. It did not look like a comet either, appearing under telescopic scrutiny to be shaped like a half-kilometer-long needle—a form unknown among natural solar system objects but often favored by starships in science fiction. Perhaps, some SETI enthusiasts thought, ‘Oumuamua was an active or derelict probe from another civilization.
But when SETI-minded astronomers targeted the object with two exquisitely sensitive radio telescopes to eavesdrop for any artificial transmissions, they detected nothing. Other teams using large telescopes discovered ‘Oumuamua’s surface was a very particular shade of red, the same color that common carbon-rich molecules turn after prolonged exposure to harsh radiation.
The most likely conclusion? Despite its strange shape, trajectory and lack of a tail, ‘Oumuamua is just a comet after all, its ice locked away beneath a tarlike crust hardened and desiccated by eons of bombardment by cosmic rays. Its radio silence adds to a handful of other SETI false alarms in recent years.
“We accept that these things being artificial is really the lowest-probability possibility for what they are—our past work guides us in that,” says Andrew Siemion, director of the Berkeley SETI Research Center and leader of one team tuning into ‘Oumuamua. “All of these are going to be natural—until one turns out not to be.”
Clandestine close encounters
Late last year The New York Times published a story about a small, secretive program run by the Department of Defense to study new reports from the armed services about encounters with UFOs. The project was officially canceled in 2012, leading its former head to resign and join a private, for-profit company — To the Stars Academy of Arts & Science(TTSA) — dedicated to declassifying and studying the Pentagon’s batches of UFO-related material. The Times story included two short videos of separate UFO encounters captured by aircraft-mounted infrared cameras, and hinted at the existence of a third that has yet to be released. In the first video, from an encounter off the coast of San Diego in 2004, a fighter jet tracks a lozenge-shaped something that seems to zoom off at incredible speed, apparently without generating exhaust plumes or a sonic boom. In the second video, captured by a different fighter jet under undisclosed circumstances, an object surrounded by a “glowing aura” seems to fly tilted against heavy headwinds in defiance of known principles of aerodynamics, accompanied by audible exclamations from the fighter jet’s crew.
Steve Justice, TTSA's aerospace division director and former Lockheed Martin engineer who worked on advanced top secret aircraft for the latter company’s storied “Skunk Works” division, speculates that in both cases such incredible feats of flight could be due to the objects possessing some sort of warp drive. Such an (entirely theoretical) device would somehow allow an object to change mass and inertia at will, and potentially to travel faster than light by “altering the spacetime metric” around itself. Whether aliens are behind the fighter jet encounters is, to him, somewhat immaterial.
“I’m not really interested in the ‘who’ or the ‘what,’ but I’m really interested in the ‘how,’” Justice says. “How could you make a machine fly like that? To remove the effects of aerodynamics, I’d want to create a volume around myself where I was insulated from them, where I could change my orientation without changing direction, where I could accelerate without generating shock waves. Right now when an airplane pulls its nose up in forward flight, it climbs; when it breaks the sound barrier, it makes a sonic boom. But that’s not what we see here.”
Keep watching the skies
Skeptics reviewing the videos obtained by TTSA have postulated more prosaic explanations, while bemoaning both the lack of data due to pernicious state secrecy as well as the organization’s potentially problematic profit-seeking motives. (According to the TTSA Web site, a minimum investment of $200 buys you membership in the organization and finances research into “exotic technologies” associated with UFOs that could lead to “revolutionary breakthroughs in propulsion, energy and communication.”) Perhaps the speeding “lozenge” was a new type of missile, launched from a submarine as part of some earthly power’s clandestine technology test. And maybe the tilting, aura-sheathed object was actually a distant conventional aircraft distorted by image-processing firmware and autotracking sensors within the fighter jet’s gun camera.
This latter possibility Justice acknowledges as “entirely plausible”—save for the obvious urgency in the voices of experienced military pilots as they speak of associated radar tracking, which is not shown on the gun camera’s feed. “Maybe it could have been some set of physical and optical aberrations,” Justice says. “But when I put it in context of all the information in the video, that’s less likely to me.”
Of course, military pilots aren’t the only ones with extensive experience looking at objects in the sky—and the equipment to record what they see. Astronomers have that, too—yet they never seem to ever catch UFOs in the viewfinders of their telescopes. Similarly, the increasingly global ubiquity of smartphones should presumably boost the numbers and quality of UFO encounters captured on video (as they have done for rocket launches), but the flood of eerie footage has yet to materialize.
That raises a red flag for Bruce Macintosh, an astronomer at Stanford University. “In general, interesting physical phenomena are only barely significant when first detected. Then, as technology progresses, those detections become more significant,” he says. “But UFO detections have remained marginal for decades; they’ve just gone from being blurry shapes on film cameras to blurry shapes on the digital infrared sensors of fighter jet gun cameras. This, in spite of the fact that the world’s total imaging capacity has expanded by sev}ral orders of magnitude in the past 20 years.” To remain so vexingly residual, he says, UFOs would have to become more elusive in lockstep with our increasing ability to detect them—something no natural process would be expected to do.
Hypothetical aliens with advanced technology could do that, of course. “But then you have to ask why they would choose to remain marginally undetectable rather than just being undetectable,” Macintosh says. “Unless they’re taunting us, it’s hard to come up with a coherent explanation.”
Except, of course, for the obvious one: It’s never aliens. Until, perhaps, it is.
Boeing has revealed a new design of their in-development hypersonic plane. The aerospace giant is racing against competitors in the U.S. and abroad to develop a viable hypersonic aircraft.
Aerospace companies are in a heated race to create a hypersonic plane to replace the SR-71 Blackbird. Though retired in 1990, the SR-71 still holds the record as the fastest plane ever built, achieving a top speed of 3,540 kmh (2,200 mph). The goal now is to build a plane capable of reaching speeds above Mach 5 (6,171 kmh/3,835 mph), and Boeing thinks they may have the design that could do it.
Boeing’s recently unveiled design for their hypersonic plane. Image Credit: Boeing
Popular Mechanics reports that Boeing’s current design works off of previous successes in hypersonic aircraft, including the unmanned X-51, which broke records in 2013 when it flew at Mach 5.1 for three-and-a-half minutes before running out of fuel and crashing into the ocean. The big challenge is building a plane that can not only reach Mach 5, but that can also decelerate to land.
To that end, both Boeing and Lockheed Martin are researching designs that utilize turbojets, a type of engine that has long been used in commercial aircraft, to achieve Mach 3 speeds before swapping to a dual ramjet/scramjet. Those types of compression engines only function at speeds above Mach 3, and they would provide the power to propel the aircraft to Mach 5 speeds and higher.
Artist’s concept of Lockheed Martin’s SR-72. Image Credit: Lockheed Martin
Lockheed Martin’s planned SR-72, which they are developing with the U.S. Air Force and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), has a similar design to the craft revealed by Boeing last week. The tentative release date for the SR-72 is 2030, though sightings of an unmanned demonstrator aircraft at Lockheed’s California facility suggest the company may be further along in development than expected.
Regardless of who wins this race, the development of hypersonic flight promises to change the future of travel, exploration, and military engagement — for everyone.
Cahokia; An Ancient American City Covered in Pyramids
Cahokia; An Ancient American City Covered in Pyramids
Around four centuries before the arrival of Columbus to the American continent, the Native Indians of Illinois erected a city that came to support a population of more than 20,000 inhabitants. But not only did they create a sophisticated city, for some reason they built more than a hundred mysterious earthen Pyramids, which, until this day, remain a profound enigma, as well as the general history of the site and its inhabitants.
Scholars consider Cahokia as one of the most significant and most influential ancient settlements in the Mississippian culture that developed and built massive structures five hundred years before Europeans came to the New Continent.
The original name of this ancient city is unknown. The name Cahokia is borrowed from a tribe that lived nearby in the 1600’s.
The Cahokia site covered an area of nine square miles.
Illustration: Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site.
Cahokia is an ancient settlement with a history that is more profound than we currently are willing to acknowledge.
Washington University’s John Kelly, a longtime stalwart of Cahokian archaeology, sums up the present understanding of Cahokia nicely: “People aren’t sure what it is.”
The first man to write about this ancient city was Henry Brackenridge, a lawyer and amateur historian who noted he was left amazed by what he had seen in 1811:
“I was struck with a degree of astonishment, not unlike that which is experienced in contemplating the Egyptian pyramids. What a stupendous pile of earth! To heap up such a mass must have required years, and the labors of thousands.”
The city, its monuments, and cultures are of great value.
Experts believe that Cahokia was the apogee and may have even been the origin of what scholars refer to as the Mississippian culture which spread across the American Midwest and Southeast starting before A.D. 1000 and peaking around the 13th century.
The building process of the city is another mystery. Researchers say that everywhere they dug, they found something of value, houses, buildings, monuments. The discoveries made at Cahokia indicate that it was a massive city, which, mysteriously, was built in an extremely brief span of time.
In other words, researchers say that it seems as if the entire city ‘sprang to life almost overnight around 1050’.
People from all over the area started moving to Cahokia which allowed the creation of complex infrastructure. The Cahokians built MASSIVE mounds—earthen Pyramids, a playa with the size of 45 football fields and different ceremonial and religious monuments.
To get an idea of how big the Cahokian earthen Pyramids were if you climb on top of Monks Mound, composed of 156 steps, you’d find yourself atop a structure that is larger at its base than the Great Pyramid of Giza. Now imagine the amount of work that needed to be done to create something like this around 1050.
The base circumference of Monks Mound is larger than the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan. It is believed that the inhabitants of Cahokia began building it around 900–950 CE, and was completed around 1100 CE.
At its peak around 1100, the city of Cahokia covered more than five square miles and was made up of 120 earthen pyramids. The inhabitants of Cahokia were skilled farmers, traders, and hunters, but they were also excellent urban planners and used astronomical alignments—like many other cultures in the American Continent—to build a small metropolis which was more extensive than many European cities during that tie.
The Cahokians did not leave behind a written language; we don’t know what they called themselves, where they came from, why they build these massive earthen Pyramids, why so many of them, and why they disappeared.
In fact, by the time Columbus got to the Americas, the city was already a ghost town. Experts only know that the city came into existence during a favorable climate phase and began shrinking around the time the climate became cooler, drier, and less predictable.
Zoom Through the Famous Orion Nebula with NASA's Incredible 3D Video
Zoom Through the Famous Orion Nebula with NASA's Incredible 3D Video
By Calla Cofield, Space.com Senior Writer
Take a tour of one of the most famous star-forming gas clouds in the night sky, the Orion Nebula, with a new, 3D visualization released by NASA.
In this short video, viewers slip through the colorful clouds, bright stars and detailed structures of the popular nebula. The visualization was created using real data from the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes, combined with "Hollywood techniques," according to a statement from the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), which co-produced the video.
The creators of the video said in the statement that they hope the visualization will give viewers a better idea of the 3D structure of the star-forming region. For example, the Trapezium star cluster in the heart of the nebula includes a bowl-shaped valley carved out by intense ultraviolet radiation and "winds" from new stars. The complete topology of that region isn't visible in 2D images. [The Splendor of the Orion Nebula (Photos)]
"Astronomers and visualizers worked together to make a three-dimensional model of the depths of this cavernous region, like plotting mountains and valleys on the ocean floor," according to the statement. "Colorful Hubble and Spitzer images were then overlaid on the terrain."
The movie occasionally switches between images taken by the two separate telescopes. The Hubble space telescope captures light in the visible range seen by humans, as well as longer and shorter wavelengths in the ultraviolet and near-infrared ranges. The Spitzer space telescope captures light in the mid-infrared to far-infrared range, capturing objects and structures that are lower in temperature than what Hubble sees. But scientists can create visible representations of the data, revealing structures that would otherwise be invisible to humans.
"Looking at the universe in infrared light gives striking context for the more familiar visible-light views," Robert Hurt, a lead visualization scientist at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC) at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), said in the statement. "This movie provides a uniquely immersive chance to see how new features appear as we shift to wavelengths of light normally invisible to our eyes."
The two telescopes provide 2D images of cosmic objects, so the creators had to rely on both "scientific knowledge and scientific intuition" to create the 3D tour. Summer and Hurt "worked with experts to analyze the structure inside the nebula," using visible light to create the surfaces, and infrared light to construct much of the nebula's structure.
"Being able to fly through the nebula's tapestry in three dimensions gives people a much better sense of what the universe is really like," Frank Summers, the STScI visualization scientist who led the team that developed the movie, said in the statement.
The visualization was created by scientists at STScI and Caltech/IPAC as part of NASA's Universe of Learning program. The program uses a "direct connection" to NASA science and scientists, to create content that "[enables] youth, families, and lifelong learners to explore fundamental questions in science, experience how science is done, and discover the universe for themselves."
Photo Credit: X-ray NASA/CXC/University of Colorado/J. Comerford et al.; Optical: NASA/STScI
The Week's Top Space Stories
A top-secret spy satellite mission may have plunged into the Indian Ocean, NASA's James Webb Space Telescope gets set to leave Houston, an iconic space traveler is honored with touching tributes, and supermassive black holes seem to "burp." Here are the top stories this week at Space.com
Photo Credit: NASA
1. James Webb getting ready to leave Houston!
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has finally come out of a deep cryovacuum freeze to make its way to the West Coast, where it will get ready for a 2019 launch. The moving process will likely begin in late January or early February, and at its destination — Northrop Grumman's Aerospace Systems facility in California — the massive telescope will meet up with its tennis court-sized sun shield and the rest of the spacecraft.
A classified U.S. government payload known as Zuma plummeted into the Indian Ocean shortly after launching atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Jan. 7, according to an unnamed "U.S. official." SpaceX has stated that the Falcon 9 performed as expected, leading to speculation that Zuma perhaps failed to operate properly during or after deployment. The spy satellite has gone missing, and the circumstances under which the Zuma mission failed have yet to be fully disclosed.
John Young was honored with an outpouring of touching messages upon his passing on Jan. 5, at the age of 87. Young was the first space shuttle mission commander, and was the ninth person to walk on the moon. As NASA's most experienced astronaut, he served the space agency for 42 years, and many who've been inspired by Young's mentorship and humor paid tribute to him this week.
A new study has found what appear to be layered glaciers beneath the surface of Mars. The ice sheets are just a few feet underground in some places, which may be useful for future crewed missions to the Red Planet. The water ice is also valuable for scientists looking to better understand Mars' climate history.
Space travel could put dangerous pressure on the fragile ends of optic nerves, according to new research. A study of 15 astronauts found that tissues surrounding the ends of their optic nerves looked warped or swollen weeks after being back on Earth, and this may explain why nearly half of all space travelers who stay in space for long periods of time develop significant eye problems.
Photo Credit: X-ray NASA/CXC/University of Colorado/J. Comerford et al.; Optical: NASA/STScI
6. Black holes caught burping twice
Supermassive black holes are truly gigantic: Their masses can range from a million to several billion times the mass of the sun. Researchers announced this week that they caught two cosmic "burps" from black holes this size — streams of high-energy particles blasted out from just beyond the event horizon after the black hole has pulled in nearby gas.
Scientists from the Breakthrough Listen initiative observed fast radio bursts (FRB) coming from the direction of a distant dwarf galaxy, reasoning that the mysterious emissions could be signs of alien life. While a recent study reveals that last August's observations were likely not signals from some faraway civilization, alien hunters remain curious about FRBs.
Photo Credit: Katy Mersmann/NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
8. Good news: hole in ozone layer is healing
Efforts over the course of many years to mend the ozone layer hole over Antarctica seem to be succeeding. Researchers determined that human-produced chemicals were causing the massive gap in the atmospheric layer, which was first identified in the mid-1980s. According to a recent NASA statement, a new study showed a 20-percent decrease in chemical-caused ozone depletion over the last 10 years.
The interior structure of Jupiter was completely misunderstood until the Juno spacecraft began observing the giant planet up close, the mission's principal investigator announced on Jan. 9. While Jupiter has been observed for centuries from Earth, and from space by NASA's Pioneer and Voyager missions, information about Jupiter's atmosphere and its core is continually surprising Juno's mission team.
Out-of-This-World Diamond-Studded Rock Just Got Even Weirder
Out-of-This-World Diamond-Studded Rock Just Got Even Weirder
By Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Contributor
The diamonds that are studding the Hypatia stone probably formed from the shock when the space rock blasted through Earth's atmosphere.
Credit: Shutterstock
A tiny chunk of stone that looks like nothing else ever seen in the solar system might be even weirder than scientists thought.
The Hypatia stone was found in southwestern Egypt in 1996. It was hardly more than a pebble, just 1.3 inches (3.5 centimeters) wide at its widest and a smidge over an ounce (30 grams) in weight. But analysis revealed that the stone (dubbed "Hypatia" for a fourth-century female mathematician and philosopher) fit into no known category of meteorite. Now, a new study suggests that at least some parts of the stone may have formed before the solar system did.
If so — and that is a big "if" — the stone might reveal that the dust cloud that eventually congealed into our solar system was not as uniform as previously believed. [Big Bang to Civilization: 10 Amazing Origin Events]
Oddball discovery
When the Hypatia stone was first discovered, researchers weren't sure where it came from. Because it is studded with microdiamonds 50 nanometers to 2 micrometers in size, one possibility was that it was a strange example of a type of diamond known as a carbonado diamond. But studies in 2013 and 2015 definitively knocked out that possibility: The ratios of noble gases in the stone show that it is most certainly from out of this world. (The diamondsprobably formed from the shock when the space rock blasted through Earth's atmosphere.)
Some parts of the Hypatia stone may have formed before the solar system did, scientists now say.
Credit: Mario di Martino/INAF Osservatorio Astrofysico di Torino
"This is a piece of extraterrestrial material," said Guillaume Avice, a postdoctoral scholar of geochemistry at the California Institute of Technology who participated in the 2015 study. [Greetings, Earthlings! 8 Ways Aliens Could Contact Us]
But that's about all that can be definitively said about the Hypatia stone. The makeup of the rock matches no known meteorite. In fact, the rock hasn't been officially categorized as a meteorite, even though it came from space, because only about 0.14 ounces (4 grams) of the original mass of the rock can currently be accounted for. It's not that the rest is permanently lost, Avice said, but it's been chipped apart and sent around to so many labs that fragments are all over the place. The Meteoritical Society requires 20 percent of a meteorite's original mass to be present to officially declare it to be a meteorite.
Mysterious minerals
In the new study, researchers focused on the minerals in the Hypatia stone. They discovered that the stone itself is not uniform, but consists of a carbon-rich matrix shot through with a variety of minerals. These mineral inclusions are as weird as the rest of the rock, the research team found. They include pure metallic aluminum nuggets, an extremely rare find in the solar system; moissanite and silver iodine phosphide grains; and strange ratios of elements that fail to match the typical ratios of solar system objects. For example, unlike any other solar object ever found, these minerals include a nickel-phosphide compound with very high ratios of nickel to iron.
"There is no known or imaginable mechanism that [this compound] could have been produced naturally in the solar nebula," study leader Jan Kramers, a geologist at the University of Johannesburg, told Live Science in an email.
The solar nebula is the dust and gas that remained after the formation of the very early sun at the dawn of the solar system about 4.6 billion years ago. Kramers and his colleagues think that this portion of the Hypatia stone may have formed from the pre-solar nebula, making it older than the sun itself. The rest — the carbon-rich matrix — may have coagulated later in the coldest outer reaches of the solar nebula, according to Kramers, because forming large bodies requires a dense dust cloud like the solar nebula to provide the material.
But current theories of solar system formation hold that solar nebula dust was the same everywhere, and Hypatia doesn't fit that picture. The matrix of the stone contains no silicate minerals. The Earth and other rocky planets are full of silicates, and so are stony meteorites. If the matrix of the Hypatia stone formed from the solar nebula, that nebula couldn't have been totally uniform after all, Kramers said.
However, that interpretation of the Hypatia stone's formation is still questionable, Avice said. The test that would cinch whether any part of the object is presolar in origin is an analysis of the Hypatia stone's isotopes, or variations of atoms based on the number of neutrons in their nuclei.
"Presolar material has a very strange isotopic composition compared to the average values of the solar system," Avice said.
Kramers also said isotopic analysis of both the matrix and the mineral inclusions in the stone is the next step researchers need to take to better understand the mysterious space pebble.
Until then, Avice said, "we still don't know what this is, exactly."
5 Things You Probably Did Not Know About Tutankhamun
5 Things You Probably Did Not Know About Tutankhamun
Tutankhamun was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh belonging to the 18th dynasty of Egypt and reigned from 1336 to 1327 B.C. In hieroglyphs, the name Tutankhamun was typically written Amen-tut-ankh.
His original name, Tutankhaten means “living image of Aton,” while Tutankhamun means “living image of Amun.”
Although it is formally defined that the XVIII Dynasty ends with the reign of Horemheb Egyptologists are convinced that the young Pharaoh was the last ruler of royal blood of the dynasty.
His reign was marked by the return to normalcy in the socio-religious plane after the interlude starring the monotheism of Akhenaten.
Tutankhamun is one of the most famous Pharaohs to rule over Egypt.
Image Credit: Shutterstock
Said return was gradual, restoring the cult and architecture of the abandoned temples belonging to gods such as Amón, Osiris or Ptah, placing the priestly caste in office and allowing the celebration of the pertinent rites.
So, let’s go through some fascinating details about one of the most famous Pharaohs to rule over Egypt.
Tutankhamun’s tomb was so small that it took centuries to meet. In particular, it took 3,245 years until his tomb, found on November 4, 1922, was discovered by the English Egyptologist Howard Carter.
Tutankhamun’s reign
Tutankhamun was between 8 and 9 years old when his reign began. Therefore, the important decisions of government fell to two older figures: the father of Nefertiti, named Ay, and a military general named Horemheb. The Boy Pharaoh ruled for a decade, from 1333 to 1324 B.C. He is considered the youngest Pharaoh to rule over Egypt.
The Course of King Tut
Despite the fact that many believe there’s a course related to Tutankhamun, there isn’t one.
When Howard Carter first entered King Tut’s tomb in 1922, he was accompanied by his financial backer, George Herbert. Four months after having entered the tomb, Herbert died of alleged blood poisoning from an infected mosquito bite. Soon, newspapers would go crazy and started writing about a course, and how the Herbert was victim of King Tut’s course, which was supposedly outlined on a clay tablet just outside the tomb.
But despite the fact that others who visited the tomb also died, there is not a single piece of evidence that suggests their deaths were connected to a course.
Tutankhamen reversed the radicalism of his father, Akhenaten, and restored the ancient belief system.
Image Credit: Shutterstock.
When Carter entered into King Tuts tomb, he found a treasure trove of priceless funerary objects, including gold figurines, ritual jewelry, small boats which are said to represent the journey to the afterlife and a shrine made for the pharaoh’s embalmed organs.
But, in addition to all of those treasures, Carter discovered a chamber which contained two small coffins with two fetuses. According to DNA testing, one of the mummies was Tutankhamen’s stillborn daughter, and the other mummy was most likely also his child.
The artifacts recovered from Tutankhamun’s tomb are considered as some of the most viewed archaeological treasures in the world.
His Family
The family and the ancestry of the Tutankhamun is a little confusing.
Tutankhamun was the son of Akhenaten, the husband of Nefertiti, with whom he had six daughters. However, at the same time, Akhenaten had a ‘lesser wife’ named Kira, which is supposed to be the mother of the famous pharaoh.
Tutankhamun was married, in turn, to Ankhesenpaaten one of the daughters of Akhenaten and Nefertiti, and his half-sister.
Tutankhamun’s name, nearly erased from history
Even though Tuthankhamun is, and will remain as one of the most famous Pharaohs of ancient Egypt, evidence of his reign was obliterated after his death, when, his successor Horemhe replaced Tutankhamun’s name with his own on countless monuments.
NASA Present New Tires That Are Almost Indestructible
NASA Present New Tires That Are Almost Indestructible
Ever since man has thought about reaching out to extraterrestrial planets, he has thought of what will he be driving once he gets there. Building vehicles and, more specifically, wheels and tires that will be up for the challenge is no easy task, and so NASA has been experimenting with many different materials over the years.
Take NASA’s one-ton, car-size, nuclear-powered Mars Curiosity robot: After just a year of cautious 0.144 kilometers-per-hour roving, small rocks began ripping large holes in its tires.
However, NASA engineers have reinvented the wheel into a form that may one day conquer Mars.
They’ve created a nearly invincible tire made of woven-mesh metal that “remembers” its ideal shape and immediately springs back into form after taking a beating.
NASA Engineer Colin Creager and his colleagues initially built a woven-mesh wheel made out of spring steel. It gripped soft sand well and supported a lot of weight, yet kept hitting a major snag. “We always came across this one problem of where the tires would get dents in them,” Creager said in a NASA video.
Then Creager started using a shape-memory alloy — a super-elastic metal that pops back into place after intense strain.
NASA has been developing space-grade tires since the 1960s, starting with its moon-landing program.
The space agency later set its sights on Mars, spurring development in off-planet wheels. Yet the list of requirements for roving the red planet is daunting. It has to be an All-terrain tire, lightweight, durable, and able to survive wild temperature swings.
To handle scaling a veritable mountain, Curiosity’s designers made 20-inch-high aluminum wheels, that were strong and stiff. Yet mission controllers began noticing worrisome dents, holes, and tears in those tires in 2013 — about a year into the mission. Today Curiosity is instructed to avoid small pointy rocks, limiting damage, but the wheels continue to degrade.
“When the current rover wheel damage occurred, we thought it was worth taking a look at that wheel and adapting it for the future,” Creager told Businessinsider.com.
After years of research, the team settled on a nickel-titanium (NiTi) alloy and figured out the best process to form and treat it.
NASA airless nickel titanium shape memory alloy tires 4 « Inhabitat – Green Design, Innovation, Architecture, Green Building
As a result, the new wheels boast some impressive stats: They can bear nearly 10 times the weight of Curiosity’s wheels, function between -202 and 194 degrees Fahrenheit, have better grip over rocks and sand, and can climb slopes about 23% steeper.
“We [can] actually deform this all the way down to the axle and have it return to shape, which we could never even contemplate in a conventional metal system,” another NASA official said of the new spring tire in another NASA video.
Phillip Abel, a mechanical systems expert at NASA, said the key to the tire’s performance are the stretchy bonds of the crystal structure in shape-memory alloys.
“With super-elastic materials, what you’re doing is storing the energy of deformation in the [crystal structure]. All of the atoms are more or less where they were,” but the crystal structure shifts. “The alloy, at the temperatures we’re seeing, is always in its ‘return to my original shape’ mode. So after you deform it, it pops back to its original crystal structure.”
In the toughest test to date, the wheels aced 10 kilometers of driving — more than half the total mileage of Curiosity on Mars — on punishing simulated terrain.
“The rim was a little dinged up, but the spring mesh tire was like brand-new,” Creager said, adding the caveat that the test did not occur at blistering Martian conditions.
“In theory, they should work, but NASA JPL is building a cryogenic test chamber to verify operation at cold temperatures,” he said.
However, those wheels will not be installed on the next Mars rover that will be launched in a few years, the Mars 2020, because it takes a grueling number of tests to prove the viability of a wheel for use on a space mission.
“You can buy nickel-titanium alloy off the shelf, but you can’t just use it on Mars. There’s a treatment process,” Creager said.
On the other hand, they could be ready to roll for the Mars-sample-return mission in 2024.
The wheel’s applications aren’t limited only to the red planet, though; the researchers are working with Goodyear to put them on Earth-based vehicles. So far, one they attached to a Jeep hugged around rocks without inflicting any damage to the spring tire.
“I could definitely see it being used for any application where you’re driving off-road, and the risk of a puncture and a flat is a big deal, like with a military vehicle,” Creager said. “But I would love to see this technology branching off to passenger vehicles.”
NASA airless nickel titanium shape memory alloy tires 3 « Inhabitat – Green Design, Innovation, Architecture, Green Building
As America has turned away from searching for extraterrestrial intelligence, China has built the world’s largest radio dish for precisely that purpose.
Last january, theChinese Academy of Sciences invited Liu Cixin, China’s preeminent science-fiction writer, to visit its new state-of-the-art radio dish in the country’s southwest. Almost twice as wide as the dish at America’s Arecibo Observatory, in the Puerto Rican jungle, the new Chinese dish is the largest in the world, if not the universe. Though it is sensitive enough to detect spy satellites even when they’re not broadcasting, its main uses will be scientific, including an unusual one: The dish is Earth’s first flagship observatory custom-built to listen for a message from an extraterrestrial intelligence. If such a sign comes down from the heavens during the next decade, China may well hear it first.
In some ways, it’s no surprise that Liu was invited to see the dish. He has an outsize voice on cosmic affairs in China, and the government’s aerospace agency sometimes asks him to consult on science missions. Liu is the patriarch of the country’s science-fiction scene. Other Chinese writers I met attached the honorific Da, meaning “Big,” to his surname. In years past, the academy’s engineers sent Liu illustrated updates on the dish’s construction, along with notes saying how he’d inspired their work.
But in other ways Liu is a strange choice to visit the dish. He has written a great deal about the risks of first contact. He has warned that the “appearance of this Other” might be imminent, and that it might result in our extinction. “Perhaps in ten thousand years, the starry sky that humankind gazes upon will remain empty and silent,” he writes in the postscript to one of his books. “But perhaps tomorrow we’ll wake up and find an alien spaceship the size of the Moon parked in orbit.”
China’s new radio dish was custom-built to listen for an extraterrestrial message. (Liu Xu / Xinhua / Getty)
In recent years, Liu has joined the ranks of the global literati. In 2015, his novel The Three-Body Problem became the first work in translation to win the Hugo Award, science fiction’s most prestigious prize. Barack Obama told The New York Times that the book—the first in a trilogy—gave him cosmic perspective during the frenzy of his presidency. Liu told me that Obama’s staff asked him for an advance copy of the third volume.
At the end of the second volume, one of the main characters lays out the trilogy’s animating philosophy. No civilization should ever announce its presence to the cosmos, he says. Any other civilization that learns of its existence will perceive it as a threat to expand—as all civilizations do, eliminating their competitors until they encounter one with superior technology and are themselves eliminated. This grim cosmic outlook is called “dark-forest theory,” because it conceives of every civilization in the universe as a hunter hiding in a moonless woodland, listening for the first rustlings of a rival.
Liu’s trilogy begins in the late 1960s, during Mao’s Cultural Revolution, when a young Chinese woman sends a message to a nearby star system. The civilization that receives it embarks on a centuries-long mission to invade Earth, but she doesn’t care; the Red Guard’s grisly excesses have convinced her that humans no longer deserve to survive. En route to our planet, the extraterrestrial civilization disrupts our particle accelerators to prevent us from making advancements in the physics of warfare, such as the one that brought the atomic bomb into being less than a century after the invention of the repeating rifle.
Science fiction is sometimes described as a literature of the future, but historical allegory is one of its dominant modes. Isaac Asimov based his Foundation series on classical Rome, and Frank Herbert’s Dune borrows plot points from the past of the Bedouin Arabs. Liu is reluctant to make connections between his books and the real world, but he did tell me that his work is influenced by the history of Earth’s civilizations, “especially the encounters between more technologically advanced civilizations and the original settlers of a place.” One such encounter occurred during the 19th century, when the “Middle Kingdom” of China, around which all of Asia had once revolved, looked out to sea and saw the ships of Europe’s seafaring empires, whose ensuing invasion triggered a loss in status for China comparable to the fall of Rome.
This past summer, I traveled to China to visit its new observatory, but first I met up with Liu in Beijing. By way of small talk, I asked him about the film adaptationof TheThree-Body Problem. “People here want it to be China’s Star Wars,” he said, looking pained. The pricey shoot ended in mid-2015, but the film is still in postproduction. At one point, the entire special-effects team was replaced. “When it comes to making science-fiction movies, our system is not mature,” Liu said.
I had come to interview Liu in his capacity as China’s foremost philosopher of first contact, but I also wanted to know what to expect when I visited the new dish. After a translator relayed my question, Liu stopped smoking and smiled.
“It looks like something out of science fiction,” he said.
A week later, i rode a bullet train out of Shanghai, leaving behind its purple Blade Runner glow, its hip cafés and craft-beer bars. Rocketing along an elevated track, I watched high-rises blur by, each a tiny honeycomb piece of the rail-linked urban megastructure that has recently erupted out of China’s landscape. China poured more concrete from 2011 to 2013 than America did during the entire 20th century. The country has already built rail lines in Africa, and it hopes to fire bullet trains into Europe and North America, the latter by way of a tunnel under the Bering Sea.
The skyscrapers and cranes dwindled as the train moved farther inland. Out in the emerald rice fields, among the low-hanging mists, it was easy to imagine ancient China—the China whose written language was adopted across much of Asia; the China that introduced metal coins, paper money, and gunpowder into human life; the China that built the river-taming system that still irrigates the country’s terraced hills. Those hills grew steeper as we went west, stair-stepping higher and higher, until I had to lean up against the window to see their peaks. Every so often, a Hans Zimmer bass note would sound, and the glass pane would fill up with the smooth, spaceship-white side of another train, whooshing by in the opposite direction at almost 200 miles an hour.
Liu Cixin, China’s preeminent science-fiction writer, has written a great deal about the risks of first contact. (Han Wancheng / Shanxi Illustration)
It was mid-afternoon when we glided into a sparkling, cavernous terminal in Guiyang, the capital of Guizhou, one of China’s poorest, most remote provinces. A government-imposed social transformation appeared to be under way. Signs implored people not to spit indoors. Loudspeakers nagged passengers to “keep an atmosphere of good manners.” When an older man cut in the cab line, a security guard dressed him down in front of a crowd of hundreds.
The next morning, I went down to my hotel lobby to meet the driver I’d hired to take me to the observatory. Two hours into what was supposed to be a four-hour drive, he pulled over in the rain and waded 30 yards into a field where an older woman was harvesting rice, to ask for directions to a radio observatory more than 100 miles away. After much frustrated gesturing by both parties, she pointed the way with her scythe.
We set off again, making our way through a string of small villages, beep-beeping motorbike riders and pedestrians out of our way. Some of the buildings along the road were centuries old, with upturned eaves; others were freshly built, their residents having been relocated by the state to clear ground for the new observatory. A group of the displaced villagers had complained about their new housing, attracting bad press—a rarity for a government project in China. Western reporters took notice. “China Telescope to Displace 9,000 Villagers in Hunt for Extraterrestrials,” read a headline in The New York Times.
The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (seti) is often derided as a kind of religious mysticism, even within the scientific community. Nearly a quarter century ago, the United States Congress defunded America’s seti program with a budget amendment proposed by Senator Richard Bryan of Nevada, who said he hoped it would “be the end of Martian-hunting season at the taxpayer’s expense.” That’s one reason it is China, and not the United States, that has built the first world-class radio observatory with seti as a core scientific goal.
seti does share some traits with religion. It is motivated by deep human desires for connection and transcendence. It concerns itself with questions about human origins, about the raw creative power of nature, and about our future in this universe—and it does all this at a time when traditional religions have become unpersuasive to many. Why these aspects of seti should count against it is unclear. Nor is it clear why Congress should find seti unworthy of funding, given that the government has previously been happy to spend hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on ambitious searches for phenomena whose existence was still in question. The expensive, decades-long missions that found black holes and gravitational waves both commenced when their targets were mere speculative possibilities. That intelligent life can evolve on a planet is not a speculative possibility, as Darwin demonstrated. Indeed, seti might be the most intriguing scientific project suggested by Darwinism.
Even without federal funding in the United States, seti is now in the midst of a global renaissance. Today’s telescopes have brought the distant stars nearer, and in their orbits we can see planets. The next generation of observatories is now clicking on, and with them we will zoom into these planets’ atmospheres. setiresearchers have been preparing for this moment. In their exile, they have become philosophers of the future. They have tried to imagine what technologies an advanced civilization might use, and what imprints those technologies would make on the observable universe. They have figured out how to spot the chemical traces of artificial pollutants from afar. They know how to scan dense star fields for giant structures designed to shield planets from a supernova’s shock waves.
In 2015, the Russian billionaire Yuri Milner poured $100 million of his own cash into a new seti program led by scientists at UC Berkeley. The team performs more seti observations in a single day than took place during entire years just a decade ago. In 2016, Milner sank another $100 million into an interstellar-probe mission. A beam from a giant laser array, to be built in the Chilean high desert, will wallop dozens of wafer-thin probes more than four light-years to the Alpha Centauri system, to get a closer look at its planets. Milner told me the probes’ cameras might be able to make out individual continents. The Alpha Centauri team modeled the radiation that such a beam would send out into space, and noticed striking similarities to the mysterious “fast radio bursts” that Earth’s astronomers keep detecting, which suggests the possibility that they are caused by similar giant beams, powering similar probes elsewhere in the cosmos.
Andrew Siemion, the leader of Milner’s seti team, is actively looking into this possibility. He visited the Chinese dish while it was still under construction, to lay the groundwork for joint observations and to help welcome the Chinese team into a growing network of radio observatories that will cooperate on seti research, including new facilities in Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. When I joined Siemion for overnight seti observations at a radio observatory in West Virginia last fall, he gushed about the Chinese dish. He said it was the world’s most sensitive telescope in the part of the radio spectrum that is “classically considered to be the most probable place for an extraterrestrial transmitter.”
Before I left for China, Siemion warned me that the roads around the observatory were difficult to navigate, but he said I’d know I was close when my phone reception went wobbly. Radio transmissions are forbidden near the dish, lest scientists there mistake stray electromagnetic radiation for a signal from the deep. Supercomputers are still sifting through billions of false positives collected during previous seti observations, most caused by human technological interference.
My driver was on the verge of turning back when my phone reception finally began to wane. The sky had darkened in the five hours since we’d left sunny Guiyang. High winds were whipping between the Avatar-style mountains, making the long bamboo stalks sway like giant green feathers. A downpour of fat droplets began splattering the windshield just as I lost service for good.
Jon Juarez
The week before, Liu and I had visited a stargazing site of a much older vintage. In 1442, after the Ming dynasty moved China’s capital to Beijing, the emperor broke ground on a new observatory near the Forbidden City. More than 40 feet high, the elegant, castlelike structure came to house China’s most precious astronomical instruments.
No civilization on Earth has a longer continuous tradition of astronomy than China, whose earliest emperors drew their political legitimacy from the sky, in the form of a “mandate of heaven.” More than 3,500 years ago, China’s court astronomers pressed pictograms of cosmic events into tortoiseshells and ox bones. One of these “oracle bones” bears the earliest known record of a solar eclipse. It was likely interpreted as an omen of catastrophe, perhaps an ensuing invasion.
Liu and I sat at a black-marble table in the old observatory’s stone courtyard. Centuries-old pines towered overhead, blocking the hazy sunlight that poured down through Beijing’s yellow, polluted sky. Through a round, red portal at the courtyard’s edge, a staircase led up to a turretlike observation platform, where a line of ancient astronomical devices stood, including a giant celestial globe supported by slithering bronze dragons. The starry globe was stolen in 1900, after an eight-country alliance stormed Beijing to put down the Boxer Rebellion. Troops from Germany and France flooded into the courtyard where Liu and I were sitting, and made off with 10 of the observatory’s prized instruments.
The instruments were eventually returned, but the sting of the incident lingered. Chinese schoolchildren are still taught to think of this general period as the “century of humiliation,” the nadir of China’s long fall from its Ming-dynasty peak. Back when the ancient observatory was built, China could rightly regard itself as the lone survivor of the great Bronze Age civilizations, a class that included the Babylonians, the Mycenaeans, and even the ancient Egyptians. Western poets came to regard the latter’s ruins as Ozymandian proof that nothing lasted. But China had lasted. Its emperors presided over the planet’s largest complex social organization. They commanded tribute payments from China’s neighbors, whose rulers sent envoys to Beijing to perform a baroque face-to-the-ground bowing ceremony for the emperors’ pleasure.
In the first volume of his landmark series, Science and Civilisation in China, published in 1954, the British Sinologist Joseph Needham asked why the scientific revolution hadn’t happened in China, given its sophisticated intellectual meritocracy, based on exams that measured citizens’ mastery of classical texts. This inquiry has since become known as the “Needham Question,” though Voltaire too had wondered why Chinese mathematics stalled out at geometry, and why it was the Jesuits who brought the gospel of Copernicus into China, and not the other way around. He blamed the Confucian emphasis on tradition. Other historians blamed China’s remarkably stable politics. A large landmass ruled by long dynasties may have encouraged less technical dynamism than did Europe, where more than 10 polities were crammed into a small area, triggering constant conflict. As we know from the Manhattan Project, the stakes of war have a way of sharpening the scientific mind.
Still others have accused premodern China of insufficient curiosity about life beyond its borders. (Notably, there seems to have been very little speculation in China about extraterrestrial life before the modern era.) This lack of curiosity is said to explain why China pressed pause on naval innovation during the late Middle Ages, right at the dawn of Europe’s age of exploration, when the Western imperial powers were looking fondly back through the medieval fog to seafaring Athens.
Whatever the reason, China paid a dear price for slipping behind the West in science and technology. In 1793, King George III stocked a ship with the British empire’s most dazzling inventions and sent it to China, only to be rebuffed by its emperor, who said he had “no use” for England’s trinkets. Nearly half a century later, Britain returned to China, seeking buyers for India’s opium harvest. China’s emperor again declined, and instead cracked down on the local sale of the drug, culminating in the seizure and flamboyant seaside destruction of 2 million pounds of British-owned opium. Her Majesty’s Navy responded with the full force of its futuristic technology, running ironclad steamships straight up the Yangtze, sinking Chinese junk boats, until the emperor had no choice but to sign the first of the “unequal treaties” that ceded Hong Kong, along with five other ports, to British jurisdiction. After the French made a colony of Vietnam, they joined in this “slicing of the Chinese melon,” as it came to be called, along with the Germans, who occupied a significant portion of Shandong province.
Meanwhile Japan, a “little brother” as far as China was concerned, responded to Western aggression by quickly modernizing its navy, such that in 1894, it was able to sink most of China’s fleet in a single battle, taking Taiwan as the spoils. And this was just a prelude to Japan’s brutal mid-20th-century invasion of China, part of a larger campaign of civilizational expansion that aimed to spread Japanese power to the entire Pacific, a campaign that was largely successful, until it encountered the United States and its city-leveling nukes.
China’s humiliations multiplied with America’s rise. After sending 200,000 laborers to the Western Front in support of the Allied war effort during World War I, Chinese diplomats arrived at Versailles expecting something of a restoration, or at least relief from the unequal treaties. Instead, China was seated at the kids’ table with Greece and Siam, while the Western powers carved up the globe.
Only recently has China regained its geopolitical might, after opening to the world during Deng Xiaoping’s 1980s reign. Deng evinced a near-religious reverence for science and technology, a sentiment that is undimmed in Chinese culture today. The country is on pace to outspend the United States on R&D this decade, but the quality of its research varies a great deal. According to one study, even at China’s most prestigious academic institutions, a third of scientific papers are faked or plagiarized. Knowing how poorly the country’s journals are regarded, Chinese universities are reportedly offering bonuses of up to six figures to researchers who publish in Western journals.
It remains an open question whether Chinese science will ever catch up with that of the West without a bedrock political commitment to the free exchange of ideas. China’s persecution of dissident scientists began under Mao, whose ideologues branded Einstein’s theories “counterrevolutionary.” But it did not end with him. Even in the absence of overt persecution, the country’s “great firewall” handicaps Chinese scientists, who have difficulty accessing data published abroad.
China has learned the hard way that spectacular scientific achievements confer prestige upon nations. The “Celestial Kingdom” looked on from the sidelines as Russia flung the first satellite and human being into space, and then again when American astronauts spiked the Stars and Stripes into the lunar crust.
China has largely focused on the applied sciences. It built the world’s fastest supercomputer, spent heavily on medical research, and planted a “great green wall” of forests in its northwest as a last-ditch effort to halt the Gobi Desert’s spread. Now China is bringing its immense resources to bear on the fundamental sciences. The country plans to build an atom smasher that will conjure thousands of “god particles” out of the ether, in the same time it took cern’s Large Hadron Collider to strain out a handful. It is also eyeing Mars. In the technopoetic idiom of the 21st century, nothing would symbolize China’s rise like a high-definition shot of a Chinese astronaut setting foot on the red planet. Nothing except, perhaps, first contact.
At a security station 10 miles from the dish, I handed my cellphone to a guard. He locked it away in a secure compartment and escorted me to a pair of metal detectors so I could demonstrate that I wasn’t carrying any other electronics. A different guard drove me on a narrow access road to a switchback-laden stairway that climbed 800 steps up a mountainside, through buzzing clouds of blue dragonflies, to a platform overlooking the observatory.
Until a few months before his death this past September, the radio astronomer Nan Rendong was the observatory’s scientific leader, and its soul. It was Nan who had made sure the new dish was customized to search for extraterrestrial intelligence. He’d been with the project since its inception, in the early 1990s, when he used satellite imagery to pick out hundreds of candidate sites among the deep depressions in China’s Karst mountain region.
Apart from microwaves, such as those that make up the faint afterglow of the Big Bang, radio waves are the weakest form of electromagnetic radiation. The collective energy of all the radio waves caught by Earth’s observatories in a year is less than the kinetic energy released when a single snowflake comes softly to rest on bare soil. Collecting these ethereal signals requires technological silence. That’s why China plans to one day put a radio observatory on the dark side of the moon, a place more technologically silent than anywhere on Earth. It’s why, over the course of the past century, radio observatories have sprouted, like cool white mushrooms, in the blank spots between this planet’s glittering cities. And it’s why Nan went looking for a dish site in the remote Karst mountains. Tall, jagged, and covered in subtropical vegetation, these limestone mountains rise up abruptly from the planet’s crust, forming barriers that can protect an observatory’s sensitive ear from wind and radio noise.
After making a shortlist of candidate locations, Nan set out to inspect them on foot. Hiking into the center of the Dawodang depression, he found himself at the bottom of a roughly symmetrical bowl, guarded by a nearly perfect ring of green mountains, all formed by the blind processes of upheaval and erosion. More than 20 years and $180 million later, Nan positioned the dish for its inaugural observation—its “first light,” in the parlance of astronomy. He pointed it at the fading radio glow of a supernova, or “guest star,” as Chinese astronomers had called it when they recorded the unusual brightness of its initial explosion almost 1,000 years earlier.
After the dish is calibrated, it will start scanning large sections of the sky. Andrew Siemion’s seti team is working with the Chinese to develop an instrument to piggyback on these wide sweeps, which by themselves will constitute a radical expansion of the human search for the cosmic other.
Siemion told me he’s especially excited to survey dense star fields at the center of the galaxy. “It’s a very interesting place for an advanced civilization to situate itself,” he said. The sheer number of stars and the presence of a supermassive black hole make for ideal conditions “if you want to slingshot a bunch of probes around the galaxy.” Siemion’s receiver will train its sensitive algorithms on billions of wavelengths, across billions of stars, looking for a beacon.
Jon Juarez
Liu Cixin told me he doubts the dish will find one. In a dark-forest cosmos like the one he imagines, no civilization would ever send a beacon unless it were a “death monument,” a powerful broadcast announcing the sender’s impending extinction. If a civilization were about to be invaded by another, or incinerated by a gamma-ray burst, or killed off by some other natural cause, it might use the last of its energy reserves to beam out a dying cry to the most life-friendly planets in its vicinity.
Even if Liu is right, and the Chinese dish has no hope of detecting a beacon, it is still sensitive enough to hear a civilization’s fainter radio whispers, the ones that aren’t meant to be overheard, like the aircraft-radar waves that constantly waft off Earth’s surface. If civilizations are indeed silent hunters, we might be wise to hone in on this “leakage” radiation. Many of the night sky’s stars might be surrounded by faint halos of leakage, each a fading artifact of a civilization’s first blush with radio technology, before it recognized the risk and turned off its detectable transmitters. Previous observatories could search only a handful of stars for this radiation. China’s dish has the sensitivity to search tens of thousands.
In Beijing, I told Liu that I was holding out hope for a beacon. I told him I thought dark-forest theory was based on too narrow a reading of history. It may infer too much about the general behavior of civilizations from specific encounters between China and the West. Liu replied, convincingly, that China’s experience with the West is representative of larger patterns. Across history, it is easy to find examples of expansive civilizations that used advanced technologies to bully others. “In China’s imperial history, too,” he said, referring to the country’s long-standing domination of its neighbors.
But even if these patterns extend back across all of recorded history, and even if they extend back to the murky epochs of prehistory, to when the Neanderthals vanished sometime after first contact with modern humans, that still might not tell us much about galactic civilizations. For a civilization that has learned to survive across cosmic timescales, humanity’s entire existence would be but a single moment in a long, bright dawn. And no civilization could last tens of millions of years without learning to live in peace internally. Human beings have already created weapons that put our entire species at risk; an advanced civilization’s weapons would likely far outstrip ours.
I told Liu that our civilization’s relative youth would suggest we’re an outlier on the spectrum of civilizational behavior, not a Platonic case to generalize from. The Milky Way has been habitable for billions of years. Anyone we make contact with will almost certainly be older, and perhaps wiser.
Jon Juarez
Moreover, the night sky contains no evidence that older civilizations treat expansion as a first principle. setiresearchers have looked for civilizations that shoot outward in all directions from a single origin point, becoming an ever-growing sphere of technology, until they colonize entire galaxies. If they were consuming lots of energy, as expected, these civilizations would give off a telltale infrared glow, and yet we don’t see any in our all-sky scans. Maybe the self-replicating machinery required to spread rapidly across 100 billion stars would be doomed by runaway coding errors. Or maybe civilizations spread unevenly throughout a galaxy, just as humans have spread unevenly across the Earth. But even a civilization that captured a tenth of a galaxy’s stars would be easy to find, and we haven’t found a single one, despite having searched the nearest 100,000 galaxies.
Some seti researchers have wondered about stealthier modes of expansion. They have looked into the feasibility of “Genesis probes,” spacecraft that can seed a planet with microbes, or accelerate evolution on its surface, by sparking a Cambrian explosion, like the one that juiced biological creativity on Earth. Some have even searched for evidence that such spacecraft might have visited this planet, by looking for encoded messages in our DNA—which is, after all, the most robust informational storage medium known to science. They too have come up empty. The idea that civilizations expand ever outward might be woefully anthropocentric.
Liu did not concede this point. To him, the absence of these signals is just further evidence that hunters are good at hiding. He told me that we are limited in how we think about other civilizations. “Especially those that may last millions or billions of years,” he said. “When we wonder why they don’t use certain technologies to spread across a galaxy, we might be like spiders wondering why humans don’t use webs to catch insects.” And anyway, an older civilization that has achieved internal peace may still behave like a hunter, Liu said, in part because it would grasp the difficulty of “understanding one another across cosmic distances.” And it would know that the stakes of a misunderstanding could be existential.
First contact would be trickier still if we encountered a postbiological artificial intelligence that had taken control of its planet. Its worldview might be doubly alien. It might not feel empathy, which is not an essential feature of intelligence but instead an emotion installed by a particular evolutionary history and culture. The logic behind its actions could be beyond the powers of the human imagination. It might have transformed its entire planet into a supercomputer, and, according to a trio of Oxford researchers, it might find the current cosmos too warm for truly long-term, energy-efficient computing. It might cloak itself from observation, and power down into a dreamless sleep lasting hundreds of millions of years, until such time when the universe has expanded and cooled to a temperature that allows for many more epochs of computing.
As i came up the last flight of steps to the observation platform, the Earth itself seemed to hum like a supercomputer, thanks to the loud, whirring chirps of the mountains’ insects, all amplified by the dish’s acoustics. The first thing I noticed at the top was not the observatory, but the Karst mountains. They were all individuals, lumpen and oddly shaped. It was as though the Mayans had built giant pyramids across hundreds of square miles, and they’d all grown distinctive deformities as they were taken over by vegetation. They stretched in every direction, all the way to the horizon, the nearer ones dark green, and the distant ones looking like blue ridges.
Amid this landscape of chaotic shapes was the spectacular structure of the dish. Five football fields wide, and deep enough to hold two bowls of rice for every human being on the planet, it was a genuine instance of the technological sublime. Its vastness reminded me of Utah’s Bingham copper mine, but without the air of hasty, industrial violence. Cool and concave, the dish looked at one with the Earth. It was as though God had pressed a perfect round fingertip into the planet’s outer crust and left behind a smooth, silver print.
I sat up there for an hour in the rain, as dark clouds drifted across the sky, throwing warbly light on the observatory. Its thousands of aluminum-triangle panels took on a mosaic effect: Some tiles turned bright silver, others pale bronze. It was strange to think that if a signal from a distant intelligence were to reach us anytime soon, it would probably pour down into this metallic dimple in the planet. The radio waves would ping off the dish and into the receiver. They’d be pored over and verified. International protocols require the disclosure of first contact, but they are nonbinding. Maybe China would go public with the signal but withhold its star of origin, lest a fringe group send Earth’s first response. Maybe China would make the signal a state secret. Even then, one of its international partners could go rogue. Or maybe one of China’s own scientists would convert the signal into light pulses and send it out beyond the great firewall, to fly freely around the messy snarl of fiber-optic cables that spans our planet.
In Beijing, I had asked Liu to set aside dark-forest theory for a moment. I asked him to imagine the Chinese Academy of Sciences calling to tell him it had found a signal.
How would he reply to a message from a cosmic civilization? He said that he would avoid giving a too-detailed account of human history. “It’s very dark,” he said. “It might make us appear more threatening.” In Blindsight, Peter Watts’s novel of first contact, mere reference to the individual self is enough to get us profiled as an existential threat. I reminded Liu that distant civilizations might be able to detect atomic-bomb flashes in the atmospheres of distant planets, provided they engage in long-term monitoring of life-friendly habitats, as any advanced civilization surely would. The decision about whether to reveal our history might not be ours to make.
Liu told me that first contact would lead to a human conflict, if not a world war. This is a popular trope in science fiction. In last year’s Oscar-nominated film Arrival, the sudden appearance of an extraterrestrial intelligence inspires the formation of apocalyptic cults and nearly triggers a war between world powers anxious to gain an edge in the race to understand the alien’s messages. There is also real-world evidence for Liu’s pessimism: When Orson Welles’s “War of the Worlds” radio broadcast simulating an alien invasion was replayed in Ecuador in 1949, a riot broke out, resulting in the deaths of six people. “We have fallen into conflicts over things that are much easier to solve,” Liu told me.
Even if no geopolitical strife ensued, humans would certainly experience a radical cultural transformation, as every belief system on Earth grappled with the bare fact of first contact. Buddhists would get off easy: Their faith already assumes an infinite universe of untold antiquity, its every corner alive with the vibrating energies of living beings. The Hindu cosmos is similarly grand and teeming. The Koran references Allah’s “creation of the heavens and the earth, and the living creatures that He has scattered through them.” Jews believe that God’s power has no limits, certainly none that would restrain his creative powers to this planet’s cosmically small surface.
Christianity might have it tougher. There is a debate in contemporary Christian theology as to whether Christ’s salvation extends to every soul that exists in the wider universe, or whether the sin-tainted inhabitants of distant planets require their own divine interventions. The Vatican is especially keen to massage extraterrestrial life into its doctrine, perhaps sensing that another scientific revolution may be imminent. The shameful persecution of Galileo is still fresh in its long institutional memory.
Secular humanists won’t be spared a sobering intellectual reckoning with first contact. Copernicus removed Earth from the center of the universe, and Darwin yanked humans down into the muck with the rest of the animal kingdom. But even within this framework, human beings have continued to regard ourselves as nature’s pinnacle. We have continued treating “lower” creatures with great cruelty. We have marveled that existence itself was authored in such a way as to generate, from the simplest materials and axioms, beings like us. We have flattered ourselves that we are, in the words of Carl Sagan, “the universe’s way of knowing itself.” These are secular ways of saying we are made in the image of God.
We may be humbled to one day find ourselves joined, across the distance of stars, to a more ancient web of minds, fellow travelers in the long journey of time. We may receive from them an education in the real history of civilizations, young, old, and extinct. We may be introduced to galactic-scale artworks, borne of million-year traditions. We may be asked to participate in scientific observations that can be carried out only by multiple civilizations, separated by hundreds of light-years. Observations of this scope may disclose aspects of nature that we cannot now fathom. We may come to know a new metaphysics. If we’re lucky, we will come to know a new ethics. We’ll emerge from our existential shock feeling newly alive to our shared humanity. The first light to reach us in this dark forest may illuminate our home world too.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the wolf disappeared from most areas of Western Europe. They were seen as dangerous pests and were actively hunted or restricted by industrialization and landscape fragmentation. However, the tides have turned and the wolf is viewed as an important protected species. Its return to Europe has been accordingly encouraged.
Wolves are back
Wolves are important keystone predators. They control prey species populations, like deer, which then causes positive effects that trickle down to other animals, plants, and even the landscape. The largest documented success has been in Yellowstone Park, where the recent reintroduction of wolves has the caused the increase of a large number of unexpected species, such as trout, birds of prey, and the pronghorn.
The Bern Convention in 1979 was fundamental in changing the way that wolves are viewed. They are now considered “a fundamental element of our natural European heritage” andgiven protection and there are strategies in place to aid their re-colonization of Europe.
A European grey wolf.
Image credits: Katerina Hlavata.
The last country in continental Europe to have wolves return is Belgium. Now a wolf has been spotted earlier this month in Flanders, a region in the north of the country. It had an electronic tracking collar and was thus identified as coming from Germany. It had previously been touring in the Netherlands around Christmas time. A camera may have captured night footage of a wolf in southern Belgium in 2011, but it was never confirmed and therefore not considered an official spotting.
“Our country was the only one in continental Europe to have not been visited by a wolf,” since the animal began recolonizing the continent, the environmental group Landschap said.
Coexisting
Environmental groups have welcomed the news and are asking the government to further encourage the wolves’ return and to implement a system where farmers whose livestock is killed by wolves are compensated. Indeed, the social aspect is a very important one to consider when bringing back large predators to Western Europe.
The greatest conflicts since the return of wolves have been with farmers. In areas that have always had wolves, like Romania and Poland, a livestock attack is considered an unfortunate accident. However, in areas where wolves are newly returning to, farmers are unhappy with their presence. In France, wolves killed over 8,000 farm animals (mostly sheep) in 2017 alone. The government responded by ordering a wolf cull of up to 40 wolves by July 2018. It is a careful balance between supporting farmers and wolves. It is critical to include the social aspect in making wolf introduction plans to aid their success.
This is an opinion post by Justin Curmi and does not necessarily represent the position or opinion of ZME Science.
The Fermi’s Paradox explores the idea of how there are is a virtually limitless number of stars, but you don’t see much life floating around. What is the reason for this paradox?
Perhaps Enrico Fermi, the creator of the world’s first nuclear reactor, addressed this matter incorrectly. There could be two other explanations for this: firstly, the way we conceptualize space might be incorrect. We might be a part of a larger whole — just like some indigenous groups are still isolated from advanced technology around them, we might be unaware of the broader picture.
Alternatively, space might be at a specific phase of its development. In this case, the question should be “In what phase are we in space’s development?” Let’s elaborate.
Planetary systems emerge at different times but they can be viewed in a similar light as the inhabitants of Earth, in a sense. Evolution tends to leave clues of its work (for example neanderthal DNA in humans), which can be an indication of the rate that a sentient life takes time to form, as well as the other random variables that influence it. So, if a planetary system has the potentiality of supporting life, one should consider these inner and outside (meteorites, radiation, gravity, and so on) influences that affect life.
In addition, life has so far been the process of surpassing different spatial dimensions, therefore one needs to calculate why one life form transcends and another does not. Moreover, it seems that sentient life forms, like humans, tend to want to surpass these spatial dimensions. Would it be possible to go breach the current three spatial dimensions? That is still an open question.
A diagram of the geological timescale.
Image via Wikipedia.
In a way, geological formations also follow a similar path as evolution, though the rate for geological formations is much slower than life’s evolution; th
s one could speculate that space must have variables and a rate influencing its development. The only thing to figure is the rate at which space develops. This rate might be much slower than geological formations. Once we found this rate out, it could have large implications on human society in general. For instance, spaceships may be viewed as the wheel of our time because we are just learning how to probe the vast depths of space and traverse it. In addition, what does this mean for humans? Will we start developing around these new discoveries and technologies we are creating as earlier humans did for math?
It’s not just about practicality. If humans are able to conceptualize different worlds through math, this could also lead to revolutions in the arts. Artist could utilize simple maths to design their works. Future humans might employ a more advanced system of mathematics to create their art, and an advanced structure to construct it. All the arts they may create would be beyond current human comprehension due to the fact their senses will develop around this new form of thinking. Ultimately, art will increasingly become more advanced as our brains continue to develop new systems of conceptualizing our world.
Almost everything else will become increasingly more complex: interstellar infrastructure, universal agriculture, planetary currency, and so on. Mankind is continually in the process of dominating their surroundings, which will lead us to model our different collective belief and philosophical systems around the new information and thoughts we develop.
The humanities and science are pointing towards this direction of progress, and if we stagnate as humans have before one must consider the ramifications. There will be times of great anguish and jubilance, as history has demonstrated. Life will find a way as it has for eons.
A new artificial intelligence (AI) developed by the Alibaba Group has humans beaten on their own turf — the software has outperformed humans in a global reading comprehension test.
Image credits herval / Flickr.
China’s biggest online commerce company is making big strides in the field of artificial intelligence. The Alibaba Group has developed a machine-learning model which scored higher than human users on the Stanford Question Answering Dataset (SQAD), a large-scale reading comprehension test with more than 100,000 questions. On January 11, the AI scored 82.44 on the test, compared to 82.304 scored by humans.
It’s the first time an AI has outperformed people in this task and has done so in style — SQAD is considered one of the world’s most authoritative machine-reading gauges.
Computer speak good now
Computers have shown they can gain the upper hand against human players in all sort of complex tasks now — most strikingly in games such as chess. However, all these tasks had one common feature: they were all structured in such a way that a sharp memory and awesome computing capability represented huge assets.
Up to now, however, languages were always seen as a human field par excellence. So this win might be a bit more nerve-wracking than those before. Looking towards the future, the win has huge implications in society, especially in the customer service sector.
These jobs were traditionally insulated from the effects of automation, relying on armies of call-center employees even while factories swapped workers for robots. As someone who has had the distinct misfortune of working in a call center, I can only wish the robots good luck, endless patience, and a blanket apology. However, the advent of this AI points to profound shifts to come in the sector, and many people, unlike me, actually like/need those jobs — for them, this does not bode well.
It’s also a nerve-wracking to see AIs make such huge strides since, just two months ago, another Chinese AI passed the medical exam.
The Alibaba Group has worked closely with Ali Xiaomi, a mobile customer service chatbot which can be customised by retailers on Alibaba’s online market platform to suit their needs. Si Luo, a chief scientist at Alibaba’s research arm, said that the result means simple questions, such as “why does it rain?”, can be answered with a high degree of accuracy by machines.
“We believe the underlying technology can be gradually applied to numerous applications such as customer service, museum tutorials, and online response to inquiries from patients, freeing up human efforts in an unprecedented way,” Si said.
Ali Xiaomi was designed to identify the questions raised by customers and then look for the most relevant answers from pre-prepared documents. This made it a suitable platform for the new AI, as the processes that Ali Xiaomi uses are, in broad lines, the same ones that underpin the Stanford test.
Still, despite its superhuman result, Alibaba researchers say that the system is still somewhat limited. It works best with questions that have clear-cut answers; if the language is too vague, or the expression too ungrammatical, the bot likely won’t work properly. Similarly, if there’s no prepared answer, the bot will likely malfunction.
It’s easier than ever to contribute to science, and this study proves it best. Amateur astronomers using an online platform have discovered five rocky planets orbiting a far-off star.
To make things even more exciting, the planets are orbiting in an interesting mathematical relationship called a resonance chain — every planet takes 50% longer to orbit than the previous one.
Artist’s concept of a top-down view of the K2-138 system discovered by citizen scientists, showing the orbits and relative sizes of the five known planets. Orbital periods of the five planets, shown to scale, fall close to a series of 3:2 mean motion resonances. This indicates that the planets orbiting K2-138, which likely formed much farther away from the star, migrated inward slowly and smoothly.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.
Citizen scientists
In March 2017, the initial prototype of Exoplanet Explorers was set up on Zooniverse, a citizen science web portal headquartered at Oxford University. Exoplanet Explorers had amateur astronomers analyze data from NASA’s Kepler telescope trails — it was data which had never been analyzed by astronomers. Just 48 hours after the project was launched, researchers had received 2 million classifications from more than 10,000 users.
“People anywhere can log on and learn what real signals from exoplanets look like, and then look through actual data collected from the Kepler telescope to vote on whether or not to classify a given signal as a transit, or just noise,” said co-author Dr Jessie Christiansen, from Caltech in Pasadena.
The system required several people to look at the data and indicate an interesting objective.
“We have each potential transit signal looked at by a minimum of 10 people, and each needs a minimum of 90 percent of ‘yes’ votes to be considered for further characterization,” Christiansen.
After going through the entire dataset, scientists analyzed the demographics of the discovered planets: 44 Jupiter-sized planets, 72 Neptune-sized, 44 Earth-sized, and 53 so-called Super Earth’s — rocky planets larger than Earths but smaller than Neptune.
An artist’s depiction of K2-138. This is brutally inaccurate, as all five planets are in close proximity to the host star. There’s no way water would exist on the surface, as portrayed here. Come on NASA, you’re better than this.
(Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech).
Astronomers were thrilled to see that among the finds there was a system of five planets, all of which were slightly larger than Earth, ranging between 1.6 and 3.3 times the radius of Earth. The planets are locked in a phenomenon called orbital resonance. This means that there’s a simple mathematical relationship between the planets’ orbital periods. In this case, it’s 3:2 — each planet’s orbit is 50% longer than the previous one. This resonance chain of five planets is the longest one ever discovered, though other chains have also been discovered.
“The clockwork-like orbital architecture of this planetary system is keenly reminiscent of the Galilean satellites of Jupiter,” says Konstantin Batygin, assistant professor of planetary science and Van Nuys Page Scholar, who was not involved with the study. “Orbital commensurabilities among planets are fundamentally fragile, so the present-day configuration of the K2-138 planets clearly points to a rather gentle and laminar formation environment of these distant worlds.”
Space music
This unusual relationship gets even more interesting. Data also revealed a sixth planet, still in resonance, but which it skips two slots in the resonance chain. This might indicate a missing planet, or it might indicate another, unknown process.
It’s even more intriguing that this resonance coincides with a perfect fifth, an interval found commonly found in music. However, the interval isn’t exactly perfect. Instead of the ratio being exactly 1.5 (3:2), it’s 1.513, 1.518, 1.528, and 1.544 respectively. This yields another similarity to music, where musicians often tune their instruments just slightly off from a perfect-fifth to avoid the annoying “beat” that occurs when the tuning is too perfect.
The planets are locked in orbital resonance — like a musical perfect fifth.
Image via Wikipedia.
Even so, the most interesting thing about these planets is the way they were found. Nowadays, there’s just too much available data and not enough researchers to look at it. Algorithms are also limited in their scope. Having the sheer brain processing power of thousands of volunteers is simply irreplaceable.
“It’s really hard to tell the computer to find everything that looks like a blip, but not ‘that’ kind of blip or ‘that’ kind of blip or ‘that’ kind of blip. So we just tell the computer to find all the blips and we’ll check.”
“We just uploaded 55,000 new potential planetary signals,” Christiansen says. “We would never be able to get through all of the signals we have without our volunteers.”
WASHINGTON - The US military has begun testing AI brainimplants that can change a person’s mood on humans. These ‘mind control’ chips emit electronic pulses that alter brain chemistry in a process called ‘deep brainstimulation.’
If they prove successful, the devices could be used to treat a number of mental health conditions and to ensure a better response to therapy.
The chips are the work of scientists at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a branch of the USDepartment of Defense which develops new technologies for the military.
Researchers from the University of California (UC) and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) designed them to use artificial intelligence algorithms that detect patterns of activity associated with mood disorders.
Once detected, they can shock a patient’s brain back into a healthy state automatically. Experts believe the chips could be beneficial to patients with a range of illnesses, from Parkinson’s disease to chronic depression.
Speaking to Nature, Edward Chang, a neuroscientist at the University of California, said: ‘We’ve learned a lot about the limitations of our current technology.
‘The exciting thing about these technologies is that for the first time we’re going to have a window on the brainwhere we know what’s happening in the brain when someone relapses.’
The chips were tested in six people who have epilepsy and already have electrodes implanted in their brains to track their seizures. Through these electrodes, the researchers were able to track what was happening in their brains throughout the day.
Older implants are constantly doing this, but the new approach lets the team deliver a shock as and when is needed.
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Government UFO Disclosure Begins
Government UFO Disclosure Begins
Astronaut Edgar D. Mitchell said after his Apollo 14 Moon flight in 1971 that UFOs are real and all humanity should ask is where do they come from.
The prospect of UFOs has indeed raised countless questions for centuries. Many are afraid of the occupants as they may be hostile, but others think they may be friendly. Others argue that those UFOs have no occupants at all.
Researchers have been finding ways to communicate them, but so far no result or not yet disclosed. It is not yet determined what power these travelers are using. There have inquiries if aliens believe in God. Questions about UFOs and alien occupants are seemingly endless.
However, one question has been finally answered. UFOs exist as the world now knows. The Pentagon had spent $22 million on the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program up until 2012. The program tested theories about alien craft interfering in the airspace and even reportedly collected physical evidence from them.
According to the billionaire investor of the project Robert Bigelow, who is also a longtime UFO researcher, his company collected audio and video recordings of reported UFO incidents for the American military. Among the videos was the one that involved a Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet surrounded by a radiant glow moving at high speed and gyrating as it moved. The Navy pilots can be heard trying to understand what they are witnessing.
Interestingly, Bigelow also claims that his company stored different materials recovered from unidentified aerial phenomena, including metal alloys. He further states that he is convinced of the existence of aliens and that UFOs have visited Earth.
The Department of Defense has never before announced – in collaboration with major news corporations and private sector – with such intentional solemnity that unidentified flying objects are real. It may be just logical to assume that official disclosure is coming or when the public is ready to accept what happened entirely. The speculation and denial of this subject for much too long may be coming to an end and that everything is about to change. The disclosure will most likely a paradigm shift in the way humanity perceives our place in the universe.
This UFO sighting video was filmed over Memphis, Tennessee on 24th December 2017.
Witness report:
I saw two objects in the sky which seemed to be orbs floating in sky
I was headed back home after Christmas celebrations with my brother. It was a beautiful day and a beautiful sunset. I grabbed my phone and took a few pictures. I decided to get closer to get better pics. I was headed West on I40 when i got to the Sycamore View exit is when I saw these two objects. Turned on video on phone and headed toward these things. Found a safe space to pull over and began recording. These glowing orbs would set real still when a plane would pass and after plane was past them they seemed to move close to each other and what seemed to me tried to communicate with each other. You can see on video that one hides behind a cloud as a plane passes. The clouds seemed not to be moving. I was thrilled to see these things because I kept my wits this time.(saw the UFO ya’ll did a show on from a UFO that was seen in Memphis back in 77 and i freaked out and was scared because I was only 17 which I would love to tell about also cause i was less than 500 yards from that UFO even seeing the top of that UFO). I finally lost sight when I tried to readjust my camera
Vliegende schotel hangt minutenlang boven vliegveld, maar onderzoek blijft uit. Rara, hoe kan dat?
Vliegende schotel hangt minutenlang boven vliegveld, maar onderzoek blijft uit. Rara, hoe kan dat?
Onlangs publiceerde de New York Times een artikel over het geheime UFO-programma van het Pentagon. Eén van de auteurs van dat artikel, Leslie Kean, was donderdag te gast in Tucker Carlson Tonight op Fox News.
Het programma hield zich bezig met waarnemingen van vliegende objecten die niet konden worden verklaard en het verzamelen van onbekende materialen uit UFO’s.
“We weten dat er objecten in de lucht – en soms ook in het water – zijn die in staat zijn tot buitengewone dingen,” zei Kean. “Dingen waarvan experts zeggen dat ze op aarde niet mogelijk moeten zijn.”
Weigerde
Ze voegde toe dat UFO’s al vele jaren in de Verenigde Staten en in andere landen worden bestudeerd en dat er veel meer van dit soort programma’s zijn.
Carlson verwees vervolgens naar een waarneming op 7 november 2006 op O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, waar een piloot op klaarlichte dag een vliegende schotel boven zijn vliegtuig zag.
Hij vroeg zich af waarom de Amerikaanse luchtvaartautoriteit FAA weigerde een onderzoek in te stellen, terwijl het object werd gezien door tientallen mensen.
Schokkend
“Dit is schokkend,” zei Kean. “Ik denk dat ze het niet hebben onderzocht omdat ze zoiets niet kunnen verklaren.”
“Ze zeggen niet graag dat er iets boven het vliegveld heeft gehangen waarvan ze niet weten wat het was,” voegde ze toe.
“En dus bedenken ze andere verklaringen voor dit fenomeen, dat het een weerfenomeen of iets dergelijks was,” aldus Kean.
Belediging
Dat is een belediging voor de piloot en anderen die duidelijk zagen dat het geen weerfenomeen was, zei ze. “Het was een metaalkleurig, schijfvormig object dat vijf minuten bleef hangen.”
“Vervolgens schoot het recht omhoog de wolken in,” zei Kean. “Dit is een zeer indrukwekkend aspect van de waarneming omdat er een gat in de wolken was ontstaan.”
Voor zover bekend hebben wij geen machines die zoiets kunnen doen, besloot ze.
Mysterieuze signalen uit ver sterrenstelsel trekken aandacht van alienjagers. Dit hebben ze ontdekt
Mysterieuze signalen uit ver sterrenstelsel trekken aandacht van alienjagers. Dit hebben ze ontdekt
Alienjagers doen momenteel onderzoek naar radiogolven afkomstig uit een sterrenstelsel op grote afstand van de aarde.
In augustus vorig jaar zijn wetenschappers van het Breakthrough Listen-project een object genaamd FRB 121102 gaan analysren.
Het object is één van de minder dan 40 bekende voorbeelden van snelle radioflitsen, zeer heldere flitsen die slechts een fractie van een seconde duren.
Antwoord
Wetenschappers weten nog niet hoe ze worden veroorzaakt en om die reden zijn ze dan ook erg geïnteresseerd in FRB 121102.
Vishal Gajjar, één van de wetenschappers van Breakthrough Listen, is sceptisch en denkt persoonlijk niet dat de flitsen afkomstig zijn van een buitenaardse intelligentie.
Hij gelooft niet dat een beschaving zo’n krachtig signaal zou creëren omdat het dan buitengewoon lang zou duren voordat je antwoord krijgt.
Extreem
De radiogolven van FRB 121102 hebben er drie miljard jaar over gedaan om de aarde te bereiken. De beschaving die de boodschap heeft verstuurd is misschien al lang dood, denkt Gajjar.
Daarnaast komt het signaal uit een omgeving met een extreem krachtig magnetisch veld. Gajjar zei tegen Space.com dat deze omstandigheden waarschijnlijk te extreem zijn voor een buitenaardse beschaving.
Uitsluitsel
De onderzoekers ontdekten dat sommige van de radioflitsen tussen 0,00003 en 0,009 seconden duurden. Op basis daarvan schatten ze dat het object een doorsnee heeft van ongeveer 10 kilometer.
On January 7th, a SpaceX Falcon-9 rocket took off from Cape Canaveral on a classified mission called Zuma which involved deploying a mysterious Northrup Grumman satellite for an undisclosed U.S. government agency. As usual, SpaceX broadcast the launch live on its website … until the satellite was about to be launched. Then, according to what was later described as standard procedure for secret payloads, the video feed was shut down. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell called the mission a success … sort of.
“For clarity: after review of all data to date, Falcon 9 did everything correctly on Sunday night. If we or others find otherwise based on further review, we will report it immediately.”
That statement was in response to claims by media outlets,including ABC News, that satellite trackers could not find the Zuma satellite and that its deployment may have malfunctioned, causing its demise and fatal plunge into the Indian Ocean … an event which was covered up for security reasons.
Or was it?
The degrees of secrecy and finger-pointing surrounding Zuma are unusual, even for the government, defense contractors and the military. Tim Paynter, a spokesman for Northrop Grumman Corp., said, “we cannot comment on classified missions.” Army Lieutenant Colonel Jamie Davis, the Pentagon spokesman for space policy, referred questions to SpaceX. SpaceX is sticking by its story that it did nothing wrong on its part.
So where is Zuma?
One theory by space experts is that there was a problem with the payload fairing — the protective nose cone that covers the payload during the launch. There was some talk that payload fairing issues had been the reason the flight was delayed. Another theory is that payload adapter – the device responsible for launching the satellite – malfunctioned and destroy the payload. The third theory is that SpaceX is telling the truth (sort of) and the satellite (or whatever the payload was) malfunctioned after launch.
And yet, no party involved is willing to confirm or deny any of these possibilities, so … crank up the conspiracy mill.
Could it be possible that Zuma is so far advanced in stealth technology that it’s actually in orbit but even the most sophisticated ground trackers can’t detect it? Was the crash faked to cover this up? Could it be that Zuma’s secret mission was so top secret and brief that whoever owned it intentionally destroyed it? Could it be that Zuma was not a satellite but some sort of space plane or vehicle that was never intended to be placed in orbit but instead flew to the ground? Was it an emergency escape vehicle?
We already distrust the government and traditional defense contractors. Is it time to seriously question the true missions of launches by SpaceX and Elon Musk?
Over the last several years, the search for alien life has been heating up thanks to discoveries made both in space and here on Earth, prompting one top SETI researcher to predict that we’re only a decade or two away from finally discovering we’re not alone. While we all wish humanity’s first contact will resemble Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the truth is we are likely going to discover microbial life in space long before we make contact with intelligent bipedal aliens. But hey, microbes are cool right? They’re certainly a lot less frightening than green men with ray guns.
If only.
Two discoveries this week may further add the likelihood that our first cosmic neighbors will be of the microscopic variety. First, a new study found that Jupiter’s moon Europa displays evidence of active plate tectonics, indicating there is likely a subsurface ocean beneath the moon’s surface. Plate tectonics could also mean that the salts on Europa’s surface could potentially be reaching such an ocean and creating nutrients that any alien ocean life would need to survive. So, while not quite a discovery of life, it’s a discovery of a possibility of sustaining life. That’s hopeful.
The icy surface of Jupter’s moon Europa could be hiding a nutrient rich ocean. Or nothing.
Next, a team of scientists from the University of New South Wales in Australia have discovered a form of life unlike anything they’ve seen, and it might indicate that life in space could be more common and robust than we think. The team gathered soil samples from some of the most barren, ice-free parts of Antarctica, and traces of microbial DNA were found in some of the These environments are extremely hostile to life and offer almost no capacity to produce energy even through photosynthesis, so the team was quite surprised to find that any microbes could live there.
Adam’s Flat, Antarctica, where one of the samples was taken.
Study senior author and UNSW scientist Associate Professor Belinda Ferrari says all the evidence points to the bacteria essentially “eating” air, offering us new possibilities for how and where life can be found:
We found that the Antarctic microbes have evolved mechanisms to live on air instead, and they can get most of the energy and carbon they need by scavenging trace atmospheric gases, including hydrogen and carbon monoxide. This new understanding about how life can still exist in physically extreme and nutrient-starved environments like Antarctica opens up the possibility of atmospheric gases supporting life on other planets.
Their findings have been published in Nature. The discovery of these bacteria builds on similar findings which have been showing that microbes can sustain themselves just about anywhere, using whatever resources are available – even eating radiation. Life could be lurking almost anywhere in space, clinging to the surfaces of asteroids or lying at the bottom of deep craters on seemingly barren moons. I mean, to think Earth somehow is unique because it sustains life is kind of narcissistic, right? We’re not that special.
It has been thirty years since the original, so-called “MJ12 documents” surfaced. In 1987, Timothy Good’s bestselling book Above Top Secret was published. One of the most-talked-about aspects of Good’s book was the mention of a supposed top secret research and development group established in 1947 to deal with highly classified UFO data. Referred to as either Majestic 12 or MJ12, it was said to have been created in the wake of the notorious events at Roswell, New Mexico in July 1947. It was said to have been comprised of military personnel, scientists, and the elite of the U.S. Intelligence community. Not only that: Good published copies of what were said to be leaked MJ12 documents that told of (a) the establishment of the group; (b) the apparent crash of a UFO, complete with alien bodies, at Roswell; and (c) a briefing given in 1952 on the matter to President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Shortly after Good’s publication of the documents, additional copies surfaced in the United States. They came from the then research team of well-known ufologist Stanton Friedman, William Moore (the co-author, with Charles Berlitz, of the 1980 book The Roswell Incident) and Jaime Shandera (a television producer). Moore had been working quietly with a number of intelligence insiders who had contacted him shortly after publication of The Roswell Incident. From time to time various official-looking papers were passed onto Moore, the implication being that someone in the U.S. Government, military or Intelligence Community wished to make available information on UFOs that would otherwise have remained forever outside of the public domain.
It was as a result of Moore’s insider dealings that a roll of film negatives displaying the MJ12 documents was delivered in the mail to the home of Shandera in December 1984. Moore, Friedman and Shandera worked carefully and quietly for two and a half years in an attempt to determine the authenticity of the documents. With Timothy Good’s release, however, it was decided that the best course of action was to follow suit. As a result, a controversy was created that still continues to this day. At least, it continues to a small degree. Most people in Ufology have moved on from the MJ12 documents. But, they still occasionally cause a brief raising of eyebrows, such as when the latest batch surfaced earlier this year. Who remembers them now? I try not to.
Jacques Vallee, UFO author, investigator, and former principal investigator on Department of Defense computer networking projects-stated in his book Revelations that the FBI turned away from the MJ12 documents in “disgust” and professed no interest in the matter. Papers and comments made to me by the FBI and the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, however, reflect a somewhat different scenario. It was in 1988 that the FBI’s investigation began – after the late UFO skeptic/debunker Philip Klass contacted the FBI and told them all about the supposedly leaked, highly-classified documents and who had put them in the public domain.
We also know – thanks to the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act – that what was possibly a separate autumn 1988 investigation was conducted by the FBI’s Foreign Counter-Intelligence division (operating out of Washington and New York). Some input into the investigation also came from the FBI office in Dallas, Texas – the involvement of the latter confirmed to me by the Dallas office in the early 1990s.
On September 15, 1988, an agent of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations contacted Dallas FBI and supplied the Bureau with a copy of the original MJ12 papers. This set of the papers was obtained from a source whose identity, according to documentation released to me by the Bureau, AFOSI has deemed must remain withheld. As a result, on October 25, 1988, the Dallas office transmitted a two-page Secret Airtel to headquarters that read as follows:
“Enclosed for the Bureau is an envelope which contains a possible classified document. Dallas notes that within the last six weeks, there has been local publicity regarding ‘OPERATION MAJESTIC-12’ with at least two appearances on a local radio talk show, discussing the MAJESTIC-12 OPERATION, the individuals involved, and the Government’s attempt to keep it all secret. It is unknown if this is all part of a publicity campaign. [Censored] from OSI, advises that ‘OPERATION BLUE BOOK,’ mentioned in the document on page 4 did exist. Dallas realizes that the purported document is over 35 years old, but does not know if it has been properly declassified. The Bureau is requested to discern if the document is still classified. Dallas will hold any investigation in abeyance until further direction from FBIHQ.”
Partly as a result of the actions of the Dallas FBI Office, and partly as a result of the investigation undertaken by the FBI’s Foreign Counter-Intelligence people, on November 30, 1988 an arranged meeting took place in Washington D.C. between agents of the Bureau and those of AFOSI. If the AFOSI had information on MJ12, said the Bureau, they would very much like to know. A Secret communication back to the Dallas office from Washington on December 2, 1988 read: “This communication is classified Secret in its entirety. Reference Dallas Airtel dated October 25 1988. Reference Airtel requested that FBIHQ determine if the document enclosed by referenced Airtel was classified or not. The Office of Special Investigations, US Air Force, advised on November 30, 1988, that the document was fabricated. Copies of that document have been distributed to various parts of the United States. The document is completely bogus. Dallas is to close captioned investigation.”
At first glance, that would seem to lay matters to rest, once and for all. Unfortunately, it does not; at least, not quite. The FBI was assured by AFOSI that the MJ12 papers were fabricated. The Chief of the Information Release Division at the Investigative Operations Center with the USAF, admitted to me on April 30, 1993 that AFOSI was not maintaining (nor ever had maintained) any records pertaining to either MJ12, or any investigation thereof. This begs an important question. How was AFOSI able to determine that the papers were faked if no investigation on their part was undertaken? I was also advised that while AFOSI did “discuss” the MJ12 documents with the FBI, they made absolutely no written reference to that meeting in any shape or form whatsoever. This is indeed most odd: government and military agencies are methodical when it comes to documenting possible breaches of security.
The Deputy for Security and Investigative Programs with the U.S. Air Force advised me similarly on October 12, 1993: “The Air Force considers the MJ12 (both the group described and the purported documents) to be bogus.” He, too, conceded, however, that there were “no documents responsive” to my request for Air Force files on how just such a determination was reached. Moreover, there is the fact that AFOSI informed the FBI that, “copies of that document have been distributed to various parts of the United States.” To make such a statement AFOSI simply must have conducted some form of investigation or have been in receipt of data from yet another agency. So, there are a few issues that still require answers. Today, however, the FBI’s investigations into MJ12 are in “closed status.” While I agree with the Air Force that the documents are bogus, I would still very much like to see how the determination was made. Was it just an opinion based on the unlikely nature and content of the documents? Very possibly, yes – and which is both understandable and reasonable.
On a final note, I have heard rumors that the FBI got involved again in the 1990s, when Timothy Cooper surfaced with literally hundreds of pages of questionable MJ12-related papers. But, rumors do not amount to evidence or facts. As for the latest MJ12 papers, I have heard nothing about agencies taking an interest in them. Time, methinks, for the rotted corpse to be laid to rest, once and for all.
Incredibly Advanced Secret Technology That They Said Did Not Exist
Incredibly Advanced Secret Technology That They Said Did Not Exist
Find out why a lot of advanced technology is being hidden from us but used in secret and black projects around the world.
First you will be introduced to the basics and a case for a “Secret Space Program” will be made.
The TR-3B is a secret "black project" craft that can be flown into space. The allegations are that these crafts are created at top-secret military bases like Area 51 in Nevada, by reverse engineering alien technology.
In this presentation, we will look at the evidence that indicates that a secret space program really does exist.
We will touch on the alleged Nazi Bell project and we will mention disclosures by John Maynard, Edgar Fouche.
We will discuss the research of Nick Cook and mention William Hamilton - what they found suggests there is indeed a hidden space program.
We will also consider what Gary McKinnon said and ask if things like the Apollo and chemical rocket programs are simply a distraction that have the effect of discouraging people from considering there might be far, far more advanced "Black Programs" in existence and in use.
According to Native American folklore, these creatures, strange upright standing thin creatures with no arms, have existed for hundreds of years and have lived along-side humans peacefully.
Despite there is very little evidence to prove that these so-called Nightcrawlers are real undiscovered cryptids, in 2011, there have been multiple CCTV camera sightings of strange upright standing thin creatures with no arms walking endlessly at night.
The first appearance of a Nightcrawler took place in Fresno, California and the second appearance took place in Yosemite National Park.
Five-Exoplanet System Discovered Thanks to Citizen Scientists
Five-Exoplanet System Discovered Thanks to Citizen Scientists
By Calla Cofield, Space.com Senior Writer
An artist's illustration of the K2-138 system, which contains at least five planets orbiting closely around their parent star.
Credit: R. Hurt (IPAC)/NASA/JPL-Caltech
A family of four planets orbiting a distant star was discovered last April, with the help of citizen scientists around the world. In a new paper, researchers reveal some fascinating features of this alien solar system, including the presence of a fifth planet.
The planetary system K2-138 is home to at least five "sub-Neptune" planets, meaning they are between the size of Earth and that of Neptune, according to the new study. The planets all orbit extremely close to their parent star, even closer than Mercury orbits the sun.
K2-128 was discovered using data from the K2 mission, which has observed over 280,000 stars in three years, according to a statement from the California Institute of Technology. The mission utilizes the Kepler space telescope, which suffered a series of hardware failures and could no longer operate the way it was initially intended. The K2 mission allowed Kepler to continue operating in another way.
Software programs can sort through the initial K2 data and select those stars that might be home to planets, but those programs aren't yet good enough to independently confirm the presence of a planet around a star in the K2 data. That leaves thousands of stars that need to be analyzed by the K2 scientists, which is far more than those researchers can handle in a reasonable amount of time, according to Jessie Christiansen, a K2 collaboration member and staff scientist at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), who spoke at a news conference at the 231st meeting of the American Astronomical Society, in Washington, D.C. yesterday (Jan. 11).
To try and sort through the K2 data faster, the mission scientists initiated a crowdsourcing project. In this effort, members of the public would be able to review the data that the K2 software had sifted out and help identify the systems that host planets. The result was the Exoplanet Explorers citizen scientist project, developed by Christiansen, along with Ian Crossfield, an astronomer at the University of California, Santa Cruz. The program was launched in April and hosted on Zooniverse, an online platform for crowdsourcing research.
(Another citizen scientist project hosted on Zooniverse, called Planet Hunters, was started during the Kepler telescope's primary mission and allowed citzen scientists to search through telescope data for exoplanets before the data had been filtered by software.)
"People anywhere can log on and learn what real signals from exoplanetslook like, and then look through actual data collected from the Kepler telescope to vote on whether or not to classify a given signal as a transit or just noise," said Christiansen. "We have each potential transit signal looked at by a minimum of 10 people, and each needs a minimum of 90 percent of 'yes' votes to be considered for further characterization."
Project beginnings
The Exoplanet Explorers program got a big boost in publicity two weeks after it launched, when it was featured on the Australia Broadcasting Company's television series "Stargazing Live," co-hosted by celebrity physicist Brian Cox, for three consecutive nights. Within 48 hours of the program's debut, more than 10,000 people had participated in Exoplanet Explorers and classified over 2 million systems, according to the statement.
Following the first night of the program, the researchers watched the results roll in, as citizen scientists helped sift through the data. On the second night, enough people had participated that the researchers were able to share the demographics of the planet candidates that had already been flagged and were undergoing additional analysis: 44 Jupiter-size planets, 72 Neptune-size planets, 44 Earth-size planets and 53 sub-Neptunes (larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune).
On the third night, the scientists announced the detection of the K2-128 system, although at the time they could identify only four planets around the star. The researchers said in the statement that K2-128 is the "first multiplanet system of exoplanets discovered entirely by crowdsourcing."
An artist's concept of the K2-138 planets, showing their orbits and sizes, to scale. (The size of the parent star is not to scale).
Credit: R. Hurt (IPAC)/NASA/JPL-Caltech
Resonance
Some of the major findings reported in the new paper are the discovery of a fifth planet and hints of a possible sixth planet in the data.
The star at the center of this system is slightly smaller and cooler than our sun. While the innermost planet might be rocky like Earth, the other four known planets are gaseous, like Neptune. All five planets orbit around the star with periods shorter than 13 days. (Mercury's orbit around the sun is 88 days.) That close proximity means the planets have temperatures ranging from 800 to 1800 degrees Fahrenheit (425 to 980 Celsius), so even the rocky planet is not habitable for life as we know it.
All five of the confirmed planets, which are lettered a through e, orbit their star in resonance with each other, meaning the length of each planet's orbit is related to the next planet's orbit in the same way. More specifically, dividing the length of one planet's orbit by that of the next nearest planet produces nearly the same ratio each time: 3:2 or 1.5. In each case, the exact ratio of two orbital lengths is slightly higher or lower than 1.5, but by less than 0.1. The TRAPPIST-1 system, which contains seven planets orbiting very close to their star, also displays orbital resonances but the ratio does not work out to whole integers. Resonances with whole integers are called "fundamental" resonances.
This planetary resonance indicates that the orbits of the planets are influencing each other and have probably been influencing each other for a long time, according to the statement. Some planetary-formation theories predict that these relatively large planets formed at locations farther awayfrom their parent star than they are now, and the resonances indicate that they moved in toward the star together, in a relatively calm manner, Christiansen said at the news conference.
"Some current theories suggest that planets form by a chaotic scattering of rock and gas and other material in the early stages of the planetary system's life. However, these theories are unlikely to result in such a closely packed, orderly system as K2-138," Christiansen said in the statement. "What's exciting is that we found this unusual system with the help of the general public."
Konstantin Batygin, an assistant professor of planetary science at Caltech who was not involved with the study, agreed that the resonances of the five planets indicated a calm migration period, according to the statement.
"Orbital commensurabilities among planets are fundamentally fragile, so the present-day configuration of the K2-138 planets clearly points to a rather gentle and laminar formation environment of these distant worlds," Batygin said.
The government keeps lots of secrets, including its UFO program and its plans for terrifying disaster scenarios. Only a little less outlandish? The secret airline, called JANET, that the government uses to covertly ferry people around. As it turns out, this secret airline not only flies under the radar, but also flies in and out of commercial airports.
Read on for all the most facts about JANET, including where the airline flies, who it transports, and the measures it takes to keep its mission a secret.
1. The airline is called JANET, but nobody knows why
It hasn’t been made public what JANET stands for. | Alan Wilson/Wikimedia Commons
As Business Insider reports, the government’s secret airline is called JANET. And that’s how pilots identify their aircraft over air traffic radio. But nobody knows exactly what JANET stands for. It may mean “Just Another Non-Existent Terminal.” Or possibly “Joint Air Network for Employee Transportation.” But nobody — at least not anybody who’s spoken to the press — knows for sure.
Next: This is who owns the airline’s planes.
2. JANET’s planes are owned by the U.S Air Force
The planes are owned by the Air Force. | Ian Hitchcock/Getty Images
Interestingly enough, Business Insider reports that the U.S. Air Force owns JANET’s planes. Defense contractor AECOM operates them. The JANET fleet consists of six Boeing 737-600s and five Beechcraft turboprops. According to Popular Mechanics, the Air Force doesn’t hide the fact that it owns these aircraft. You can go to the FAA website and search for the planes’ registration numbers. Then, the website will tell you that the plane is owned by the U.S. Air Force.
Next: These planes look different from other aircraft in one key way.
3. The planes don’t have the usual markings
The planes are left blank. | Beer Root/Wikimedia Commons
When you fly with a commercial airline, you’ll board a plane that bears the airline’s logo in several places. After all, it’s free advertising for the airline, so why wouldn’t they take advantage of it? But as Business Insider notes, JANET’s planes don’t carry identifying markings like the aircraft that belong to other airlines. Instead, they just bear a horizontal red stripe (for the Boeing aircraft). Or, they have blue trim stripes (for the Beechcraft planes), plus their registration numbers. But even those markings are pretty distinctive, and have made the airline’s aircraft recognizable around the Las Vegas airport.
Next: This is the airline’s home base.
4. The airline operates out of a private terminal at McCarran in Las Vegas
They operate out of the Las Vegas airport. | littleny/iStock/Getty Images
Business Insider reports that the secret airline operates out of a private terminal at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas. Popular Mechanics reports that JANET’s area of the airport bears the codename, “Gold Coast Terminal.” The publication notes that each morning, the parking lot for the terminal “fills up with hundreds of cars.” Then, planes take off to shuttle people to their destinations. (More on those in the coming pages.) In the evening, “the planes come back, and the cars leave.”
Next: We aren’t certain about this key information on the Gold Coast Terminal.
Though it’s been reported that AECOM operates JANET’s aircraft, Popular Mechanics reports that we’re not 100% sure who runs the Gold Coast Terminal. That used to be the job of a defense contractor called EG&G (which helped to develop nuclear weapons). EG&G originally operated the terminal, but the Carlyle Group acquired the contractor in 1999. Then, the URS Corporation acquired Carlyle in 2002. And finally, AECOM acquired URS in 2014. As far as we know, AECOM currently operates the terminal — and the flights.
Next: Even flight attendants need this to work for JANET.
6. Even flight attendants have to have top secret security clearance
Everyone aboard needs Top Secret security clearance. | Tomás Del Coro/Wikimedia Commons
Not many people get to fly with JANET. And we’d guess that even fewer work for the secret airline. As Business Insider reports, even flight attendants who work for the airline have to qualify for and maintain a Top Secret security clearance. Getting that clearance — the highest level — can be a pretty arduous process. The application requires you to divulge “nearly every bit of information about yourself relating to personal and business finances, residences, employment history, criminal behavior, prior military service, citizenship, and criminal behavior.” An investigator also interviews your employers, neighbors, spouse, and acquaintances. And you have to take a polygraph exam. That’s a lot of hoops to jump through to get a job as a flight attendant!
Next: But the airline does do this like a normal company.
7. But the airline makes a splash every few years when it publishes a job posting
It would be pretty interesting to work for them. | Tomás Del Coro/Wikimedia Commons
Not everybody can qualify for or obtain a Top Secret security clearance — a clearance that allows access to sensitive information that affects national security. But JANET makes a splash every few years by publishing a job posting, such as for flight attendants or pilots. Everybody speculates about what it would be like to work for the secretive airline, and what the requirements of the job reveal about JANET. Even if you don’t like heights or wouldn’t want to live in Las Vegas, you can probably see the appeal of getting an up-close-and-personal look at some of the most secretive government facilities in the United States.
Next: JANET flies to this fascinating location.
8. JANET transports employees to Area 51
They fly to several top secret locations. | Tim1337/Wikimedia Commons
Curious where the airline actually flies? It reportedly shuttles employees and contractors to Area 51, the most famous of the U.S. government’s top secret military bases. (Conspiracy theorists have posited that the government is hiding everything from aliens to a moon landing movie set on the base.) But the remote Air Force facility isn’t the only mysterious destination that the airline services. JANET aircraft also fly to the Tonopah Test Range, Air Force Plant 42, the Naval Air Weapons Station at China Lake, and the Edwards Air Force Base.
Next: Here’s how flights to Area 51 stay under the radar.
9. Many JANET flights turn off their transponders and disappear from trackers
Many of them disappear from the radar. | Eddie Maloney/Wikimedia Commons
Popular Mechanics reports that “most of the time,” JANET’s planes take off from Las Vegas, head north, then turn off their transponders and disappear from trackers after spending just 15 minutes in the air. The U.S. government still maintains that Area 51 doesn’t exist. So according to Popular Mechanics, “every sign would point to these JANET flights being the Area 51 employee shuttles for personnel living in Las Vegas. The airspace around Area 51, known as Airspace 4808 North, qualifies as some of the most protected airspace in the world, with fighter jets on duty to shoot down intruders. But JANET’s aircraft regularly go in and out of Airspace 4808 North without incident.
Next: JANET even does this as an aircraft approaches the protected airspace.
10. The airline even changes the plane’s callsigns in the airspace over Area 51
They change the names once they’re over Area 51 airspace. | PD/Wikimedia Commons
Jalopnik reports that when JANET flights take off from Las Vegas, they communicate with McCarran Departure Control using a callsign such as “Janet 210” or “Janet 301.” Once airborne, flights that go to Area 51 check in with Nellis Control, which supervises the airspace across southern Nevada. Then, when the airline continues into the airspace over Area 51, the flight switches to a different frequency — and also changes its callsign. Jalopnik explains, “It’s no longer ‘Janet 210’ or ‘Janet 301,’ it’s now something else entirely, like ‘Racer 25’ or ‘Bones 58.’ It’s flying inside the most restricted airspace on Earth, heading directly towards a veritable black hole of information.”
Next: But not every JANET flight needs to stay so secretive.
11. But not all of the airline’s planes turn off their transponders, even when going to some secretive facilities
We do know some places they fly for sure. | Tomás Del Coro/Wikimedia Commons
We don’t actually know for sure that the airline flies to Area 51, since the flights suspected to go there turn off their transponders. But we can track other JANET flights that don’t turn off their transponders, even when they fly to secretive facilities. Popular Mechanics reports that we know without a doubt that the airline flies to Tonopah, where the U.S. military develops and tests many of its weapons. JANET planes also go to China Lake, a Navy research and development site. We also know for certain that they go to Plant 42, where the Air Force builds its planes. And the airline also flies to Edwards Air Force Base, home of classified research and development projects.
Next: These probably aren’t the only places where the airline flies.
12. JANET likely flies to other destinations, too
There are undoubtedly plenty of destinations we don’t know about. | Eddie Maloney/Wikimedia Commons
Jalopnik notes that though we know about the destinations where the airline flies regularly, JANET “may serve other locations throughout the military and intelligence apparatus, and very likely make unique visits to atypical destinations under special circumstances.” As the publication explains, “Some of these places are in or near southern Nevada, and others are many thousands of miles away.” JANET flights likely go to destinations in New Mexico, California, Utah, and beyond.
Next: Many, many people fly with JANET each day.
13. The airline transports hundreds or maybe thousands of people per day
Popular Mechanics reports that though many facts about the secret airline are up for debate, we do know that JANET must fly hundreds of even thousands of people per day. As Jalopnik explains, “Circulating key people among the litany of bases and ranges is the reason why Janet flights exist.” We may not know who all these people are. But we do have some idea of what they’re doing. When the airline boards its aircraft each weekday morning, its casually-dressed passengers are on their way to “places where some of the most advanced development work in all of aerospace is occurring.”
Next: You may be able to spot a JANET plane.
14. You can see the airplanes if you travel through Las Vegas
Have you booked a flight in or out of McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas? Then Popular Mechanics reports that you may be able to see JANET’s aircraft in plain sight. You’d think that if the U.S. governments want to keep JANET secret, then it would keep its aircraft away from curious onlookers. But that doesn’t seem to be the case, and you may be able to spot a JANET plane the next time you fly through MacCarran.
Next: The airline’s planes have also been spotted at this major airport.
15. The planes undergo maintenance in Atlanta
They’ve been seen receiving maintenance in Atlanta. | Tomás Del Coro/Wikimedia Commons
Similarly, you may spot a JANET aircraft if you fly through Atlanta. Though the secretive airline is based in Las Vegas, Jalopnik reports that JANET’s planes are occasionally seen undergoing maintenance in Atlanta. They head to Delta Air Lines’ TechOps maintenance facility, the same place where USAF C-40 Clipper jets — a military version of the Boeing 737-700 — also undergo maintenance. Additionally, JANET 737s reportedly get serviced at Paine Field in Everett, Washington.
Next: Many of JANET’s planes have an interesting history.
16. JANET’s current planes used to belong to a Chinese airline
Many used to belong to Air China. | Twistedpictures1/Wikimedia Commons
The airline has owned numerous aircraft over the years, and some have an interesting history. Jalopnik reports that JANET became official in 1972 with a Douglas DC-6B. The airline added an additional C-6B in 1976. The two aircraft served until 1981. Then, the government replaced them with Boeing 737-200 Advanced jets. Six 737-200s eventually joined the fleet. Of the six, five had been converted from prior service as USAF T-43A trainers. The sixth had flown for Western Airlines before the government acquired it. The airline upgraded its fleet sometime between 2008 and 2009 — but bought pre-owned instead of new. The Boeing 737-600 airliners that fly for JANET today were all previously in service with Air China.
Next: Many things about JANET remain a mystery.
17. Plenty of information about the airline remains a mystery
Even though the secret airline’s planes may be in plain sight at the Las Vegas airport, there are still plenty of things that we don’t know about JANET. As Popular Mechanics notes, we can’t say with 100% certainty where — or whom — these planes fly. And while it seems safe to guess that thousands of people have flown with JANET over the years, we certainly don’t know who they all were or what they’ve been working on.
Puzzled drivers were left wondering if they had captured evidence of ALIENS visiting Earth as the footage went viral and was quickly picked up by conspiracy theory websites.
"You can see that the tubular UFO is flying vertically over the city" wrote UFO expert Pedro Ramirez who described it as the "first sighting of 2018".
The sighting occurred in the city of Mexicali in the state of Baja California in Mexico.
The upright shape remains suspended in the air and is distinctly different from rounded "flying saucer" UFOs that are conventionally thought of as evidence of alien visitors.
The unusual object is clearly visible in the recording, silhouetted against the dramatic skyline.
Ramirez says that the increased space activity in recent years from the likes of NASA and SpaceX have led to an increased interest in Earth from alien visitors.
"Aliens are aware that we have made a number of space launches recently and have identified that we have been sending up 'war material'," he claimed to the CEN news agency.
"Concerned by our activity, they have been increasingly monitoring our planet. This year will be very important for those of us who follow this phenomenon closely."
The video of the mysterious UFO has been shared over 50,000 times online and other theories have emerged about what it could be. One of which is that it's a pilot testing a jet pack.
A Chinese Long March 3B rocket booster may have fallen from the sky and exploded near a town in southwest China today (Jan. 12) following a successful satellite launch, GBTimes reports.
The article features video and photos shared on social media by people who apparently saw the strap-on booster, one of four that helped launch the Long March 3B, fall from the sky and explode, as well as images of the burning booster on the ground. There are no reports of injuries due to the fall at this time, as the booster does not appear to have hit any buildings or people, according to the article.
The Long March 3B lifted off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in the southwest Sichuan Province at 7:18 p.m. local time (1118 GMT; 6:18 a.m. EST), successfully carrying two Beidou-3 GNSS satellites into orbit, according to a statement from the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (which uses the acronym CASC), which oversaw the launch. That statement does not mention the fallen booster.
In the GBTimes article, author Andrew Jones wrote, "Minutes after launch as the rocket flew downrange, four strap-on boosters separated from the core, with one dropping near the town of Xiangdu in Tiandeng Country, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, around 700 kilometers [435 miles] from the launch site."
"With Tiandeng County being within the designated drop zones for debris for the launch, some locals were evidently ready to capture footage in the case that discarded rocket boosters fell from the sky," Jones wrote.
The Xichang Satellite Launch Center is near China's southern border with Myanmar, and more than 500 miles (800 km) from the ocean.
In addition to today's launch, China has reported two other successful rocket launches in 2018. Most recently, a Long March 2D rocket successfully launched two new Earth-observing satellites into orbit for Beijing Space View Technology in China on Tuesday (Jan. 10). The Long March 2D lifted off from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in China's Shanxi Province.
China is anticipating that its uncrewed Tiangong-1 space laboratory will fall to Earth sometime in mid-March. It's possible that pieces of debris from that event will reach the ground intact. The Chinese space agency lost control of the orbiting spacecraft in early 2016.
Researchers Probe Origin of Superpowerful Radio Blasts from Space
Researchers Probe Origin of Superpowerful Radio Blasts from Space
By Charles Q. Choi, Space.com Contributor
The Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico recorded highly polarized signals from the fast radio burst source FRB 121102, twisted by an extreme region of magnetized plasma.
Credit: Image design: Danielle Futselaar - Photo usage: Brian P. Irwin/Dennis van de Water/Shutterstock.com
New work probes the extraterrestrial source of incredibly powerful explosions of radio waves, investigating why that spot is the only known location to repeatedly burst with these blasts.
These repeating bursts may come from a dense stellar core called a neutron star near an extraordinarily powerful magnetic field, such as one near a massive black hole, the study finds.
Fast radio bursts, or FRBs, are intense pulses of radio waves lasting just milliseconds that can give off more energy in a fraction of a second than the sun does in hours, days or weeks. FRBs were discovered only in 2007, and while researchers have detected 20 or so FRBs in the past decade, they estimate that such flashes might occur as many as 10,000 times a day across the entire sky, researchers wrote in the study. [Inside a Neutron Star (Infographic)]
Much remains a mystery about the origins of FRBs, because their brief nature makes it difficult to pinpoint where they come from. Among the possibilities that prior work suggested are cataclysmic events such as the evaporation of black holes and collisions between neutron stars.
A 3D-printed depiction of one of FRB 121102's radio bursts detected with Arecibo shows how bright the burst was as a function of observed radio frequency and time.
Credit: Anne Archibald/University of Amsterdam
However, in 2016, scientists discovered that a fast radio burst known as FRB 121102 could release multiple bursts. "It is the only known repeating fast radio burst source," study co-lead author Jason Hessels, an astrophysicist at the University of Amsterdam, told Space.com.
That FRB 121102 can explode over and over again suggests it does not come from some one-time cataclysmic event, Hessels said. "A key question in the field is whether this repeating fast radio burst source is fundamentally different compared to all the other apparently nonrepeating sources," he said.
To learn more about this FRB, scientists used the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico and the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia to analyze data on 16 bursts from object. FRB 121102 is located in a star-forming region of a dwarf galaxy found about 3 billion light-years from Earth, Hessels said. Because astronomers can see it from such a great distance, the amount of energy in a single millisecond of each of these bursts must be about as much as the sun releases in an entire day, Hessels and his colleagues said in a statement.
In studying these emissions, the researchers focused on a feature of radio waves known as polarization. This property occurs because all light waves, including radio waves, can ripple up and down, left and right, or at any angle in between. The radio waves from FRB 121102 were short in duration and strongly polarized (with most of the radio waves all rippling in the same direction), similar to radio emissions from young energetic neutron stars previously seen in the Milky Way galaxy, Andrew Seymour, co-author on the study and a researcher at the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center at Arecibo Observatory, said in the statement.
The Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia measured a complicated structure in a fast radio burst from the source FRB 121102. The telescope detected the burst using a new recording system from the Breakthrough Listen project.
When radio waves pass through a magnetized plasma, or cloud of electrically charged particles, the direction in which they are polarized can twist, an effect known as Faraday rotation. Hessels and his colleagues found that FRB 121102's radio bursts were more than 500 times more twisted than those from any other FRB to date. Gorgeous New Hubble Photo Reveals 'Beating Heart' of Crab Nebula
"I couldn't believe my eyes when I first saw the data. Such extreme Faraday rotation is extremely rare," Hessels said in the statement.
This extreme twisting suggests that FRB 121102's bursts passed through an extraordinarily hot plasma with an extremely strong magnetic field. Such plasmas might exist near either a black hole more than 10,000 times the mass of the sun or the remnant of a supernova, the researchers said.
"Myself and many others would love to know whether this fast radio burst phenomenon has a single or multiple physical origins," Hessels said. "There is a whole host of telescopes coming online in the next few years that promise to discover many more such sources and to answer these questions."
The scientists detailed their findings in the Jan. 11 issue of the journal Nature.
The company's Arkyd-6 satellite rode to space last night (Jan. 11) atop an Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV). If all goes according to plan, the cereal-box-size Arkyd-6 will set up shop in a sun-synchronous polar orbit, where it will prove out technology needed for Planetary Resources' next spacecraft, an asteroid prospector known as Arkyd-301.
"One of the things that we are most excited about is our onboard midwave infrared imager, which will not only be able to produce interesting images of our planet but also generate valuable scientific data," Arkyd-6 Project Lead Eric Blood wrote in a blog post last month. [Gallery: Planetary Resources' Asteroid-Mining Plans]
"We are maturing this remote-sensing capability for use on the Arkyd-301 platform with a more advanced scientific imager that will enable the collection of calibrated spectral data for use in detecting water signatures on other planetary bodies," he added.
Artist's illustration of Planetary Resources' Arkyd-6 spacecraft in Earth orbit.
Credit: Planetary Resources
Off-Earth water is the key resource needed to spur exploration of the solar system on a grand scale, Planetary Resources representatives have said. That's because water can be split into its constituent atoms, hydrogen and oxygen — which are also the chief components of rocket fuel. Asteroid mining (and moon mining) could therefore lead to the establishment of in-space propellant depots, which would allow voyaging spacecraft to top up their tanks on the go, advocates have said.
Planetary Resources aims to launch multiple Arkyd-301 spacecraft atop a single rocket in 2020. Each spacecraft will visit a different asteroid, measuring the object's water content from afar and with the aid of piggyback miniprobes, which will deploy from the mothership and burrow into the space rock's surface for up-close looks.
A Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle launches the Cartosat-2F Earth observing satellite and 30 other smaller payloads into orbit from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota for the Indian Space Research Organisation. Liftoff occurred on Jan. 12, 2018 local time.
Credit: Indian Space Research Organisation
The most-promising asteroids will then be targeted by bona fide mining craft in follow-on missions.
Previously, Washington state-based Planetary Resources successfully lofted one other satellite: Arkyd-3R, which was even smaller than Arkyd-6. Arkyd-3R launched to the International Space Station aboard SpaceX's Dragon capsule in April 2015, then was deployed into Earth orbit on a technology-demonstration mission in July of that year. (The "R" in the name stood for "reflight"; the original Arkyd-3 was lost when Orbital ATK's Antares rocket exploded shortly after liftoff in October 2014.)
Arkyd-6 was one of several dozen secondary payloads on last night's PSLV launch. The primary payload was the Indian Earth-observation satellite Cartosat 2ER.
GALACTIC CENTER Stars (white) and clumps of gas (red) can be seen in this image from a 360-degree visualization of the center of the Milky Way. Gas clumps near the galaxy’s black hole are stretched by gravitational forces (orange smear).
C. RUSSELL ET AL./PONTIFICAL CATHOLIC UNIV. OF CHILE, CXC/NASA
OXON HILL, Md. — Ever wonder what it would be like to sit at the center of the Milky Way and watch the galaxy swirl by? A video debuted in a January 10 news conferenceat the American Astronomical Society Meeting provides a glimpse.
The 360-degree-simulation, made with data from several telescopes, including NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope, puts viewers at Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole that lurks in the galaxy’s center.
The video depicts about 25 stars (shown in white) that churn through the galaxy’s center over about 500 years. The stars, known as Wolf-Rayet stars, emit winds of gas, shown in red. As blobs of gas near the supermassive black hole, they are stretched and deformed by the intense gravity — before finally being captured inside.
It’s quite a view — but one you’d never want to experience in real life: The Milky Way’s supermassive black hole has about 4 million times the mass of the sun. Since nothing can escape from inside a black hole, you’d never be able to share what you saw — even if you survived the crushing weight of the behemoth’s gravity.
GALAXY GANDER This 360-degree video gives a simulated view of the environment at the middle of the Milky Way, surrounding the galaxy’s supermassive black hole. Stars (white) orbit the black hole, emitting blobs of gas (red).
C. RUSSELL ET AL./PONTIFICAL CATHOLIC UNIV. OF CHILE, CXC/NASA
Scientists discover huge water reserves all over Mars
Scientists discover huge water reserves all over Mars
This is another Eureka moment for NASA.
NASA scientists have discovered massive layers of ice, protruding from eroded cliffs on Mars. This discovery comes as great news for potential future astronauts and colonies on Mars.
“This is a new window into ground ice on Mars,” said Mr. Colin Dundas, from the U.S. Geological Survey who co-discovered the ice layers on the red planet.
Although it has long been known that there is ice on the surface of Mars, better studying its depth and location could be vital for future human missions to the red planet, said the report published in Science.
The Marian ice was formed recently
Eroded banks throughout Mars’s mid-latitudes reveal underground bands of bluish material.
Image Credit: NASA, JPL-CALTECH, UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
Shane Byrne, a member of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory of the University of Arizona (USA) and one of the authors of the investigation, affirmed that “basically, future Martian astronauts could go there with a bucket and a shovel and obtain all the water that they need.”
The discovery indicates that there are large underground ice deposits buried one or two meters deep in surprisingly low latitudes.
“This type of ice is more widespread than previously thought,” said Dundas.
Furthermore, experts believe how the ice on Mars was formed recently. According to experts, the sites appear to be smooth on the surface and not covered by craters formed by the celestial debris deposited on Mars over time.
The ice shows fringes and color variations that suggest that ice formed in sheet layers, perhaps as snow accumulated over time, according to the report.
Erosion on Mars has uncovered large, steep cross-sections of clean, subterranean ice.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL/UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA/USGS
According to the research, which is based on data collected by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, launched in 2005, these underground cliffs appear to be “almost pure ice.”
Drilling the core of one of these sites and bringing it to Earth would provide a treasure trove of information to geologists about the Martian climate of the past, said G. Scott Hubbard, a space scientist at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, (USA). UU.).
We knew there was Ice on Mars
This isn’t the first time we’ve detected ice on Mars. Back in 2002, NASA’s Odyssey mission scanned the surface of the red planet and spotted signs of shallow ice at high altitudes. Furthermore, in 2008, the Phoenix mission found water Ice at its landing site near the Martian North Pole.
Two years ago, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter discovered buried ice sheets mid-latitudes on Mars, which old as much water as Lake Superior.
“[They are] very cool images that capture the subsurface ice predicted by theory,” says Caltech planetary scientist Bethany Ehlmann, who wasn’t involved with the study.
“Also, we may be able to core the ice for a record of climate change on recent Mars, much like we do on Earth.”
Astronomers and visualization specialists at NASA have just released this unprecedented, 3-dimensional, fly-through view of the Orion Nebula, a nearby star-forming region.
NASA released this new video on January 11, 2018, which was created by astronomers and visualization specialists from its Universe of Learning program. These experts have combined visible and infrared images from the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes to create a three-dimensional, fly-through view of the Orion Nebula, a fuzzy patch in your sky tonight, really a place where new stars are forming.
Space Telescope Science Institute’s visualization scientist Frank Summers, who led the team that developed the movie, said:
Being able to fly through the nebula’s tapestry in three dimensions gives people a much better sense of what the universe is really like. By adding depth and structure to the amazing images, this fly-through helps elucidate the universe for the public, both educating and inspiring.
Disc-Shaped UFO Reported Over O’Hare Airport (Redux)
Disc-Shaped UFO Reported Over O’Hare Airport (Redux)
Sighting of Disc-Shaped Object Over O’Hare Airport, Chicago, Illinois, at 16:30 Hrs. (Central) On Tuesday, November 07, 2006
By Peter Davenport NUFORC
The National UFO Reporting Center has received the following information from a single source, who, for the time being, wishes to remain anonymous, and who prefers not to reveal for what entity he works. We have received documentation about the alleged sighting, which satisfies us as to the veracity of the report, and as to the credentials of the party reporting the incident.
We have delayed release of this case, principally because an investigation was begun almost immediately after our receipt of the initial report, and because we were hoping to obtain addition documentation about the sighting, before it could be concealed, or destroyed.
At approximately 16:30 p.m. (Central) on Tuesday, November 07, 2006, Federal authorities at O'Hare Airport received a report that approximately a dozen witnesses were observing a small, round disc-shaped object, metallic in appearance, which hovered over Gate C 17 at that airport.
The object was first spotted by an employee, working on the ramp, who was engaged in "pushing back" Flight 446, departing Chicago for Charlotte, NC. The employee reported to his supervisors that the object appeared to be almost directly above his location at Gate C 17, it appeared to be perfectly round, and that its size was approximately equal to a U. S. quarter, held at arm's length. The object had a metallic appearance, according to the first witness, and it appeared to him to be spinning.
The first witness apprised the flight crew of Flight 446 of the existence of the object above their aircraft, and we believe both the pilot and copilot were witness to the bizarre object, as well. The witness also contacted his supervisors, who also witnessed the object, which was visible for approximately 2 minutes.
At the end of that time, the object was seen to suddenly accelerate straight up at a very rapid pace, and it "shot" through the solid overcast, which was at 1,900 feet at the time. The witness added that the object appeared to leave a "hole" in the clouds, where it had streaked upwards through the overcast.
Both the Federal Aviation Administration and Transportation Security Administration were apprised of the event at the time it was occurring, and personnel in one, or more, of the towers at O'Hare may have witnessed the object, possibly with binoculars. The FAA apparently reported that the object was not visible on radar, although that fact has not been confirmed at the time of this writing.
We hope to be able to release more information about the incident at some time in the near future. In the meantime, we would like to invite anyone who may have been personal witness to the event to submit a report of their sighting, using our Online Report Form. We would be most grateful if you would indicate in your report where you were located, at the time of the sighting, and what the object looked like, from your vantage point.
Why The Universe Does Not Need To Have A Beginning Or End
Why The Universe Does Not Need To Have A Beginning Or End
According to the Big Bang theory, the universe was born about 13.8 billion years ago. All the matter that exists today was once squished into an infinitely dense, infinitely tiny, ultra-hot point called a singularity. This tiny fireball then exploded and gave rise to the early universe. The widely accepted age of the universe, as estimated by general relativity, is 13.8 billion years. In the beginning, everything in existence is thought to have occupied a single infinitely dense point, or singularity. Only after this point began to expand in a “Big Bang” did the universe officially begin allegedly.
Does the Universe have a beginning and thus an end state? I think that question itself is very short-sighted. I have a general problem with the word started. We must understand our place in the wonderous and almost entirely unknown mux of energy we call the Universe. Our brains developed with some severe biases. Like linear time, only seeing and experiencing a super slim sliver of reality with our poor biological senses. Our senses are all lockstep into an infinitesimal experience. We can only see a small infinitesimal small slice of the EM spectrum, hear an infinitesimal slice of auditory sensations, our skin and brains as in the other examples can only process an infinitesimal slice of motion, movement, and causation. Our intellects are just as hindered with infinitesimal perceptions and understanding. We are just the dominant animal on planet Earth. We must understand that we are woefully unsuited for any of this question to fall into colloquial understanding limits.
The Universe has no obligation to make colloquial sense to us. We can not (I suspect) even ask or comprehend the correct line of deductive reasoning yet alone understand the answers that must pour forth. We and our intellects are just fleas in a world of infinite. Through our eyes, the universe is perceiving itself. Through our ears, the universe is listening to its harmonies. We are the witnesses through which the universe becomes conscious of its glory, of its magnificence.
We and the Universe are more than just our 3 spatial axes of freedom plus time. The math works out for over 10 axes of freedom (dimensions). It is all this that we must at least try to consider when you think about the big bang, or how the observable Universe began.
First off there is no reason to think in our limited capacity of start and ends. That is a bias we have evolved to trust on our little dirty ball of dirt. That is our level of animal experience and intellect we must understand is by understanding what I wrote so far is incomplete. It is an asymptote that approaches zero. There does not have to be a beginning or an end.
We are 4D creatures in a Universe of many more dimensions. To a single dimensional creature, a single point is infinite. Consider a two-dimensional creature if it ever came upon a circle structure. To that creature the circle is infinite..it would if it could represent it by the symbol for infinity. Where does the circle start? Where does it end? Who created the symmetry of the circle?
We are predominately 3D creatures and the Universe looks infinite to us. It looks like it has a beginning and an end. But it is no truer for us as it is for the 2D creatures mentioned before.
As we go up the dimensional ladder the same questions can be asked ( I assume). What spatial geometry does a 5D creature see in the Universe? I wish I knew. I have some ideas which I have previously written about.
What I do know is that answering “GOD” to any of the questions we have considered so far is just a weak player, a pawn for intellectual stagnation which never answers anything.
There does not have to be a start/end to the grandeur of the Universe. It makes no sense unless you are looking with solely evolved monkey eyes. Eyes that are driven by imperfect cognition, billions of years of evolution in just one place, and a deep fear of death and non-existence. The human construct of “God” is just that a human construct to replace the ponderings which are imponderable by some people. Not their fault.
“Consider again that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every ‘superstar,’ every ‘supreme leader,’ every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.”
~ Carl Sagan.
We could exist in just one slice of a continuum of Hubble volumes which all essentially look the same. What we see as spatial distances may and probably are illusions in the grand scheme of things. Spatial distance and time are different than we can comprehend at this point in our intellectual evolution. Serves us well on planet Earth at relativistic velocities but that is about it.
I suspect that the expansion and the question of the “Big Bang” are moot. Observable by our 3D instrumentation but is no more a complete picture than our vision is when considering the EM spectrum.
There certainly does not have to be a creator. That falls into that limited vision thing I spoke of earlier. The human brain has 100 billion neurons, each neuron connected to 10 thousand other neurons. Sitting on your shoulders is the most complicated object in the known universe and it is still unable to comprehend the truth… so far. In time we will see the truth as prosaic. I know we will have to look forward to the answers not backward thousands of years to lies and deception which is so popular today.
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The Universe Has No Obligation To Make Sense To You
I don’t know about you, but when I’m not busy researching or reading about strange phenomena, I like to kick back and enjoy a TV show or movie about some of my favorite subjects –– whether it’s catching Ancient Aliens, Curse of Oak Island or Finding Bigfoot during the week or making time on the weekends to watch an oldie but a goodie from the Area 51 movie archives.
Here are some of our favorites that, like the UFOs they describe, have flown under the radar. All three are based on true stories.
The crash at Roswell, for many UFOlogists, is the grandaddy of the whole phenomena. Whatever happened back on Mac Brazel’s New Mexico ranch back in 1947 touched off a series of events that forever changed the way we look at the skies, as well as how we look at our own government.
This is a serious film with serious actors. Kyle MacLachlan and Martin Sheen each do an outstanding job with the material which is presented in a series of flashbacks at a military reunion 30 years after the crash. The storytelling is intelligent and compelling; this isn’t a dry documentary. If you care about why Roswell was such a big deal, you need to see this movie.
If you don’t know Whitley Strieber, you owe it to yourself to check him out. He’s the author of horror/paranormal classics The Wolfen (werewolves) and The Hunger (vampires) as well as the book behind this movie, Communion. But Communion isn’t a work of fiction, or is it?
Christopher Walken, Haunting in Communion
In Communion, published as non-fiction, Strieber claims he was abducted from his cabin in upstate New York on the evening of December 26, 1985 by non-human beings who may or may not have been of extraterrestrial origin. Although the book is seen as an account of alien abduction, Strieber himself merely refers to the beings as “the visitors,” a name meant to suggest that the beings witnessed as part of these events may exist in reality or only in his own mind—a twist worthy of Philip K. Dick.
The movie is bizarre, disturbing and deeply uncomfortable to watch, which is precisely why you need to see it. If you have even a passing interest in the alien abduction phenomenon or in the permeable veil between sanity and insanity, you will enjoy Communion. Plus, it stars one of the most bizarre and haunting actors of all time, Christopher Walken, in the main role.
Strieber has gone on to be a luminary in the paranormal research world. See his latest at Unknown Country or listen to him at Dreamland.
Fire in the Sky is a completely different look at the UFO abduction phenomenon. Where Communion is cerebral and introspective, Fire in the Sky is grounded in the real world of human jealousy, rivalry and frailty.
In 1975, Travis Walton was driving home from his logging job in the White Mountains of Arizona with some of his co-workers. That evening, they encountered an unidentified object in the sky. Walton gets out of the truck to have a look and is struck by a beam of light from the object, sending him flying backwards with great force. His co-workers flee the scene; when they later return, Walton is missing.
What ensues is a cross between a missing persons investigation and a murder mystery, with back-and-forth between the police and the loggers who stick to their UFO story. Walton finally turns up days later alive—naked, dehydrated and babbling—at a gas station.
We finally learn Walton’s ominous fate in a horrifying flashback to what happened aboard the craft. It is everything that alien abduction nightmares are made of.
It’s one of the most compelling questions humanity has tried to answer: Is there life beyond Earth? Scientists are closer than ever to answering that question, thanks to a host of technological advances and each new spacecraft that launches—and sometimes even thanks to evidence falling right onto our laps.
Evidence like two meteorites that crashed into Earth in 1998. Nestled within those space rocks were tiny bright blue salt crystals, and inside of those crystals were tiny pockets of extraterrestrial water filled with organic compounds, the building blocks of life, according to new research published on Wednesday.
“I think it’s likely” that there is other life within our solar system, first author on that work, Queenie Chan, a planetary scientist at Open University in the U.K., toldNewsweek. And even better, she says, we’re doing the science that might finally find it. “That’s why we like searching missions, isn’t it?”
That means missions like NASA’s Dawn spacecraft, which has been studying the largest object in the asteroid belt, the dwarf planet Ceres. Chan and her co-authors believe the salt crystals they studied may have first been formed on Ceres or a similar object, so they have paid close attention to the results the Dawn spacecraft has gathered. That includes identifying sodium chloride, better known as table salt, and sulfur dioxide. “When I saw them I was like, ‘Hey, I saw that in our sample too,’” she said.
The asteroid Ceres, currently being explored by the spacecraft Dawn, may contain an ocean deep underground.
NASA/JPL-CALTECH/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA
Although the Dawn mission will end later this year, there are plenty of successors on the way, like Europa Clipper, NASA’s plan to fly by Saturn’s icy moon after a 2020s launch. Scientists suspect that it could host life, thanks to the theory that the moon is hiding a giant salty ocean and volcanic activity under its icy shell. Life—as we know it, anyway—requires water, common chemicals like oxygen and carbon dioxide that scientists think could be forming on Europa's icy shell, and an energy source (on Earth, that's usually the sun, but on Europa it could be geological processes).
Chan says her new research supports these suspicions of life on Europa because the story she and her colleagues put together for the salt crystals they studied relies on conditions also believed to exist on this moon. In particular, they think the crystals found within the meteorite were shot off a particularly water-rich asteroid by cryovolcanism, a type of geologic activity that spews water or ice instead of lava.
Scientists suspect the cryovolcanism may occur on Europa as well. And unlike traditional geologic activity, these eruptions don't reach high temperatures that would irreparably toast these life-supporting chemicals. “Our study proves that, ok, this kind of scenario is similar to what we found on the meteorite,” Chan said of scientists’ hypotheses about what’s happening on Europa. “It is likely that inside this ocean world there is a whole wide range of chemical compounds.”
Or consider Mars, currently the playground of science robot extraordinaire, Curiosity. We have a few precious pieces of Mars here on Earth in the form of Martian meteorites, which can be analyzed for the same basic compounds Chan went looking for in her asteroid-born samples. One of the key types of compounds scientists look for is amino acids—the building blocks of life—which Chan and her colleagues did find.
But even more exciting would be a particular subset of amino acids. Each type of amino acid comes in two flavors, which scientists call left- and right-hand forms. Living things only use the left-handed versions, called homochirality—those are the amino acids scientists hope to find as an indication of alien life.
The problem is, it’s ridiculouslyeasy to contaminate meteorites here on Earth, so scientists don’t feel confident about the results they would get from such an analysis. On Mars, it’s a different story. “If they find homochirality of amino acids, that would be phenomenal,” Chan said of the Curiosity mission.
Chan says that all told, she thinks it’s likely there’s life tucked away somewh }ere else in the solar system waiting to be found. And if you expand the scope beyond our solar system, the odds of life existing get even better. “It’s easier to say that, the universe is so big,” she said.
Whether in our own neighborhood or beyond, scientists are looking for the same criteria. They may be rare, but they should be out there somewhere. “You have to have the right conditions,” Chan said. “A lot of boxes have to be ticked to make that feasible.”
Is Basingstoke the new Roswell? 'Alien UFO' video adds to bizarre sightings
Is Basingstoke the new Roswell? 'Alien UFO' video adds to bizarre sightings
EXCLUSIVE: FIVE mystery lights have been filmed appearing to fly in formation above Basingstoke sparking fears a UFO has been spotted above the town. The strange Hampshire sighting is being investigated by the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) in the US.
The witness reported it to the research group yesterday.
The man, who has not been named by MUFON, said he and a colleague saw the lights in the sky while at work.
In a witness report, he said: “I went outside with my workmate to get some materials out of the van and noticed one light slowly move around the back of a building.
“Then another one appeared from behind the building at a set distance that did not change.
“Seconds after another three appeared as if they was already there but were not lit up.”
He said after about a minute, they began to “slowly swing around, as if a crane had lights on it and it turned around 220 degrees.”
MUFON
Just one of the row of mystery lights circled in a still from the UFO video.
He added: “It couldn’t have been search lights shining up from the ground as we could clearly see the lights’ surface area getting wider as it shone down meaning the light source was in the sky.
“The sighting lasted around 30 minutes and I managed to take around four minutes of video.”
Basingstoke has become something of a UFO hotspot with a series of mysterious light sightings.
In June 2008 witnesses claimed a fleet of 12 orange objects were seen in the night sky for half an hour.
And in mid 2012 numerous sightings of unusual flashing lights in the night sky were reported over Basingstoke.
In April 2016 Leandro Canetti, then 28, spotted four red, blinking lights in the sky as he finished a gym session near Basingstoke train station.
Separately, MUFON has received five other reports from the town.
On Boxing Day 2009 came a report of a “high altitude orange light moving extremely fast.”
In November 2013 a witness report a rocket-like object over the town.
Two months later someone reported a “rectangular black object about the size of a chinook helicopter.”
One New Years Day 2016 someone saw a “large saucer shaped object” and last February someone reported an incident in Basingstoke on July 1 1972 in Basingstoke to MUFON.
They described seeing “a black semi circle with two cut outs at the bottom hovering for 20 minutes, before it dropped a box or canister then vanished.”
Nigel Watson, author of the UFO Investigation Manual, was not convinced they were proof of aliens.
He said: “Initially, they look intriguing, but without more detailed information about the location they probably have a mundane explanation rather than being alien craft.
“To me they look like reflections of the lights on the ground below them, or light sources higher up that are not visible due to the misty conditions.
“In close-up they look like they are moving but from a wider angle it is obviously the movement of the camera is what gives that impression.”
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AARDE ONDER INVLOED VAN GROTE ONZICHTBARE KRACHT ( VIDEO )
AARDE ONDER INVLOED VAN GROTE ONZICHTBARE KRACHT ( VIDEO )
Niet alleen aan de hemel zijn tekenen waarneembaar dat er een grote onzichtbare kracht invloed uitoefent op de aarde.
Ook op aarde zelf gebeuren dingen die eigenlijk niet kunnen, zoals oceanen die zich onverwacht ver terugtrekken zonder dat er vervolgens sprake is van een tsunami.
Al zo vaak is de wereld getuige geweest van gebeurtenissen op aarde die door de mainstream media nooit met elkaar in verband gebracht zullen worden.
Binnen die copy-paste fabriek staat iedere gebeurtenis op zich en wordt er bij al die afzonderlijke gebeurtenissen een verhaaltje wat voor het slapende deel van de bevolking overtuigend genoeg klinkt.
Wat we bedoelen wordt duidelijk uit het volgende plaatje waarop een aantal gebeurtenissen staan aangegeven.
Op 9 januari was er een zeer krachtige 7.6 aardbeving in het Caraïbisch gebied; één van de meest krachtige aardbevingen ooit in die regio en hoewel er een tsunami waarschuwing werd afgegeven, kwam deze gelukkig niet.
Echter, de dagen daarvoor deed zich een vreemd verschijnsel voor met betrekking tot het water van de oceaan op twee verschillende plaatsen. Op beide locaties trok het water van de oceaan zich abnormaal ver terug en op de volgende afbeelding zie je dat de ene locatie op gelijke afstand ten noorden van de aardbeving ligt als de andere ten zuiden ervan.
Vanuit Florida komen berichten dat het water zich heel ver terugtrok op verschillende dagen en ook op variërende plekken, eigenlijk vanaf 3 januari tot net voor de aardbeving.
Ook voor de kust van Ecuador deed zich het merkwaardige verschijnsel voor op 5 januari, waarbij het water van de oceaan zich heel ver terugtrok, op een manier zoals je dat ziet voorafgaand aan een tsunami. Maar, er was absoluut geen sprake van een tsunami.
De volgende video gaat wat dieper in op de gebeurtenissen en de maker ontdekt dat er voor de aardbeving nog een aantal plekken waren waar vreemde dingen gebeurden met water. Alsof er een grote onzichtbare kracht enorme watermassa's zomaar kan verplaatsen.
Ongetwijfeld zal weerman Gerrit Hiemstra er een verklaring voor kunnen bedenken, maar de rest van de wereld kan dat niet en de maker van onderstaande video komt dan ook tot de conclusie dat er een grote onzichtbare kracht aan het werk is.
Dit alles is in lijn met de alarmerende toename van het aantal aardbevingen op aarde. Het jaar 2017 is inmiddels afgelopen en zoals op onderstaand plaatje te zien, vinden er in 2017 bijna 100.000 meer aardbevingen plaats dan in het jaar 1997, slechts 20 jaar geleden. Klik op het plaatje voor een grotere versie.
En is het misschien toch geen toeval dat deze enorme toename begint vanaf 21 december 2012? De datum die door de Maya's werd uitgelicht als belangrijk en waar de hele mainstream wereld lacherig over heeft gedaan omdat niet ter plaatse de wereld verging. De datum luidt dus wel degelijk een tijdperk in waarover wij december vorig jaar onder andere ook berichtten.
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KOORTSACHTIGE VOORBEREIDING VOOR KOMENDE RUIMTEOORLOG?
KOORTSACHTIGE VOORBEREIDING VOOR KOMENDE RUIMTEOORLOG?
Opnieuw worden met grote haast geheime satellieten de ruimte ingestuurd, waarbij iedereen zich afvraagt wat er daar in 's hemelsnaam gaande is.
Misschien wordt een tipje van de sluier opgelicht als blijkt dat de Tempeliers een belangrijke rol spelen bij de geheime Amerikaanse missie van enkele dagen geleden.
Ongeveer twee weken geleden schreven wij een artikel over activiteiten in de ruimte, waarbij het leek alsof er iets heel dringends en groots aan de hand was
De vier grootste en machtigste landen ter wereld, Amerika, Rusland, China en Japan, lanceren allemaal in een tijdsbestek van enkele dagen een raket de ruimte in.
De reden weten we niet, maar wel dat dit absoluut geen toeval is en dat er iets groots gaande is in de ruimte, waardoor ze nu allemaal plotseling satellieten daar naartoe moeten brengen.
Het is niet dat we niet genoeg satellieten in de ruimte om de aarde hebben, dat er nu met spoed door deze vier landen een aantal nieuwe bij gelanceerd moeten worden. Er speelt iets anders, maar wat, dat is de grote vraag.
Kort nadat dit gebeurde, lanceerden de Amerikanen opnieuw een satelliet, dit keer een super geheime. Het volgende bericht vertelt wat er gebeurde sinds de lancering vorige week zondag:
Het geheime Zuma-ruimtevaartuig, dat zondag succesvol werd gelanceerd door een Falcon 9-raket van SpaceX, is misschien vergaan. Er wordt onder meer gespeculeerd dat de payload nooit een lage baan om de aarde heeft bereikt.
Zowel Ars Technica als The Wall Street Journal meldt op basis van bronnen dat het ruimtevaartuig terug naar de aarde is gevallen. Dat kan zijn veroorzaakt door het mislukken van de ontkoppeling van de bovenste, tweede rakettrap van de Falcon 9. Bloomberg meldt niets over problemen met het ontkoppelingsmechanisme; er zou sprake zijn geweest van een falende tweede rakettrap.
SpaceX heeft nog niet aangegeven dat de missie een succes is. Volgens het bedrijf heeft de Falcon 9 'nominaal' gepresteerd, maar verder wilde het bedrijf geen commentaar geven. De eerste rakettrap maakte na de lancering een geslaagde landing op aarde.
Over het Zuma-ruimtevaartuig is weinig bekend, behalve dat ruimtevaartbedrijf en vliegtuigbouwer Northrop Grumman het voor de Amerikaanse overheid heeft ontwikkeld. Het bedrijf wilde geen commentaar geven. Zuma was op weg naar een lage baan om de aarde en er wordt van uitgegaan dat het ruimtevaartuig is gelanceerd in het kader van de Amerikaanse nationale veiligheid.
Het is waarschijnlijker dat die lancering wel degelijk is geslaagd en dat die Zuma satelliet precies doet wat het moet doen, terwijl de bevolking denkt dat deze is vergaan.
En dan op 12 januari gaat er weer een Amerikaanse satelliet de ruimte in, dit keer een spionage satelliet en dus weer een geheime missie.
Deze lancering werd uitgevoerd door het Amerikaanse ruimtevaartbedrijf United Launch Alliance (ULA) in opdracht van het National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) dat alle Amerikaanse spionagesatellieten bouwt, lanceert en opereert.
Wanneer NASA er met grote nadruk op wijst dat de lanceringen van de NROL satelliet en de ultra geheime Zuma totaal niets met elkaar te maken hebben, dan moet je wantrouwig worden. Want, NASA is een meester in double-speak, ook een teken van de eindtijd bovendien, en dus hebben beiden wel degelijk met elkaar te maken.
NASA, de organisatie met een stevige occulte achtergrond zoals we eerder schreven:
Sinds de oprichting van NASA in 1958 is er alles aan gedaan om de occulte oorsprong van dit instituut voor het publiek verborgen te houden. De oorsprong die direct leidt naar wat men wel het “slechtste mens ooit” op aarde noemt, Alistair Crowley.
De hoogste rangen binnen NASA werden gedomineerd door leden van de geheime genootschappen zoals de Vrijmetselaars en voormalige Nazi’s, waarvan de meest bekende Wernher von Braun is.
Bovenstaande is heel relevant als je kijkt naar het logo van de NROL missie van deze week. De missie heet formeel NRO-47 en heeft als slogan: "Mali Nunquam Praevalebunt", te vertalen als: "Het kwaad zal nooit zegevieren".
Eén van de bekende occulte wetten van Crowley is de Law of Reversal, waarbij alles wordt omgedraaid en er dan in feite staat: "Het kwaad zal zegevieren".
Wee degenen, die het kwade goed heten, en het goede kwaad; die duisternis tot licht stellen, en het licht tot duisternis; die het bittere tot zoet stellen, en het zoete tot bitterheid!
Prominent in beeld de afbeelding van een Tempelier met het bekende rode kruis op de borst, waarover wij eerder het volgende schreven:
Ergens rond 1100 werd de Orde van de Tempeliers opgericht met als doel deel te nemen aan de kruistochten. De groep werd erkend door de paus en dit was dan ook het enige gezag dat deze orde accepteerde.
De orde werd vervolgens officiëel erkend door de Katholieke Kerk in 1129 en bleef bijna 200 jaar bestaan. De Tempeliers werden uiteindelijk zo machtig en rijk dat de Franse koning Filips IV de Schone er alles aan deed om van hen af te komen.
Gedurende hun tijd in het Midden Oosten waren de Tempeliers in aanraking gekomen met een aantal mystieke sektes, inclusief tovenaars. Hier deden zij mystieke en occulte kennis op, waardoor ze in feite geen christenen meer waren.
Volgens de Tempeliers was Jezus een God die regeerde in een andere wereld dan de onze en is satan de God die de onze materiële wereld regeert.
Dit is ook de eerste keer dat Baphomet naar voren komt. Deze werd als symbool van satan door de Tempeliers aanbeden.
Tijdens de inwijdingsrituelen moest dan ook Christus worden afgezworen en de nieuwe God satan in de vorm van Baphomet worden aanbeden.
Dit was voor de Franse koning Filips de Schone dan ook de perfecte gelegenheid om de hele Orde van de Tempeliers op te rollen door ze te beschuldigen van ketterij, homoseksualiteit en nog wat van dat soort zaken.
In de vroege ochtend van vrijdag 13 oktober 1307 werden alle belangrijke leden van de Orde opgepakt en later na een aantal schijnprocessen en door marteling verkregen bekentenissen in Parijs op de brandstapel gezet. Vervolgens werd de Orde formeel opgeheven en mocht deze niet langer bestaan.
Volgens een aantal historici is dit de oorsprong van de ongeluksdatum vrijdag de dertiende.
Eveneens volgens sommige historici zoals John Robinson in zijn boek “Born in Blood” en toegegeven door de beruchte Albert Pike, is de Vrijmetselarij ontstaan uit de Orde van de Tempeliers. Wat betekent dat als de Orde satanisch was, de Vrijmetselarij dat ook is.
Wanneer we nu weer terug gaan naar het hedendaagse Parijs waar meer dan 100 onschuldige mensen werden afgeslacht tijdens iets wat alle symptomen heeft van een rituele offering dan zal er ongetwijfeld ergens een verband liggen met deze beruchte satanische orde uit het verleden.
In kringen van vrijmetselaars en liefhebbers van esoterische kennis gaat het verhaal dat de orde nog eeuwenlang in het geheim is blijven bestaan.
In sommige boeken kan men lezen dat er nog tot in deze eeuw grootmeesters van de Tempeliers in functie zijn. Ook is er sprake van grote schatten die door de Tempeliers zijn verborgen en, bijvoorbeeld in Rennes-le-Château, zouden zijn teruggevonden. Daarvoor is echter geen bekend bewijs.
De missie heeft duidelijk te maken met het bestrijden van de rode draak door de ridder van de Tempeliers. Een draak die gewond lijkt, maar nog steeds een geduchte tegenstander vormt.
Het kan bijna niet anders of de rode draak heeft betrekking op de planeet Nibiru, waarover wij vorige maand het volgende schreven:
Naast de manen bevindt zich achter de planeet een lang gestrekte roodachtige wolk bestaande uit ruimtepuin die er ook uitziet als de rode draak zoals die in de Chinese cultuur een prominente rol speelt en binnen allerlei profetieën ook wordt genoemd in relatie tot deze onbekende planeet.
At thetime of the great destruction of Earth, God caused a dragon from out of Heaven to come and encompass her about. The dragon was frightful to behold, it lashed its tail, it breathed out fire and hot coals, and a great catastrophe was inflicted upon mankind.
Indertijd gaf Nancy aan dat het er ongeveer als volgt uit zou zien:
Het zogenaamde parelsnoer, de rij manen, is enige tijd zichtbaar geweest zo rond 2003 en 2004 toen het stelsel in de buurt van onze zon kwam.
Wanneer alles is omgedraaid, dan zal er een gevecht plaatsvinden in de hemelen tussen de kwade satanische krachten op aarde (en daarbuiten) tegen buitenaardsen die misschien zullen meekomen in het kielzog van de naderende planeet Nibiru.
Wanneer dat de oorspronkelijk buitenaardsen zijn die ons ooit hebben gemaakt, dan is het dus een strijd van satan tegen God.
Hoe het precies zit, weten wij natuurlijk ook niet en ongetwijfeld zal er ook ergens een verband te vinden zijn met de door de elite al heel lang geplande buitenaardse invasie, waarbij ook altijd de naam Wernher von Braun weer op duikt.
Je kunt ervoor kiezen een buitenaardse dreiging te veinzen, waarbij het lijkt alsof de wereld op het punt staat te worden aangevallen door een vloot ruimteschepen. Dit is het scenario waarvoor Wernher von Braun aan het eind van zijn leven voor waarschuwde.
Wernher von Braun (1912-1977) was de wellicht meest controversiële raketbouwer ooit. Hij maakte de dodelijke V2-raketten voor Hitler en nadien de ruimtevaartraketten voor de NASA, waarmee onder andere de eerste landing van een mens op de maan werd uitgevoerd.
Ongeveer drie jaar voor zijn dood kwam hij in aanraking met Dr. Carol Rosin. Misschien kreeg hij aan het eind van zijn leven iets van wroeging, want haar vertelde hij een groot aantal geheimen. Om de gigantische kosten en de mega verdiensten voor de ruimtewapensystemen enigszins te rechtvaardigen en de agenda voor de New World Order te promoten, zouden er kunstmatige vijanden worden gecreëerd.
Eerst zou dat Rusland zijn. Daarna de terroristen. Vervolgens de landen in het Midden-Oosten. Dan de laatste troefkaart: Een bedreiging uit de ruimte.
Hier een korte Nederlands ondertitelde video van Carol Rosin waarin zij haar verhaal vertelt:
Een tweede optie die je hebt als Illuminatie planner is het creëren van de komst van de Messias. Een derde is een combinatie van beiden waarbij eerst de Messias verschijnt die vervolgens de wereldbevolking ervan overtuigd dat er een bedreiging bestaat door buitenaardsen. Dit is dan eveneens de kern van project Blue Beam, zoals in de jaren negentig naar buiten gebracht door de Canadees Serge Monast.
Het project Bluebeam, volgens sommigen, is een uiterst geheim plan, voor een deel door NASA ontworpen, dat in vier stadia met behulp van 3D holografische technologie niets minder dan de eerste globale ‘false flag’ tracht te scheppen. Volgens Serge Monast, zal Project Bluebeam bestaan uit vier stadia: het culmineert in een soort apocalyps van ELF-straling:
Als eerste zullen aardbevingen nieuwe archeologische ontdekkingen blootleggen, openbarend dat alle godsdienstige basisdoctrines verkeerd zijn begrepen en verkeerd geïnterpreteerd.
Als tweede zal het beeld van God, die in alle talen spreekt, in een gigantische ruimteshow wereldwijd verschijnen, dat wordt getoond met behulp van laserprojecties van meervoudige 3-dimensionale holografische beelden.
Als derde zal elektronische telepathie door onder andere ELF-, VLF- en LF-golven direct in de hersenen binnendringen, die zich met het natuurlijke denken kunnen verweven, om diffuse kunstmatige gedachten te vormen, en om iedereen daarmee te laten geloven dat God innerlijk via hun eigen zielen tot hen spreekt.
Als vierde zal een elektronische universele “ bovennatuurlijke ” verschijning, ontworpen om te misleiden, de mensheid willen doen geloven dat er een buitenaardse invasie dreigende is. Het laat Christenen in vervoering geloven dat ‘de Opname’ aanstaande is en weer anderen dat de buitenaardsen hen komen redden en iedereen is ervan overtuigend dat wereldwijd bovennatuurlijke demonische krachten en manifestaties alles hebben doordrongen — reizend door optische vezelkabels, coax- en elektrische kabels en telefoonlijnen — en onontkoombaar zullen zijn.
Langzaamaan begint er een beeld te ontstaan waaruit duidelijk wordt dat de satanische krachten op aarde hier nu nog wel de overhand hebben, maar dat ze in alle haast bezig zijn om zich voor te bereiden op een komende (ruimte)oorlog. Een strijd die beslissend zal zijn voor de toekomst van de aarde.
Secret Chamber In Giza Pyramid May Hold Pharaoh's 'Meteorite Throne'
Secret Chamber In Giza Pyramid May Hold Pharaoh's 'Meteorite Throne'
We reported in our article: 'Secret chamber found in the Great Pyramid of Giza' about a long-hidden narrow cavity in the Great Pyramid of Giza that has been found by scientists in a discovery that could finally reveal the secrets of the 4,500-year-old monument.
Now, according to new analysis of ancient religious texts carved into pyramid walls around 2400 BC this mysterious chamber may hold an iron throne carved from meteorites.
These texts, it is said that the pharaoh, before reaching the stars of the north, will have to pass the ‘gates of the sky’ and sit on his ‘throne of iron’.
All credits go to Giulio Magli, Director of the Department of Mathematics and Professor of Archaeoastronomy at the Politecnico di Milano who has studied the texts.
Although it is still a theory, Magli proposes that it’s possible the throne of Pharaoh Khufu – or ‘Cheops’ – lies inside the chamber and of course the throne would not be melted iron but meteoritic iron, that is, fallen from the sky in the form of iron meteorites and again cited in the texts,” Magli says in his paper, reports RT- read more.
Secret chamber found in the Great Pyramid of Giza (Video)
A long-hidden narrow cavity in the Great Pyramid of Giza has been found by scientists in a discovery that could finally reveal the secrets of the 4,500-year-old monument.
Location of the cavity, see the white dots in the above image.
Described as a 'deep void', it is at least about 100 feet long and up to 230 feet above ground, running over the Grand Gallery, an ascending corridor that links the Queen’s chamber to the King’s in the heart of the pyramid, reports Dailymail in their in-depth article on this discovery.
It is not known why the void exists or if there are any valuable artifacts inside as it is not obviously accessible. More research will be conducted to reveal the secrets of this cavity which is so big, it’s like a plane with 200 seats in the heart of the pyramid, explains AFP Medhi Tayoubi, co-director of the project ScanPyramids at the origin of the discovery.
See below the interesting video of ScanPyramids using advanced non-invasive technologies which allow them to see through stone walls to discover any voids or internal unknown structures.
Here’s your chance to take a 360-degree tour of the Milky Way
Here’s your chance to take a 360-degree tour of the Milky Way
A stunning new visualization by NASA lets you explore massive stars, and supermassive black holes located at the heart of the Milky Way. Explore, like never before, our cosmic neighborhood and enjoy this journey which is unlike any other you’ve ever taken.
A new visualization with data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory of NASA and other telescopes provides a 360-degree virtual journey to the center of our galaxy, the Milky Way.
This stunning new project allows viewers to control their own exploration of the fascinating environment of massive volatile stars and the powerful gravity around monster black holes that lie at the center of the Milky Way.
Our planet, the pale blue dot is located some 26,000 light years from the center of the galaxy.
While humans can not physically travel there—at least not yet with our current technology—scientists have been able to study this region using data from powerful telescopes that can detect light in a variety of ways, including X-rays and infrared light.
The visualization also uses infrared data from the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope.
From the point of view of the supermassive black hole of the Milky Way, Sagittarius A, the viewer can see around 25 Wolf-Rayet stars (flashing white objects) while continually eject stellar winds (scale from black to red to yellow).
These winds collide with each other, and then part of this material (yellow spots) spirals towards Sagittarius A.
NASA’s visualization shows two simulations, each of which starts around 350 years ago and covers 500 years.
The first visualization shows Sagittarius A in a quiet state, while the second contains a more violent Sagittarius A that expels material, which deactivates the accumulation of agglomerated material (yellow spots) that is so prominent in the first part.
Karl Jansky discovered evidence of black holes at the center of our galaxy in 1931 when he identified radio waves coming from the region.
If one day, scientists actually managed to snap an image of Sagittarius A, it would serve as a crucial test for Albert Einstein’s theory of gravity, and could even be used to rewrite our understanding of physics.
Einstein proposed that light would be caused by gas and dust accelerating at incredible speeds, and being torn apart. This would suggest that black holes might actually look like a series of Golden rings.
Project leader Sheperd Doeleman from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts told the BBC: “As I’ve said before, it’s never a good idea to bet against Einstein, but if we did see something that was very different from what we expect we would have to reassess the theory of gravity. I don’t expect that is going to happen, but anything could happen and that’s the beauty of it.”
A UFO filmed shooting through the the sky in Mexico shocked drivers but an expert claims that aliens are monitoring us.
The footage of the mysterious object was shot alongside a busy road and sparked a number of theories about what the vertical flying object was.
A woman who was travelling on the road in the state of Baja California in Mexico uploaded the video to the internet where it was picked up by UFO expert Pedro Ramirez.
Mr Ramirez claimed the potiential UFO was the 'first sighting of 2018'.
He said: 'You can see that the tubular UFO is flying vertically over the city.'
He also claims that there has been increased alien activity during the last two months of 2017.
He added: 'Aliens are aware that we have made a number of space launches recently and have identified that we have been sending up 'war material'.
'Concerned by our activity, they have been increasingly monitoring our planet.
'This year will be very important for those of us who follow this phenomenon closely.'
A UFO filmed shooting through the the sky in the state of Baja California in Mexico shocked drivers and a woman can be heard asking 'what is that?' during the video
Pedro believes that forthcoming launches by NASA and SpaceX will lead to an increase in UFO sightings.
He said: 'Some of these space missions have 'suspicious objectives' that alien beings are aware of.'
In the video, a woman can be heard saying 'what is it?' as she follows the UFO with her camera.
The unusual object is clearly visible in the recording, silhouetted against the dramatic skyline.
The video was shared 50,000 times by netizens who were either concerned by the sighting or utterly unimpressed.
Some suggested that the UFO was someone testing a jetpack or that the video had even been faked.
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RED, BUT NOT DEAD - Life DID exist on Mars and alien lifeforms may once have thrived on the Martian surface, shock discovery suggests
RED, BUT NOT DEAD - Life DID exist on Mars and alien lifeforms may once have thrived on the Martian surface, shock discovery suggests
NASA Mars Rover finds chemical which indicates that living beings once called the Red Planet home.
By Margi Murphy
SCIENTISTS have found key evidence which suggests life may once have existed on Mars.
Nasa's Curiosity rover has detected boron, a key ingredient for life, on the dusty surface of the Red Planet.
A Nasa image shows Mars rover Curiosity in 2013
The discovery is a huge boost in the hunt for extraterrestrials and could back up a theory suggesting life on Mars may have been forced underground when disaster turned the planet into a "frigid desert".
Patrick Gasda, a postdoctoral researcher at Los Alamos National Laboratory said: "Because borates may play an important role in making RNA - one of the building blocks of life - finding boron on Mars further opens the possibility that life could have once arisen on the planet.
"Borates are one possible bridge from simple organic molecules to RNA. Without RNA, you have no life.
"The presence of boron tells us that, if organics were present on Mars, these chemical reactions could have occurred."
RNA is ribonucleic acid, a nucleic acid present in all modern life which is involved in the decoding and expression of genes from DNA.
It is known to be unstable, so unless boron is present it decomposes quickly.
There's a theory that life on Mars may have been forced underground when disaster turned Red Planet into a ‘frigid desert
Gasda's work is detailed in a study published this week in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
It describes how Nasa's buggy found the element in calcium sulphate mineral "veins" in the rocky surface.
That means boron was present in Mars groundwater and indicates that the Gale crater, where Nasa's robo buggy is right now, may have been home to life.
It bolsters the bizarre theory that life originated on Mars and was carried to Earth on an asteroid.
Astronomer Caleb Sharf has previously claimed: "We can find pieces of Mars here on Earth and we suspect that there are pieces of Earth on Mars.
Billionaire Elon Musk wants to colonise Mars, but before that happens Nasa is testing out ways to protect travellers from radiation
"If that material can carry living organisms on it, it's possible that we are Martian."
These hypotheses have forced bonkers scenarios in which officials have asked Nasa experts whether life existed there in recent times.
Dana Rohrabacher, an American senator, publically asked a project scientist overseeing Nasa's Mars 2020 rover mission if aliens ever lived on the Martian surface.
He quizzed: "You have indicated that Mars was totally different thousands of years ago.
"Is it possible that there was a civilisation on Mars thousands of years ago?"
Nasa's Ken Farley responded: "So, the evidence is that Mars was different billions of years ago, not thousands of years ago, and there is no evidence I'm aware of..."
Are you aware of the phenomenon called Crop Circle? Are they Cosmic made or Man Made?
Are you aware of the phenomenon called Crop Circle? Are they Cosmic made or Man Made?
There is a marvel in our world called Crop circle, they are a large geometric pattern of flattened crops, most often found in fields around the south of England and also in other parts of the world.
Images are Crop circle in England and wall Paper showing Crop Circle
Crop circles are said by some who have studied them to be messages from intelligent extraterrestrial life, but many have been proved to be the work of humans. Beginning in the late 1970s, simple crop circles began to appear regularly in the fields of Wiltshire, Oxfordshire, Somerset, and Gloucestershire in southern England. They were made at night, and over the years they became more complex, growing into large patterns of geometric forms hundreds of feet across.
Some people who studied crop circles were convinced that their intricacy and the fact that the plants seemed to be bent but not broken precluded a human creator, which meant that they were being produced either by some unknown natural phenomenon or by extraterrestrials. In 1991 Doug Bower and Dave Chorley of Southampton, England, confessed to having made more than 200 crop circles since the late 1970s with nothing more complex than ropes and boards [although they are yet to produce a picture of them making a crop circle, they only demonstrated how to make a Crop Circle. Also, there had been mentioned of Crop Circle in Journals long before their confession]. They said they were initially inspired by a 1966 account of a UFO sighting near Tully, Queensland, Australia, in which a flying saucer supposedly landed in a lagoon and left behind a depressed area of reeds. Crop circles appear regularly throughout the world, but the majority still appear in England and even those who view crop circles as messages from extraterrestrials or as unexplained natural phenomena admit that a significant portion of them are now made by humans. Nevertheless, they are beautiful, and a nice introduction to a different artistic perspective to humanity.Are you aware of this wonder called Crop Circle? What is your opinion, will like to know your opinion on this crop circle discussion?
UFO Legacy: What Impact Will Revelation of Secret Government Program Have?
UFO Legacy: What Impact Will Revelation of Secret Government Program Have?
By Leonard David, Space.com's Space Insider Columnist
Believers in aliens visiting Earth's friendly skies via Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) couldn't ask for more: A secretive government group backed by federal "black money," a talkative former U.S. military intelligence official, fighter-jet video of odd objects doing out-of-this-world maneuvers and a space mogul purportedly housing leftovers of unidentified aerial craft.
It all has the feel of sliding open a top drawer in a new "X-Files" TV episode.
Yes, "the truth is out there," a maxim made all the stranger by reports last month by both The New York Times and Politico Magazine of the secretive Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program, or AATIP for short. Along with the reporting, a video was released by the Department of Defense showing a 2004 encounter near San Diego involving two Navy F/A-18F fighter jets and an unknown object. [UFO Watch: 8 Times the Government Looked for Flying Saucers]
Behind the scenes
AATIP was originated by then-United States Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who garnered taxpayer dollars to start the program in 2007, along with the support of the late senators Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) and Ted Stevens (R-Alaska).
But behind the scenes is Robert Bigelow of Bigelow Aerospace, a Harry Reid political donor in Nevada. A hefty chunk of the AATIP's $22 million budget over five years was reportedly given to Bigelow's company to hire subcontractors and carry out research for the program.
Now toss into the mix Luis Elizondo, the former intelligence officer who ran the AATIP, which initially was under the wing of the Defense Intelligence Agency. He resigned from the job last October, advising CNN post-departure that it was his personal belief "that there is very compelling evidence that we may not be alone."
Elizondo also told CNN that the craft studied by AATIP "are displaying characteristics that are not currently within the U.S. inventory nor in any foreign inventory that we are aware of." [7 Things Most Often Mistaken for UFOs]
Turning point
Jan Harzan, the executive director of the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), sees the eye-opening reporting as a "turning point in the study of UFOs." He said his organization is excited about the events beginning to unfold "and feel[s] the public and everyone on this planet should be as well."
MUFON has been investigating and researching the UFO phenomenon since 1969, Harzan said. The group's analysis of over 100,000 UFO reports over the past five decades has shown three things to be true, he has stated:
1. UFOs are real
2. UFOs represent extremely advanced technology
3. Tremendous breakthroughs will happen if we make it safe for our scientists and engineers to study this phenomenon unimpeded. These breakthroughs involve the fields of propulsion, energy, communication, biology and consciousness, to name just a few.
The recently released fighter-jet camera video of craft off the coast of San Diego "is just the tip of the iceberg," Harzan said. "Our military vaults are full of such videos and data on these objects. Now that the spill gates have been opened a little, it is time for the rest to come out in an orderly fashion," he added, "and in so doing make it safe for our scientists and engineers to study this phenomenon without fear of ridicule or retribution, but with funding provided by Congress and private industry." [UFO Watch: 8 Times the Government Looked for Flying Saucers]
Reported UFOs take on all shapes and sizes.
Credit: UK National Archives sightings chart circa 1969.
No national security threat
The new revelation about the AATIP is evidence that the U.S. government has been researching and taking this issue seriously for decades, despite claiming no interest in the phenomenon since 1969, said Alejandro Rojas, spokesman for the Scientific Coalition for Ufology (SCU).
Indeed, between 1952 and its termination in 1969, the U.S. Air Force's official UFO-investigation program, known as Project Blue Book, came to the following set of conclusions: No UFO reported, investigated and evaluated by the Air Force has ever given any indication of threat to our national security; there has been no evidence submitted to or discovered by the Air Force that sightings categorized as "unidentified" represent technological developments or principles beyond the range of present-day scientific knowledge; and there has been no evidence indicating that sightings categorized as "unidentified" are extraterrestrial vehicles.
Advanced technology
Rojas endorses the scientific study of the UFO phenomenon and believes that all information regarding unidentified aerial objects should be released so that the data can be properly analyzed by the scientific community.
"Remember, the 'U' is for unidentified, not alien," said Rojas, who is also director of operations for Open Minds Production.
"We don't know what these things are," Rojas told Space.com. "Just because we get uncomfortable with the idea of aliens does not mean we should not investigate when the people who pilot our most advanced technology say they encounter something that outclasses their aircraft. It would be highly negligent not to investigate."
Another striking point in the recent disclosure, Rojas added, is that the incidents "are very similar to events that have been recorded by the U.S. Air Force and other governments for decades."
Tone of evidence
There is one head-scratcher: Why release this information now? Some see it as a trial balloon to take the pulse of citizens' reactions. Is the public being set up for the really big news about alien visitors?
"I can't say I know why things are coming out at this time," said Stanton Friedman, a retired nuclear physicist and a long-time investigator and lecturer on the UFO phenomenon.
"I appreciate the courage of those former officials who came forth," Friedman said. He criticized debunkers who advocate listening for alien signals "but ignore the tone of evidence of alien visitors."
Small program, little to show
Robert Sheaffer is a writer and one of the leading skeptical investigators of UFOs.
In his summary of recent events, Sheaffer notes that Robert Bigelow has been a strong believer in UFOs and alien visitors all his life. He was a campaign contributor to Sen. Reid and some of Reid's causes and persuaded Reid that the military budget ought to include funds for the study of UFOs.
The AATIP is a small program by Pentagon standards, Sheaffer said; it ultimately spent just $22 million over five years.
"Who knew it apparently only takes three senators to set up a secret Pentagon project?" Sheaffer said.
Funding for the AATIP activity was discontinued in 2012, Sheaffer said, "because it was not producing any results, just reams of paper, although the investigation is reported to still be continuing, but without funding, if that is possible."
"They have only released two very blurry infrared videos of objects that appear to be distant jets, without sufficient information to do a really good analysis of them," he added. "So, ultimately, all you have are a few UFO believers in and outside government who were able to get away with funneling a few million Pentagon dollars to themselves for UFO research, and have very little to show for it." [Ten Alien Encounters Debunked]
Bigelow Aerospace president Robert Bigelow has a long-standing interest in UFOs.
Credit: Bill Ingalls/NASA
UFO artifacts
Sheaffer said that what is really interesting is the statement in The New York Times story that, under Bigelow's direction, the aerospace company "modified buildings in Las Vegas for the storage of metal alloys and other materials that Mr. Elizondo and program contractors said had been recovered from unidentified aerial phenomena."
If that's true, Bigelow supposedly has actual artifacts from UFOs, Sheaffer said, "and in fact has such a large quantity that he needs to modify his buildings to accommodate them? That is just utterly bizarre. We need an explanation of exactly what buildings were modified at federal expense, and what do they contain?" he said.
Purpose of the program
"Threat identification is obviously an important task," said Steven Aftergood of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, D.C.
"But the fact that this program was initiated at the request of Senator Reid — not the Air Force — suggests that national security was not the paramount motivation here," Aftergood said. This impression, he said, is reinforced by the fact that a constituent of Sen. Reid (Robert Bigelow) received funding through the program.
"It is somewhat dismaying to see how quickly 'unidentified' aerial phenomena are publicly interpreted and portrayed as UFOs of possibly extraterrestrial origin," Aftergood concluded. His advice: "Collectively, we should all be becoming more intelligent and more perceptive, not more stupid and gullible."
Serious study
"It is complicated, and I am still trying to make sense of things," said Mark Rodeghier, president and scientific director of the J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies in Chicago, Illinois.
The center was started by Hynek, who served as the astronomical consultant to Project Blue Book. Hynek himself was initially dubious of the whole UFO business, but after culling through hundreds of reports by witnesses, he became convinced UFOs were worthy of serious study.
In broad terms, the outing of the AATIP and its investigation of military UFO sightings "confirms something that has been believed for many years … that these sightings are still happening," Rodeghier said. "We just were not learning about them."
Blip in UFO history?
Rodeghier said he hopes the core of AATIP information that has been gathered can be released to the public and made available for scientific analysis.
"It would be extremely disappointing and frustrating if these reports are not released for scrutiny. We need high-quality data about UFOs to do better science," Rodeghier said.
"If those reports are never released, all of this is going to be blip in UFO history," he added. "But even if it's only a blip in history, it's still a darn interesting blip."
Leonard David is author of "Mars: Our Future on the Red Planet," published by National Geographic. The book is a companion to the National Geographic Channel series "Mars." A longtime writer for Space.com, David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.
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Stephen Hawking predicts that Earth could be destroyed due to global warming
Stephen Hawking predicts that Earth could be destroyed due to global warming
According to comments made by world-renowned theoretical physicist Professor Stephen Hawking, mankind doesn’t have much left to save our planet from climate change.
According to Professor Hawking, if we don’t act now, our beautiful planet could become like Venus with unbearably boiling hot temperatures on the surface.
The popular physicist said in Stephen Hawking’s Favorite Places that humanity must find a new “home” in space between the next 200 and 500 years if it wants to survive.
Scientists warn that Earth could turn into a planet similar to Venu if we don’t stop Global Warming.
Image Credit: Shutterstock.
To illustrate what could happen to Earth, Hawking explains the situation of another planet in our solar system: Venus.
“In many ways, Earth and Venus are the same,” explains Hawking, who added that both planets are like close relatives.
“Venus is almost the same size as Earth and is only a little closer to the Sun. It also has an atmosphere,” he continued.
However, when Hawking “arrives” at Venus in a virtual journey, an atmospheric pressure is found 90 times higher than that of our planet, “enough to crush a submarine,” according to the British physicist.
In addition, the temperature is around 200 ° C.
Hawking says that the current state of Venus is the result of what happens when greenhouse gases are out of control.
In turn, the scientist fears that the fate of our planet is the same.
“The next time you talk to someone who denies the existence of climate change, tell them to take a trip to Venus. I will take care of the expenses, “said the physicist in an ironic tone.
Furthermore, Professor Hawking said how US President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement is a catastrophic move, which has doomed Earth to one day becoming totally uninhabitable.
Scientists believe how the build-up of Greenhouse gasses in Venus’ atmosphere made the planet turn into a boiling celestial body where temperatures can rise above 200 ° C, with winds of up to 100 meters per second, raging on the surface.
When President Trump decided it was best to leave the Paris Climate Agreement, Professor Hawking said: “We are close to the tipping point where global warming becomes irreversible. We are close to the tipping point where global warming becomes irreversible. Climate change is one of the great dangers we face and it’s one we can prevent if we act now.”
“By denying the evidence for climate change, and pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement, Donald Trump will cause avoidable environmental damage to our beautiful planet, endangering the natural world, for us and our children.”
For those interested, the audiovisual series led by Hawking, which was awarded last year with an Emmy, can be seen on the Curiosity Stream platform.
Out-of-This-World Diamond-Studded Rock Just Got Even Weirder
Out-of-This-World Diamond-Studded Rock Just Got Even Weirder
By Stephanie Pappas, Live Science
The diamonds that are studding the Hypatia stone probably formed from the shock when the space rock blasted through Earth's atmosphere.
Credit: Shutterstock
A tiny chunk of stone that looks like nothing else ever seen in the solar system might be even weirder than scientists thought.
The Hypatia stone was found in southwestern Egypt in 1996. It was hardly more than a pebble, just 1.3 inches (3.5 centimeters) wide at its widest and a smidge over an ounce (30 grams) in weight. But analysis revealed that the stone (dubbed "Hypatia" for a fourth-century female mathematician and philosopher) fit into no known category of meteorite. Now, a new study suggests that at least some parts of the stone may have formed before the solar system did.
If so — and that is a big "if" — the stone might reveal that the dust cloud that eventually congealed into our solar system was not as uniform as previously believed. [Big Bang to Civilization: 10 Amazing Origin Events]
Oddball discovery
When the Hypatia stone was first discovered, researchers weren't sure where it came from. Because it is studded with microdiamonds 50 nanometers to 2 micrometers in size, one possibility was that it was a strange example of a type of diamond known as a carbonado diamond. But studies in 2013 and 2015 definitively knocked out that possibility: The ratios of noble gases in the stone show that it is most certainly from out of this world. (The diamonds probably formed from the shock when the space rock blasted through Earth's atmosphere.)
Some parts of the Hypatia stone may have formed before the solar system did, scientists now say.
Credit: Mario di Martino/INAF Osservatorio Astrofysico di Torino
"This is a piece of extraterrestrial material," said Guillaume Avice, a postdoctoral scholar of geochemistry at the California Institute of Technology who participated in the 2015 study. [Greetings, Earthlings! 8 Ways Aliens Could Contact Us]
But that's about all that can be definitively said about the Hypatia stone. The makeup of the rock matches no known meteorite. In fact, the rock hasn't been officially categorized as a meteorite, even though it came from space, because only about 0.14 ounces (4 grams) of the original mass of the rock can currently be accounted for. It's not that the rest is permanently lost, Avice said, but it's been chipped apart and sent around to so many labs that fragments are all over the place. The Meteoritical Society requires 20 percent of a meteorite's original mass to be present to officially declare it to be a meteorite.
Mysterious minerals
In the new study, researchers focused on the minerals in the Hypatia stone. They discovered that the stone itself is not uniform, but consists of a carbon-rich matrix shot through with a variety of minerals. These mineral inclusions are as weird as the rest of the rock, the research team found. They include pure metallic aluminum nuggets, an extremely rare find in the solar system; moissanite and silver iodine phosphide grains; and strange ratios of elements that fail to match the typical ratios of solar system objects. For example, unlike any other solar object ever found, these minerals include a nickel-phosphide compound with very high ratios of nickel to iron.
"There is no known or imaginable mechanism that [this compound] could have been produced naturally in the solar nebula," study leader Jan Kramers, a geologist at the University of Johannesburg, told Live Science in an email.
The solar nebula is the dust and gas that remained after the formation of the very early sun at the dawn of the solar system about 4.6 billion years ago. Kramers and his colleagues think that this portion of the Hypatia stone may have formed from the pre-solar nebula, making it older than the sun itself. The rest — the carbon-rich matrix — may have coagulated later in the coldest outer reaches of the solar nebula, according to Kramers, because forming large bodies requires a dense dust cloud like the solar nebula to provide the material.
But current theories of solar system formation hold that solar nebula dust was the same everywhere, and Hypatia doesn't fit that picture. The matrix of the stone contains no silicate minerals. The Earth and other rocky planets are full of silicates, and so are stony meteorites. If the matrix of the Hypatia stone formed from the solar nebula, that nebula couldn't have been totally uniform after all, Kramers said.
However, that interpretation of the Hypatia stone's formation is still questionable, Avice said. The test that would cinch whether any part of the object is presolar in origin is an analysis of the Hypatia stone's isotopes, or variations of atoms based on the number of neutrons in their nuclei.
"Presolar material has a very strange isotopic composition compared to the average values of the solar system," Avice said.
Kramers also said isotopic analysis of both the matrix and the mineral inclusions in the stone is the next step researchers need to take to better understand the mysterious space pebble.
Until then, Avice said, "we still don't know what this is, exactly."
Ancient Aliens? Footage of vertical UFO flying over city in Mexico captured | Watch Videos
Ancient Aliens? Footage of vertical UFO flying over city in Mexico captured | Watch Videos
As the clip went viral, many conspiracy theorists have come forward explaining the weird sighting. Pedro Ramirez, a UFO expert said that this is the first UFO sighting in 2018.
Ancient Aliens? (Video Grab)
New Delhi:
A mysterious object has been spotted in the skies of Mexico and is said to be Alien's UFO. According to reports, a new video captured in a cellphone shows footage of a vertical UFO flying over a city in Baja, Mexico.
The footage is not so clear but the still images from the video show a vertical, perhaps cylindrical object flying over the city. Also, this is not the first time that something is seen moving in the sky.
However, the video which was shot from the Mexican state of Baja, California is widely considered to be the first alien UFO sighting post new year, and the clip has already gone viral on social media platforms.
As the clip went viral, many conspiracy theorists have come forward explaining the weird sighting. Pedro Ramirez, a UFO expert said that this is the first UFO sighting in 2018.
Ramirez told Daily Mail that the last two months of 2017 have witnessed an increased spike in UFO activities, and this will increase in the coming days, as NASA and Space X are busy gearing up with new launches.
He said: ‘You can see that the tubular UFO is flying vertically over the city.‘
He also claims that there has been increased alien activity during the last two months of 2017.
He added: ‘Aliens are aware that we have made a number of space launches recently and have identified that we have been sending up ‘war material‘.
‘Concerned by our activity, they have been increasingly monitoring our planet.
‘This year will be very important for those of us who follow this phenomenon closely.‘
Pedro believes that forthcoming launches by NASA and SpaceX will lead to an increase in UFO sightings.
He added, ‘Some of these space missions have ‘suspicious objectives‘ that alien beings are aware of.‘
In the video, a woman can be heard saying ‘what is it?‘ as she follows the UFO with her camera.
The unusual object is clearly visible in the recording, silhouetted against the dramatic skyline.
The video was shared 50,000 times by netizens who were either concerned by the sighting or utterly unimpressed.
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UFOs are REAL and use ‘new energy’ that could change our future - expert
UFOs are REAL and use ‘new energy’ that could change our future - expert
UFOs are real and use extremely advanced technology that could lead to breakthroughs in energy production on Earth, it was sensationally claimed today.
Jan Harzan, one of the world’s top UFO investigators, said his organisation had proved over the past 50 years that flying saucers really exist.
Mr Harzan is executive director of the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), the world’s biggest organisation dedicated to UFO and alien research.
The US-based organisation maintains a database of sightings that is updated daily, with many cases investigated.
It has so far analysed more than 100,000 UFO cases.
Many are explained away, but the organisation says around five percent have no earthly explanation.
Mr Harzan was speaking in response to recent revelations that the US Government ploughed millions of dollars into a top-secret investigation into the potential threat posed by UFOs.
He said: “MUFON has been investigating and researching the UFO phenomenon since 1969.
“The group's analysis of over 100,000 UFO reports over the past five decades has shown three things to be true:
Getty
TURNING POINT: Jan Harzan of MUFON says his organisation has proved UFOs are real advanced tech.
One, UFOs are real; two, UFOs represent extremely advanced technology and, three, tremendous breakthroughs will happen if we make it safe for our scientists and engineers to study this phenomenon unimpeded.
Jan Harzan
“One, UFOs are real; two, UFOs represent extremely advanced technology and, three, tremendous breakthroughs will happen if we make it safe for our scientists and engineers to study this phenomenon unimpeded.
“These breakthroughs involve the fields of propulsion, energy, communication, biology and consciousness, to name just a few.”
Many UFO believers are convinced that UFOs are powered by a “free energy” system that has no cost to produce.
There is a growing conspiracy theory that the US Government already knows how to harness this power after allegedly recovering a crashed UFO at Roswell in 1947.
However, the theory claims that those behind the fossil fuel industry have surpressed its existence so they can continue to cash in on the polluting power source.
It comes after last month’s revelations about the Pentagon’s Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program (AATIP) featured US Navy footage of a mystery UFO off the coast of San Diego in November 2004.
Luis Elizondo, the former intelligence officer who ran the AATIP and then outed it, said it defied the laws of physics.
Mr Harzan said the news was a "turning point” in UFO investigation.
He told Space.com: “This is just the tip of the iceberg.
“MUFON’s military vaults are full of such videos and data on these objects.
“Now that the spill gates have been opened a little, it is time for the rest to come out in an orderly fashion.
“And in so doing, make it safe for our scientists and engineers to study this phenomenon without fear of ridicule or retribution, but with funding provided by Congress and private industry."
Alejandro Rojas, spokesman for the Scientific Coalition for Ufology (SCU), said being unexplained did not mean the UFOs were alien.
He said: “Remember, the 'U' is for unidentified, not alien.
"We don't know what these things are.
“Just because we get uncomfortable with the idea of aliens does not mean we should not investigate when the people who pilot our most advanced technology say they encounter something that outclasses their aircraft. It would be highly negligent not to investigate."
Steven Aftergood of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, DC, also urged caution.
He said: “It is somewhat dismaying to see how quickly 'unidentified' aerial phenomena are publicly interpreted and portrayed as UFOs of possibly extraterrestrial origin.
"Collectively, we should all be becoming more intelligent and more perceptive, not more stupid and gullible."
It seems you can’t throw a stone in Egypt without hitting some ancient artifact, and the odds are favorable that the artifact is somehow connected to a pharaoh or pyramid. It also seems that a favorite game to play there – since the country finally got serious about protecting these artifacts from looters and black marketeers – is “Guess what’s in the pyramid?” If you had bet on both happening in the same week, you’re a winner.
In one of the strangest headlines about Egyptology, local media outlets were shouting in big letters that “Granite Feet Belonging to Pharaoh Discovered in Parking Lot!” According to Egypt Independent, which had a more subtle headline, the parking lot was in Akhmim in the Sohag governorate where construction workers were digging it up for new development. Instead, they found an old development – part of a black granite statue that appeared to be two feet with the left foot pointing forward (seen here). That points to the feet belonging to a statue of an Egyptian king who were traditionally represented in this way.
Not a pharaoh’s foot but still impressive
But whose kingly feet are these? That was explained by the right one which was covered with hieroglyphics (seen here) showing the coronation and birth names of King Amenhotep III. This comes as no surprise to Egyptologists – over 250 statues of Amenhotep III have been discovered, the most of any pharaoh. Perhaps that was his plan in case he didn’t get a pyramid … which he didn’t. Amenhotep III was buried in a royal tomb in the Western Valley of the Valley of the Kings. His granite feet, on the other hand, now reside at the Sohag Museum where they’re getting a restorative pedicure.
Meanwhile, back at the pyramids …
Speculation has been running rampant among experts about what could be in the newly-discovered mysterious void in the Great Pyramid of Giza. One of the first and certainly most interesting comes from Giulio Magli, Director of the Department of Mathematics and Professor of Archaeoastronomy at the Politecnico di Milano in Italy. He writes in his new paper on the subject:
“A possible explanation of this space, interpreted as a chamber connected to the lower north channel and aimed to contain a specific funerary equipment is tentatively proposed. According to the Pyramid Texts, this equipment might consist of a “Iron throne”, actually a wooden throne endowed with meteoritic Iron sheets.”
An Egyptian throne
That’s right. The Pyramid Texts — carved on the walls and sarcophagi of the pyramids at Saqqara during the 5th and 6th Dynasties of the Old Kingdom – say that “the pharaoh, before reaching the stars of the north, will have to pass the gates of the sky and sit on his throne of iron.” Magli believes that the only way ancient Egyptians could imagine an iron throne — actually a wooden throne covered with metal — reaching the stars was if it were covered with star material itself … metals collected from meteorites. Farfetched? We recently found out that King Tutankhamun’s dagger was made from meteor matter. Could Cheops have rested his royal tush on a star seat?
Of course, the only way to find out is to look inside the void inside the pyramid. That may happen If the folks at ScanPyramid can get permission to drill a tiny shaft and insert a micro-blimp drone to explore it. How will it know if the throne is covered with meteor metal? Have you ever heard of accidental bumps?
The search for alien life isn’t concerned solely with searching for advanced extraterrestrial races, but also with discovering if the so-called ‘building blocks’ of life exist elsewhere in the cosmos. Earth is so far the only planet on which the necessary ingredients for life are found – based on our current definition and understanding of what life is, that is. Given that all life on Earth is carbon-based, scientists believe the element is one of the most basic components needed to create life. Astronomers still don’t understand where Earth’s carbon came from, and in turn life, but a new discovery in a nearby corner of space now has some scientists wondering if we might have found some of the raw ingredients of life in the universe.
The Taurus Molecular Cloud
Astronomers using the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia discovered the chemical signature of a molecule known as benzonitrile (C6H5CN) in a massive cloud of dust and gas known as the Taurus Molecular Cloud 1. The cloud sits some 430 light-years from Earth in the Taurus constellation and is the nearest star formation region, making it perfect for the study of cosmological processes. Scientists have long been searching for benzonitrile and other polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in the universe as it is believed they may be abundant, but their chemical signatures hasn’t been found prior to this new study. These carbon-rich molecules are believed to a common source of carbon throughout the universe, and therefore in some ways are the main building blocks for life.
Carbon bonds are resilient, but also able to be rearranged by various processes, thus making carbon a perfect “building block.”
Now that we have found at least one source for these molecules, scientists might be able to start piecing together the mystery of where and how life originated in the universe. Georgia Southern University astrochemist Ryan Fortenberry toldScientific American that this discovery could inch us closer towards understanding one of the great mysteries of humankind:
We need carbon to make planets, to make life, to do interesting chemistry. We have this hypothesis about where the carbon is tied up, but we’ve had no way to confirm it. [Benzonitrile] allows us to start looking in the right places.
While right now this discovery is little more than the discovery of a giant carbon-rich gas cloud, it might one day lead us to find where we came from: giant stinking cloud. Did I mention the giant cloud of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons just so happens to smell like almonds, hence their name? Neat.
Photographer caught Glowing Green Object in the sky over Area 51
Photographer caught Glowing Green Object in the sky over Area 51
The photographer was driving around the dirty roads around the perimeter of Area 51 and took many images with his I-phone set to “live” photos but saw nothing at the time.
When he reviewed the images he noticed in one image a large vertical glowing green object in the sky.
The photographer said that he has an interest in unexplained phenomena, but have never before seen anything live or in any photo he took. He understands there could be multiple other explanations, but he doesn’t know how to explain this glowing object. Mufon case 89517.
The following image was taken by a tourist last year 2017 who made a trip to Villefranche de Confluent in France and shows an odd object hovering over the top of a snowy mountain.
When zoomed in on the object it appears to be surrounded with bright lights.The strange object was not visible in other images taken at the same time. Mufon case 89519.
The Super Nations are going to fight against an Evil from Space?
The Super Nations are going to fight against an Evil from Space?
SpaceX launched the secret Zuma spacecraft on January 7, 2018, Sunday night and although according to some media reports, citing anonymous government officials, have reported that the Northrop Grumman-built Zuma spacecraft may have failed after it launched into orbit we believe that the launch was a success.
Then we have the mysterious bright sky-filling flash that turned night into day, huge booms and ground shaking over thousands of miles in Russia after midnight Sunday, January 7, 2018.
And now it appears that The United States government plans to launch a new classified reconnaissance spy satellite, the NROL-47, today, if not delayed again.
The launch of the NROL-47 spy-satellite comes only 5 days after the launch of the SpaceX/Zuma satellite and a third classified mission is scheduled for October.
If the NROL-47 launch isn't enough, Space agencies in China and India are also expected to launch rockets coming Thursday.
With India there are now 5 nations (US, Russia, China, Japan, and India) who have launched rockets with satellites; it seems that they are putting up a wall of satellites around the earth to monitor something.
Now let’s take a look at the logo from NROL-47 and you see that it depicts the symbol of the Knight Templars and the words “Mali Nunquam Praevalebunt” which means “Evil Will Never Prevail”
As you can see in the logo; A Knight Templar is swinging his sword, fighting against a dragon.
We can only imagine that they have chosen such a distinctive logo depicting the battle between good and evil if there really is a serious threat from space.
About the mysterious flash, boom and ground shaking event in Russia as well as all other similar events around the world, in her latest report, Linda Moulton Howe suggests that what we are dealing with here; is an alien presence on earth and a drop of the solar system and beyond.
Whatever the threatening danger from space could be, the Governments with the possible help of the aliens here on earth have a good reason to bring their secret satellites/weapons into space.
By showing the Knight Templar logo, they actually are telling us that they are ready to fight against the evil, whatever it may be.
Top Space Researcher Says The UFO That Chased US Jets May Be Aliens
Top Space Researcher Says The UFO That Chased US Jets May Be Aliens
A top scientist bared his thought recently about a video footage that made the rounds online showing a UFO apparently chasing US jet fighters. Dr Michio Kaku has said the mysterious object that the US military personnel reported could be a new type of super-fast aircraft. The US military personnel reported seeing a strange object that apparently chased some of their warplanes.
However, the well-known physicist also said that the UFO could be extraterrestrials.
Reports that the Pentagon has been running a multi-million-pound program dedicated to investigating UFOs for years has emerged recently.
A video has also been released depicting two US pilots checking on unusual aircraft in the Pacific Ocean approximately a hundred miles from San Diego. The UFO reportedly first made an appearance at 80,000 feet.
Strangely enough, it hurtled towards the sea before halting at around 20,000ft and then vanishing.
Dr Kaku, the world-renowned physicist, gave his thoughts on the reported encounter and Pentagon research.
He said that UFOs chasing the military jets might be experimental hypersonic drones, or perhaps aliens from outer space. He added that he keeps an open mind.
Both China and Russia are developing hypersonic aircraft with speed reportedly over five times the speed of sound.
China has been sending drones into space in recent years and experimenting with hypersonic technology.
There were reports that the People’s Liberation Army (PLS) has been developing ballistic missiles called hypersonic glide vehicles (HGV), which can strike anywhere in the US in less than an hour. They are capable of delivering nuclear payloads within a matter of minutes, which might leave defence systems useless.
Russia has claimed their 16,000mph hypersonic nuke missiles could be all set for operation in two years.
The US also has reportedly developing hypersonic weapons that can travel at five times the speed of sound and destroy targets with a kinetic energy warhead.
Meanwhile, former US Navy pilot commander David Fravor, who chased a UFO in 2004 in one of the two fighter jets, warned that leaders in the world should take the alien threat seriously.
Speaking about his encounter, Mr Fravor said that they saw the UFO on a bright day. He said that it had no windows and no form of propulsion. He described the UFO as a big white object.
He cut across to get closer to the UFO, but it accelerated in tremendous speed and disappeared. He said that it was gone in just a matter of a second.
Matt Beland was taking a break to smoke after working all day on January 1, 2018. Amazed at the view of the moon, he took photos of it, but he saw something that even made him more astonish. He decided to flipped the video on and began recording.
The video seems to show a bright unidentified flying object (UFO) either coming out or leaving the moon till it vanishes.
It is not revealed where the video was taken.
According to Matt, it was not the first time he saw the mysterious thing next to the moon as he has seen the same UFO several times before.
Mysterious Radio Blasts from a Distant Galaxy Draw Attention of Alien Hunters
Mysterious Radio Blasts from a Distant Galaxy Draw Attention of Alien Hunters
By Calla Cofield, Space.com Senior Writer
An artist's impression of the Greenbank Telescope in West Virginia receiving signals from fast radio burst FRB 121102. The object was observed by the Breakthrough Listen project.µ
Credit: Danielle Futselaar/UC Berkeley
Repeating bursts of radio waves coming from a distant dwarf galaxy probably aren't signals from an extraterrestrial civilization, but that hasn't stopped a group of E.T. hunters from investigating this peculiar phenomenon.
In August, scientists with the $100 million Breakthrough Listen initiative began observing an object known as FRB 121102. The object is one of less than 40 known examples of a fast radio burst (FRB), an incredibly bright flash of radio waves. Scientists don't yet know what causes FRBs, which is why they took a particular interest in FRB 121102. While all other observed FRBs are single explosions of radio waves, this one was releasing bright flashes of light over and over again.
A new study, co-authored by scientists with Breakthrough Listen, reveals the conclusions of those August observations: nearly 100 percent of the light from FRB 121102 is polarized, meaning the orientation of the light waves are all in the same direction. Most radiating objects in the universe produce unpolarized light, so the uniformity of light from FRB 121102 could help scientists narrow down the type of object or environment that might be producing those flashes. (You can read our full story here.)
"As far as the FRB121102 goes, I don't think there is any slight possibility that [the pulses] are from an extraterrestrial intelligence," Vishal Gajjar, a scientist with Breakthrough Listen, said yesterday (Jan. 10) during a news conference at the 231st meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Washington, D.C.
The primary reason for Gajjar's skepticism is that the object is in a dwarf galaxy about 3 billion light-years away from Earth. A civilization trying to contact another civilization probably wouldn't bother to create such a powerful signal, simply because the time it would take to receive a reply would be prohibitively long. For example, the radio waves from FRB 121102 took 3 billion years to reach Earth — the civilization that sent the message might very well be dead and gone by the time it received a reply!
But Gajjar said Breakthrough Listen is also interested in investigating unexplainable phenomenon in the universe, even if those phenomena are naturally occurring.
Polarized light
One explanation for the polarized light coming from FRB 121102 could be the presence of a very strong magnetic field, according to a statement from the University of California, Berkeley, where the Breakthrough Listen laboratory is based. The only known place in the universe with such strong magnetic fields is in the vicinity of a massive black hole — such as the supermassive blackholes thought to lie at the centers of most galaxies — that has gas and dust falling into it, according to the statement. The authors of the paper hypothesize that the source of the radio waves could be another highly magnetized object, known as a magnetar, that lies near a massive black hole. A magnetar is a type of neutron star, an incredibly dense nugget of material about the size of a city, that forms when a massive star runs out of fuel and collapses.
If this is, in fact, the source of FRB 121102, Gajjar said that's another reason to suspect that the signal is natural, not artificial: An environment with such an extreme magnetic field wouldn't be very habitable because of the extreme conditions it would create, he told Space.com in an interview.
The polarization of light from FRB 121102 was also observed by a group of scientists using the William E. Gordon Telescope at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. Breakthrough Listen used the Greenbank Radio Telescope in West Virginia, coupled with a massive computing system that consists of 32 computing nodes, each taking in 1 gigabyte of data per second. In an hour, that adds up to the equivalent of 18,000 DVDs, Gajjar said at the news conference.
The huge computing backend allows the researchers to capture a wide range of radio frequencies simultaneously, providing a more complete picture of the irregular pulses coming from FRB 121102.
The Breakthrough researchers observed the FRB in some of the higher-frequency radio waves emitted by the FRB, where they found pulses of light that lasted for between 0.00003 and 0.009 seconds in duration. Those incredibly short pulses can be used to indicate the size of the object emitting them, and, according to the paper, the object could be as small as 10 kilometers across, or the typical size of a neutron star, according to the statement. The researchers say they plan to study the repeating FRB in even higher frequencies than what was reported in the paper, which could potentially help them narrow down the possible sources of the burst even further, according to the statement.
At the news conference, the paper's authors said there are many other hypotheses that could explain FRBs. It is unclear yet if the peculiar behavior of FRB 121102 is unusual among all FRBs or just among those that scientists have been able to observe, they said, but there are new radio telescopes coming online soon that will be able to scan for these events and help researchers learn more about them.
Recently, Breakthrough Listen scientists have also studied the space rock 'Oumuamua that scientists believe came from another solar system, and "Boyajian's Star," which has mystified astronomers with its strange flickering.
Editor's note: This article previously stated that the dwarf galaxy is 3 billion miles away from Earth; it is 3 billion light years away.
We believe Tom DeLonge, who quit blink-182 to prove aliens exist
We believe Tom DeLonge, who quit blink-182 to prove aliens exist
Proof that the truth is out there is more important than pop-punk.
Brendan Hoffman / Stringer
Drew Millard
Very Intriguing Person
is a series about people who fascinate us, for better or worse.
To a certain degree, the rise, fall, and eventual redemption of blink-182 follows the textbook rock and roll narrative. A group of winsome young men (Mark Hoppus; Tom DeLonge; and some guy who was quickly kicked out in favor of the virtuosic Travis Barker), armed with catchy tunes and interesting haircuts, get plucked from the ranks of their scene by a major label, who elevates them to stardom beyond their comprehension. But creative differences yield interpersonal sleights which yield solo projects, and by the time they all get their shit together they’ve been replaced by younger bands. The cycle starts anew.
For bands willing to wait out the ensuing storm of unpopularity, a beautiful rainbow awaits, replete with a nostalgia-tinged gold. Reader, blink-182 had reached this promised land. By 2011, they were back together, playing stadiums. Their once-young fans had grown up, and most of them had money, and the ones who didn’t had become music writers. They made an album called Neighborhoods, which sold poorly because it was bad, but it didn’t matter because they could still play the hits; Twitter became a thing, and Mark Hoppus got pretty good at making dad jokes on it. All there was left to do now was make a kind-of okay album, and the circle would be complete.
But, like many a protagonist in a blink-182 song, that album never came. In January 2015, Hoppus and Barker issued a press release announcing that DeLonge would no longer be playing with the band and had been effectively replaced by Matt Skiba of Alkaline Trio. Given that the group only had three members to begin with, and that DeLonge was the one who played guitar, this was a pretty big deal. Together, he and Hoppus produced anthems full of starry-eyed, emotive juvenalia while managing to be as dumb as humanly possible — they were half Lennon-McCartney, half David St. Hubbins and Nigel Tufnel of Spinal Tap. Without DeLonge, they were blink-182 only in name. But, as Hoppus explained to Rolling Stone, DeLonge had spent years pushing back blink-related projects to concentrate on “other, non-musical stuff” and that he, Barker, and Skiba would carry on in his absence.
So what, exactly, was this other, non-musical stuff?
Tom DeLonge had decided to go look for aliens.
This year, NASA will be launching a satellite called TESS, whose job it will be to map out all the stars we can see, so that we can identify planets that aren’t too far from their sun to be really cold, but not so close that they’d be too hot. (This ideal space is called the “Goldilocks Zone.”) From there, a high-powered space telescope will hone in on those planets and analyze their wavelengths, looking for these biosignature gases. By the calculations of Sara Seager, the MIT astronomer who conceptualized the project, that this process, once complete, will provide us with exactly one life-bearing planet besides our own.
Tom DeLonge, however, thinks the aliens are already here. During his music-making prime, DeLonge had long been fascinated by conspiracy theories. He referenced the alleged 50s-era alien hunters Majestic 12 on Enema of the State’s “Aliens Exist”; the sole album by his Box Car Racer side project was peppered with angsty lyrics about how frustrated he was with the lack of government disclosure about various secrets; in 2001 he got married on Coronado, an island near San Diego that was once the site of an alleged alien abduction. (From here on out, just mentally insert the word “alleged” whenever you see something that seems dubious, because shit’s about to get alleged as hell.)
But around the time of his split with blink, he went full tinfoil. He began giving conspiracy-laden interviews to incredulous outlets, who gleefully racked up clicks by playing up the incongruity of the blink-182 guy talking about aliens. He became a curious footnote in last year’s presidential election when a Wikileaks dump of Hillary Clinton’s emails revealed he’d been communicating with Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta about aliens, which in part led to him being named “UFO Researcher of the Year” by OpenMinds.tv.
Last October, he made an appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast, in which the disconcertingly aggro stand-up goaded DeLonge into dropping basically every fringe belief he had. He claimed, among other things, that the first “unidentified flying objects” in American history were created by ex-Nazis living in Argentina using alien technology; that the Cold War never erupted into violence because we were worried about an impending alien invasion; that he’d spoken with a reliable government source who has seen a dead alien body; that he was once interrogated by the Men in Black for two days straight; that the ancient gods were actually aliens, and also humans are descended from aliens, and also, by the way, there are aliens on Earth as we speak.
When Rogan pressed DeLonge on why anyone should believe literally anything he was talking about, DeLonge claimed that he had shadowy deep-state sources revealing all of this to him, and that they’d entrusted him and his company, To the Stars, with slowly revealing the truth to the American public. And when Rogan pressed him about why anyone should believe that, he would say, simply, “You don’t know what I know.”
Given all of this, it’s perfectly understandable why the general public might think DeLonge was completely off his rocker. But even ufologists — the community of amateur researchers and conspiracy theorists devoted to turning up every shred of evidence to be found about the existence of aliens, who, it goes without saying, are highly prone to paranoia and infighting — havemixed feelings about DeLonge. Some think it’s cool that he’s a high-profile guy using his platform to talk about this stuff; others think he’s a huckster playing up his connections in an attempt to make money; others still think he’s a government stooge spreading misinformation.
blink-182 in happier days.
Shutterstock.com
Since DeLonge is the most famous person who will invariably talk about aliens if you put a microphone in front of his face, he has quickly become the public face of ufology. This has made him a frequent punching bag for the ur-nerds of the r/aliens subreddit, who mocked his seemingly dubious connections to the Deep State, as well as his habit of making grand pronouncements of impending government disclosure that never seemed to come true. That was, at least until December 16, when The New York Times dropped a report, revealing that the government, at the behest of former Senators Harry Reid, Daniel Inouye, and Ted “Series of Tubes” Stevens, had been siphoning off millions of dollars per year to research UFOs. Not only did DeLonge seem to have correctly called that a disclosure was coming, the Times revealed that Luis Elizondo, the government’s former point man when it came to UFOs, had left his work with the government and joined DeLonge’s company To the Stars.
“It’s something amazing. Historic,” wrote a poster on a DeLonge-bashing r/aliens thread whose tone, after the news broke, had suddenly reversed its course. “I thought he was full of shit, but the NYT article actually mentions To the Stars,” added another. “Something really did come. Maybe Tom isn’t crazy after all,” wrote a third person, summing up the collective shock at the news.
Despite how hard the square world had been clowning him, it seems that DeLonge had indeed managed to attract some extremely serious people to his company. One of his co-founders is a former senior intelligence officer at the CIA; the other is a theoretical physicist who has consulted with NASA and was once enlisted by the CIA to research the insane phenomena of “remote viewing.” Meanwhile, pretty much everyone else affiliated with the company is either a former high-level government official, an acclaimed scientist, or both. The company’s business model seems to function something like this: DeLonge co-authors books, including the well-regarded Poet Anderson young adult science fiction series, whose proceeds help fund the research by everybody else, and the whole shebang is meant to help our feeble sheeple brains cope with the massive paradigm shifts that will occur once the aliens show up. (To the Stars is also a public company; after listening to his interview with Joe Rogan I decided to buy some shares because DeLonge mentioned they were really cheap. What he didn’t say was that though shares cost $5 each, the minimum investment is $200, so I didn’t end up pulling the trigger.)
George Knapp, a Las Vegas-based journalist who has the distinction of both winning a Peabody and occasionally hosting the very fun late-night conspiracy kookfest that is the Coast to Coast AM radio show, put all of this into context while speaking to Coast to Coast’s regular host George Noory. “A lot of people, Tom [DeLonge] drives them crazy… but the fact is he put this thing together,” he said. Knapp, who explained that he’d had multiple off-record conversations with the now-retired Reid about the program during his time in office and that he’d recently eaten dinner with Elizondo, continued (quote has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity):
“Elizondo had been collecting UFO information for ten years. And for the last year, he’s been making preparations. He’s been declassifying videos that have been acquired of military encounters with UFOs, putting them in places where they could be leaked out without getting him in trouble, because he had a place to go with Tom DeLonge. That’s what really kicked off all these revelations that have come out. Elizondo worked directly for James Mattis — he loved the guy — [but] he wrote a letter to him when he resigned saying, “Look, this UFO issue is really important. We’re not putting enough resources into it. That’s why I’m leaving to go work for Tom DeLonge. Whether Tom’s endeavor will work or not, we’re going to have to wait and see, but man, he’s really delivered I think.”
VERY INTRIGUING PERSON
I don’t think it did me much harm, and people will see that soon.
Even if DeLonge is exaggerating or even bullshitting in his public statements, the fact that he played a substantial role in the disclosure of the government’s UFO hunting program is a redemption far greater than anything his ex-bandmates have found. Reforming your non-cool band once it’s been once again deemed cool is, more than anything, reacting to the whims of the market, and shifting notions of taste. Deciding that you’d rather forego that sweet, sweet festival money to go off and do your own thing is a different kind of admirable. And when we consider that DeLonge’s version of doing his own thing was to go look for aliens with a bunch of ex-spies, then it’s impossible to be anything less than weirdly impressed.
Today, our behavior and speech are constantly monitored by our peers and measured against those around us. Some of this is positive, of course — one of the ideals of free speech is not using yours in ways that might limit someone else’s — but it can also have a chilling effect on our capacity for disagreement. By giving us what we want all the time, the internet tends to sort us into buckets based on the things we like, surrounded by people who think like we do, and when people get thrown into an unfamiliar bucket and say their typical spiel, everybody else around them ends up mocking them or attacking them.
It’s likely that, no matter how vindicated DeLonge might be to some by this recent New York Times report, people will always view him as a bit of a nutjob. After all, he is the guy who quit blink-182 to find aliens. Still, there’s something brave about the fact that DeLonge chooses to keep at it anyway, and no matter who will acknowledge it, it seems like he genuinely might be onto something, even if he’s also off about a lot of other things. But if we’re at a point, culturally, where we’re going to take the possibility of aliens existing a bit more seriously, and we’re already taking blink-182 more seriously, then we might just have to start taking Tom DeLonge a bit more seriously, too.
The first renowned sighting of a UFO occurred back in 1947, and it was reported by a man named Kenneth Arnold. He laid claim that while he was flying his airplane around Mount Rainier in Washington, he noticed not one, but nine objects flying at incredibly high speeds — upwards of a few thousand miles per hour. It was Arnold’s description of the objects moving “like saucers skipping on the water” that the term flying saucer was coined.
As sightings of unidentified aerial phenomena or UFOs continued to roll in, the Air Force felt it needed to be privy to the action, launching its own investigation known as Project Sign in 1948. Investigations have continued into the 21st century, including the Pentagon’s recently revealed $22 million investigation, known as the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program.
Nevertheless, for those who haven’t witnessed a UFO, the phenomenon seems questionable at the very least. So if you’re eager to get a glimpse with your own two eyes, here’s where you should go for the best chance to see a UFO.
15. Albuquerque, New Mexico
The skies over Albuquerque, New Mexico get a lot of UFO action. | iStock.com/alex grichenko
There have been 376 reported UFO sightings in Albuquerque alone. Ranging anywhere from a split second to nearly one hour in length, the sightings vary in color, shape, and size. A report in April 2017 claimed to see an object hovering in the sky with a rounded bottom and funneled top with lights beaming from all directions.
Next: The Midwest is no stranger to UFOs.
14. Springfield, Missouri
UFOs love this small, midwestern city. | City of Springfield, Missouri
Numerous UFO sightings have occurred in Springfield — 380 to be exact. And according to the reports, some onlookers’ experiences lasted well over an entire hour. Reporters claimed they witnessed an entire spectrum of colors coming from multi-dimensional, low-flying objects.
Next: Theme parks, Disney, and alien activity
13. Orlando, Florida
UFOs made for an interesting New Year’s 2018 in Orlando. | iStock/Getty Images
As recently as January 1, 2018, reports came in of UFO activity in Orlando. According to one individual, what began as one very large spotlight quickly turned into numerous spotlights in a semi-circle formation. The sighting lasted over an hour and a half and was witnessed by numerous individuals.
Next: The Big Apple has seen its fair share of UFOs.
12. New York City
Maybe Times Square reminds aliens of home? | AndreyKrav/iStock/Getty Images
In 2017 alone, 39 UFO sightings were reported in New York City. While it appears that sightings were down in comparison to 2016’s 47 reported sightings, many New Yorkers claimed to witness flashing lights and objects of all shapes and sizes that lasted anywhere from 30 seconds to 30 minutes. There have been 418 UFO sightings in the Manhattan borough alone.
Next: The stars at night are big and bright
11. Austin, Texas
UFOs are doing their part to keep Austin weird. | RoschetzkyIstockPhoto/iStock/Getty Images
There are 426 UFO sightings on record for Austin, Texas. In January 2017, reports came flying in about orange, fireball-like orbs flying around in the sky. According to the news report, three lights in a triangle formation split apart moving at impressive speeds. Photos were captured and numerous reports came in from all over Texas and even Louisiana and each report describing the same phenomenon.
Next: It’s not the Rocky Mountain high that has everyone seeing visions of UFOs.
10. Denver, Colorado
UFOs seem drawn to the Mile High City. | Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images
Reports of UFOs out of Denver and the surrounding area are strong, totaling out at 429. From mere seconds to multiple hours, the reports claim sightings of spherical, oval, rectangular, triangular and even disc-like shapes emitting lights reminiscent of the colors from the entire spectrum.
Next:Could it be another Lone Star state space invasion?
9. Houston, Texas
Houston residents know to watch the skies. | Sean Pavone/iStock/Getty Images
Awe and bewilderment struck many Houston residents regarding what still seems to be an unexplainable aerial phenomenon. A police officer claimed to see a bright orange orb of light that he believes was a UFO. This makes one of the 466 reports of UFOs in the Houston area.
Next: Morning surf session and evening UFO sightings
8. San Diego
Military pilots have seen some weird things above San Diego.| iStock/Getty Images
It was off the coast of San Diego where Navy pilots witnessed what appeared to be a “whole fleet” of disc-shaped UFOs. The experience occurred in 2004 and was investigated by the Pentagon’s Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program. As it currently stands, there have 477 UFO reports out of San Diego.
Next: The desert seems to be the ideal sightings
7. Tucson, Arizona
Tucson apparently gets the attention of little green men. | iStock/Getty Images
“Halting lights that stare back” and an “impossible eclipse of the crescent moon” are just two of the bizarre reports that have come out of Tucson regarding UFO sightings. And with close to 500 sightings on record, it’s no surprise that onlookers have experienced some otherworldly scenes. One resident driving home in May of 2017 claimed to have seen a light brighter than the moon in the eastern sky. With the experience came a “very mild sense of vertigo and nausea.”
Next: UFOs have been spotted by millions in this West Coast metropolis
6. Los Angeles
Have UFOs mistaken the control tower at LAX airport as one of their own? | jupiterimages/iStock/Getty Images
A plethora of UFO sightings have come out of Los Angeles, and they certainly don’t seem to be slowing down. While the city of Los Angeles has just over 500 documented reports, the state as a whole has over 12,000 reports on record. In fact, millions in the Los Angeles region once watched a “massive blue UFO” fly overhead.
Next: 1950s flying saucers and whole lotta man buns
5. Portland, Oregon
Portland has been a hotbed of UFO activity for nearly 70 years. | iStock/Getty Images
The Trent UFO photos from 1950 solidified Oregon as a hotspot for UFO activity. And quite frankly, the photos are pretty legitimate, considering kids weren’t flying drones around back in 1950. Ever since then, Oregon has continued to see its fair share of UFO activity. Portland, in particular, has 528 sightings on record. Meaning your chances of spotting a flying saucer are reasonably high.
Next: Is it a bird? Is it a plane?
4. Chicago
Chicago gets more than its fair share of UFO sightings. | Ibsky/iStock/Getty Images
While many UFO reports are considered a little bonkers, some folks can recall the 2006 Chicago O’Hare Airport UFO sighting. The “flying saucer-like” object was witnessed by seasoned airline professionals who believe what they saw was unmistakeably a UFO. One United Airlines manager told the Tribune, “I stood outside in the gate area not knowing what to think, just trying to figure out what it was.” This makes one of 562 reports for Chicago.
Next: Space needles or space aliens?
3. Seattle
Seattle has its share of alleged UFO sightings. | aiisha5/iStock/Getty Images
Perhaps you recall the Kenneth Arnold UFO report mentioned earlier. That took place just over an hour from Seattle. While it marked the beginning of the UFO sightings in the region, it certainly was not the last. In fact, the city has reported well over 600 sightings since.
Next: Viva Las Vegas (and Area 51)
2. Las Vegas
It makes sense that aliens would love a place like Vegas. | Sky_Sajjaphot/iStock/Getty Images
There isn’t much surprise in finding Las Vegas at the number two spot for UFO sightings. After all, Area 51 is less than two hours away from Sin City. However, when it comes to Vegas proper, the city has had 649 documented UFO reports. One YouTube video posted by an individual in Las Vegas depicts four yellow-orange, moon-like orbs hovering in the night sky. The orbs started vividly flashing before immediately disappearing into the thin air. Later in the evening, the orbs reappeared, baffling the heck out of viewers.
Next: The cream of the crop is right here
1. Phoenix, Arizona
Spend enough time in Phoenix and you’ll see some interesting things in the sky. | Dreamframer/iStock/Getty Images
Topping the charts with just shy of 1,000 reported UFO sightings, Phoenix, Arizona, seems to be on fire with activity. And with mysterious light formations regularly appearing in the sky, the chatter of UFO activity doesn’t seem to quiet for long. If you’re on the hunt, this may be your prime spot for spotting a UFO.
On Dec 16, 2017, The New York Times broke the story that the Pentagon had a program for studying UFOs, and that they have evidence. Many people in the UFO community danced with joy that this was “Disclosure.”
I think disclosure is still too strong a term to describe the revelations. I like Nevada television newsman George Knapp’s term: “Confirmation!”It was simply a confirmation of what disclosure lobbyists, activists and I have been writing about for several years: There were unacknowledged special access units in the Pentagon studying the threat potential of UFOs. For our efforts, we were simply laughed at and labeled conspiracy theorists.
In reaction to the New York Times’ news stories, the mainstream media took notice in a massive way. Political types ranted that the government spent $22 million on something as “silly as UFOs.” The elite skeptics lined up on talk shows and news programs to assure everyone that there is no such thing as ETs, and even if there were, they live a gazillion miles from here and can’t get here from where they are, provided they exist at all.
So what’s next? Well, a recent New York Post article stated that the New York Times article lacked solid proof. Sure, we got fuzzy video from fighter jets and former Pentagon officials telling us that UFOs are real. Yes, we did get an admission from the Pentagon that an unacknowledged special access unit did study them for five years but aren’t any more.
If you listened carefully to the cockpit audio, the pilots indicate that there wasn’t only one of them but a FLEET of them. Why didn’t the mainstream news organizations jump on that statement?
Many skeptics moaned that an advanced aircraft could come from any number of countries on Earth and that’s probably what it was. I can buy that statement if there was one of them. But a FLEET of them? A fleet says to me that it’s a clear and present danger: Sit up and take notice!
The other upsetting thing was that the New York Times article pointed out that the Department of Defense, via subcontractor Bigelow Aerospace, have pieces of a UFO: in essence, the long-demanded evidence. These are supposedly compounds that are fragments of a UFO and they can’t be analyzed. Again, the mainstream media focused on little green men and where they are from.
Scientific American’s Dec. 22 article “The Truth About Those ‘Alien Alloys’ in The New York Times UFO Story” skeptically and arrogantly pronounced that anything can be analyzed! Here is an author-scientist who is not even open to the possibility that these compounds are beyond current scientific understanding.
The mainstream media needs to really dig into this story. They need to really apply the pressure to the CIA and DOD. After all, taxpayers have been funding all their under-the-table research in some form or another for 70 years. The American people deserve to get our money’s worth and learn the damned truth.
If these alloys are supposed to be from exotic vehicles, earth-based or off-world, why isn’t the National Academy of Sciences being involved to engage the best and brightest in chemistry and metallurgy to help in the analysis effort? For years they’ve told the UFO community, “You’ve got no evidence!” So now potentially there is evidence.
Mainstream media, use your clout and demand that the evidence be brought into the light, and let the truth be known.[snt]
If you have a UFO sighting to report, use one of the two national database services: NUFORC.org or MUFON.com. Both services respect confidentiality.
The Road
Cheryl’s future speaking engagements include:
Feb. 8, 7 p.m.: Liverpool Public Library, 310 Tulip St, Liverpool, N.Y.
Feb. 14-18: International UFO Congress, 10438 N. Fort McDowell Road, Scottsdale, Ariz. ufocongress.com.
We’ve known for some time that huge deposits of water ice reside beneath the surface of Mars, but we didn’t know much about its properties. Currently available methods of peering below the planet’s surface can’t access the depths where the water ice is present. Landers can dig down a few centimeters, and radar equipment can offer a look at what’s tens of meters beneath, but we needed to see between those two areas. We needed to find exposed water ice.
Now, a team led by geologist Colin Dundas has done just that. Using the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, they’ve pinpointed eight locationswhere large quantities of sub-surface ice have been exposed by erosion, leaving it accessible for further study.
Erosion has caused steep, pole-facing slopes to form at these locations, exposing water ice starting at depths of as little as 1 to 2 meters (3.2 to 6.5 feet) and extending up to 100 meters (328 feet) or more. The sites that have been spotted don’t feature many craters, so the researchers believe the exposed water ice formed relatively recently.
According to Dundas and his team, the steep angles and fractures observed suggest that the ice is cohesive and strong. It’s comprised of different bands and covers, which might indicate that it’s made up of layers from snowfall that took place at various times. As a result, studying the exposed water ice could reveal how the climate of Mars has changed.
The images of the sites, which were captured over the course of three Martian years(almost six Earth years), demonstrate that huge chunks of rock fell from the ice as erosion took place. As a result, the team behind the study estimates that the ice is receding at a rate of a couple of millimeters (~.07 inches) each summer.
Cold Comfort
The discovery of this much exposed water ice opens up various possibilities for future research projects. It could also be a very useful resource for any future crewed missions to the Red Planet.
Researchers believe the exposed water ice is relatively pure and likely more extensive than what we can actually see with the HiRISE camera. Unfortunately, the eight sites identified by the researchers are all within Mars’ upper mid-latitudes, which can endure extremely low temperatures. Any manned mission is unlikely to target these areas.
Still, researchers plan to look for similar ice deposits in regions where humans may one day visit. They’re likely to be much further underground, but the European Space Agency’s ExoMars rover can drill down as far as 2 meters (6.5 feet), while NASA’s Mars 2020 rover possesses an advanced ground-penetrating radar. The hunt for usable water on Mars is far from over.
Angelo Carannante, president of the Mediterranean UFO Centre (Cufom), has published the extraordinary document full of images from all over Italy and especially from the skies of Liguria.
Mr Carannante said the sightings were accompanied by photos and videos that have been carefully screened and investigated by Cufom specialists.
He said the UFO reports from across the country were supported "with surprising and eloquent images".
It seems that in 2017 there has been a leap in quality in the objects sighted
Angelo Carannante
Reported sightings included flying saucers, spheres, squadrons and luminous UFOs of various colours.
Observers described the objects as stationary, travelling very fast at low or high altitudes, small and huge.
Mr Carannante said those who reported sightings were “the most varied people and many foreigners".
He said: “It seems that in 2017 there has been a leap in quality in the objects sighted, given the unusual clarity of some unidentified flying objects, filmed or photographed, that had been absent for years and seem to be back.
CUFOM
Cufom officials said 2017 was a record year for sightings
“This was demonstrated by the UFOs sighted in Lavagna, Arco Felice near Naples and the clamorous sighting at Civitavecchia seen about 50 metres above sea level.
“The ships flew in group, giving rise to spectacular phenomenon as happened throughout Italy in the summer 2017, like the concert of Ennio Morricone.
“There were also real chases between UFOs and military fighter planes, as happened in Cosenza, photographed and witnessed by many people.”
CUFOM
Cufom praised the quality of photo and video evidence provided by UFO-spotters
Italy’s first reported UFO sighting of 2017 came exactly a year ago when an unusual bright green spherical object, which changed shape and colour over a four minute period, was caught on camera in Salento.
Mr Carannante said the Salento incident was followed by many other sightings documented by photos and films from Savona, Paestum, Brescia, Trieste, Cabella Ligure, Latina, Florence, Naples, Pomezia , Casalnuovo di Napoli, San Benedetto del Tronto, Vico Equense, Caserta, Ascoli Piceno, Guglionesi, Cassino, Vicenza.
Des ufologues et autres experts italiens ont révélé qu’il y avait eu un record d’observations d’OVNI au cours de l’année 2017. Ils ont rassemblé ces troublantes conclusions dans un nouveau rapport.
CUFOM
An image from the Cufom 2017 dossier
Angelo Carannante, président du CUFOM (« Centro ufologico mediterraneo »), a publié ce document extraordinaire, accompagné d’une multitude d’images et rassemblant des cas survenus un peu partout en Italie, surtout au-dessus de la région de Ligurie.
M. Carannante a déclaré que beaucoup d’observations étaient accompagnées de photos et de vidéos soigneusement étudiées et examinées par des spécialistes du Cufom.
Il a dit que les rapports d’OVNIS de tout le pays étaient étayés « par des images surprenantes et suffisamment éloquentes ».
Les observations rapportées incluent des soucoupes volantes, des objets de forme sphérique, des escadrons ainsi que des OVNI lumineux de diverses couleurs.
Les témoins ont décrit avoir vu des objets immobiles ou se déplaçant à grande vitesse, volant à basse ou haute altitude, et de taille petite ou bien gigantesque.
M. Carannante a expliqué que ceux qui avaient rapporté ces observations étaient « de personnes très diverses et de nombreux touristes ».
« Il semble qu’en 2017 il y ait eu une augmentation dans la qualité des observations d’objets volants non identifiés. Les objets filmés et photographiés étaient d’une clarté inhabituelle. Ce genre d’images n’avaient plus été vues depuis des années. »
« Cela a été démontré par les OVNI aperçus à Lavagna, ou à Arco Felice près de Naples ou encore l’observation retentissante qui s’est produite à Civitavecchia à environ 50 mètres d’altitude. »
« Les OVNI volaient en groupe, donnant lieu à un phénomène spectaculaire comme ce fut le cas en Italie au cours de l’été 2017. »
« Il y a également eu de véritables courses poursuites entre des OVNI et des avions de combat militaires, comme ce qui est arrivé à Cosenza, et qui a été photographié et vu par beaucoup de gens. »
La première observation d’OVNI en Italie en 2017 est survenue le 11 janvier quand un objet vert vif de forme sphérique a été filmé dans le Salento. Il changeait de forme et de couleur et a été observé pendant quatre minutes.
M. Carannante a déclaré que l’incident du Salento a été suivi de nombreuses autres observations documentées par des photos et des films à Savone, Paestum, Brescia, Trieste, Cabella Ligure, Latina, Florence, Naples, Pomezia, Casalnuovo di Napoli, San Benedetto del Tronto, Vico Equense, Caserte, Ascoli Piceno, Guglionesi, Cassino, et Vicenza.
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EGG-SHAPED OBJECT PHOTOGRAPHED OVER ARKANSAS
EGG-SHAPED OBJECT PHOTOGRAPHED OVER ARKANSAS
Cropped witness image #2
(Credit: MUFON)
by Roger Marsh
An Arkansas witness at Summers reported watching and photographing an egg-shaped object slowing crossing the sky, according to testimony in UFO Case 82288 from the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) witness reporting database.
The witness was in his yard observing Venus and checking to see if Orion was visible at 6:15 p.m. on February 23, 2017.
“I then noticed a white object to my left above a tree,” the witness stated. “It didn't look like anything I've seen before and was moving slowly compared to a commercial airline, but faster than a weather balloon or a blimp.”
The witness did not recognize the object.
Witness illustration. (Credit: MUFON)
“It was moving north, then northeast. Just looked different than anything I had seen. Just had me wondering. I looked over at my chickens to see if they all got in their coop. Then looked up. It was gone.”
The case was investigated by Arkansas Field Investigator Raymond Reed and Assistant State Director Lynn Travis McCullough and closed as an Unknown.
“The object was bright white, egg-shaped and the size was as large as an aspirin tablet held at arm’s length,” Reed and McCullough stated in their report. “Being seen in a mostly clear sky with nothing behind it makes it size difficult to estimate, but it was plainly visible. Professional analysis of the photographs may make it more identifiable, but first analysis looks like nothing he had ever seen before. The object was silent throughout the sighting. The object being airborne at a considerable altitude and distance, there was little or no possibility of physical evidence. The photographs are definitely a plus in this case. No other reports of this object are known to exist. The object was definitely unidentified. Whether it will be the first of a series or the last of the type viewed is yet to be determined. We must file it and look to the sky for the next one.”
The case was filed with MUFON on February 23, 2017. The witness provided two images and one illustration. The above quotes were edited for clarity. Please remember that most UFO reports are determined to be something natural or man-made.
If you’ve ever found yourself under a bright starry sky on a clear night, you probably noticed the splendor that is space. For millennia, man has cast his gaze towards the heavens and wondered what’s out there. For some, that quote serves as both the question and justification for continuing to cast our gaze deeper and deeper into space.
Credit: NASA.
Some people don’t even bother. For them, the answer to that question is a resounding ‘who cares?’. So why bother with exploring space? There is a myriad of reasons but it would take too long to go through all of them, so we’ve broken them down into five reasons: we learn, we push, we discover, we benefit, we evolve.
Curiosity
Mankind has demonstrated time and again an insatiable curiosity and the need to satisfy that curiosity. Explorers have always sailed the wide ocean in the search for new lands. Sir Edmond Hillary scaled Mt. Everest. Magellan circumnavigated the globe in a ship. Yuri Gagarin and Neil Armstrong first pushed the limits of humans into space.
Humans push the limits of what we can do — it’s in our very nature. If you think about it, children push their own limits every single day. They learn new things and expand their horizon. Space exploration is, in a way, turning back to that childhood curiosity. Every day, we learn new things about the universe around us. However, humans have no idea what our limits are in space, so we keep pushing, and we keep learning.
Credit: NASA.
With every boundary, we learn new things: how humans deal with extended time in space, the physical composition of the moon, how to fix a toilet in zero gravity, how to grow food in space, the location of black holes, recycling water and oxygen in space and (finally) how to break free of our gravitational limits and move forward.
Scientific
With the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope, humans took a quantum leap into the exploration of space that rivaled Galileo when he probed the skies in the late 1500s. The images the Hubble telescope have allowed us to peer deeper into space than anyone could have ever imagined (seriously, check those images out).
Pointed at a supposedly blank portion of the sky, about the size of a pinprick, seemingly bereft of anything interesting, Hubble gave us images that changed our understanding of the universe. Tens of thousands of galaxies, many like our own, each with trillions of stars and at least as many planets. Now multiply that by the number of “pinpricks” in the night sky and you now have some idea of just how vast the cosmos truly is.
It’s not just about space, either: the International Space Station carries out numerous experiments, from biology to hard physics. Credit: NASA.
Financial
Eventually, humans will figure a way into space and utilize the infinite resources it promises. The development of space will make fortunes for those brave (and lucky) enough to take the plunge. These new-found resources will certainly be the source of significant benefits for those of us who remain firmly planted on terra firma.
It will also signify that man has evolved enough to perhaps establish a permanent extra-terrestrial habitat. A century ago, WWI was winding down. Cars, indoor plumbing, electricity, and refrigeration were luxuries (or non-existent). Now, we have airplanes, smartphones, space travel, and computers.
Continuing that progression, the idea of colonizing the moon, Mars or moons of the gas giants shouldn’t be that far-fetched. It’s the natural progression/evolution of our species.
Five reasons to explore space? We learn, we push, we discover, we benefit and we evolve. That’s why.
Mars seems to be hiding a hoard of pristine frozen water just below the surface, a new paper reports.
Thick bands of ice (blue) spotted in Martian cliff faces. Image credits NASA / JPL / USG / University of Arizona.
The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has been beaming back high-resolution images of the planet for over a decade now, and for most of the time, nothing too special pops up. However, a few years ago Colin Dundas, a geologist at the U.S. Geological Survey in Flagstaff, Arizona, spotted something hidden below Mars’ rusty, dusty exterior — a pale line of blue.
Dundas subsequently found the same structures at seven other sites on Mars. These formations, wedged in the flanks of tall, steep cliffs, appear to be nearly pure ice — water-ice, that is.
In a new paper, researchers argue these findings suggest there are vast stores of underground ice tantalizingly close to the surface, even at low martial latitudes (i.e. closer to the equator). Such reserves could help researchers tease out the planet’s history, and dramatically improve the feasibility of any potential colonies on Mars.
Rust and ice
“This kind of ice is more widespread than previously thought,” says Dundas, paper co-author.
We’ve found ice on Mars before. There’s a thick cover of it on the planet’s poles (which Elon Musk thinks we should nuke) and MRO’s radar suite has picked up signatures of buried ice across Mars. Some have argued that those deposits are the remains of ancient glaciers, a by-gone of an age when the planet had a very different climate. However, based on MRO’s radar data, we can’t tell how deep these icy formations are, and whether they’re made up of solid chunks or tiny drops frozen in the soil’s pores.
MRO brought us even more evidence of ice on Mars in the past: pools of (what appears to be) pure ice, puddled on the floors of fresh meteorite craters. Still, there was no way of ascertaining if such pools were connected to underground glaciers or isolated patches of fluid.
Mars, with some of its polar ice visible. Image credits NASA / JPL.
The structures described in this new paper could plug those holes in our understanding. Each of the cliff-faces identified in the study, standing at roughly 100 meters (32.8 feet) tall, seem to the naked face of a glacier, the team reports. MRO could thus observe the glaciers in cross-section (like seeing the layers in a slice of cake), and the team revisited all the sites to see how they changed over time.
The most significant find is that the ice persists through the Martian summer. This is significant because it points to solid, massive structures — a light frosting would have simply vaporized. Further evidence in support of this is that last year the orbiter caught several boulders tumbling out of the cliff faces, suggesting they were being slowly eroded from a large deposit at surface level.
All of this strongly suggests that the surface-level ice and the large subsurface deposits are connected, the authors say.
Layer cake
“This deep, thick, pure ice extends almost all the way up to the surface” says co-author Ali Bramson.
Such structures promise to yield a layered record of past martian climates, similarly to how polar ice caps do on Earth. Alternatively, they would be a prime resource for colonists.
Banding in the glaciers suggests that the slabs are stacked — meaning they formed over many seasons as layers of snow got compressed into ice in different climate cycles. Winds then carried grit over each layer, sealing them apart, and creating the banding. It’s a similar process to how ice caps and glaciers form on Earth, and so the team believes that drilling a core into one of these deposits and bringing it back for analysis would offer geologists a treasure trove of information about the Martian climate.
The glaciers are also a boon for colonists. Water is crucial for astronauts because it can be mixed with CO2 (the most common gas in Mars’ atmosphere) to create breathable oxygen and methane to be used in rockets. But any deposits would only really be any good if they’re no more than a few meters below the surface — that’s why the ice-cliffs are so exciting.
The cliffs are found at about 55° north or south, however, which grow frigid and dark in the Martian winter. These aren’t very good areas for a solar-powered human base, so NASA study was limited to sites to within 50° of the equator. Following these new findings, however, NASA wants to extend its exploration program closer to the Martian tropics.
The paper “Exposed subsurface ice sheets in the Martian mid-latitudes” has been publishedin the journal Science.
Mysterious radio signals originating from a body some 3 billion light-years away carry hints of an environment capable of producing extremely powerful magnetic fields — such as an undiscovered supermassive black hole or the remains of a supernova.
The Arecibo Observatory. Image credits NASA Blueshift / Flickr.
First discovered in 2007, fast radio bursts still continue to puzzle astronomers. These signals are aptly named, lasting up to a few milliseconds at best. Incredibly short-lived — but extremely energetic as well — during their fleeing lifetimes, these signals burn with a vengeance on instruments that can pick them up.
Such levels of energy betray the signals’ source as a very powerful body or event — however, it’s not a source that we have yet determined. Mostly, it comes down to their unpredictable nature, which has thrown a bag full of wrenches into attempts to properly understand these events. Here is where FRB 121102, sitting about 3 billion light-years away in a dwarf galaxy, comes into the picture.
Bursts for days
What’s so special about this body is that it fires such radio bursts repeatedly. Because it emits fast radio bursts in clusters, it’s possible to train more instruments on the source and gather data in real time. Sensing that answers lurk close, a team of astronomers decided to study the signals beamed from FRB 121102 and get to the bottom of things — but their results have merely deepened the mystery.
According to their observations, the signals from FRB 121102 appear to be “twisted” in a way indicative of an extreme stellar environment, the team reports, one that can spawn an extremely powerful magnetic field.
FRB 121102.
The researchers used the Arecibo (radio) Observatory in Puerto Rico and the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia to look at FRB as it was emitting a burst. The plan was to measure the signal’s polarization (geometric orientation), a quality that can be influenced by local phenomena. Polarization was seen before in other fast radio bursts, but the values the team picked up were totally off the scale — some 500 times greater extreme than any other recorded burst.
The findings muddy our understanding of FRB 121102 even more. The working hypothesis up to now was that the source was a kind of neutron star: either a pulsar (which spins very fast) or a magnetar (which spins but also has an extra strong magnetic field). Because it’s found in a star-forming region of its host galaxy, it was believed that FRB 121102 was somehow linked to stellar birth or death. The new data, however, points to several new explanations.
“We’ve seen this effect in other fast radio burst sources before, but in this case the effect is 500 times larger than what we’ve seen at other sources,” said senior author Jason Hessels. “That was quite surprising.”
FRB 121102 may be a pulsar in close proximity to a growing supermassive black hole, the team reports. Plasma spinning around the black hole could lense and twist the light from FRB 121102 — but we have no way of explaining why a giant black hole would form in a dwarf galaxy — although, to be fair, we’ve seen supermassive black holes doing all kinds of strange things. Another possibility is that FRB 121102 is cloaked within a dense nebula, whose that affects the signal on its way to us. However, this hypothesis fails to explain how the signal remains as bright as what we’re picking up.
It’s also been suggested that the source is some kind of pulsar, however, that doesn’t fit with the incoming burst pattern. FRB 121102 doesn’t emit at regular intervals, as one would expect from a spinning neutron star and their highly regular periods, but in clusters of signals.
Whatever the case may be, we’re currently baffled by what we’re seeing. The team will continue to study FRB 121102 and fast radio bursts in general, but so far, only a few dozen individual sources have been found. Researchers, however, estimate that as many as 10,000 fast radio bursts flash across the night sky every single day — it’s just a matter of catching them.
The paper “An extreme magneto-ionic environment associated with the fast radio burst source FRB 121102” has been published in the journal Nature.
An international team of astrophysicists has traced the origin of the only known repeating fast radio burst, according to a study published this week in Nature. The phenomenon, characterized by intense millisecond-long blasts of radio energy, is among the most mysterious in astrophysics and has led even relatively serious people to start thinking in terms of aliens.
An analysis of 16 bursts detected with the William E Gordon Telescope at the Arecibo Observatory suggests that their origin is likely to be within a dwarf galaxy hosting a supermassive black hole (10 to 100 million times the size of our Sun) and a neutron star (a form of dead star) in its orbit. The key feature of such a neutron star would be its very high magnetic field, a sort of highly-energized cosmic afterlife. Such a field would serve to supply the massive amounts of energy packed into a fast-radio burst viewable here on earth.
Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are not uncommon. We see them all over the sky all the time. A FRB is simply a pulse of radio energy that lasts for just a few milliseconds, but what makes them especially weird and vexing is that they usually don't repeat. It's not like looking at, say, a pulsar, which emits radiation at regular, dependable intervals. If a pulsar is a lighthouse, then an FRB is a signal flare, albeit one that doesn't flare for long enough to reveal its source or much of anything.
What the researchers behind the current paper are after is the exception to this: a repeating FRB. The only one. While these signal flares are exploding in random places in the sky all the time, there's just this one out there that happens in the same place again and again. FRB 121102 is special: a mystery within an already mysterious phenomenon.
What gives the source conditions of FRB 121102 away is the bursts' polarization. Polarization is a kinda hard to think about property of light. Basically, imagine a wave moving in one direction, but that's also been rotated around an axis that's perpendicular to that direction of travel. Twisted light. In fact, the degree of twisting seen is here is among the most extreme ever seen from an astrophysical source.
The radio waves of FRB 121102 have been twisted, we think, because they passed through a strong magnetic field—possibly a ripping torrent of high-speed, highly-magnetized plasma. Based on this, we can guess that the FRB 121102 source is itself within such a field.
CHIME
"We found something that is clearly in an extreme place and the extreme location may create a phenomenon that is one of the biggest astrophysical mysteries of recent times," offered study co-author Victoria Kaspi, a professor at McGill University and leading voice on pulsars and neutron stars, in a statement. "If you have an extreme object in an extreme environment, is that just a coincidence? FRBs have these huge explosions in radio waves and we don't know why that occurs. Maybe this is a clue to the mechanism that produces these explosions."
So, no, we don't really understand that mechanism yet. We just know that whatever it is, it's probably occurring within a cloud of highly-magnetized plasma. The good news is that FRB 121102 is apparently still at it and its future behavior will go a long way toward understanding its ultimate source, perhaps a magnetar in one of several possible configurations with a nearby black hole. In any case, when the Canadian CHIME Telescope (above) goes online later this year we'll have a way to look even deeper at FRB 121102's ultimate origin.
The search for aliens giveth, the search for aliens taketh away. It seems like every time there is a major discovery which might hint at the existence of alien life, it’s quickly refuted and explained away by banal, boring explanations. Things got exciting at the end of last year when our solar system received its first interstellar visitor, prompting many scientists speculated it might be some type of craft. Turns out it was just some dumb rock covered in space gunk. It’s always some dumb rock.
It’s not like our solar system needs another dumb rock anyway. Move along, Oumuamua.
Other than that dumb rock, one of the biggest stories of 2017 was FRB121102, a mysterious source of so-called fast radio bursts, or FRBs. The powerful, anomalous radio signals emanating from FRB121102 were unlike anything else observed in the universe, lending hope that they may actually be an attempt at communication from a distant alien civilization. Turns out it’s just some dumb neutron star in an “extreme environment” which causes the radio waves shooting out from it to ‘twist’ as they travel through space. Ok, that actually sounds pretty cool.
Discoveries like this make our own solar system seem pretty boring. Lucky for us.
In a new study published this week in Nature, a massive team of astronomers from around the world analyzed data from FRB 121102 and believe they might have found a unique environment in deep space unlike anything we’ve discovered so far. An “extreme magneto-ionic environment” is believed to surround a powerful neutron star some 3 billion light years away, and this highly magnetic environment is what causes the radio waves to “twist and shout” the way they do. Neutron stars are known to emit radio waves, but this is the first time scientists have seen one affected by such an extreme magnetic environment. James Cordes, the George Feldstein Professor of Astronomy at Cornell University, says this area of space is extremely hostile:
We estimate the magnetic field and gas density surrounding the blast source, and we can link them, for example, with a model involving a young magnetar – a neutron star with an especially large magnetic field – to the central engine that produces the bursts. This is exotic. If we had one of these on the other side of our own galaxy – the Milky Way – it would disrupt radio here on Earth, and we’d notice, as it would saturate the signal levels on our smartphones. Whatever is happening there is scary. We would not want to be there.
FRB 121102 is so strong that a radio burst lasting just a millisecond emits more energy than our Sun does in an entire Earth day. Researchers believe there is likely a massive black hole nearby causing the bursts, but more observation is needed. While FRB 121102 might not be aliens, a hellish magnetic storm surrounding a giant black hole sounds terrifyingly awesome. Space might be devoid of life (as far as we know), but it’s still pretty rad.
REUTERSNASA's Hubble-ruimtetelescoop maakte dit beeld van Mars in 2003.
WETENSCHAPAan de hand van beelden gemaakt door NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter hebben onderzoekers acht locaties met gigantische ijsafzettingen geïdentificeerd op de rode planeet. Die kunnen in de toekomst dienen als watervoorraad voor een menselijke kolonie.
Het was al bekend dat ongeveer een derde van het oppervlak van Mars ijs bevat en dat ook op beide polen grote ijsafzettingen aanwezig zijn, maar uit onderzoek dat vandaag werd gepubliceerd in het vakblad Science blijkt nu ook dat er dikke ondergrondse ijslagen blootgesteld zijn op steile hellingen tot 100 meter hoog in zowel de noordelijke als zuidelijke hemisfeer van de planeet.
“Het was verrassend om ijs te zien aan de oppervlakte op deze plaatsen. Langs de middelste breedtegraden is het normaal gezien bedekt met een laag stof of regoliet,” losse stenen op een laag grondgesteente, zegt geoloog Colin Dundas van het U.S. Geological Survey’s Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona, die de studie leidde.
Water en zuurstof
De onderzoekers maakten gebruik van beelden van de Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, die al sinds 2006 rond de planeet cirkelt. Uit hun bevindingen blijkt dat er meer ijs voorhanden kan zijn op Mars dan aanvankelijk werd aangenomen. Het ijs kan gebruikt worden om water mee te maken en zelfs om eventueel omgezet te worden in zuurstof.
“Mensen hebben water nodig waar ze ook naartoe gaan en het is erg zwaar om met je mee te nemen. Hier hebben we vermoedelijk bijna zuiver waterijs net onder de oppervlakte. Je hebt geen hoogtechnologische oplossing nodig. Je kan gewoon met een emmer en een schop aan de slag en zoveel water verzamelen als nodig,” zegt planetair wetenschapper Shane Byrne van het Lunar and Planetary Laboratory van de universiteit van Arizona. “Ik denk dat het een doorbraak is. Het ligt ook veel dichter bij plaatsen waar mensen waarschijnlijk zouden landen, in tegenstelling tot de poolkappen die erg onherbergzaam gebied zijn,” aldus Byrne, die meewerkte aan de studie.
REUTERSEen van de gevonden ijslagen op de planeet Mars.
WETENSCHAPDat er ijs op Mars te vinden is, wist men al langer. Dat water bevindt zich meestal diep onder de oppervlakte van de planeet. Wetenschappers ontdekten recent echter acht plekken waar dat ijs zich dicht bij de oppervlakte bevindt en waar het kan worden ontgonnen.
Een ploeg van wetenschappers, onder leiding van de planetaire geoloog Colin Dundas, onderzocht acht regio’s op de planeet Mars waar erosie onderliggende lagen met ijs blootlegde. Ze presenteren die studie in de nieuwste editie van het gerenommeerde blad Science.
Het belang van die ontdekking ligt in het feit dat wetenschappers nu rechtstreeks aan sommige ijslagen kunnen en er bijgevolg meer onderzoek naar kunnen uitvoeren. Dat was lange tijd onmogelijk, aangezien de ijslagen zich meestal te diep onder de oppervlakte bevinden om aangeboord te kunnen worden door de robots die op Mars landen. De gevonden ijslagen bevinden zich soms maar één meter onder de oppervlakte, soms meer dan honderd meter.
De gevonden ijslagen bevinden zich soms maar één meter onder de oppervlakte, soms meer dan honderd meter
De informatie die de wetenschappers op deze manier konden inwinnen, is van vitaal belang voor toekomstige bewoners van de planeet, zo stellen ze. Eerst en vooral gaat het niet om puur ijs. Volgens de studie zouden de gevonden ijslagen het resultaat zijn van sneeuwregens en verijst zijn samen met stukken stof en ander ‘vuil’. Toch zou het ijs puur genoeg zijn om relatief makkelijk in water te kunnen omzetten.
Minpunt is echter dat de gevonden plekken zich ver van de evenaar van Mars bevinden. Daar is het klimaat niet echt gunstig: het kan er soms stevig vriezen, wat een toekomstige nederzetting op die plek een pak moeilijker maakt. Ook rond de evenaar, waar het klimaat leefbaarder is, is er ijs te vinden. Anderzijds maakt de warmere temperatuur rond de evenaar dan weer dat het water daar dieper in de bodem dringt, stelt de studie.
De onderzoekers concluderen dat ze nog heel wat moeten leren over de ijslagen op de planeet eer menselijk leven er mogelijk is. Aangezien de meest optimistische schattingen de eerste reizen richting Mars ten vroegste tegen de jaren ’30 van deze eeuw schatten, hebben ze wel nog even tijd.
OXON HILL, MARYLAND - There’s a new twist in the tale of one of the strangest objects in the sky.
About three billion light-years away, that mysterious object continually hurls humongous blasts of radio waves into the cosmos. Now, scientists have spied in those waves the spiraling signature of an extremely strong magnetic field, suggesting that the cosmic oddity exists in an intense galactic environment containing a powerfully magnetic source.
RELATED: A HUNDRED MILLION STARS IN 3 MINUTESIn January 2015, NASA released the largest image ever of the Andromeda galaxy, taken by the Hubble telescope. By zooming into the incredible shot, filmmaker Dave Achtemichuk creates an unforgettable interactive experience.
The discovery adds to astronomers’ understanding of phenomena known as fast radio bursts, or FRBs, which are magnificently energetic flashes of radio waves that last for mere fractions of a second. It also allows researchers to paint a clearer picture of what conditions are like in an incredibly distant corner of the universe.
“We're directly probing the local environment of a source in a galaxy billions of light-years away,” says Emily Petroff of ASTRON, the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy. “It's like the power to zoom in at a billion times magnification on an extreme object somewhere else in the universe.”
While the exact source of the magnetism is unclear, it’s possible this FRB is next to a supermassive black hole, like the churning bruiser near our galaxy’s center, or swaddled in the chaotic aftermath of a stellar explosion.
“In the coming weeks, we expect that very creative theorists are going to come up with explanations that we haven’t thought of yet,” says ASTRON’s Jason Hessels, a member of the team reporting the observations today in Nature and at the 231st meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Maryland.
Though fast radio bursts had been baffling astronomers for years, this was the first one netted by Arecibo. Over the years, astronomers continued to study the spot on the sky, hoping to collect some clues about the cosmic enigma.
In 2015, Arecibo caught FRB 121102 in the act of repeating itself. Since then, the same object has slung more than 200 blasts of radio waves across the universe—and it’s still the only repeating fast radio burst among the roughly 30 known.
Last year, astronomers were finally able to pin the burst on a particular galaxy, a fuzzy little blob of a thing that’s furiously birthing stars three billion light-years away in the constellation Auriga.
And now, using data collected by Arecibo on Christmas in 2016, Hessels and his colleagues have been able to study the radio waves coming from the FRB at a higher frequency, and this time, they spied a twist in those blasts. Called Faraday rotation, the signal is produced when radio waves are twisted as they travel through magnetic fields. Except these waves are so strongly spun it means that FRB 121102 must be near a fantastically powerful magnetic field.
“This source is weird because it repeats, and now it’s weird because it has this huge rotation measure,” Hessels says.
BLACK HOLES AND GAS TENDRILS
Though scientists now suspect that a neutron star—the dense corpse of a formerly much larger star—is involved in firing those radio blasts, they aren’t sure what, exactly, is powering the faraway magnetism. FRB 121102 is not the only such object with a magnetic fingerprint, but it’s 500 hundred times stronger than the handful of other twisted bursts, meaning that something unusual is happening its environment, even by the already bizarre FRB standards.
One way to explain the strength of that magnetic field is a nearby supermassive black hole, something with the mass of thousands of suns—perhaps even the one thought to be parked at the center of the burst’s home galaxy.
That’s because, in our own Milky Way, a pulsar near the galactic center also sends out waves with strong Faraday rotation, Hessels says. In fact, it’s the only object with a magnetic twist that even comes close to that observed at FRB 121102.
“A black hole being involved does make sense on some level, particularly since that's the only place we've seen magnetic fields this strong before,” says Petroff. But, she notes, “it's entirely possible that what is happening around FRB 121102 has no analog in our own galaxy.”
Another possibility is that the FRB source is very young and is tucked into a nebula formed by a recent supernova, the explosion that happens when a large star grows up and dies. These lethal eruptions are among the most violent events the cosmos can offer, and they leave behind some intriguing remnants, including neutron stars. If the FRB’s source is a magnetar (a type of neutron star), and it’s being naturally magnified by a magnetic bundle of gas and dust, that could also explain the observations.
“Dense tendrils of magnetized matter associated with turbulent gas surrounding a young supernova remnant would provide a comparably compelling explanation,” says Jean-Pierre MacQuart of Australia’s Curtin University.
He says that a supermassive black hole and roiling supernova remnant are both consistent with the data, at least for now: “I am sure that, in time, the astronomical community will conjure up no shortage of alternate scenarios to explain the environment of this FRB!”
This iconic Hubble image of the spiral galaxy NGC 1300 is suffused with detail—bright blue young stars, the dust lanes spiraling around the bright nucleus, distant galaxies shining through.
NASA, ESA, AND THE HUBBLE HERITAGE TEAM (STSCI/AURA). ACKNOWLEDGMENT: P. KNEZEK (WIYN)
Geheimzinnige extragalactische radioflitsen afkomstig van exotische bron
Geheimzinnige extragalactische radioflitsen afkomstig van exotische bron
De bron van de repeterende radioflits FRB121102 bevindt zich in een extreme omgeving. Op deze artistieke impressie is te zien dat het licht van de radioflitsen sterk gepolariseerd is én gedraaid.
(c) Danielle Futselaar/Brian P. Irwin/Dennis van de Water/Shutterstock
Een internationaal team met astronomen van onder andere de Universiteit van Amsterdam en ASTRON heeft ontdekt dat de bron van de repeterende radioflits FRB121102 zich in een opvallend extreme omgeving bevindt. Zij suggereren dat de flitsen afkomstig zijn uit de onmiddellijke nabijheid van een zwaar zwart gat of uit een zeer energierijke nevel. De bron is waarschijnlijk een neutronenster. Het team heeft zijn bevindingen vandaag gepresenteerd tijdens een persconferentie op de winterbijeenkomst van de American Astronomical Society (#AAS231) in Washington, D.C. (VS). Het resultaat is vandaag verschenen in Nature.
Een jaar geleden rapporteerden de astronomen dat de repeterende snelle radioflits FRB121102 zich bevindt in een stervormingsgebied in een dwergsterrenstelsel op een afstand van zo’n 3 miljard lichtjaar van de aarde. Uit een nieuwe analyse van waarnemingen met de Arecibo-radiotelescoop in Puerto Rico en de Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia (VS) blijkt nu dat het licht van de radioflitsen sterk is gepolariseerd (dat wil zeggen dat het een voorkeursoriëntatie heeft), en dat het is ‘gedraaid’ als gevolg van een sterk magneetveld in een dicht plasma. Dit laatste wordt het Faraday-effect genoemd. Hoe sterker het magnetisch veld, des te groter de draaiing.
Zo’n extreme draaiing van radiogolven (500 keer groter dan ooit bij een andere FRB-bron is gezien) is tot nu toe alleen waargenomen in de omgeving van een superzwaar zwart gat, zoals dat in het centrum van onze Melkweg. De astronomen houden rekening met een tweede scenario: de draaiing kan ook worden verklaard wanneer de bron zich bevindt in een energierijke nevel of supernovarest.
FRB121102 is een zogeheten snelle radioflits (Fast Radio Burst), een recent ontdekte nieuwe klasse van transients, astrofysische verschijnselen van korte duur, afkomstig uit de extragalactische ruimte. Hun ware aard is nog steeds een raadsel. FRB121102 is de enige bekende repeterende FRB en dit heeft de vraag opgeworpen of zijn herkomst anders is dan die van niet-repeterende FRB’s. Eerste auteur Daniele Michilli (promovendus UvA/ASTRON): “FRB121102 was al uniek vanwege het feit dat hij meerdere keren van zich heeft laten horen, maar met zijn enorme Faraday-effect wordt hij steeds curieuzer. We hebben nog geen idee of er een verband is tussen deze twee eigenschappen.”
De astronomen kwamen tot hun bevindingen door de flitsen op hogere radiofrequenties waar te nemen dan ooit tevoren. Coauteur Andrew Seymour, USRA-astronoom bij Arecibo: “We hebben hiervoor een nieuwe waarneemmethode ontwikkeld op de Arecibo-telescoop. Onze collega’s van de Green Bank Telescope hebben de resultaten bevestigd met waarnemingen op nog hogere radiofrequenties. Bovendien ontdekten we dat een van de flitsen korter duurde dan 30 microseconden. Dat ondersteunt ons idee dat de flitsen afkomstig zijn van een neutronenster in een extreme omgeving van gemagnetiseerd plasma.”.
De astronomen zullen blijven volgen hoe de eigenschappen van de flitsen door de tijd heen veranderen. Coauteur Jason Hessels (UvA/ASTRON): “We hopen met deze waarnemingen te kunnen vaststellen of de neutronenster zich nabij een zwart gat of in een krachtige nevel bevindt.”
Met een aantal radiotelescopen met een groot beeldveld dat nu in bedrijf komt, zullen er naar verwachting in de komende jaren meer van dit soort bronnen worden gevonden en kunnen astronomen antwoorden vinden op de fundamentele vragen over de mysterieuze snelle radioflitsen.
Artikel
An extreme magneto-ionic environment associated with fast radio burst source FRB121102. Door: D. Michilli, A. Seymour, J. W. T. Hessels, L. G. Spitler, V. Gajjar, A. M. Archibald, G. C. Bower, S. Chatterjee, J. M. Cordes, K. Gourdji, G. H. Heald, V. M. Kaspi, C. J. Law, C. Sobey, E. A. K. Adams, C. G. Bassa, S. Bogdanov, C. Brinkman, P. Demorest, F. Fernandez, G. Hellbourg, T. J. W. Lazio, R. S. Lynch, N. Maddox, B. Marcote, M. A. McLaughlin, Z. Paragi, S. M. Ransom, P. Scholz, A. P. V. Siemion, S. P. Tendulkar, P. Van Rooy, R. S. Wharton, D. Whitlow. In: Nature, 11 januari 2017.
Mysterie extragalactische radioflitsen nog vreemder. Astronomen zoomen in op deze exotische bron
Mysterie extragalactische radioflitsen nog vreemder. Astronomen zoomen in op deze exotische bron
Astronomen hebben ontdekt dat de bron van de snelle radioflits FRB 121102 zich in een buitengewoon extreme omgeving bevindt.
Ze denken dat de flitsen afkomstig zijn uit de buurt van een zwart gat of uit een energierijke nevel, hoewel onduidelijk is wat de exacte bron is.
“We onderzoeken de omgeving van een bron in een sterrenstelsel op drie miljard lichtjaar,” zei Emily Petroff van ASTRON, het Nederlands instituut voor radioastronomie.
Gedraaid
Sterrenkundigen meldden vorig jaar dat de snelle radioflits zich op een afstand van zo’n drie miljard lichtjaar van de aarde bevindt.
Uit nieuwe waarnemingen blijkt dat het licht van de radioflitsen sterk is gepolariseerd en ‘gedraaid’ is als gevolg van een sterk magneetveld in een dicht plasma, ook wel het Faraday-effect genoemd.
Zo’n extreme draaiing van radiogolven is tot nu toe alleen waargenomen in de buurt van een superzwaar zwart gat. De draaiing kan ook worden verklaard door een energierijke nevel of neutronenster.
Vreemd
“We verwachten dat zeer creatieve theoretici de komende weken verklaringen gaan bedenken waar we nog niet aan hadden gedacht,” zei Jason Hessels van ASTRON.
“Deze bron is vreemd omdat hij zich herhaalt en omdat hij zo sterk gedraaid is,” voegde hij toe.
Kosmische raadsel
De ware aard van snelle radioflitsen is nog steeds een raadsel. Het gaat om energetische flitsen die slechts een fractie van een seconde duren.
FRB 121102 werd in 2012 voor het eerst ontdekt. In de jaren daarna speurden astronomen de hemel af, op zoek naar sporen om dit kosmische raadsel te kunnen ontrafelen.
Wetenschappers vinden bewijs voor vierde dimensie. Dit kan belangrijke implicaties hebben
Wetenschappers vinden bewijs voor vierde dimensie. Dit kan belangrijke implicaties hebben
Wij mensen kunnen in deze wereld drie ruimtelijke dimensies waarnemen (plus de dimensie tijd): boven, beneden, links, rechts, voorwaarts en achterwaarts.
In twee laboratoria hebben wetenschappers nu bewijs gevonden voor een vierde ruimtelijke dimensie, schrijft Gizmodo.
Tijdens experimenten in tweedimensionale systemen werd het zogeheten kwantum-Hall-effect waargenomen, dat optreedt bij vier dimensies.
Toegang
Deze experimenten kunnen belangrijke implicaties hebben voor de wetenschap en wetenschappers in staat stellen om in onze lagerdimensionale wereld toegang te krijgen tot de hogerdimensionale natuurkunde.
“Wellicht kunnen we in de hogere dimensie nieuwe natuurkunde ontwaren en vervolgens apparaten ontwerpen waarmee we de hogerdimensionale natuurkunde in de lagere dimensies kunnen onderzoeken,” zei professor Mikael Rechtsman van de Pennsylvania State University.
Wiskundigen kunnen een vierde ruimtelijke dimensie beschrijven, maar niet fysiek realiseren.
Achtergelaten
Een driedimensionale figuur werpt een tweedimensionale schaduw. Door deze schaduw te bekijken, kunnen we informatie krijgen over de driedimensionale figuur.
Op dezelfde manier kunnen we mogelijk informatie verkrijgen over de vierdimensionale natuur door een schaduw te onderzoeken die is achtergelaten in de lagere dimensies.
Elektronicarevolutie
Natuurkundigen zijn er tijdens de complexe experimenten in geslaagd om een 3D-schaduw waar te nemen van een 4D-object, ook al konden ze het 4D-object zelf niet waarnemen.
Wie nog een stapje verder gaat komt uit in de wereld van kwantumzwaartekracht en Weyl-semimetalen, die aan de basis kunnen staan van een nieuwe elektronicarevolutie.
Bevat de geheime ruimte in de Grote Piramide een ijzeren troon die de farao naar het volgende leven begeleidde?
Bevat de geheime ruimte in de Grote Piramide een ijzeren troon die de farao naar het volgende leven begeleidde?
De mysterieuze verborgen ruimte in de Grote Piramide van Gizeh bevat mogelijk een ‘ijzeren troon’ gemaakt van meteorieten.
Archeologen denken dat de troon werd gebruikt om een farao naar het volgende leven te begeleiden.
Volgens een oude tekst die door onderzoekers is geanalyseerd moet de farao op zijn ijzeren troon zitten voordat hij de sterren kan bereiken.
Geen idee
Het enorme gat werd in november vorig jaar ontdekt in de piramide. Archeologen hebben geen idee waar het voor werd gebruikt.
Professor Giulio Magli van het Politecnico di Milano denkt nu het antwoord te weten. “In deze teksten staat dat de farao, voordat hij de sterren van het noorden bereikt, door de poorten van de hemel moet gaan en op zijn troon van ijzer moet zitten,” zei hij.
De pas ontdekte ruimte bevindt zich boven de grote gallerij, maar is niet gemaakt om het gewicht van de gallerij op te vangen, aldus Magli.
Meteorietenijzer
Hij suggereert dat de troon lijkt op die van de moeder van Cheops, koningin Hetepheres. Haar troon was een lage stoel bestaande uit cederhout bedekt met bladgoud.
Cheops kan een soortgelijke troon hebben gehad, alleen moet zijn stoel zijn bedekt met meteorietenijzer.
De Egyptenaren gebruikten dit meteorietenijzer voor speciale voorwerpen die de farao’s gebruikten, zoals de beroemde dolk van Toetanchamon.
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VREEMDE PAARSE LUCHTEN WIJZEN OP NADERING NIBIRU...
VREEMDE PAARSE LUCHTEN WIJZEN OP NADERING NIBIRU...
De afgelopen dagen hebben we talloze getuigen de revue laten passeren die allemaal vreemde onverklaarbare geluiden in de lucht hoorden.
Een aantal echter, kwam ook met vreemde luchten, paarse luchten, waarover wij eerder schreven en die worden toegeschreven aan de naderende planeet Nibiru.
Het duurt lang in mainstreamland voordat ergens het kwartje begint te vallen, want het zijn meesters in het negeren van dingen die werkelijk gebeuren of er idiote verklaringen voor weten te vinden.
Een goed voorbeeld hiervan krijg je bij het zien van wat een lezer uit de omgeving Breda heeft opgestuurd (dank!). Het gaat om een foto van 10 januari 2018 en waarover hij schrijft:
Beste, hierbij foto’s van paarse lucht boven Breda woensdag 10 januari 2018.
Volgens diverse media reflectie van de kassen. Flauwekul. Volgens de weersverwachting reflectie van de wolken. Erg merkwaardig.
Een andere lezer uit België (dank!) ziet ook 's nachts vreemde luchten die verschijnen en dan plotseling weer verdwijnen, dit in combinatie met een vreemd geluid.
Een verslag uit Oostakker:
De lucht en het weer hebben me altijd al gefascineerd dus ik kijk heel veel naar de hemel zowel overdag als ‘s nachts. Ik heb zo de indruk dat er veel aan het veranderen is, er gebeuren dateringen in de lucht. Te veel rode gloed aan de hemel terwijl dat niet altijd mogelijk lijkt.
Daar komt bij dat ik veel meer geluiden hoor die ik vroeger veel minder hoorde, veel rare wolken, ‘s nachts ook dikwijls een roze/rood/oranjeachtige gloed en dat dikwijls in verschillende richtingen zodat het echt niet normaal is.
Afgelopen nacht keek ik ook weer buiten terwijl ik een sigaretje aan het roken was toen ik weer die gloeden zag, maar er was ook nog een wit lichtpunt dat kwam en ging in een s-vorm. Ik wou het opnemen maar het was van slechte kwaliteit.
En toen was het er. Een luid, onheilspellend geluid alsof een groot schilgeven metaalachtige iets aanvoer. Overweldigend! Leek ook beetje op scheepshoorn. Duurde toch minuut of 7. Rode gloed verdween en het werd donker, pikdonker. Creepy!
Dat was zo rond 4 uur afgelopen nacht. Ik hoop het nooit meer te horen.
Het is het geluid van onheil.
Er verschijnen steeds meer berichten, ook bij de mainstream, over vreemde, paarse luchten zoals de volgende:
De vreemde paarse luchten en ook een mogelijke verklaring daarvoor kwamen aan bod in een eerder artikel:
Zo werden de inwoners van de Amerikaanse stad Houston enkele weken geleden wakker en zagen ze overal paarse luchten.
Aangezien eerst even de zon scheen en toen onweerswolken binnen begonnen te rollen, werd de lucht helemaal paars en zong iedereen in de stad het lied “Purple Rain” van de onlangs overleden Prince.
Volgens Nancy Lieder van Zetatalk wordt dit soort verschijnselen veroorzaakt door een combinatie van het ijzeroxide stof in wat zij noemt de “staart van Niburu”, die zich vermengt met luchtvervuiling zoals je die in Houston aantreft. Dit zorgt ervoor dat in plaats van een rode kleur de hemel boven de stad paars kleurt.
Veel mensen die de afgelopen week hun ervaringen naar ons hebben gestuurd, maken melding van een soort onbehaaglijk gevoel, misschien niet direct angst, maar wel iets in hen dat zegt dat dit geassocieerd wordt met iets onprettigs.
Zoals hierboven staat bij de ervaring van een lezer: Het is het geluid van onheil.
Tenslotte zullen wij allemaal in onze genen ergens de ervaring hebben opgeslagen van een eerdere passage van Nibiru, bijgenaamd de Verwoester. Een gebeurtenis die uitgebreid staat beschreven in de Kolbrin bijbel zoals wij al eerder berichtten:
“De donkere dagen begonnen met het laatste bezoek van de Verwoester en dit werd voorspeld door vreemde tekenen aan de hemel. Alle mensen werden stil en liepen rond met een bleek gelaat.
Angst nam de bevolking in haar grip en vrouwen werden door die angst onvruchtbaar. Ze konden niet zwanger worden en degene die het wel werden verloren hun kind.
De dagen van stilte werden gevolgd door een tijd waarbij trompetgeschal en doordringende hoge tonen werden gehoord in de hemelen en de mensen werden net zo bang als een kudde zonder herder.
ZOVEEL VERSCHILLENDE MENSEN KUNNEN NIET ALLEMAAL EEN VREEMD GELUID INBEELDEN.
ZOVEEL VERSCHILLENDE MENSEN KUNNEN NIET ALLEMAAL EEN VREEMD GELUID INBEELDEN.
Eerst waren er drie mensen die melding maakten van een vreemd geluid dat ze hoorden boven het westen van Nederland.
De dag erna kwamen er nog drie, dit keer zelfs uit België, maar nu komen er echt overal mensen tevoorschijn die iets dergelijks hoorden, van Groningen tot Roosendaal.
Wanneer zoveel mensen iets in de lucht horen wat daar eigenlijk niet thuis hoort, dan is niet meer te spreken over verbeelding of fantasie. In een artikel gisteren kwamen mensen aan het woord die allen een vreemd geluid hadden gehoord en al deze mensen woonden eigenlijk min of langs de kuststreek of in ieder geval het westelijk deel van ons land en België.
Het mysterie groeit, want in plaats van antwoorden, komen er nog veel meer meldingen binnen.
Zoals deze uit de buurt van Alkmaar (dank):
Naar aanleiding van jullie artikel over de vreemde geluiden hier mijn ervaring van afgelopen nachten. Al 2x werd ik wakker door een brommend geluid, het leek op een stationair draaiende motor van een auto maar veel indringender en luider. Het geluid kwam ook niet van straat, maar van boven.
Ik zag echter niets. Het kwam bij mij niet als eng over, maar was wel super irritant. Het was geen vliegtuig, want het geluid bleef “hangen” en opeens was het weg. Ik woon vlak boven Alkmaar.
En dan een eerste melding die niet uit het Westen komt, maar uit de buurt van Steenwijk (dank!):
Reeds verschillende keren hebben mijn vrouw en ik het , zogenaamde helicoptergeluid, gehoord. Het geluid heeft maandagochtend 8 januari jl. wel meer dan een uur geduurd. Het was een zonnige dag. Wij wonen in Basse ten Noorden van Steenwijk. In de lucht was niets te zien. Voor ons gevoel kwam het geluid vanuit zuid Oost Drenthe.
En dan, geen ervaring, maar iemand die zegt dat iets dergelijks vaker is voorgekomen (dank!):
Gezien uw 2 artikelen over geluiden in Nederland en Be dat u/men een verklaring zoekt. U zou e.v.t op de site van Mevr Ans Hoornweg kunnen kijken, er is daar op 22 juni 2017 bericht gepubliceerd, dat daar ook over gaat, en haar verklaring er aan geeft. Verhaal van ook persoonlijke ervaring.
Wanneer we daar kijken, dan staat er het volgende, klaarblijkelijk waar gebeurde verhaal:
Het gebeurde op één van die hele warme dagen in deze maand juni. De zon scheen toen volop en de lucht was prachtig blauw. Mijn kennisje had ‘s middags enkele familieleden op visite, maar omdat het buiten té warm was bleven ze liever binnenshuis.
Rond een uur of 4 zaten ze gezellig in haar woonkamer te praten, maar toen werden hun gesprekken verstoord door het geluid, of beter gezegd kabaal, van een helikopter die vlak boven hun huis leek te hangen. De man des huizes ging samen met één van hun gasten naar buiten om te kijken waarom die helikopter zo irritant boven hun huis hing. Ze speurden de hele lucht af, maar tot hun grote verbazing zagen ze geen helikopter, terwijl ze hem wél hoorden?!
Verbijsterd gingen beide mannen weer naar binnen en vertelden hun familieleden dat er nergens een helikopter te zien was.
Het geluid van de helikopter begon langzaam weg te sterven, maar op dat moment werd het, voor heel even, aardedonker om hen heen …. en dát op een zonnige dag om 4 uur ‘s middags?! Na deze vreemde gebeurtenis keken de familieleden elkaar verbijsterd en vol ongeloof aan …. wat was hen, in Godsnaam, zojuist was overkomen?!
En daar wordt dan de volgende uitleg aan gegeven door mevrouw Hoornweg:
Het kennisje vroeg aan mij of ik een verklaring wist voor deze, door haar én haar visite ervaren, vreemde gebeurtenissen.
Mijn antwoord was dat ik dacht dat er die middag waarschijnlijk een ‘experiment’ met de psyche van haar en haar visite had plaatsgevonden – momenteel vinden er nl. vele geheime experimenten plaats, waaronder ook manipulatie van onze geest.
Ja, er gebeuren vreemde dingen in ons luchtruim waar wij mensen niets van mogen weten …… en degenen die daar verantwoordelijk voor zijn zwijgen in alle talen.
Vervolgens een waarneming van iemand uit het Westland:
Ik woon in het Westland en ervaar nu sinds een week elke avond/nacht die geluiden waarover jullie spreken, of het hetzelfde is weet ik niet. Het begint als een laag geluid wat na 5 seconden begint te trillen en wat daarna wegebt. Een enkele keer is het ook een hoge toon. Het is geen interne zaak aangezien ik duidelijk hoor dat het uit 1 richting komt.
Als ik meer weet of ervaar laat ik het weten.
De volgende lezer meldt geen ervaring, maar vertelt het volgende (dank!):
Reagerend op de topic dat er iets gaande is in Nederland en België wil ik hieraan het volgende toevoegen :
Het valt mij op dat ik de laatste paar weken vooral s' avonds helicopters over hoor vliegen. Soms één per avond, soms meerdere per avond.EEA doet mij denken aan een voorval in 2015 op de Veluwe toen mijn vrouw en ik een korte vakantie genoten en op een terras in Elspeet Chinook's over zagen en hoorde vliegen. Ik heb dit destijds ook aan jullie redactie gemeld en ook weer reagerend op een topic over vreemde geluiden en lichten boven ons land.
Gisteravond was het rond 21.30 uur opnieuw raak en vloog hier boven onze huizen een helicopter over, geen chinook , maar en ander soort. Nu weet ik absoluut zeker dat de lezers en lezeressen van deze site helicopter geluiden zullen herkennen en deze niet verwarren met het vreemde geluid wat overal hoorbaar is. Wat mij wel te denken geeft is de activiteit van helicopters s'avonds na 21.00 uur.
Dat er “iets” gaande is staat voor mij als een paal boven water, mijn advies aan lezers en lezeressen van deze site :
Wees voorbereid, sla voedsel in, minimaal 2 maanden, zorg voor voldoende drinkwater in flessen en zorg dat je huis en haard kan verdedigen en hiermee doel ik niet op saté prikkers of aardappelschilmesjes.
Zorg dat je drank in huis hebt, het kan dienen als ontsmettingsmiddel en als ruil middel als geld waardeloos is of niet meer uit muren komt.
Zoals op deze site vaak gewaarschuwd wordt, wat als er straks geen drinkwater meer uit kranen stroomt of de electra valt een week uit.
Mijn vrouw zei laatst geërgerd dat ze de muslie niet zag staan in onze voorraadkast, das precies wat ik bedoel, de beste raad = voorraad.
Wees voorbereid !!!!!
Dan, waarnemingen uit Groningen en Drenthe (dank!):
Ook ik heb deze artikel gelezen wat er boven Nederland en België gaande is, en het is niet alleen aan de westzijde van Nederland en België. Afgelopen maandagnacht, dus van maandag op dinsdag, was dat geluid hier ook aanwezig. Ik wordt s' nachts niet gauw wakker van geluid maar dit was inderdaad ook dat zware dempende geluid wat zeker een uur boven mijn huis hing. Uiteindelijk ben ik ook maar eens buiten gaan kijken wat het was, niets te zien...
Toen golfde het geluid uiteindelijk weg, richting het westen. Ik woon in het Westerwolde, oost-Groningen.
Later hoorde ik van mijn kinderen, die in Emmen (Dr.) wonen, dat zij het ook gehoord hebben en van het geluid ook s' nachts naast het bed stonden.
Misschien draaf of fantaseer ik nu door, maar onlangs las ik dat Ashtar de overheden had gewaarschuwd i.v.m. Disclosure en daarom misschien wat van zich laat horen...(?) Van bekenden in de USA hoorde ik ook dat zij ook geregeld dit soort zware geluiden horen.
Of wat mij waarschijnlijker lijkt, ze (overheden, koningshuizen etc.) zijn s' nachts in samenwerking met buitenaardsen (Lees: reptielen) druk in de weer alles voor te bereiden, alles over te hevelen, mocht het te heet onder de voeten worden. Want ik kan mij niet voorstellen dat men zo overdag met alle schilderijen, sieraden goud, etc., etc., zo onder de arm de deur uitgaan, en tot nooit weerziens roepen. Alles gaat in stilte, zodat met er geen lucht van krijgt.
Zomaar wat hersenspinsels, maar ik denk niet dat ik er te ver van af ben...
Nog een waarneming uit Drenthe (dank!):
Enige tijd gelden (27-12-2017 om 23:30 volgens mijn browser geschiedenis) lag ik in bed toen ik eveneens een zwaar brommend geluid heb gehoord. Ik woon in Drenthe (Valthermond) bij een laagvlieggebied voor militaire vliegtuigen. In eerste instantie dacht ik dat het militaire transportvliegtuigen waren die laag over kwamen vliegen.
Maar het geluid leek zich niet tot nauwelijks voort te bewegen, het leek of het op één plek bleef hangen of maar heel langzaam bewoog. Ook was het geluid behoorlijk laag en zwaar voor een vliegtuig of helikopter.
Ik ben toen niet mijn bed uit gegaan om te kijken wat het was. Op google heb ik gezocht of er militaire training was (vandaar dat ik de datum en tijd terug kan halen), die worden vaak aangekondigd maar er was niks over te vinden. Op vliegtuigradar was op dat moment geen vliegbewegingen boven het gebied waar ik woon te zien. De dag erna kon ik er ook niks over terug vinden in het nieuws.
Helaas ben ik niet naar buiten geweest en heb dus ook niks gezien. Nadat het zware bromgeluid een tijdje had aangehouden verdween het langzaam.
Om een lang verhaal kort te houden; ook in Drenthe zijn er vreemde geluiden in de lucht gehoord.
Dan we gaan we weer naar het zuiden, Roosendaal, waar een lezer het geluid ook hoort en vindt dat het iets spookachtigs heeft.
Ik heb met belangstelling uw relaas gelezen over vreemde geluiden, die worden gehoord.
Ik woon zelf aan de zuidkant van Roosendaal en ik heb al diverse keren vreemde geluiden gehoord. Het is telkens weer hetzelfde geluid. Een indringend, luid, zwaar, dof, monotoon en irritant gebrom. Meestal 's-avonds laat, zo rond middernacht.
Het geluid komt duidelijk uit de lucht. Ik ben al diverse keren buiten gaan kijken, maar kan niets in de lucht waarnemen, dat dit zou kunnen veroorzaken. Zelfs niet bij een heldere sterrenhemel. Het geluid lijkt recht van boven te komen. De bron van het gebrom lijkt ergens stil te hangen in de lucht. Afstand, hoogte en richting zijn echter niet te bepalen.
Het geluid begint heel plotseling en houdt even plotseling op. Het gebrom duurt meestal maar enkele minuten, maar kan ook best wel eens een kwartier aanhouden. Het geluid lijkt een beetje op het afblazen van een enorme hoeveelheid stoom. Dan denk ik toch wel aan een veelvoud van het afblazen van de stoomketels van de Titanic na de aanvaring.
Roosendaal ligt op een steenworp afstand van de uchtmachtbasis Woensdrecht. Militaire vliegtuigen, helicopters en shinooks komen regelmatig over vliegen, maar dat klinkt wel allemaal anders. De snelweg en de spoorlijnen maken ook wel wat lawaai, maar dat hoort toch ook heel anders. In Roosendaal staat een hele grote zendmast, die ook wel eens wil brommen, maar dat komt in de verste verte niet in de buurt van het geluid.
Langs Roosendaal loopt een zgn. leidingenstraat met allerlei pijpleidingen en hoogspanningsmasten. Daar wil het ook wel eens brommen, maar dat geluid is toch lang niet zo indringend. Industrie, die dit soort geluid zou kunnen veroorzaken is er in de hele omgeving niet. Alleen de kerncentrale van Doel, ten noorden van Antwerpen, zou in aanmerking kunnen komen. Maar ik heb nog nooit gehoord, dat dat ding zou brommen.
Kortom, ik kan alleen maar vaststellen, dat er inderdaad iets vreemds gaande is, waarvoor geen afdoende verklaring voor handen is. Uit de verhalen, die u hebt gepubliceerd, meen ik voorzichtig te mogen vaststellen, dat het telkens om een zelfde geluidsbron gaat.
Een interessant detail is, dat het geluid ook in andere streken van het land wordt gehoord Het fenomeen intrigeert me. Het heeft iets spookachtigs.
Van Roosendaal gaan we wederom naar Rijnsburg (dank!):
Ik las het artikel op jullie site.
Ook ik heb de nacht van woensdag op dondernacht dat rare geluid gehoord. Ik dacht dat het kwart voor drie was toen ik naar het toilet moest en dacht jeetje nog zo vroeg, ik lag er net weerlekker in toen ik een zwaar brommend geluid hoorde. Ik dacht eerst ook aan een auto maar daar was het geluid te hard voor. Ik ben wel eens in Kortrijk geweest waar ze oude Dakota’s hadden vliegen.
Het geluid leek daar heel erg op. Toen dacht ik maar dat kan toch niet vliegtuigen mogen toch op bepaalde uren niet opstijgen….. of landen. Het geluid duurde ik weet niet hoelang in mijn verbeelding, na een tijdje net toen ik dacht ik ga er uit en kijken wat het is nam het geluid geleidelijk af. Ik keek op mijn wekkertje en het was net half 4. Ik woon in Noordwijk, net naast Rijnsburg……
Van Rijnsburg richting oosten naar Deventer (dank!):
Ook in de buurt van Deventer is minutenlang een ronkend motorgeluid van een vliegtuig (?) gehoord begin van deze week. Dusdanig dat ik naar buiten ging om e.e.a. te kunnen plaatsen. Ik weet gebrek aan visuele waarneming van het object aan de bosrijke omgeving waarin ik woon tot ik jullie stuk las hierover. Het (harde) geluid verplaatste zich namelijk niet…, maar ging uiteindelijk over in een zachtere modus zonder van plek te veranderen. Althans dat is zoals ik het beleefde.
We gaan nog verder naar het oosten, naar Aalten (dank!):
Artikel ‘’ Er is iets gaande boven Nederland en België’’ Woensdag 10 januari 2018 10:13 uur. Ik ben woonachtig in de gemeente Aalten Gelderland en heb twee keer een geluid gehoord wat op in de verte het rangeren van treinen leek maar hier geen treinstation , voor de duidelijkheid dit was overdag in de middag. De filmpjes welke op internet te vinden zijn met hoog schurend piep achtig trompet en brom geluid, dat zelfde meende ik ook te horen .
Ik ben naar buiten gegaan en in de lucht gekeken maar kon niet echt richting bepalen maar voelde als Noord . Omdat het niet echt lang aanhield ben ik weer naar binnen gegaan. Heb ook nagedacht over wat de oorzaak zou kunnen zijn, nu denk ik de atmosfeer over elkaar schuurt dus koude lagen bevroren op grote hoogte langs warmere lagen .
Wat niet gelijk bliksem flitsen geeft door koeling op die grote hoogte. Wat mij tevens opvalt is, dat de laatste maanden hier waar het normaal dood en doodstil in de nacht is, nu veel nachtelijk verkeer bedrijvigheid is. Dat ik zelfs onrust ervaar daardoor, bevreemd mij dit .
Dan, waarnemingen en een mogelijke verklaring uit Helmond (dank!):
Ik las het artikel over laagfrequente geluiden in West nederland.Ik wil daarover zeggen, dat ik reeds in augustus vorig jaar contactopnam met de gemeente Helmond, wegens het 's nacht wakker liggen
van een opdringerige BROM, een zogenaamde E.L.F.
De gemeente zei; daar gaan wij niet over. Ga maar naar de provincie Brabant.Welnu, ik had er een dag over gedaan om mijn klacht te omschrijven, en binnen drieminuten na verzending keeg ik drie woordjes retour:"afgehandeld zonder onderzoek" Daaronder stond de suggestiedat ik mijn klacht maar eens bij de Provincie Gelderland moest leggen (serieus).Zoals altijd, politiek is er niet voor u als ze eindelijk iets echt moeten gaan doen.De reden van de weigering van onderzoek was, dat ik niet kon aangeven wat debron van het geluid was. Hoe idioot kan dat zijn?
Maargoed, ik heb dus op den duur schema's aangelegd van het geluid's nachts. En mijn nachtelijke plaag stopte ineens op 14 november jongstledenen toen ik bemerkte dat het definitief weg was kon ik weer normaal slapen.Op den duur zijn er door dit fenomeen ook zeer scherpe en hoge tonen
in mijn oren gekomen. Het schijnt zo te zijn dat die hoge tonenveroorzaakt worden door een E.L.F als die langdurig aanhoudt.Meer daarover bij de stichting Laagfrequent geluid waar nu mijn klacht overigens gedeponeerd is.
Echter, afgelopen donderdagnacht 4 januari was daar ineens weer die brom, vanuit het niets begon het weer alsof iemand een knop omdraaide. En het valt me op dat dat dezelfde datum is als in het artikel. Maar of het gerelateerd is durf ik niet te zeggen. Het is wel toevallig.De brom klinkt alsof er ergens in de buurt een tractor staat te draaien.Maar nergens lijkt het alsof je dichter naar de bron toe kunt lopen.Dat is heel raar.
Ik ben ernstig aan het onderzoeken gegaan en ik heb ontdekt dat vrijwelalle gebouwen in de regio, in trilling worden gebracht door een resonantiein de aarde. Het is dus zo dat ik het op andere plaatsen ook gehoord hebzowel binnen als buiten, maar buiten alleen als je direct naast een muur staat.
Het belangrijkste is, er is mogelijk een oorzaak van de brom aan te wijzen.het is wellicht het Amerikaanse GWEN-tower systeem. Dit systeem zendt laagfrequente golven uit langs de bovenste laag van de Aarde, dit om de effecten van straling na bijvoorbeeld een kernoorlog te kunnen omzeilen.
Maar volgens mij is dat allemaal geleuter. Het GWEN systeem wordt ook wel de "ZOMBIE MAKER"genoemd.Omdat het in staat zou zijn om in de slaap van mensen, het DNA te muteren.
Maar wat ik wel weet is dat ik van die brom super-agressief wordt.Ik ga gewoon slaan soms, en ben reeds vele malen naar buiten gevlucht in het midden van de nacht, omdat mijn bed niet vol te houden was.
Dus ja, iemand zit absoluut te klooien in Nederland.Hebben we nu binnenkort een zware aardbeving ergens, dan weten we dat het geen natuurlijke is geweest. Het bereik van GWEN is ongeveer 2500 kilometerdus het apparaat kan wel ergens in Roemenië staan, of in Tromso Noorwegen bijvoorbeeld, want daar moet ik steeds aan denken.
En een lezer uit Zevenaar (dank!) die niet specifiek dit geluid de afgelopen dagen heeft gehoord, maar wel gedurende de afgelopen jaren.
Ik woon in Zevenaar bij Arnhem en hoor dat vreemde gebrom al een paar jaar met flinke tussenpozen wel/niet . We horen het in de huiskamer . Zodra we de tuindeur open doen is het niet te traceren waar het vandaan komt . Alsof het alleen in huis te horen is . Het is een lage frequentie toon/brom .
Ik had ooit een stuk gelezen in de Telegraaf (+ - 25 jaar geleden dat ze in Engeland testen deden om verschillende frequentie op mensen los te laten om zo hun stemming te bepalen. Zo kunnen ze mensen rustig houden tijdens wedstrijden en rellen , mensen verdrietig of vrolijk laten zijn. Of zijn ze nu bezig de bevolking om zeep te helpen want valt wel op dat er erg veel mensen last hebben van depressies . Om het maar eens niet gelijk bij de Aliens te zoeken of een Aardbol die op een roestige as draait haha .
Zo ook iemand uit Rotterdam (dank!):
Ik wil graag ook reageren op het onderwerp over de diepe bromgeluiden, ik hoor dit al een 3/4 jaar met enige regelmaat hier in Rotterdam, ik dacht dat ik het misschien alleen was die dit meemaakte en dat het met gehoor problemen door verkoudheid te maken had, maar ook ik kan bevestigen dat de brom er een is van de diepste categorie , ook is het alsof je even in een vacuüm gezogen wordt op het moment dat de brom begint en die paar seconden dat deze duurt, het gaat door je hele hoofd heen, ik heb dit voorheen nog nooit ervaren, eerste keer schrok ik er van zo vreemd en plots als het begon, nu ben ik niet meer bang, alleen overvalt het je op elke willekeurige plek, buiten of binnen, het moet iets heel erg groot zijn dat dit veroorzaakt dat voel ik er wel bij, al is er niets te zien, ik ben blij dat ik dit lees en ik niet de enige ben, ik wilde het toch even bij jullie melden.
Scientists have found evidence of a ‘fourth dimension’
Scientists have found evidence of a ‘fourth dimension’
Eureka!
For a long time have scientists thought that the universe had three spatial dimensions: top-down, left-right, front-back.
In 1905, Albert Einstein helped us with his theory of relativity to understand “the dimension of time”. But the new fourth spatial dimension has remained hidden so far.
The truth is that the fur dimension is as mysterious as it gets.
Two groups of scientists from America and Europe claim to have discovered the fourth dimension, and their findings have been published in the journal Nature.
Despite the fact we can’t see it, the fourth dimension is there.
Image Credit: Shutterstock.
Researchers carried out two experiments in which they could observe the quantum Hall effect – the movement of electrons within a material limited to two dimensions as this material passes through a magnetic field in a perpendicular way – and they demonstrated— theoretically—that this effect can be extended in four spatial dimensions.
Despite the fact that the papers focused on two different experimental approaches, they arrived at a similar conclusion.
European scientists created a 2D system with supercooled atoms held in position with a special grid made of lasers. Referred to as ‘charge pump’, scientists used it to test the flow of electrical charge while monitoring how the atoms behaved. Scientists noted how variations in the movement match up with how a 4D quantum Hall effect would ripple out, which gives us hope that a fourth spatial dimension may somehow be accessed.
The second group of scientists created a system with light particles which were set to move through a special glass that has the ability to bounce light back and forth between the edges. Scientists simulated the effects of electrical charges via physical input and observed how the light behaved. Experts looked for irregularities that could only exist if there was a fourth dimension. Again, researchers observed a 4D quantum Hall effect.
Speaking about the discovery to Ryan F. Mandelbaum at Gizmodo, Mikael Rechtsman from Penn State University said: “Physically, we don’t have a 4D spatial system, but we can access 4D quantum Hall physics using this lower-dimensional system because the higher-dimensional system is coded in the complexity of the structure.”
“Maybe we can come up with new physics in the higher dimension and then design devices that take advantage the higher-dimensional physics in lower dimensions.”
The discovery is perhaps best explained by Science Alert writer David Nield who wrote: “just as a 3D object casts a 2D shadow, scientists have managed to observe a 3D shadow potentially cast by a 4D object – even if we can’t actually see the 4D object itself. That could unlock some new findings in the very fundamentals of science.”
“I think that the two experiments nicely complement each other,” one of the European researchers, Michael Lohse from the Ludwig-Maximilians University in Germany, said in an interview with Gizmodo.
The findings from the two experiments have been published in Nature hereand here.
Historic: For The First Time In 150 Years, A Lunar Eclipse Will Coincide With A Blue Moon
Historic: For The First Time In 150 Years, A Lunar Eclipse Will Coincide With A Blue Moon
Prepare yourself sky gazers, for the first time in 150 years–actually 152 years to be precise–a Lunar Eclipse will coincide with a blue moon. This event will make the moon look much larger, much brighter and of a different color.
Now don’t get confused by the term Blue Moon, as it has nothing to do with the color of the moon.
The full moon will seem red or a burnt-orange hue, hence its “blood moon” moniker.
According to NASA, this occurs because the indirect sunlight that reaches the moon, during a total lunar eclipse, first makes its way through our planet’s atmosphere, where most of the scattered blue-colored light is filtered out.
A super ‘blue Moon’ is said to occur on January 31st.
Image Credit: Shutterstock.
The moon could also appear blood red, dark brown or gray say, researchers.
It’s a magical event and Dr. Noah Petro, a planetary geologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center calls it a “collision of multiple lunar events.”
“A lot of things are happening at once,” Petro said. “It’s a cool event.”
The only thing left to do is hope for good weather.
Events like this is why I love astronomy. At the end of January, to be exact on January the 31st, we will witness a total lunar eclipse.
This NASA chart details the visibility range and times for the Jan. 31, 218 total lunar eclipse.
Image Credit: NASA
A lunar eclipse occurs when our planet is aligned between the Sun and our moon. As this alignment occurs, our planet’s shadow blocks the sunlight from reflecting off the moon. So, when looking at the moon we actually sere our planets shadow on the moon.
When a TOTAL lunar eclipse occurs, where a full moon passes through earth shadow, our sun’s light is actually filtered through our planet’s atmosphere, which makes the moon look reddish from our viewpoint on Earth.
Space.com tells us that the last time a total lunar eclipse coincided with a blue moon was on March 31, 1866.
IF for some reasons you end up missing this incredible astronomical event, fear not, as on December 31st, 2028, you’ll get a chance to witness the same thing.
The event on January 31st is part of a series of three lunar events that started on December 3rd, 2017. The second event took place on January 2nd 2018, and the third, grand finale will happen on January 31st.
Even though the total lunar eclipse will be visible all over the world, you have to be located on the nighttime on Earth while the eclipse takes place in order to witness this rare astronomical phenomenon.
As glowing balls hover over the night sky near Charlotte, scientists probe for aliens
GIMBAL is the first of three US military videos of unidentified aerial phenomenon (UAP) approved for public release. The footage shows what was on display in the cockpit for the pilots of a U.S. Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet. Department of Defense/To The Stars Academy of Arts and Science via Storyful
As glowing balls hover over the night sky near Charlotte, scientists probe for aliens
BY BRUCE HENDERSON
Last Sunday night, an Indian Trail man’s wife excitedly burst into their house to report two orange, glowing balls that seemed to hover a few hundred feet overhead.
The man, who reported the incident to the Mutual UFO Network, wrote that he and his grandson headed outside to see a single ball hovering silently above them. Less than a minute later, a group of three balls appeared.
“My first thought was Chinese lanterns but they would have been very, very large, small plane or helicopter size, and defying wind patterns,” wrote the man, who MUFON would not identify. “The light source was much much brighter than a candle. With the binoculars it appeared spherical with a red beam coming out of the yellow-orange glow that the whole sphere was giving off.
On Nov. 11, 2014, a Navy captain and technician were on a routine daytime patrol mission flying north along the Chilean coast, west of Santiago, and filmed an unidentified flying object.
CEFAA
More and more, says the venerable Scientific American, scientists are seriously seeking answers to that question. In a piece posted Tuesday, the magazine declares 2017 “a banner year for scientists seeking aliens – even though they (apparently) didn’t find any.”
It’s not that scientists delight in crushing the belief that aliens are among us, the article states. They instead demand clear evidence to support an extraordinary claim. Yet some scientists acknowledge the slight possibility of extraterrestrial explanations for some recent observations.
The extreme dimming of Boyajian’s Star, for example, was probably caused by space dust – unless its light was absorbed by “alien megastructures.” Last October, the large object called ‘Oumuamua that streaked past Earth was probably a comet but might also have been an alien probe.
Just last month, a self-described UFO investigator posted a YouTube video that suggests a group of alien aircraft were recently seen hovering over Spring Lake, North Carolina, about two hours east of Charlotte. The video got nearly 70,000 views within two days of being posted.
What are the politics of U.F.O.s? Hillary Clinton said she believed in giving wider access to government records related to U.F.O.s and extraterrestrial life. Listen to what other presidents had to say about aliens and Area 51.
Editor Mary Joyce said the website grew out of photos taken by an 8-year-old in the mountain community of Cashiers that appeared to show a saucer-shaped silhouette against the sun. Since then, Joyce said, UFO sightings have been reported all over Jackson County.
Joyce said public officials and academics scoff at such accounts even if, she adds, they privately acknowledge them.
“The ones that want to get the information out kind of tiptoe around. They’re not going to lightly do this,” she said. “The people who are really, really aware of what’s going on regarding UFOs have actually feared for their lives.... These people have real reasons to be fearful if they know stuff. The (scientists) at the college level, they don’t know squat.”
Official Washington also appears to have taken an interest in probing the potential for alien encounters.
In a story line that could have been borrowed from the “X-Files,” the New York Times reported in December on a secretive Defense Department program, shut down in 2012, that investigated UFO sightings. The program was largely funded at the request of former Senate majority leader Harry Reid of Nevada.
(Video has no sound) FLIR1 is the second of three US military videos of unidentified aerial phenomenon (UAP) approved for public release. The footage was captured by a US Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet present at the 2004 Nimitz incident off the coast of San Diego. Pilot interviews state that the UAP was hovering at 24,000 feet.
Department of Defense/To The Stars Academy of Arts and Science via Storyful
The program and the aerospace company it hired “produced documents that describe sightings of aircraft that seemed to move at very high velocities with no visible signs of propulsion, or that hovered with no apparent means of lift,” the Times reported.
The program’s former director, Luis Elizondo, told CNN: “My personal belief is that there is very compelling evidence that we may not be alone.”
Photos were taken by Glynis Heenan and shown here on skyshipsovercashiers.com. Scientific American magazine called 2017 a “banner year” for scientists probing such sightings. Photos taken by Glynis Heenan in this screenshot of skyshipsovercashiers.com
MUCKING UP MARS Scientists are racing to figure out how to keep astronauts and potential life on Mars safe from one another before humans arrive at the Red Planet.
T he Okarian rover was in trouble. The yellow Humvee was making slow progress across a frigid, otherworldly landscape when planetary scientist Pascal Lee felt the rover tilt backward. Out the windshield, Lee, director of NASA’s Haughton Mars Project, saw only sky. The rear treads had broken through a crack in the sea ice and were sinking into the cold water.
True, there are signs of water on Mars, but not that much. Lee and his crew were driving the Okarian (named for the yellow Martians in Edgar Rice Burroughs’ novel The Warlord of Mars) across the Canadian Arctic to a research station in Haughton Crater that served in this dress rehearsal as a future Mars post. On a 496-kilometer road trip along the Northwest Passage, crew members pretended they were explorers on a long haul across the Red Planet to test what to expect if and when humans go to Mars.
What they learned in that April 2009 ride may become relevant sooner rather than later. NASA has declared its intention to send humans to Mars in the 2030s (SN Online: 5/24/16). The private sector plans to get there even earlier: In September, Elon Musk announced his aim to launch the first crewed SpaceX mission to Mars as soon as 2024.
“That’s not a typo,” Musk said in Australia at an International Astronautical Congress meeting. “Although it is aspirational.”
Musk’s six-year timeline has some astrobiologists in a panic. If humans arrive too soon, these researchers fear, any chance of finding evidence of life — past or present — on Mars may be ruined.
“It’s really urgent,” says astrobiologist Alberto Fairén of the Center for Astrobiology in Madrid and Cornell University. Humans take whole communities of microorganisms with them everywhere, spreading those bugs indiscriminately.
Planetary geologist Matthew Golombek of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., agrees, adding, “If you want to know if life exists there now, you kind of have to approach that question before you send people.”
A long-simmering debate over how rigorously to protect other planets from Earth life, and how best to protect life on Earth from other planets, is coming to a boil. The prospect of humans arriving on Mars has triggered a flurry of meetings and a spike in research into what “planetary protection” really means.
One of the big questions is whether Mars has regions that might be suitable for life and so deserve special protection. Another is how big a threat Earth microbes might be to potential Martian life (recent studies hint less of a threat than expected). Still, the specter of human biomes mucking up the Red Planet before a life-hunting mission can even launch has raised bitter divisions within the Mars research community.
Astrobiologist Pascal Lee (right) collects snow in the Canadian Arctic to test how far human-associated microbes venture from a mock Mars vehicle (left).
BOTH: A. SCHUERGER AND P. LEE/ASTROBIOLOGY 2015
Mind the gaps
Before any robotic Mars mission launches, the spacecraft are scrubbed, scoured and sometimes scorched to remove Earth microbes. That’s so if scientists discover a sign of life on Mars, they’ll know the life did not just hitchhike from Cape Canaveral. The effort is also intended to prevent the introduction of harmful Earth life that could kill off any Martians, similar to how invasive species edge native organisms out of Earth’s habitats.
“If we send Earth organisms to a place where they can grow and thrive, then we might come back and find nothing but Earth organisms, even though there were Mars organisms there before,” says astrobiologist John Rummel of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif. “That’s bad for science; it’s bad for the Martians. We’d be real sad about that.”
To avoid that scenario, spacefaring organizations have historically agreed to keep spacecraft clean. Governments and private companies alike abide by Article IX of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which calls for planetary exploration to avoid contaminating both the visited environment and Earth. In the simplest terms: Don’t litter, and wipe your feet before coming back into the house.
But this guiding principle doesn’t tell engineers how to avoid contamination. So the international Committee on Space Research (called COSPAR) has debated and refined the details of a planetary protection policy that meets the treaty’s requirement ever since. The most recent version dates from 2015 and has a page of guidelines for human missions.
In the last few years, the international space community has started to add a quantitative component to the rules for humans — specifying how thoroughly to clean spacecraft before launch, for instance, or how many microbes are allowed to escape from human quarters.
“It was clear to everybody that we need more refined technical requirements, not just guidelines,” says Gerhard Kminek, planetary protection officer for the European Space Agency and chair of COSPAR’s planetary protection panel, which sets the standards. And right now, he says, “we don’t know enough to do a good job.”
In March 2015, more than 100 astronomers, biologists and engineers met at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., and listed 25 “knowledge gaps” that need more research before quantitative rules can be written.
The gaps cover three categories: monitoring astronauts’ microbes, minimizing contamination and understanding how matter naturally travels around Mars. Rather than prevent contamination — probably impossible — the goal is to assess the risks and decide what risks are acceptable. COSPAR prioritized the gaps in October 2016 and will meet again in Houston in February to decide what specific experiments should be done.
Contamination questions
Scientists met in 2015 to identify knowledge gaps that need to be filled before human boots on Mars will be safe for potential Martian life and for humans themselves. The gaps include:
Monitoring microbes
How do microbes respond to spaceflight and relocation, and do genetic changes occur in the organisms that could be passed to future generations?
What microbes should be monitored and how should a Mars crew do so?
How can a crew prevent contamination?
How can a microbial infection on Mars be diagnosed and treated?
When should an astronaut be quarantined or not allowed to return to Earth?
Controlling contamination
Do longer stays on Mars (500 days versus 30 days) mean more contamination, and do they require different planetary protection requirements than shorter stays?
Do astronauts need protocols for verifying what microbes have escaped the spacecraft?
What decontamination procedures are needed for inside and outside the spacecraft?
What quarantine facilities are needed? How will scientists recognize special regions if they exist?
What research is needed to plan and design resource extraction systems?
What type of wastes can be intentionally left behind on Mars?
What factors need to be considered to design extravehicular activity suits?
Natural transport of contamination
How well can microbes survive, grow and evolve in Mars environments?
What happens to windblown dust on Mars?
Could dust storms carry microbes from a lifeless region to a special region?
Considering many pathways, how likely are humans to transport hardy Earth microbes to Mars?
What will leak or vent out of pressurized containers or human facilities?
How will scientists study microorganisms that can’t be cultivated using current techniques?
How far will microbes travel from human landing and habitation sites?
What is the risk of humans contaminating subsurface resources, such as underground ice?
Stick the landing
The steps required for any future Mars mission will depend on the landing spot. COSPAR currently says that robotic missions are allowed to visit “special regions” on Mars, defined as places where terrestrial organisms are likely to replicate, only if robots are cleaned before launch to 0.03 bacterial spores per square meter of spacecraft. In contrast, a robot going to a nonspecial region is allowed to bring 300 spores per square meter. These “spores,” or endospores, are dormant bacterial cells that can survive environmental stresses that would normally kill the organism.
To date, any special regions are hypothetical, because none have been conclusively identified on Mars. But if a spacecraft finds that its location unexpectedly meets the special criteria, its mission might have to change on the spot.
The Viking landers, which in 1976 brought the first and only experiments to look for living creatures on Mars, were baked in an oven for hours before launch to clean the craft to special region standards.
“If you’re as clean as Viking, you can go anywhere on Mars,” says NASA planetary protection officer Catharine Conley. But no mission since, from the Pathfinder mission in the 1990s to the current Curiosity rover to the upcoming Mars 2020 and ExoMars rovers, has been cleared to access potentially special regions. That’s partly because of cost. A 2006 study by engineer Sarah Gavit of the Jet Propulsion Lab found that sterilizing a rover like Spirit or Opportunity (both launched in 2003) to Viking levels would cost up to 14 percent more than sterilizing it to a lower level. NASA has also backed away from looking for life after Viking’s search for Martian microbes came back inconclusive. The agency shifted focus to seeking signs of past habitability.
Although no place on Mars currently meets the special region criteria, some areas have conditions close enough to be treated with caution. In 2015, geologist Colin Dundas of the U.S. Geological Survey in Flagstaff, Ariz., and colleagues discovered what looked like streaks of salty water that appeared and disappeared in Gale Crater, where Curiosity is roving. Although those streaks were not declared special regions, the Curiosity team steered the rover clear of the area.
The Mars rover Curiosity was assembled and tested in a clean room before its 2011 launch, in part to limit the hitchhikers it carried from Earth.
JPL-CALTECH/NASA
But evidence of flowing water on Mars bit the dust. In November, Dundas and colleagues reported in Nature Geoscience that the streaks are more likely to be tiny avalanches of sand. The reversal highlights how difficult it is to tell if a region on Mars is special or not.
However, on January 12 in Science, Dundas and colleagues reported finding eight slopes where layers of water ice were exposed at shallow depths (SN Online: 1/11/18). Those very steep spots would not be good landing sites for humans or rovers, but they suggest that nearby regions might have accessible ice within a meter or two of the surface.
If warm and wet conditions exist, that’s exactly where humans would want to go. Golombek has helped choose every Mars landing site since Pathfinder and has advised SpaceX on where to land its Red Dragon spacecraft, originally planned to bring the first crewed SpaceX mission to Mars. (Since then, SpaceX has announced it will use its BFR spacecraft instead, which might require shifts in landing sites.) The best landing sites for humans have access to water and are as close to the equator as possible, Golombek says. Low latitudes mean warmth, more solar power and a chance to use the planet’s rotation to help launch a rocket back to Earth.
That narrows the options. NASA’s first workshop on human landing sites, held in Houston in October 2015, identified more than 40 “exploration zones” within 50 degrees latitude of the equator, where astronauts could do science and potentially access raw materials for building and life support, including water.
Golombek helped SpaceX whittle its list to a handful of sites, including Arcadia Planitia and Deuteronilus Mensae, which show signs of having pure water ice buried beneath a thin layer of soil.
What makes these regions appealing for humans also makes them more likely to be good places for microbes to grow, putting a crimp in hopes for boots on the ground. But there are ways around the apparent barriers, Conley says. In particular, humans could land a safe distance from special regions and send clean robots to do the dirty work.
That suggestion raises a big question: How far is far enough? To figure out a safe distance, scientists need to know how well Earth microbes would survive on Mars in the first place, and how far those organisms would spread from a human habitat.
Where to?
The most desirable places on Mars for human visits offer access to water in some form and are near the equator (for increased solar power and to get a boost when launching a return rocket). Rovers and landers have found evidence of a watery Martian past. Planners of future robotic and human missions have potential landing spots in mind. Map excludes polar regions.
Hover over or tap the map points to explore.
E. OTWELL; T. TIBBITTS; M. GOLOMBEK; USGS ASTROGEOLOGY SCIENCE CENTER, GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER/NASA
A no-grow zone
Initial results suggest that Mars does a good job of sterilizing itself. “I’ve been trying to grow Earth bacteria in Mars conditions for 15 years, and it’s actually really hard to do,” says astrobiologist Andrew Schuerger of the University of Florida in Gainesville. “I think that risk is much lower than the scientific community might think.”
In 2013 in Astrobiology, Schuerger and colleagues published a list of more than a dozen factors that microbes on Mars would have to overcome, including a lot of ultraviolet radiation from the sun; extreme dryness, low pressure and freezing temperatures; and high levels of salts, oxidants and heavy metals in Martian soils.
Life challenges
Astrobiologist Andrew Schuerger of the University of Florida and colleagues identified the challenges microbes would have to overcome to thrive on Mars:
Ultraviolet radiation from the sun, which damages DNA
Extreme dryness
Low pressure, about 0.1 percent the ambient pressure on Earth
An atmosphere that is high in carbon dioxide and low in oxygen
Extremely low temperatures, with a global average of -61° Celsius
Charged particles from the sun
Cell-damaging, high-energy particles from interstellar space, which reach the surface because Mars lacks a strong magnetic field
Ultraviolet light from static electricity discharge from blowing Martian dust
Volatile oxidants in the atmosphere created by UV light from the sun
Oxidizing soils across the planet
Extremely high salt levels at some sites
High concentrations of heavy metals in the soils
Acidic conditions
Perchlorates in the soils, which are toxic
Source: A. C. Schuerger et al/Astrobiology 2013
Schuerger has tried to grow hundreds of species of bacteria and fungi in the cold, low-pressure and low-oxygen conditions found on Mars. Some species came from natural soils in the dry Arctic and other desert environments, and others were recovered from clean rooms where spacecraft were assembled.
Of all those attempts, he has had success with 31 bacteria and no fungi. Seeing how difficult it is to coax these hardy microbes to thrive gives him confidence to say: “The surface conditions on Mars are so harsh that it’s very unlikely that terrestrial bacteria and fungi will be able to establish a niche.”
There’s one factor Schuerger does worry about, though: salts, which can lower the freezing temperature of water. In a 2017 paper in Icarus, Schuerger and colleagues tested the survival of Bacillus subtilis, a well-studied bacterium found in human gastrointestinal tracts, in simulated Martian soils with various levels of saltiness.
B. subtilis can form a tough spore when stressed, which could keep it safe in extreme environments. Schuerger showed that dormant B. subtilis spores were mostly unaffected for up to 28 days in six different soils. But another bacterium that does not form spores was killed off. That finding suggests that spore-forming microbes — including ones that humans carry with them — could survive in soils moistened by briny waters.
The Okarian’s trek across the Arctic offers a ray of hope: Spores might not make it very far from human habitats. At three stops during the journey across the Arctic, Pascal Lee, of the SETI Institute, collected samples from the pristine snow ahead and dirtier snow behind the vehicle, as well as from the rover’s interior. Later, Lee sent the samples to Schuerger’s lab.
The researchers asked, if humans drive over a microbe-free pristine environment, would they contaminate it? “The answer was no,” Schuerger says.
And that was in an Earth environment with only one or two of Schuerger’s biocidal factors (low temperatures and slightly higher UV radiation than elsewhere on Earth) and with a rover crawling with human-associated microbes. The Okarian hosted 69 distinct bacteria and 16 fungi, Schuerger and Lee reported in 2015 in Astrobiology.
But when crew members ventured outside the rover, they barely left a mark. The duo found one fungus and one bacterium on both the rover and two snow sites, one downwind and one ahead of the direction of travel. Other than that, nothing, even though crew members made no effort to contain their microbes — they breathed and ate openly.
“We didn’t see dispersal when conditions were much more conducive to dispersal” than they will be on Mars, Schuerger says.
Samples collected inside a mock Mars rover and grown in the lab were full of microbes from the rover’s crew (three dishes at left). But nothing grew in most samples from outside the rover (dish at right), suggesting microbes didn’t travel far from the vehicle.
A. SCHUERGER AND P. LEE/ASTROBIOLOGY 2015
The International Space Station may be an even better place to study what happens when inhabited space vessels leak microbes. Michelle Rucker, an engineer at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, and her colleagues are testing a tool for astronauts to swab the outside of their spacesuits and the space station, and collect whatever microbes are already there.
“At this point, no one has defined what the allowable levels of human contamination are,” Rucker says. “We don’t know if we’d meet them, but more importantly, we’ve never checked our human systems to see where we’re at.”
Rucker and colleagues have had astronauts test the swab kit as part of their training on Earth. The researchers plan to present the first results from those tests in March in Big Sky, Mont., at the IEEE Aerospace Conference. If the team gets the tool flight-certified to test it on the ISS, the results could fill a knowledge gap about how much spaceships carrying humans will leak and vent microbes.
A Russian experiment on the ISS may be giving the first clues. In November 2017, Russian cosmonauts told TASS news service that they had found living bacteria on the outside of the ISS. Some of those microbes, swabbed near vents during spacewalks, were not found on the spacecraft’s exterior when it launched.
Blowing in the wind
These results are important, says Conley, but they don’t give enough information alone to write quantitative contamination rules.
That’s partly because of another knowledge gap: how dust and wind move around on Mars. If Martian dust storms carry microbes far enough, the invaders could contaminate potential special regions even if humans land a safe distance away.
To find out, COSPAR’s Kminek suggests sending a fleet of Mars landers to act as meteorological stations at several fixed locations. The landers could measure atmospheric conditions and dust properties over a long time. Such landers would be relatively inexpensive to build, he says, and could launch in advance of humans.
But these weather stations would have to get in line. There’s a launch window between Earth and Mars every two years, and the next few are already booked. Weather stations would have to be stationary, so they couldn’t be added to rover missions like ExoMars or Mars 2020.
That means it’s possible that SpaceX or another company will try to send humans to Mars before the reconnaissance missions necessary to write rules for planetary protection are even built. If COSPAR is the tortoise in this race, SpaceX is the hare, along with a few other private companies. Only SpaceX has a stated timeline. Other contenders, including Washington-based Blue Origin, founded by Amazon executive Jeff Bezos, and United Launch Alliance, based in Colorado, are developing rockets that some analysts say could be part of a mission to the moon or Mars.
SpaceX hopes to build human habitats on Mars (illustrated here along with SpaceX’s latest BFR spaceship). Scientists are just starting to figure out how to keep microbes from leaving such habitats and potentially harming native life.
SPACEX
Now or never
Those looming launches prompted Fairén and colleagues to make a controversial proposal. In an article in the October 2017 Astrobiology, provocatively titled “Searching for life on Mars before it is too late,” the team suggested sending existing or planned rovers, even those not at the height of cleanliness, to look directly for signs of Martian life.
Given the harsh Martian conditions, rovers are unlikely to contaminate regions that might turn out to be special on a closer look, the group argues. The invasive species argument is misleading, they say: Don’t compare a microbe transfer to taking Asian parrots to the Amazon rainforest, where they could thrive and edge out local parrots. It would be closer to taking them to Antarctica to freeze to death.
In a sharp rebuttal, published in the same issue of Astrobiology, Rummel and Conley disagreed. “Why would you want to go there with a dirty spacecraft?” says Rummel, who was NASA’s planetary protection officer before Conley. “To spend a billion dollars to go find life from Florida on Mars is both irresponsible and completely scientifically indefensible.”
There’s also concern for the health and safety of future astronauts. Conley says she mentioned the idea that scientists shouldn’t worry about getting sick if they encounter Earth organisms on Mars to a November meeting of epidemiologists who study the risks of Earth-based pandemics.
“The room burst out laughing,” she says. “This is a room full of medical doctors who deal with Ebola. The idea that we know about Earth organisms, and therefore they can’t hurt us, was literally laughable to them.”
Fairén has already drafted a response for a future issue of Astrobiology: “We acknowledge [that Rummel and Conley’s points] are informed and literate. Unfortunately, they are also unconvincing.”
The issue might come to a head in July in Pasadena, Calif., at the next meeting of COSPAR’s Scientific Assembly. Fairén and colleagues plan to push for more relaxed cleanliness rules.
That’s not likely to happen anytime soon. But with no concrete rules in place for humans, would a human mission even be allowed off the ground, whether NASA or SpaceX was at the helm? Currently, private U.S. companies must apply to the Federal Aviation Administration for a launch license, and for travel to another planet, that agency would probably ask NASA to weigh in.
It’s hard to know if anyone will actually be ready to send humans to Mars in the next decade. “You’d have to actually believe them to be scared,” says Rummel. “There are many unanswered questions about what Elon Musk wants to do. But I think we can calm down about people showing up on Mars unannounced.”
But SpaceX has defied expectations before and may give slow and steady a kick in the pants.
This article appears in the January 20, 2017 issue of Science News with the headline, "Mucking up Mars: Microbes from Earth may complicate human junkets to the Red Planet ."
Editor’s note: This story was updated on January 11 to include recent findings about water ice from Colin Dundas and his team.
Humans are naturally inclined to think towards the future. We find ourselves wondering about the next steps in our lives, imaging the potential consequences of advances today, even fictionalizing them to their most extreme forms as a sort of sandbox for possible futures.
Scientists might be one of the few groups to actively suppress that desire to predict the future. Conservative and data-driven by nature, they might be uncomfortable making guesses about the future because that requires a leap of faith. Even if there’s a lot of data to support a prediction, there are also infinite variables that can change the ultimate outcome in the interim. Trying to predict what the world will be like in a century doesn’t do much to improve it today; if scientists are going to be wrong, they’d rather do it constructively.
Indeed, the world has changed a lot in the past 100 years. In 1918, much of the world was embroiled in the first World War. 1918 was also the year the influenza pandemic began to rage, ultimately claiming somewhere between 20-40 million lives — more than the war during which it took place. Congress established time zones, including Daylight Saving Time, and the first stamp for U.S. airmail was issued.
Looking back, it’s clear that we’ve made remarkable strides. Today, it’s rare to die from the flu, or from a slew of other communicable diseases that were once fatal (such as smallpox, which was eradicated in 1977). That’s mostly due to the advent of prevention tactics such as vaccines, and treatments like antibiotics.
The pace at which technology is evolving can feel dizzying at times, but it’s not likely to slow down anytime soon. Here are some of the ways we suspect the technology of today will shape the world in the century to come.
Quantum Computing Will Come Of Age
As the internet transformed society over the past few decades, quantum computing will forever alter our view of the world and our place in it. It will give us the capacity to process more data about ourselves, the planet we live on, and the universe than has ever before been possible.
No one is totally sure yet what we’ll do with that data. We’ll likely find some answers to longstanding questions about physics and the universe, but it’s also likely there are answers to be found that we don’t even have the ability to fathom.
We’ll Hack Our Brains
We may not even have to wait a century to have our brains fully integrated with our devices, as research into brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) is now firmly out of the realm of science fiction. Early prototypes have already helped patients recover from strokes and given amputees the ability to experience touch again with the help of a sensor-covered prosthesis. If and when they become commonplace, the human-machine mashup could irrevocably alter the course of human evolution. Prototypes for non-invasive BCIs in which electrode arrays pick up brain signals through the skull are already in development, and may serve as stepping stones toward the full-on “brain mesh” proposed by Elon Musk.
We’ll Zoom Around Our Revamped Cities in Autonomous Cars
The world of 2118 will have improved infrastructure and better ways of getting around. Our automobiles are becoming smarter and greener; by 2118, there’s a good chance that electric cars will be able to drive themselves, along with those most in need. The current consensus in the automotive industry is that fully autonomous vehicles are still theoretical at best (and may not be possible at all), but Tesla alone aims to achieve so-called level 5 autonomy — a world in which our cars would drive us — by about 2019.
In some parts of the world, cities themselves are also becoming more sophisticated. In China, a solar-powered highway could one day charge electric cars as they drive. Cities of the future could also fix themselves — engineers today are busy designing self-healing concrete structures and potholes that fill themselves.
AI Will Change How Humans Work
In the decades to come, technology that’s changing our homes, our devices, and our vehicles is also going to change our lives in other major ways. Artificial intelligence (AI) will almost certainly automate some jobs, particularly those that rely on assembly lines or data collection. To offset the unemployment of human workers that would result from automation, some nations may adopt a universal basic income (UBI), a system which regularly pays citizens a small stipend with no requirement to work.
In some fields, such as medicine, robots probably won’t completely replace humans. The more likely scenario, some experts predict, is that AI will continue to augment the work experience for humans — even augmenting us physically. AI technology has already been paired with wearable exoskeletons, giving factory workers superhuman strength — perfect for those whose jobs require heavy lifting, which could increase their risk of job-related accident or injury.
3D Printing the World
3D printers are already being used in labs around the world and, increasingly, by consumers. While the printers may be costly up front, they are often seen as a long-term investment, since they can often print their own replacement parts.
As 3D printers become capable of printing everything from viable organsto buildings, we’ll likely find use for them in different aspects of our lives, as well as many different fields of industry.
Medicine Gets a High-Tech Upgrade
New procedures, aided by technological advances, are poised to transform medicine. Using a precision medicine approach (which uses a patient’s genetic data, lifestyle, and environmental surroundings to inform treatment), scientists are developing treatments for cancer that are tailored to an individual patient’s genes.
Oncology is not the only area with potentially life-saving (or in some cases, life-giving) applications; the evolution of reproductive medicine has already begun right before our very eyes. In 2017, researchers grew lamb fetuses in what could be the first prototype of an artificial womb, one woman gave birth after a uterus transplant for the first time, and another to a baby that began as an embryo frozen 24 years ago. The much-hyped gene editing technology CRISPR could mean that by 2118, many genetic diseases could become a thing of the past: scientists used CRISPR to edit the gene for a fatal blood disorder out of human embryos. Stem cells continue to prove useful for developing novel treatments, even for conditions that were once believed to be untreatable.
A century from now, major diseases such as cancer, immune and inflammatory disorders, and genetic conditions “will very likely be long gone by either prevention or effective therapy,” Phil Gold, a professor at the McGill University Clinical Research Centre, told Futurism.
But that’s not to say we’ll live in a future of perfect health — external factors, from global warming to infectious diseases and even warfare, could depress the life expectancy of people in 2118.
The good news is, diagnostic technology is also dramatically improving. Shu Chien, bioengineer and winner of National Medal of Science at the University of California, San Diego, told the San Diego Tribune that he predicted that scientists would invent Star Trek‘s famous medical tricorder, capable of “non-invasive early detection of cancer,” in the next century. He’s not the first to make the prediction over the last few decades, but this time could be different: Science and technology have delivered on some other sci-fi tech, such as super-materials and object replicators.
The Planet Will Get a Lot Hotter
Climate change is already transforming our world. One 2015 study predicted that Greenland’s usually cold summers could become completely ice-free by 2050. Extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and fatal. The world’s sea levels are on track to rise 2 to 3 feet (0.6 to 0.9 meters) by 2100, which could displace up to 4 million people worldwide.
Earth is in the midst of a climate crisis that will not improve without deliberate and sustained action.
Over the past few decades, that progress has been slow. When it was developed in 2015, the Paris Climate Agreement aimed to limit global warming to 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius). Recent research from the University College of London revealed that we could have a 66 percent chance of hitting the 1.5-degree C target in 2100 — but we’d need to limit our carbon pollution to 240 billion tons to pull it off. Hopefully we will be able to quit our carbon habit over a longer period of time instead of making drastic cuts immediately, which would not be an easy feat to achieve in either the technical or political sense.
In the U.S., one of the biggest carbon contributors in the world, some fear we’re not doing our part. In June, President Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement. In an interview with Futurism last year, Al Gore said the Trump administration’s environmental policies are “reckless and indefensible.”
But he is not devoid of hope. Gore told Futurism that he believes in the strength of the grassroots movement toward a more sustainable future, and that “we can and will win” the fight if we stay committed to the cause.
If humanity wants to remain on Earth, it’s a cause worth fighting for. We are beyond the point of preventing it from happening, but we can take steps to slow it down.
Humans Will Explore Our Solar System and Beyond
Although we’ve made monumental progress since 1918, we are still endlessly fascinated (and vaguely terrified) by the prospect of what might exist in space. Over the next century, perhaps nothing will thrill, challenge, and transform humanity more than the advances we make in space exploration.
Big-idea people, from Elon Musk to Donald Trump, are loudly planning to send humans to Mars and beyond, potentially setting up colonies on the Red Planet in the next century. One hundred years is not a long time to prepare for such a move, however, especially when we’re still not that sure what our living situation would be on Mars. While terraforming may allow us to adapt the planet to better suit our needs, we still have to get there first.
First, we’ll catch a better glimpse of distant celestial bodies through increasingly powerful infrared telescopes here on Earth. As space travel becomes more affordable (and even a tourist destination), we’ll be able to use what we see from down here on Earth to traverse the universe. The biggest question is, what — or who — might we meet when we do?
“By the year 2118, extraterrestrial life won’t be news but historical fact,” Jaymie Matthews, astrophysicist and professor at the University of British Columbia, told Futurism. “What’s harder to predict is how humanity will respond, and adapt, to knowing we are not alone in the Universe. Will it make us humbler? (“We are one of many.”) More arrogant? (“We are the peak of evolution in the Galaxy.”) More fearful? (“Microbes are just the tip of the alien iceberg. And Earth is the Titanic!”) Or will it help us to better understand and appreciate our own origins?”
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Supercomputer provides black hole breakthrough
Supercomputer provides black hole breakthrough
Scientists have gained insights into the most mysterious phenomena in modern astronomy, the relativistic jets from black holes.
Video:Black hole 'relativistic jets' seen wobbling
Using supercomputer simulations, astronomers have discovered more about how black holes interact with space-time.
Black holes are regions of space-time whose gravitational effects are so strong that even electromagnetic radiation such as light cannot escape from inside of them.
As such they are incredibly difficult to study, although a collaboration between researchers from Northwestern University and the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands has managed just that.
They were examining the "relativistic jets" from black holes, the material that actually does manage to escape from them - one of the most mysterious phenomena in modern astronomy.
As explained by Northwestern University: "Similar to how water in a bathtub forms a whirlpool as it goes down a drain, the gas and magnetic fields that feed a supermassive black hole swirl to form a rotating disk - a tangled spaghetti of magnetic field lines mixed into a broth of hot gas.
"As the black hole consumes this astrophysical soup, it gobbles up the broth but leaves the magnetic spaghetti dangling out of its mouth. This makes the black hole into a kind of launching pad from which energy, in the form of relativistic jets, shoots from the web of twisted magnetic spaghetti."
The scientists ran complicated simulations on one of the world's most powerful supercomputers and discovered that these relativistic jets actually changed direction as a result of space-time itself being dragged into the rotation of the black hole.
"Understanding how rotating black holes drag the space-time around them and how this process affects what we see through the telescopes remains a crucial, difficult-to-crack puzzle," according to one of the researchers.
Alexander Tchekhovskoy, assistant professor of physics and astronomy at Northwestern's Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, said: "Fortunately, the breakthroughs in code development and leaps in supercomputer architecture are bringing us ever closer to finding the answers."
The researchers discovered that where previously simulations considered the disks and the axis of the black hole's rotation were aligned, in reality they are unlikely to be parallel.
The study confirmed that these tilted disks, which are likely to include the disk of the black hole at the centre of our own galaxy the Milky Way, change direction, much like a spinning top, causing the direction of the relativistic jets to change too.
"The high resolution allowed us, for the first time, to ensure that small-scale turbulent disk motions are accurately captured in our models," Mr Tchekhovskoy said.
To the researcher's surprise the motions turned out to be so strong that they caused the disk to fatten up and the direction changing to stop.
The results of their research are now being applied to interpreting the observations of the Event Horizon Telescope examining the black hole at the centre of the Milky Way.
A repeating fast radio burst 3 billion light-years from Earth may be coming from a neutron star
The strong magnetic field around it could be the result of a black hole or powerful nebula
(CNN) The only known repeating fast radio burst in the universe just got more extreme.
These radio flashes usually last a millisecond and have an unknown physical origin. People love to believe that they're from an advanced extraterrestrial civilization, and this hypothesis hasn't been ruled out entirely by researchers at Breakthrough Listen, a scientific research program dedicated to finding evidence of intelligent life in the universe.
Fast radio bursts in space themselves are not rare, but FRB 121102 -- first detected in 2012 -- is the only one that has been known to repeat. And the repetition is sporadic.
Last year, its host galaxy, a star-forming dwarf galaxy 3 billion light-years from Earth, was also identified.
Now, researchers have used the newest detections to learn more about the extreme environment for the source of this mysterious burst. The details were revealed in a study published in the journal Nature as well as at this week's 231st meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Washington.
The radio burst itself releases a "monstrous" amount of energy in each millisecond, comparable to what our sun releases in an entire day, the researchers said.
The newest detections allowed researchers to discover that the radio bursts themselves are polarized and coming from an environment that contains an incredibly strong magnetic field. They were also able to detect the radio bursts at a higher frequency than ever.
Data from the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico helped with new research about fast radio bursts.
When the radio waves pass through the magnetic field, they are twisted in a way known as Faraday rotation. The stronger the magnetic field, the greater the twist. The degree of twist for the latest detections of FRB is among the largest ever measured in a radio source.
"FRB 121102 was already unique because it repeats; now, the huge Faraday rotation we have observed singles it out yet again. We're curious as to whether these two unique aspects are linked," said Daniele Michilli, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Amsterdam and ASTRON, the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy.
The causes of such a strong magnetic field provide two intriguing possibilities: proximity to a massive black hole in the galaxy or within a powerful nebula.
These hypotheses both support some factors of the radio bursts but also raise questions.
Jason Hessels, study author and associate professor at the University of Amsterdam and ASTRON, described the possibilities.
If it's near a massive black hole, that would explain the persistent radio source and create the right kind of environment, but the researchers aren't entirely confident that such a massive black hole would exist in a dwarf galaxy.
If it's within a powerful nebula, an interstellar cloud of gas or dust, it would also explain the persistent radio source and remain consistent with the fact that astronomers believe the source of the bursts is "young." But it's a million times brighter than the Crab nebula in our own galaxy, which is already massively bright. How could the nebula be that bright?
As for the direct source itself, the latest findings support the idea that it's a neutron star or a pulsar, a highly magnetized and rotating neutron star.
The fact that the source throws out short bursts, ranging from 30 microseconds to 9 milliseconds, supports a source that is just over 6 miles across. That's the right size for a neutron star.
A 3-D-printed version of the variation in fast radio bursts.
Or it could be something undiscovered.
"We can not rule out completely the ET hypothesis for the FRBs in general," said University of California, Berkeley, postdoctoral fellow Vishal Gajjar of Breakthrough Listen and the Berkeley SETI Research Center.
The researchers are eager to use a number of observatories with new radio telescopes coming online to observe more fast radio bursts. They estimate that there are 10,000 fast radio bursts happening per day in each area of the sky that telescopes around the world are able to monitor. That's a radio flash every 10 seconds, and radio telescopes will be able to find them.
They hope to learn whether the bursts have their own periodicity, or intervals at which they recur, as well as discovering the true nature of the persistent radio source.
"We are continuing to monitor how the properties of the bursts change with time," Hessels said. "With these observations, we hope to distinguish between the two competing hypotheses of a neutron star either near a black hole or embedded in a powerful nebula."
Is this the US Air Force's secret 4,600mph spy plane? Mystery 'hypersonic aircraft' is captured in Google Earth images of a Florida airbase, claims conspiracy theorist
Is this the US Air Force's secret 4,600mph spy plane? Mystery 'hypersonic aircraft' is captured in Google Earth images of a Florida airbase, claims conspiracy theorist
US Air Force is believed to be developing a spy plane that travels at 4,600mph
Secretive hypersonic plane is being developed by defence firm Lockheed Martin
Google Earth images show an object that looks similar to the artist's impression
Pictures were taken by UFO conspiracy theorists from SectureTeam10
Many have dismissed the latest footage, saying it just shows a high speed boat
The US Air Force is understood to be developing a spy plane that travels at more than 4,600mph (7,400km/h).
Now, a conspiracy theorist claims he has spotted an image of the mystery craft on Google Earth's view of Florida.
The satellite image appears to show an object similar to the artist's impression of the secretive hypersonic plane being developed by defence firm Lockheed Martin.
It comes a day after Lockheed Martin's secretive Skunk Works unit said it had already finished making the radical hypersonic update of the long-retired Mach 3 SR-71 Blackbird spy plane.
Images from Google Earth show an object that looks similar to the artist's impression of the secretive hypersonic plane being developed by defence firm Lockheed Martin
SECURETEAM 10 CONTROVERSY
SectureTeam10 is one of the most viewed YouTube channels, with over 785,000 people subscribing to its conspiracy videos.
But the channel has come under fire, as Lions Ground, a rival channel, claims that it has been intentionally fooling its viewers.
According to Lions Ground, SecureTeam10 has been raking in an estimated £600 ($745) a day by posting fake videos that 'outsmart UFO believers.'
Lots of people were sceptical of their latest claims, with many saying the footage showed a high speed boat.
The Google satellite images were compiled in a video by Tyler Glockner, known for uploading images of UFO sightings to his YouTube channel Secureteam10.
Whoever created the craft has a 'main foothold in designing aircraft engines that are widely used in civilian and military aviation', Mr Glockner claimed.
'What you're seeing is a very secretive object... I haven't been able to work out what it is', he said.
More than 400,000 people viewed the video which shows a series of screen shots from Google Earth.
'It is no public aircraft that has been disclosed', Mr Glockner claimed.
'You can see that this thing looks like a hypersonic aircraft or spacecraft'.
The shape is similar to the SR-72 hypersonic plane - which is set to be a strike and reconnaissance aircraft that tops Mach 6, writes Daily Star.
The strange footage was captured by Tyler Glockner, known for uploading images of UFO sightings to his YouTube channel secureteam10
US Air Force is understood to be developing a spy plane that travels at speeds of 4,600mph (7,400kmh) (artist's impression) and new footage could give a glimpse of the new craft
The shape is similar to the SR-72 hypersonic plane (pictured) - which is set to be a strike and reconnaissance aircraft that tops Mach 6
THE SR-72 HYPERSONIC PLANE
The US Air Force is understood to be developing a spy plane that travels at speeds of over 4,600mph (7,400kmh) and new footage could give a glimpse of the new craft.
The shape is similar to the SR-72 hypersonic plane - which is set to be a strike and reconnaissance aircraft that tops Mach 6.
The defence firm Lockheed Martin firm has been working on the project since the early 2000s.
Earlier this week reports suggested the radical hypersonic update of the long-retired Mach 3 SR-71 Blackbird spy plane might have already been finished.
However, lots of people were sceptical of the claims, which many saying the footage showed a high speed boat.
The defence firm Lockheed Martin firm has been working on the project since the early 2000s.
However, many people were skeptical of the claims, with many saying the footage showed a high speed boat.
'It honestly looks like one of those racing jet boats', wrote YouTube user 'Kody Read'.
'It looks like a powerboat I live next to the ocean seen this shape before and it is next to swamp land and water', wrote another user 'Jamie Lynn'.
One user, called 'Leo Pokat' said it was a 'UPO - unimaginable parked object'.
Earlier this week reports suggested the radical hypersonic update of the long-retired Mach 3 SR-71 Blackbird spy plane might have already been finished.
Jack O'Banion, Vice President of Strategy and Customer Requirements, Advanced Development Programs for Lockheed Martin, let slip at a conference the unmanned aircraft has already been made.
More than 400,000 people viewed the video which shows a series of screen shots from Google Earth of the strange object
SectureTeam10 is one of the most viewed YouTube channels, with over 785,000 people subscribing to its conspiracy videos. Pictured is their latest Google Earth footage
The footage was taken from Palm Beach County Florida. Lots of people were sceptical of the claims, which many saying the footage showed a high speed boat
Speaking at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics SciTech Forum, he showed a slide of a digital mockup of the craft, and said 'Without the digital transformation, the aircraft you see there could not have been made.'
Mr O'Banion also said the aircraft will have a 'digital twin' that knows every part on the aircraft.
'Talking about speed, you're talking about hypersonics, aircraft that operate above Mach 5,' he said.
Most people say that history began 10,000 years ago, when humans began writing things down. If Ancient Aliens is to be believed, we were all grunting, stupid apes prior to that. The former is a reasonable guess. The latter is little more than snake oil meant to sell books and advertising on the History Channel.
But historian Yuval Noah Harari suggests history actually began 70,000 years ago, when an unremarkable primate we now call Homo sapiensunderwent what he terms “the cognitive revolution.” To Harari, this explains why other humans – Neanderthals, Dinosevians, and so on – no longer walk among us. Something changed in the brains of the sole remaining human species that allowed it to leap frog its way up the food chain and spread out across the world.
The change was the ability to create fiction. Mythmaking. And while many profess that they have no need of religion, Harari suggests this is self delusion. To illustrate, he explains that the car company Peugeot does not really exist. Nor does the United States, human rights, or much anything else we take for granted. Peugeot (or you can take GM, Tesla, Toyota. In fact, any large or small corporation will do.) is not its employees. If the employees all quit tomorrow, Peugeot could simply replace them with new workers or robots. The company is not its cars. If every Peugeot car in existence were scrapped in a day, Peugeot would simply build new cars. Peugeot is not its management. If Peugeot’s management all resigned or were killed or sent to prison, stockholders and employees would simply hire new management. In fact, the only way for Peugeot to cease to exist is if either the stockholders and management dissolve the company or the courts, for whatever reason, order it to disband. Peugeot is a collective fiction designed to facilitate the building of cars. Neanderthals could not do that. Humans can. They do it with everything from corporations to religion to nation states to concepts like rights and property, and especially money. None of these things exist in reality, and yet they do. Because we all agree that they do.
This, Harari posits, is what makes Homo sapiens special. He divides the history of the species into three revolutions: The first is the cognitive, in which humans learned to gossip, trade, tell stories, and create ideas that made bands of hunter-gatherers something more than a collection of hominids roving in highly intelligent packs. The second is the agricultural revolution, in which humans found it more efficient to pen in animals and grow crops in fields. This gave rise to empires, money, writing, and cities. The last is the scientific revolution, and it explains why a backwater continent like Europe was suddenly able to conquer the world. Modern commerce, complex technology, and the computer age arose from this.
Harari says that one should not consider one age better than the other. For instance, hunter-gatherers actually worked fewer hours to survive than most modern humans. And because the only animals they lived with domestically were dogs, they were less prone to disease than we would be later. But we also were not an apex predator quite yet. The agricultural revolution found humans more self-sufficient and safer from predators. And one need only watch an episode of Game of Thrones to see how irrelevant the average empire was to the life of a peasant, who could grow his own food. But it also made us dependent on limited food sources and put is in close proximity with livestock that could transmit diseases that, before and since, were not much of an issue for us. And the scientific revolution, while ultimately reducing violence (you’re more likely to commit suicide or get hit by a car than die in a war or be murdered today), disease, and starvation, also has wrecked the environment. And humans, despite their adaptability, have a tendency to drive large mammals to extinction. We haven’t been killing off every animal on the planet, but hunter-gatherers wiped out the mastodon and giant sloth, and right now, the only animals that seem to be thriving are microbes, domestic pets, and livestock and poultry. Harari’s conclusion is that humans’ ability to think and adapt is amazing, but it also has caused changes in our species that evolution cannot keep up with. We’ve not had time to get our DNA out of the African savanna, and that has consequences, both good and bad.
New research raises an intriguing possibility — that of an alien ocean world seeding life throughout space.
One of the meteorites’ tiny crystals bearing organic compounds. Image credits Queenie Chan / The Open University.
In 1998, a group of friends had to cut their basketball game short for a somewhat unexpected reason — a meteorite decided to crash just yards away from the hoop.
Seeds of life
But that seems to have been fortune’s plan all along, as the rock seems to be a harbinger of life rather than death. Initial analysis of the chunk of meteorite, along with another that fell in Morocco the same year, revealed traces of liquid water and other organic components that underpin life. Now, an in-depth chemical analysis points to an ancient ocean world as the likely cradle of these organic compounds. It’s possible that such material could seed life on planets they land on, including the early Earth.
Initial analysis revealed that the main elements inside the meteorites include liquid water and amino acids. Taken together, that’s not really news — we’ve found such compounds in meteorites and in space before. They might not be as rare as we tend to believe. However, we’d never seen them together in a single alien sample before these two bits of space rock were first analyzed.
That made the meteorites really special, so they were preserved at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. Keen to find out more, an international team of researchers has recently sampled the organic compounds locked away in these meteorites’ 2-mm long salt crystals using an X-ray beamline and microscope, as well as other chemical experiments.
Along with traces of liquid water, they report finding organogenic elements like carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen, along with more complex organic compounds such as hydrocarbons and amino acids. In other words, we’ve found the fundamental building blocks of life as we know it right next to water — in a space rock.
“This is really the first time we have found abundant organic matter also associated with liquid water that is really crucial to the origin of life and the origin of complex organic compounds in space,” says study lead author Queenie Chan.
“We’re looking at the organic ingredients that can lead to the origin of life.”
After discovering this exciting chemical cocktail, the next step was to see where the meteorites came from, and where they inherited their organic matter. Their complex chemistry (in comparison to other meteorites) makes it unlikely that they’re simply left-over bits from the creation of the Solar System. Instead, the team narrowed their search to an ancient ocean world — similar to today’s Enceladus or Ceres. Water and ice plumes (which are relatively commonly-seen on such bodies) shooting out into space could have doused the meteorites, locking the planet’s organic compounds in the salt crystals.
According to co-author Yoko Kebukawa, the organic matter seen in these samples is “somewhat similar” to what we’ve previously found in primitive meteorites. The results of the analysis support the idea that the “organic matter originated from a water-rich, or previously water-rich parent body”, she explains, adding that it’s “possibly Ceres“.
Encased in the salt crystals, such biomolecules could safely make it across the cosmos. Even microscopic life could survive on a space-cruise within a similar system, the team says. Once in space, all kinds of things could happen to help spread these seeds of life around — collisions between asteroids, for example, would push them along or shatter them into even more ‘seeds’. After making it to a planet, such rocks could jump-start life on the surface.
“Everything leads to the conclusion that the origin of life is really possible elsewhere,” Chan adds. “There is a great range of organic compounds within these meteorites, including a very primitive type of organics that likely represent the early solar system’s organic composition.”
Next, the team plans to look at other crystals embedded in the meteorites that haven’t yet been analyzed. Who knows what we may find? Maybe a tiny alien bacterium swimming around?
The paper “Organic matter in extraterrestrial water-bearing salt crystals” has been publishedin the journal Science.
WETENSCHAP & PLANEETEen Japanse astronaut is bezorgd omdat hij al 9 centimeter is gegroeid sinds hij drie weken geleden aankwam in het internationale ruimtestation ISS.
Norishige Kanai schreef op sociale media dat hij bang is dat hij niet meer in een Sojoezraket past als hij in juni terug naar aarde moet komen, meldt de BBC. Astronauten groeien gemiddeld 2 tot 5 centimeter als ze in de ruimte zijn. Dat komt doordat er geen zwaartekracht is die de rugwervels op elkaar drukt. “Ik groeide als een plant in slechts drie weken. Niet meer sinds de middelbare school”, schreef Kanai. Een Sojoezraket heeft plaats voor acht personen. Als astronauten te lang worden, kan dat een probleem opleveren.
De Amerikaan Scott Tingle, de Rus Anton Tsjkaplerov en de Japanner Norishige Kanai vormen het nieuwe gezelschap van drie ruimtevaarders die al in september zijn vertrokken naar het ISS: de Rus Aleksandr Missoerkin en de Amerikanen Mark Vande Hei en Joseph Acaba. Voor de 52-jarige Tingle en de 40-jarige Kanai is het een eerste missie. Hun 43-jarige Russische collega heeft in totaal al een jaar in de ruimte doorgebracht.
De drie nieuw aangekomen astronauten zullen naar verwachting ongeveer vier maanden wonen en werken in de spacemeccano. Ze zullen 51 wetenschappelijke experimenten uitvoeren, en maken druk aankomend en vertrekkend verkeer mee. Voor februari staat een ruimtewandeling ten behoeve van het Russisch segment op de agenda.
EPAAstronauten Anton Tsjkaplerov (C), Scott Tingle (R) en Norishige Kanai (L) voor hun vertrek naar het ISS.
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UFOs surprise Kiwi farmer
UFOs surprise Kiwi farmer
Dan Satherley
The three lights spent a couple of minutes zipping about.
Credits: UFO Today
A Kiwi farmer looking after a cow in labour has caught three UFOs on camera.
Popular YouTube account UFO Today uploaded the footage, saying it was sent in by a subscriber.
"She was watching out for a cow that was about to [give] birth when she suddenly saw this weird light outside over the field," the description reads.
"Her first thought was that these lights were part of a military operation, but after a minute or two realised she was witnessing something else. After the sighting the cow gave birth to 2 young calves.
"She [sent] us the footage and she hopes we can find out what it was she saw."
Viewers were impressed with the clarity of the video, even if they couldn't decide what the lights were.
"Continue watching the trajectory after the light blinks out," wrote TheyLive YouSleep.
"You'll see a BLACK shadowy residual form collect in the area and then disappear. If this isn't CGI...then this looks more like an interdimensional shift/being than a physical ship from space."
"None are moving fast - so why couldn't these be drones?" said Tod C Steele. "That's the problem anymore, too many knuckleheads out goofing around."
"Nothing more than stoned skydivers," suggested Paul Kremastiotis.
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Nieuw-Zeelandse boerin verrast door UFO’s. Wat zijn dit voor vreemde lichtbollen?
Nieuw-Zeelandse boerin verrast door UFO’s. Wat zijn dit voor vreemde lichtbollen?
Een boerin uit Nieuw-Zeeland heeft drie UFO’s vastgelegd op camera terwijl één van haar koeien aan het bevallen was.
De beelden zijn op internet gezet door YouTube-kanaal UFO Today. Volgens het kanaal is het materiaal ingezonden door een abonnee.
“Ze was bij een koe die op het punt stond te bevallen toen ze plotseling dit vreemde licht boven het weiland zag,” aldus de beschrijving onder de video.
Iets anders
“Ze dacht in eerste instantie dat de lichten onderdeel waren van een militaire operatie, maar na een minuut of twee besefte ze dat ze getuige was van iets anders. Na de waarneming gaf de koe geboorte aan twee kalfjes.”
“Ze heeft ons de beelden opgestuurd en hoopt dat we kunnen achterhalen wat ze heeft gezien.”
Mensen waren onder de indruk van de beelden, hoewel ze niet konden bepalen wat de mysterieuze lichten waren.
Niet bekend
“Als dit geen CGI is lijkt het meer op een interdimensionaal wezen dan een fysiek schip uit de ruimte,” reageerde TheyLive YouSleep.
“Ze bewegen niet snel, dus waarom zouden het geen drones kunnen zijn?” vroeg Tod C Steele.
Paul Kremastiotis dacht aan parachutespringers.
Het is niet bekend waar de lichten precies zijn waargenomen, meldt Newshub.
Deze bizarre ruimtesteen bevat iets wat nergens anders in ons zonnestelsel wordt gevonden
Deze bizarre ruimtesteen bevat iets wat nergens anders in ons zonnestelsel wordt gevonden
Een steen die in Egypte is gevonden, komt niet alleen niet van de aarde, maar bevat ook micromineralen die nergens anders op aarde, in andere meteorieten of waar dan ook in het zonnestelsel worden gevonden.
De ontdekking van de steen doet vragen rijzen over het ontstaan van het zonnestelsel.
De zogeheten Hypatia-steen werd in 2013 ontdekt in het zuidwesten van Egypte en vernoemd naar wetenschapper Hypatia van Alexandrië.
Helemaal uniek
Uit een analyse bleek dat de met diamant gevulde steen niet afkomstig was van een komeet of meteoriet en helemaal uniek was.
Onderzoekers van de Universiteit van Johannesburg hebben de steen opnieuw onderzocht en ontdekt dat de samenstelling van het materiaal anders is dan die van ander interplanetair materiaal dat op de aarde terechtgekomen is.
Ze stuitten daarnaast op mineralen die ouder lijken te zijn dan onze zon.
De steen moet onderdeel zijn geweest van een groter stuk rots dat een doorsnee heeft gehad van enkele meters.
Nog vreemder
Bijna alle meteorieten die op aarde vallen zijn chondrieten, die veel koolstof en veel silicium bevatten.
Hypatia bevat daartegen veel koolstof, maar zeer kleine hoeveelheden silicium.
“Nog vreemder is dat de matrix grote hoeveelheden zeer specifieke koolstofverbindingen bevat, die polyaromatische koolwaterstoffen worden genoemd,” zei hoofdonderzoeker Jan Kramers.
“Die maken onderdeel uit van interstellair stof, wat al bestond voordat ons zonnestelsel werd gevormd,” voegde hij toe.
Nóg vreemder
Andere ontdekkingen waren nóg vreemder. De onderzoekers troffen aluminium in zijn pure vorm aan, wat voor zover bekend zelden tot nooit voorkomt in het zonnestelsel.
Ze vonden bovendien een verbinding die grotendeels bestaat uit fosfor en nikkel, maar die geen ijzer bevat, een samenstelling die nog nooit eerder is gezien, niet op aarde en niet bij ander materiaal uit de ruimte.
A pebble found in a field of Libyan desert glass in southwest Egypt has proven to be quite a mystery, and may even shake up our very understanding of the history of our solar system. The pebble is known as the Hypatia Stone, named after 4th century Greek philosopher and mathematician Hypatia who is remembered as being one of the first notable female mathematicians. The pebble appears unremarkable on the surface, measuring just a few centimeters across and dark grey in color. What makes the pebble unique is its chemical composition, one that is unlike any other known substance on Earth or in space. Where did the Hypatia stone come from?
Fragments of the pebble.
Most planets and known meteorites contain silicate minerals and a small amount of carbon, but the Hypatia pebble has been found to have a nearly opposite composition of mostly carbon with very little silicon. Even stranger, the pebble contains a high amount of polyaromatic hydrocarbons, a major component of interstellar dust which existed before our own solar system formed. Georgy Belyanin, a geologist at the University of Johannesburg and one of the authors of the study of the hypatia stone, says this unique composition may date it to before the birth of our own Sun and place its origin outside of our own solar system:
In the grains within Hypatia the ratios of these three elements to each other are completely different from that calculated for the planet Earth or measured in known types of meteorites. As such these inclusions are unique within our solar system. We think the nickel-phosphorus-iron grains formed pre-solar, because they are inside the matrix, and are unlikely to have been modified by shock such as collision with the Earth’s atmosphere or surface, and also because their composition is so alien to our solar system.
If confirmed, that would make it the only own fragment from this period of the universe’s history. It’s still unknown from where the pebble originated, however. There is a chance it could have originated in a comet or meteorite from the far edges of our solar system, but since we haven’t been able study those objects, scientists are still unsure of their compositions. Furthermore, if it came from our solar system, it would challenge our entire understanding of how our solar system formed. Pretty impressive for a pebble.
On January 1, 2018, Matt Beland was working all day and finally he went on his break to smoke. Stared to take a picture of the moon he saw something was going on so he flipped the video on and started to record.
After viewing the video it looks like a bright UFO coming out or leaving the moon till it disappears.
According to Matt, who has filmed the object from an unknown location, he has seen the exact same thing several times before next to the moon.
A YouTube video titled “Alien Ship on the Lunar Surface” depicts a sizeable strange object on the lunar surface. UFO and alien researcher Streetcap1 claims he got pictures of the mysterious object from the Chinese Chang’e 3 lunar rover, which was launched in 2013.
Streetcap1 says that he does not know what else it could be and encourage the viewers to look at the detail. He claims that no colour or brightness adjustments have been made on the photos at all. He stresses that it is precisely how it looks on the Chinese Chang’e 3 photographs.
The video has received mix comments and got thousands of views.
Some say the photos are spectacular and that they are fantastic finds. Others suggest that alien ship or not, it is something that should not be ignored.
Others have accused the uploader as a hoaxer and that the footage is fake.
A day after the video was uploaded, he uploaded another footage revealing that suspicious viewers bombarded him. He claimed to have been getting a lot of hassle from non-believers and trolls on his last video.
He insisted that no point of uploading fake rubbish unless you’re in it for money. He explained he is in it for the Kudos, which he considered worth a lot more than money.
He added that he is proud of his work and it makes him angry when people accused his channel fake.
The declassification of the final three documents among a series of reports dating from the 1970s brings to an end a 10-year campaign for transparency by ufologists.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) papers have been trickled out over a series of releases to the National Archives, with many delays along the way.
There are still complaints that they have been made deliberately hard to access, as they are not available online, and require a visit to the National Archives in London to pour through hard copies.
The papers include UFO witness accounts, photos and sketches of mystery objects, and MoD and official reports of sightings.
However, so far there does not appear to be the smoking gun evidence of alien life so-called truth seekers were hoping for.
Getty*Nick Pope
UFO DISCLOSURE: Nick Pope has welcomed the release of the last batch of British X-Files.
Coming so soon after the revelations about the Pentagon's UFO program, this will raise suspicion in the UFO community that there's been co-ordination between the US and UK government on this.
Nick Pope
Nick Pope, former UFO investigator at the MoD, has suggested that alien enthusiasts won't be too chuffed with this final release.
The last three documents all date from 1986, and were released on New Year’s Day.
Mr Pope said: "This looks suspiciously as if The National Archives tried to sneak out this release when nobody was looking."
The timing of the release, just weeks after the US Pentagon confirmed it had maintained a top-secret UFO investigation program, has also raised suspicions.
Mr Pope added: "Coming so soon after the revelations about the Pentagon's UFO program, this will raise suspicion in the UFO community that there's been co-ordination between the US and UK government on this."
He added: "Having worked on the MoD's UFO investigations in the 90s I'm pleased that these files are finally in the open.
"There's no smoking gun in these files that says UFOs are extraterrestrial, but there are plenty of interesting sighting reports and other related material relating to MoD research on the subject.
"These recent revelations in the UK and the US show that whatever you believe about the UFO mystery, some of us in government took the subject seriously.
"I hope this means that the media, the scientific community and the public can now have a more serious and informed debate about the UFO phenomenon, with less sarcastic comments about little green men."
Being of the Rhesus monkey lineage, around 85 % of the world population inherits the Rh positive blood group. The remaining 10-15 % is Rh negative pointing out their origin being from a different source.
This difference in blood type has attracted various conspiracy theories – linking them to reptilian blood in one and to an alien origin in another.
Our immune system responds to any foreign substance by generating antibodies. The triggering up of these antibodies is a function of antigens. One such important antigen found in Rh positive blood type is the D antigen.The absence of this antigen indicates a person having a Rh negative blood type.
Apart from a difference in certain traits and characteristics, they live a normal life. In fact, as this blood type lacks proteins, it provides them immunity against certain diseases which require proteins as a carrier.
Traits and characteristics
Empathetic
Reddish hair
Green, blue or hazel eyes
Intuitive
Always look for facts
Higher than average IQ
Easily Scared
Lower body temperature
Sense of purpose in life
Compassionate
Unexplained psychic dreams
Interest in space and science
Extra vertebrate
An inclination to healing professions
A feeling of being different
Mothers immune system rejects the fetus
This blood type becomes a cause of concern only during the pregnancy when a Rh negative mother carries a fetus having the Rh-positive blood type.
When the blood of mother comes in contact with that of the fetus blood, it develops antibodies against the Rh D antigen. The mother’s immune system can then prove fatal for the fetus.
But with the advancement in medical science, medications are now available to prevent the fetus from such harm.
Some believe that the evolution of Rh negative blood came about when aliens mated with humans.
As these people are blessed with psychic and intuitive powers, did the aliens desired to create a lineage separate from rest of the humanity? or did they wanted them to act as angels and prevent humanity at the time of need?
Some of the strange things common to the people having this bloodline are
They are doing research on ancient astronauts
Author of the books based on extraterrestrials, space, and science
Are alien abductees
It is no denying the fact that our history has also pointed to alien visitations. These indications come preserved in the form of scriptures, stone carvings, and paintings.
Some examples include
Ancient cave paintings
UFO sightings
Crop circles
The uncanny architectures such as the pyramids of Giza, Nasca lines, stone henge etc
Did the ancient astronauts come here with a purpose?
Various texts have even pointed out that gods came and blessed humans with their sons. Can Rh negative blood type come into existence due to one such blessing?
One of the professors even said that we all as a race came from space.
Prof Wickramasinghe mathematician, astronomer, and astrobiologist said
“ A dark secret lies deeply buried in our DNA. We are all aliens made up of cosmic genes from cosmic bacteria and viruses that drifted down to us in comet dust and meteorites through the depths of space”.
The largest percentage of this bloodline are the Basque people who live near the Pyrenees mountain between France and Spain.They are semi-isolated from the rest of Europe
According to the University of Nevada, center for basques studies
No one knows exactly where the Basques came from. Some say they have lived in that area since Cro-Magnon man first roamed Europe. Estimates of how long they have lived there vary from 10,000 to 75,000 years. Some say they are descended from the original Iberians. More fanciful theories exist, as well. One is that the Basques are the descendants of the survivors of Atlantis.
Scientific explanation
Let us now understand how science tries to clarify this conspiracy.
According to this website, our DNA decides our body characteristics. With a slight change in DNA, our characteristics also change.
These DNA changes can take place either when a cell divides or through outside influences such as radiation.
Mutation, as we know, is the change in the DNA or genome of an individual. Rh negative blood type having no D antigen evolved due to one such mutation.This also changed their appearance and immune system characteristics.
What a Rh-negative mothers immune system is doing is activating its defense system obeying its DNA characteristics.
One of the inherent benefit they have over other individuals is their immunity against the parasite Toxoplasma. Also, as this bloodline is prominent in places having this parasite, it is indicative of a rare mutation took place which aided the people having this mutation to cope well.
As people in Europe account for the maximum percentage having this blood type, maybe this served them to survive in that geography.
CONCLUSION
Whether the Rh negative blood type is of alien origin or a rare genetic mutation, weighs equal.It can be concluded only after science gives us, even more, facts to remove the veil out of its very origin.
If it is only a result of genetic mutation then why does it makes such people more intuitive, psychic healers, being the popular target of aliens, science and space explorers? There are a lot of questions which need to be answered to reach a definite conclusion.
Who knows that the theory of alien mating with humans turns out to be true when science has sufficient data to back up the claims or it turns out to be our random assumption with the concept of genetic mutation winning in the end.
Un "ancien employé de la Zone 51" affirme avoir piloté une Soucoupe volante !
Un "ancien employé de la Zone 51" affirme avoir piloté une Soucoupe volante !
Un homme, qui prétend être un ancien employé de la zone 51, affirme dans une vidéo avoir été recruté par le gouvernement américain pour piloter un vaisseau spatial. Dans la vidéo, Robert Miller explique comment il avait l'habitude de travailler au sein de la base de l’US Air Force.
M. Miller révèle comment des extraterrestres, des engins spatiaux et des preuves de vie extraterrestre sont cachés à l'intérieur des installations de Groom Lake. Il détaille également un souvenir particulier du moment où il a été invité à conduire un des véhicules volants. Il déclare : "Je me souviens qu'ils m'avaient amené à l'intérieur du vaisseau, jusqu'à la place du pilote, il y avait seulement de la place pour une personne dans le géant vaisseau" "J'ai regardé autour du cockpit et j'ai seulement vu un siège." "Pas de joystick, pas de volant ni d'autres outils contrôles. Il y avait cependant un casque. Ils m'ont dit que l'engin était contrôlé par télépathie et d'imaginer que l'engin commençait à flotter, mais cela n'a pas fonctionné."
"Au lieu de cela, j'ai dû imaginer que j'étais l'engin, et comme faisant partie de celui-ci, et j'ai commencé à penser à moi-même en train de flotter sur le sol puis j'ai senti les vibrations." M. Miller a également suggéré avoir pu avoir voyagé dans le temps après s'être évanoui pendant l'expérience. "Je me trouvais à 500 pieds du sol, puis les vibrations du moteur se sont arrêtées. Il n'y avait pas de bouton d'éjection sur l'engin. J'étais effectivement sans défense." "[L'engin] s’est mis à plonger vers le sol et je suis devenu inconscient." "Alors que je me trouvais à l’hôpital, un homme en costume noir est entré et m'a expliqué ce qui s'était passé. Il a dit que juste avant que l'engin ne touche le sol, il avait disparu…" "Au milieu de la nuit, ils ont entendu un bruit à l'extérieur, et l'engin s'était écrasé au même endroit." "Les scientifiques avaient émis l'hypothèse que l'engin avait voyagé dans le temps." Miller affirme dans sa vidéo prendre un risque considérable pour sa vie en déclarant : "Si quelque chose m'arrive dans les prochains jours, vous saurez pourquoi."
Filibert : Il est vrai que d'après les témoignages de personnes qui ont été dans des vaisseaux extraterrestres, il n'y a pas de manettes ou commandes, tout se fait pas transmission de pensée ! Ici nous avons affaire à une soucoupe terrestre mise au point, sans doute, avec l'aide d'extraterrestres collaborant avec les humains. Mais pour la piloter, il faut savoir bien visualiser l'endroit où l'on désire aller, il faudrait faire des essais avec un simulateur pour savoir bien transmettre des ordres à la machine ! L'Aire 51 est une des bases avec Dulce, l'Aire S-4…, où il y a des extraterrestres qui collaborent avec les Hommes !
A flash seen over a wide swath of Russia on January 7 at first caused fears of a U.S. air strike on North Korea. For now, the flash is unexplained.
Bright flash in the night sky over the Tatarstan region of Russia on January 7, 2018, via Siberian Times.
Siberian Times and other media reported this week (January 9, 2018) on an exceedingly bright flash that “turned night to day” over a wide swath of western Russia on Sunday, January 7. Some media reported that the flash caused speculationabout a U.S. air strike over North Korea. A next logical assumption might be a meteor, but – as of this writing – there are no reports about the event in the meteor logs for both the International Meteor Organization and the American Meteor Society, suggesting no bright streak of a meteor was seen.
The flash was seen primarily over three regions Bashkortostan, Udmurtia, and Tatarstan.
Siberian Times reported:
The black sky suddenly turned momentarily deep blue as if on a bright day – but according to some accounts, the Earth moved too.
Experts insist the phenomenon was not manmade: there were no reports of missile tests or explosions.
Nor were there reports of meteorites striking the Earth.
Witnesses had the feeling something massive had happened – but what?
Looking back, I noticed a story about a similar bright flash over Russia in 2014. In that story, an IFLScience reportconcluded:
It’s definitely possible that the light wasn’t originating in the sky; it came from the ground and was being reflected off of the clouds.
Other explanations include “dry thunderstorms” to “atmospheric electricity.”
The sky over Tatarstan during the mysterious explosion of light, via Siberian Times.
Bottom line: A flash seen over a wide swath of Russia on January 7, 2018 is so far unexplained.
Sun pillars, or light pillars, are shafts of light extending from the sun or other bright light source. They’re caused by ice crystals drifting in Earth’s air.
Canada geese look like ghosts as they fly though a sun pillar – January 28, 2017 – in Quakertown, Pennsylvania.
EarthSky Facebook friends occasionally post beautiful photos of sun pillars, or light pillars. For example, there was a beautiful one seen from the U.S. West Coast on March 20, 2016 … a beautiful prelude to the first full night of spring. Sun pillars are vertical shafts of light that extend upward (or downward) from a bright light source, such as the sun or other bright light low on the horizon. They can be five to 10 degrees tall and sometimes even higher. They might lengthen or brighten as you gaze at them.
They’re beautiful and wondrous. They’re also the source of some UFO reports!
Joe C. Tabb and Dawn Tabb caught this amazing sun pillar at sunset on May 10, 2016. A storm had recently passed.
The U.S. West Coast got an amazing sun pillar on the first evening of spring, 2016. Photo by Lyle Evans in Highland, California.
Another shot of the beautiful sun pillar seen on March 20, 2016, from the U.S. West Coast. This one is from Chris Levitan Photography. Thanks, Chris!
Sun pillars or light pillars are formed by reflection from hexagonal plate-like ice crystals in Earth’s air. These crystals drift through the atmosphere with a horizontal orientation, gently rocking from side to side as they fall. Diagram via University of Illinois.
Sun pillars or light pillars form when sunlight (or another bright light source) reflects off the surfaces of millions of falling ice crystals associated with thin, high-level clouds, for example, cirrostratus clouds. The ice crystals have roughly horizontal faces. They are falling through Earth’s atmosphere, rocking slightly from side to side.
When is the best time to see a sun pillar or light pillar?
You’ll most often see sun pillars when the sun is low in the western sky before sunset, or low in the east just after the breaking of dawn. You might even see a sun pillar when the sun is below the horizon. Light pillars can be seen at any time of night.
View larger. | Wesley Liikane in Severn Bridge, Ontario captured these light pillars on December 23, 2013. See more photos by Wesley at Cowboy with a Camera on Facebook.
They’re called sun pillars when the sun helps make them. But this the moon or even streetlights can create this light phenomenon, too, in which case the name light pillar is more appropriate.
These pillars of light often prompt people to report sightings of UFOs. They can sometimes look strange! There are said to be a lot of UFO reports caused by light pillars over Niagara Falls, where the mist from the rush of descending water interacts with the city’s many upward facing spotlights. Light pillars do appear frequently over Niagara Falls, especially during the winter.
As always, the great website Atmospheric Optics is a wonderful place to go and learn more about sun pillars.
Photo credit: EarthSky Facebook friend Kim Smith, taken February 2013. She says “My first ever sun pillar! We don’t often see them here in Walker Creek, Arkansas. I am glad I was out to photograph the sunset today when this occurred.” Thanks Kim!
Bottom line: Sun pillars, or light pillars, are vertical shafts of light that can sometimes be seen extending upwards or downwards from the sun or other bright light source. They’re caused by light reflection from hexagonal ice crystals drifting in Earth’s atmosphere.
Open Minds UFO Radio: 2017 turned out to be a breakthrough year for UFOs, especially in the last month. However, there were other exciting UFO stories throughout the year, and our panel is here to discuss what those were. Host Alejandro Rojas, UFO news guy Martin Willis, and our special guest Lee Speigel, UFO journalist and media guy, share their top UFO stories of 2017.
Alien Invasion: What Would Aliens REALLY Want With The Earth?
Alien Invasion:What Would Aliens REALLY Want With The Earth?
Let’s put aside the questions as to whether or not we’ve been visited by aliens. Let’s ask a better question: Why would aliens visit us at all? Is there anything about Earth that makes us prone to an alien invasion?
An Alien Invasion has Occurred, But For What Reason?
While there’s plenty of talk of human-alien hybridization programs & plans to take over our government and make us slaves, do these ideas make any sense? I mean, if a far advanced alien race came here with the intent of making us slaves, they wouldn’t need to infiltrate our government to do so. They’d just… do it. They would just do it because they’re so advanced relative to us. So let’s explore the possibilities…
The Most Unlikely Scenarios for an Alien Invasion
The first 2 scenarios really have good reasons why they’re unlikely. While they’re popular with hardcore alien enthusiasts, many of which believe these things are happening now or have in the past, a step back to reality doesn’t support these ideas. The likely scenarios are much more insidious and dire for humans in the event of a true alien invasion.
#1. Gold Mining
Gold is a very rare metal. For thousands of years, humans have mined it. We work for it. We kill for it. Aliens want gold too.
The idea is a cornerstone for Ancient Alien theorists. They believe that aliens came to the earth in ancient times to mine gold. In their desire for gold, they genetically modified ancient apes to make them more intelligent. The theory states that modern-day humans, us, are those genetically modified apes. Aliens designed us to have love and desire for gold so that we would mine it for them by our own ‘choice’.
Truth be told, there isn’t much evidence in support of this theory. Everyone who reads this blog knows my stance on the Ancient Alien religion. It’s undeniable that humans have a love and obsession with gold. We also have a love and obsession with lots of pretty stones and shiny metals that aren’t gold.
The Reality – Gold isn’t THAT Rare
While gold is a rare metal by certain standards, there’s no reason to think Earth has more gold than other rocky planets. Gold can only be created during a supernova and any planets forming in the resulting cloud of heavy elements will have some gold on them. So does it really make sense that aliens would travel here specifically for gold? Probably not. The fact of the matter is that from the perspective of an interstellar species, gold isn’t that rare or hard to find.
Alien technology would be so great, they wouldn’t need human ‘slaves’ to mine gold for them. They’d have machines that can do it much faster. Additionally, there’s no reason why they would choose an inhabited planet to mine when there are so many uninhabited ones out there. If they did choose to mine an inhabited planet such as the Earth, they’d probably wipe out all life first so that they wouldn’t have to deal with all the ankle biting from the pesky humans.
#2. Hybridization for Their Dying Species
Another popular theory by alien-believers is that aliens are running a hybridization program. The theory postulates aliens are a dying species, abducting humans, and taking DNA to merge with their own in order to strengthen their own biology. Many people believe it’s already happening.
The Arguments for an Alien Hybridization Program
The proponents of the theory point to cases of alien abduction & cattle mutilations as evidence. Sightings of cryptids, such as the Chupacabra, are cited as examples of alien hybridization having gone wrong.
Additionally, many female abductees describe being artificially inseminated and forced to carry fetuses only to be abducted later and having it removed. Male abductees frequently describe having semen extracted from them by their alien abductors. Some folks claim to have had sexual encounters with extraterrestrials.
The Reality – You Don’t Need Much DNA for Hybridization
By far, the weakest part of the entire theory is that a little DNA goes a long way. A single human carries enough DNA information to hybridize an entire generation of extraterrestrials. Aside from the fact that many abduction cases can be dismissed as instances of sleep paralysis, continued abductions for 50+ years would be unnecessary.
It’s also worth noting that a species capable of interstellar travel would have learned how to genetically modify themselves without the need for samples from a relatively primordial species such as ourselves.
The Most Likely Scenarios for an Alien Invasion
This set of scenarios for an alien invasion take into account what science knows about intelligent life and how it behaves. Of course, we only have ourselves to look at, but you work with what you’ve got right? These scenarios which come from real scientists are much more disturbing than some of the fantasy stories tossed around by the ancient alien and conspiracy crowds.
#1. Their Own Earth-like Planet was Destroyed
What if aliens weren’t very different from us? What if they came from a planet just like ours in a neighboring solar system? Maybe their planet died or became uninhabitable, and the entire species took the skies looking for a new place to call home.
As a skeptic, this scenario for an alien invasion is mind blowing because it could actually happen. No planet lives forever. Our own Earth has gone through several mass extinction events and there’s no reason to think other planets would be any different.
We’d likely be powerless to stop it, and if our own history of exploration is any indication, it wouldn’t turn out very well for us humans. Think about what happened to the Native Americans when Europeans discovered the New World…
#2. Natural Resources that Support Carbon-Based Life
If there’s one thing more rare in the universe than gold and diamonds, it’s life. At least, life as we know it – carbon-based life. Life with all its associated proteins & fats is likely the rarest thing in the cosmos. We know this because we’ve looked around and not found it anywhere else.
Earth’s Natural Resources Would be a Figurative Goldmine
While it rains diamonds on Jupiter and Saturn, the compounds necessary to support carbon-based life are much rarer. Earth’s trees, plants, animals, & humans might be so rare in the universe that aliens could invade in order to use these sources of energy.
The rarity of life in the universe makes the Earth a prime candidate for aliens wishing to create a planetary zoo or to rule us. They could also potentially farm the life on Earth for food much as humans currently do.
#3. Dominance
It could simply be that a space-faring race may come to the earth simply to rule the population. Remember Superman 2? Political and social power can be addictive and satisfying to intelligent beings. The desire to rule may even be a common trait of all intelligent species.
The Desire to Rule Depends on the Aliens
The culture of the aliens who happen to find us really determines the likelihood of this scenario. By all counts, it’s a true alien invasion of the type only seen in movies and cinema. The takeover could be quick and violent, or it could be slow and shadowy. Proponents say it’s already happening. They point to reports of reptilian aliens infiltrating our government and big corporations as evidence.
#4. They Might Be Looking for a Planetary Zoo
Zoos are pretty cool. Maybe aliens think so too? Perhaps aliens wouldn’t actually invade the earth as much as keeping it ‘caged up’ for observation.
Like the previous example, the planetary zoo is very possible. What’s really crazy? It might already be happening and we aren’t even aware of it.
#5. Food – Humans? Yummy!
There isn’t a single animal on this planet that humans won’t eat. We’ll eat anything except other humans (and there are even exceptions to that as well). Aliens might be the same way, especially if carbon-based life turns out to be a compatible food for their biology.
Based our own behavior towards other animals, this scenario is highly likely. Perhaps, it’s the most likely of all. And it’s utterly terrifying. With advanced intelligence and technology, humans would be raised as cattle scarcely aware of our true purpose. We might live out our lives without so much as a hint of our grisly ends at the hands of our alien farmers.
Other Reasons?
We can only guess at the motives of our potential alien invaders. Perhaps the alien invasion will have nothing to do with us at all, or maybe it will have everything to do with us. Regardless, if aliens ever do come to meet us with technology millions of years ahead of us, we won’t have much say in the matter anyway. And that’s the scariest part of the entire thing.
What do you think? Why would aliens invade the earth? Let us know below in the comments.
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )
Aliens Don't Exist: Our Solar System Is an Anomaly, Study Claims
Aliens Don't Exist: Our Solar System Is an Anomaly, Study Claims.
Chris Mahon
Image credit: YouTube
We've said it before, but it seems like the universe keeps proving that it's a lot more complicated than the Drake Equation would lead us to believe.
Previously, the thousands of exoplanets we discovered last year would suggest that life exists in some solar system out there, if most solar systems end up looking like ours. But new research has revealed that most solar systems are very, very different—meaning that finding alien life could be even more difficult.
According to a new paper in the Astronomical Journal, most of the solar systems observed by the Kepler telescope have planets that are a) roughly the same size and b) roughly the same distance from one another. Compared to our solar system, which has huge gas planets like Jupiter and Saturn and tiny, rocky planets like Venus and Mercury at varying distances from one another, these systems seem to be much more uniform.
This may mean that out solar system's formation was actually an anomaly:
"In classic planet formation theory, planets form in the protoplanetary disk that surrounds a newly formed star. The planets might form in compact configurations with similar sizes and a regular orbital spacing, in a manner similar to the newly observed pattern in exoplanetary systems...Abundant evidence in the solar system suggests that Jupiter and Saturn disrupted our system's early structure, resulting in the four widely-spaced terrestrial planets we have today. That planets in most systems are still similarly sized and regularly spaced suggests that perhaps they have been mostly undisturbed since their formation."
All of this adds a new layer to the search for life on other planets: apart from finding planets in the "Goldilocks" area, where they are neither too far nor too close to their star, scientists may start digging into what factors decide the size and spacing of planets in solar systems, which will determine what systems end up looking like ours.
Having smaller, rocky planets closer together near the sun may be a new marker to look for in the search for life.
One eager self-proclaimed UFO expert, an author by the name of Anthony Bragalia, is currently attempting to put pressure on the government to reveal one secret that they're reported to have locked away in their vaults; according to The New York Times, a secret military compound in Las Vegas contains a stockpile of rare otherworldly metal that has been collected from UFO crash sites. Apparently, the metals that the government is holding on to are "unknown to science." The Times' article doesn't cite any specific proof on this point, but it's still managed to light some fires among the UFO truther community.
Eager to gain evidence one way or the other, Bragalia has taken things a step further by appealing to the government directly, under the US Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) which allows citizens to submit queries and receive transparent answers about official projects.
"I have FOIA requests with five US Department of Defense agencies for the release of test results on UFO alloys that have been reported by The New York Times to be in the possession of the United States government."
This should go well.
It should probably be noted that there are plenty of exceptions to the FOIA. A citizen can't receive information on, say, operations and research that has been classified in the interest of public or military safety. It's not possible to receive an answer when using the Freedom of Information Act to ask about specific military procedures, in case that information falls into the wrong hands. Similarly, if the government is undertaking top-secret research into any scientific phenomenon, they're not going to happily spell out the details of the project to anybody who asks.
Thus, if the government does have magic metal from the wreckage of an alien spaceship, they're not going to disclose that information simply because Bragalia has asked nicely.
It seems that the UFO expert has already thought of this; Bragalia's contingency plan is to take to the courts if his FOIA requests are rejected, and he has stated that he is "willing and able to sue the US Government" to get hold of the information he desires.
He's certainly able to sue the government, and he may very well be willing to do so, but he's unlikely to win. Even if this weren't a spurious case, the government is hardly eager to have legal precedent in place that forces them to reveal all their secrets simply because someone is shouting loudly enough.
There is, though, another problem with this claim: according to actual, genuine scientists that spoke to Scientific American about the claims, it's preposterous that the US government would find any metal that would be "unknown to science".
Richard Sachleben, a member of the American Chemical Society's panel of experts said:
"I don't think it's plausible that there's any alloys that we can't identify. My opinion? That's quite impossible."
There is some very real, incredibly fascinating evidence to suggest that UFOs may in fact be real (although not necessarily from outer space). With this in mind, it's probably best for the sky-watching community to focus on what facts have been revealed, rather than trying to get the government to dish the dirt on a spurious and potentially fictitious theory that lacks a firm, reliable source.
At least, that's what the aliens want you to think...
One eager self-proclaimed UFO expert, an author by the name of Anthony Bragalia, is currently attempting to put pressure on the government to reveal one secret that they're reported to have locked away in their vaults; according to The New York Times, a secret military compound in Las Vegas contains a stockpile of rare otherworldly metal that has been collected from UFO crash sites. Apparently, the metals that the government is holding on to are "unknown to science." The Times' article doesn't cite any specific proof on this point, but it's still managed to light some fires among the UFO truther community.
Eager to gain evidence one way or the other, Bragalia has taken things a step further by appealing to the government directly, under the US Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) which allows citizens to submit queries and receive transparent answers about official projects.
"I have FOIA requests with five US Department of Defense agencies for the release of test results on UFO alloys that have been reported by The New York Times to be in the possession of the United States government."
This should go well.
It should probably be noted that there are plenty of exceptions to the FOIA. A citizen can't receive information on, say, operations and research that has been classified in the interest of public or military safety. It's not possible to receive an answer when using the Freedom of Information Act to ask about specific military procedures, in case that information falls into the wrong hands. Similarly, if the government is undertaking top-secret research into any scientific phenomenon, they're not going to happily spell out the details of the project to anybody who asks.
Thus, if the government does have magic metal from the wreckage of an alien spaceship, they're not going to disclose that information simply because Bragalia has asked nicely.
It seems that the UFO expert has already thought of this; Bragalia's contingency plan is to take to the courts if his FOIA requests are rejected, and he has stated that he is "willing and able to sue the US Government" to get hold of the information he desires.
He's certainly able to sue the government, and he may very well be willing to do so, but he's unlikely to win. Even if this weren't a spurious case, the government is hardly eager to have legal precedent in place that forces them to reveal all their secrets simply because someone is shouting loudly enough.
There is, though, another problem with this claim: according to actual, genuine scientists that spoke to Scientific American about the claims, it's preposterous that the US government would find any metal that would be "unknown to science".
Richard Sachleben, a member of the American Chemical Society's panel of experts said:
"I don't think it's plausible that there's any alloys that we can't identify. My opinion? That's quite impossible."
There is some very real, incredibly fascinating evidence to suggest that UFOs may in fact be real (although not necessarily from outer space). With this in mind, it's probably best for the sky-watching community to focus on what facts have been revealed, rather than trying to get the government to dish the dirt on a spurious and potentially fictitious theory that lacks a firm, reliable source.
At least, that's what the aliens want you to think...
Every meteorite that falls to Earth has an incredible story to tell about its extraterrestrial origins and interplanetary adventures. That’s particularly true of the 4.5 billion-year-old space rocks known as Monahans and Zag, which respectively landed in Texas and Morocco in 1998. Soon after their recovery, scientists detected microscopic pockets of water and halite (rock salt) crystals in the meteorites—a direct window into an ancient briny world from the solar system’s infancy.
Now, an extensive analysis of the meteorites led by Open University astrobiologist Queenie Chan reveals that these alien salt crystals contain organic matter, or “life’s precursor molecules,” as the team put it. These carbon compounds provide new insights into the distribution of prebiotic materials in the early solar system, while shedding light on the meteorites’ protracted and occasionally bumpy voyage to Earth.
The paper, out Wednesday in Science Advances, also marks the first time scientists have found organics in extraterrestrial samples that still contain liquid water, Chan told me over email. This is significant because water and organic matter are the key ingredients for life as we know it, and the paper suggests they may have been widespread on primitive worlds in the ancient solar system.
“Finding organic compounds in meteorites [and] other extraterrestrial samples is nothing new,” Chan said. “However, this study is unique in the sense that we have studied the organic material contained within the water-bearing salt crystals within the meteorites.”
Identifying these subtle compounds within the millimeter-scale crystals required an exhaustive experimental approach. Chan’s team scrutinized the samples with a wide range of advanced spectrometry, spectroscopy, microscopy, and liquid chromatography techniques to achieve their results. They detected carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen-bearing materials “exhibiting a wide range of structural order,” as well as “aromatic, ketone, imine, and/or imidazole compounds.”
Dr. Chan with a Raman spectrometer, one of the instruments used in the study.
The fact that this organic matter was locked inside these sapphire-colored crystals raises the tantalizing possibility that speculative alien beings, most likely in tiny microbe form, could be preserved the same way. Chan referred me to a 1988 studythat described terrestrial bacteria suspended in small liquid inclusions within salt crystals, so it’s not absurd to think extraterrestrial life could be likewise contained.
“If life formed elsewhere, there is such a possibility that it could be trapped in a way similar to that of the terrestrial setting,” Chan told me. “Bear in mind that, while the rich deposits of organic remnants recovered from the meteorites don’t provide any proof of life outside of Earth, finding abundant organic precursors associated with water indicates that complex chemical processes could have occurred.”
“This offers a significant implication for the context for the origin of life,” she added.
These organics also flesh out the backstory of the Zag and Monahans meteorites. The rocks are similar in composition to the carbonaceous surface of Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt, suggesting they probably originated on that world. Chan and her colleagues propose that hydrovolcanic activity on young Ceres produced brines, and when the water eventually evaporated, it left behind these salt crystals filled with organic molecules.
At some point, these hydrovolcanic disruptions on Ceres were forceful enough to blast the material into space, where exposure to ionizing radiation caused the crystals to turn that “beautiful blue color,” Chan said, which is “pretty unique in nature.”
The ejected material then impacted with another world, possibly the metal-rich asteroid Hebe, which imprinted its own signature of organics and amino acids into the meteorites. Finally, these intermixed samples were gently “stripped” from this asteroid by natural processes, and ended up on Earth some 20 years ago.
It’s pretty mind-boggling to retread this story of interworld hops, written in the chemical composition of the Zag and Monahans meteorites. What’s even trippier is the notion that these journeys may be quotidian, with similar exchanges likely occurring right now around some of the most promising candidates for life in our solar system.
“In the context of understanding moons such as Enceladus and Europa,” Chan’s team said in the study, “halite crystals formed from cryovolcanism and ejected into space represent an ideal sample to study prebiotic and possibly biotic processes on these bodies.”
It’s impossible to predict what first contact with an alien organism might look like, but with this comprehensive new paper, Chan and her colleagues have distinguished salt crystals embedded in world-hopping rocks as a smart bet.
ThinkstockHet in een labo uit huidstamcellen gekweekte spierweefsel reageert op uitwendige stimuli zoals elektrische pulsen en chemische signalen.
MEDISCHWerkende menselijke spieren zijn in een labo ontwikkeld uit stamcellen uit de huid. Die doorbraak is beloftevol voor mensen die lijden aan degeneratieve spierziektes.
Credit: Pixabay.
Het team wetenschappers van de Duke universiteit in de Amerikaanse staat North Carolina stelt de eersten te zijn die dit klaarspeelt met stamcellen uit huidweefsel dat werd “geherprogrammeerd” naar jeugdig en veelzijdig spierweefsel.
Het gaat om ‘geïnduceerde pluripotente stamcellen’ of iPSC’s. Net als natuurlijke stamcellen in embryo’s kunnen ze eender welk type menselijke cel worden. In dit geval werden de iPSC’s overgehaald om skeletspiercellen te worden, die uitgroeiden tot ‘functionerende menselijke skeletspieren’, meldde het team in het wetenschappelijke tijdschrift Nature Communications.
Spieren reageren op elektrische en chemische signalen
“Het heeft ons jaren proberen en falen gekost, met kleine stapjes richting functionerend menselijk spierweefsel uit die pluripotente stamcellen”, stelt mede-auteur van de studie Lingjun Rao.
De doorbraak werd mogelijk gemaakt door “unieke celcultuuromstandigheden” in het labo en een 3D-steiger die de cellen toeliet “sneller en langer te groeien” dan bij andere teams gebeurde, stelt Rao.
Het spierweefsel reageert op uitwendige stimuli zoals elektrische pulsen en chemische signalen.
Researchers have grown the first functioning human muscle tissue from skin cells reprogrammed into stem cells.
Credit: Duke University.
In muizen
Ze implanteerden de spiervezels ook in volwassen muizen, waar ze overleefden en gedurende minstens drie weken functioneerden, hoewel ze “niet zo sterk” waren als natuurlijk weefsel.
De vorsers hopen dat hun techniek zal leiden tot het kweken van “een eindeloze hoeveelheid” werkende spieren waarop medicijnen en genbehandelingen voor degeneratieve spierziektes kunnen getest worden.
New research is in hot pursuit of life’s first energy-producing reactions.
Image credits Jim Peaco, National Park Service.
What’s life worth if one can’t enjoy a good meal, right? Or, failing that, any meal at all? Not very much, since our bodies need to turn that food into fuel to keep going — and they have very sophisticated mechanisms on hand to do just that.
Our cells turn oxygen organic compounds, especially sugars, into energy and CO2 through a process known as cellular respiration. You may have been told in school that mitochondria, the specialized organelles which handle cellular respiration, ‘burn’ food to release energy, and that’s a pretty functional illustration of the process. The whole picture is, however, much larger that.
Energy-producing mechanisms in our body are often referred to as cycles — one of the most common ones is the citric acid / Krebs cycle. These are usually very complicated processes, and as such, are very difficult to wrap your head around and study them in the lab. Which is a pain if you’re the kind of scientist who’s trying to understand how these cycles came to be, where they first started from, and how they evolved. However, new research could offer these researchers the lucky break they need.
A team led by Greg Springsteen, Professor at the Chemistry Department of Furman University, South Carolina, has identified what seems to be an ancient precursor of the citric acid cycle, one that could exist in the much less-refined conditions of early Earth and sustained early life.
“It’s akin to looking at a modern roadway like Route 66,” Springsteen, who’s also affiliated with NASA Center for Chemical Evolution, Atlanta, explains.
“Wagon trails were templates for Route 66. The twists and turns of the modern pathways tell us about the challenges of the original route.”
The Krebs cycle works with a chemical known as pyruvate through a series of reactions over which the molecule changes its form (through subsequent addition/removal of atoms and molecules). The end results are energy and chemical bits and pieces to be used in other reactions throughout the body. Since organisms need a lot of energy, the Krebs cycle is propped up by specially-designed enzymes which make every step in the reaction go buttery-smooth. Because of all these extras pitching in, it can be hard to figure out how the cycle looked initially, and what chemicals could have sustained the process before the enzymes came along.
Image credits Greg Springsteen et al., 2017, Nature.
However, the team, which also included members from the Scripps Research Institute in California and two undergrads at Furman, found two compounds which could maintain a Krebs-like cycle in experiments mimicking conditions on early Earth. Christened the HKG- and malonate-cycles, the team says these processes are likely very similar to the pre-life versions of the reactions that keep us alive today.
They’re hugely less efficient than the Krebs cycle, but that was to be expected, given the lack of supportive enzymes. More importantly, however, they’re based on a similar chemical blueprint — both cycles turn a molecule called glyoxylate into CO2 and other molecules in the presence of an electron-capturing agent. They’re so similar, the authors’ hypothesis is that biology picked them up as it was and simply tweaked and improved upon them, leading to the reactionary cycles we see today.
“We think biology mapped itself onto preexisting chemical pathways on the early Earth,” said Springsteen.
As exciting as the findings may be, take them with a grain of salt. The team doesn’t yet have much to offer in regards to how the cycles evolved over time into today’s Krebs’, and they’re yet to find the reactions occurring naturally or to prove that they did so before life took hold on Earth. Still, the two new cycles have a lot going for them — the reactions occur in a neutral (not acidic or basic) environment and in a mild temperature range. “There were environments on the early Earth where these reactions were reasonable,” the authors note.
At the very least, they give us a possible starting point from which to expand our search.
The paper “Linked cycles of oxidative decarboxylation of glyoxylate as protometabolic analogs of the citric acid cycle” has been published in the journal Nature.
ISS astronaut Norishige Kanai (first from right) grew 9 cm taller in only 3 months in space.
Credit: NASA.
Free from the pressure of gravity, the spine can relax and temporarily expand almost like an unwinded coiled spring. This is why all astronauts stationed at the International Space Station grow taller during their stint there. But the case of Japanese astronaut Norishige Kanai, who arrived at the station on Dec. 19, 2017, was extreme by all accounts, though. In the three weeks since he arrived at the ISS, Kanai claimed he had grown a staggering 3½ inches (9 centimeters) — the most he’s “grown in 3 weeks since junior high school,” the astronaut tweeted.
Typically, a normal stint at the International Space Station will see people grow about two inches taller. But every human body is different and sometimes you get these freak occurrences at the high end of the bracket.
“Good morning, everybody,” Kanai wrote on twitter. “I have a major announcement today. We had our bodies measured after reaching space, and wow, wow, wow, I had actually grown by as much as 9cm!”
“I am a little worried I won’t fit in my seat on the return trip on Soyuz,” Kanai said more jokingly than serious.
Each seat on the Russian Soyuz TMA spacecraft actually molds to the body of each astronaut to ensure a tight fit during atmospheric re-entry which can be quite the bumpy ride. You can’t be taller than 6 feet 3″ to hitch a ride, which is why anyone around that limit isn’t allowed to the ISS.
After receiving so much media coverage, Kanai’s captain questioned the astronaut about his height and the two performed a new measurement. Turns out Kanai’s initial measurement wasWAY off. Apparently, the 41-year-old Japanese astronaut had stretched only 2 cm from his Earth-bound height.
Kanai tweeted: “This mis-measurement appears to have become a big deal, so I must apologize for this terrible fake news … It appears I can fit on the Soyuz, so I‘m relieved.”
Kanai didn’t explain how he arrived at this ‘mis-measurement’ but it sure is weird After all, he is an astronaut — a person who is trained in avionics and space engineering, which should entail being able to tell an inch from three inches.
The real talk
If growing a couple inches taller might sound appealing to some of you, know that it’s only temporary since astronauts slip back to their normal height once they touch down on Earth. Actually, growing taller can only mean trouble in space where every cubic inch counts.
Growing tall on the ISS is a fleeting experience but there are really far more concerning effects zero gravity has on the human body. Scientists are only beginning to understand what long-term weightlessness is doing to human biology but already we know some things aren’t good at all. For instance, astronauts hurt their vision since the retina gets pushed forward, arteries can become clogged due to plaque buildup, and thousands of genes switch on and off.
If humanity ever becomes a space-faring species, we shall have to confront the effects of weightlessness and conquer them. In the meantime, stints made by brave astronauts on the ISS will teach us many valuable lessons.
Google Earth images have now surfaced of an object bearing a startling similarity to artist’s impressions of the plane.
The silvery shape was spotted at the end of a runway in the swamplands of the Sunshine State, US.
According to Tyler Glockner – who uploaded the clip to his YouTube channel secureteam10 – the area belongs to an aerospace company that has a “main foothold in designing aircraft engines that are widely used in civilian and military aviation”.
“That gives us a hint they work with secretive things,” he added.
YOUTUBE
MYSTERY: A strange craft spotted in Florida could be the USAF's secret hypersonic warplane
“What you’re seeing is a very mysterious object.
“I haven’t been able to find out what this is.
“It is no public aircraft that has been disclosed.
“You can see that this thing looks like a hypersonic aircraft or spacecraft.”
More than 390,000 people have seen the clip and were quick to offer their suggestions.
“Definitely seems to match the images of that fast jet, but why would they leave it in the open?” one asked.
Another agreed, saying: “Not very secret if they're out in the open for anyone to see!”
But a third wrote: “These look like powerboats, could be something else but there is a massive lake not far away.”
The New York Times and Politico both reported on the programme
The belief in aliens visiting Earth via spacecraft was given greater validity last year following reports by both The New York Times and Politico Magazine of the secretive Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program (AATIP).
This was coupled with a video released by the Department of Defence which shows a two Navy F/A-18F fighter jets and an unknown object near San Diego.
But, some experts in UFO studies think the release was merely a test to gauge public reactions to set people up for really big news about aliens.
Retired nuclear physicist and a long-time investigator and lecturer on the UFO phenomenon, Stanton Friedman, said: "I can't say I know why things are coming out at this time.
"I appreciate the courage of those former officials who came forth.”
He also criticised debunkers who advocate listening for alien signals but “ignore the tone of evidence of alien visitors”.
According to Steven Aftergood of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, the purpose of the AATIP is “threat identification”.
He added: "But the fact that this program was initiated at the request of Senator Reid — not the Air Force — suggests that national security was not the paramount motivation here.
"It is somewhat dismaying to see how quickly 'unidentified' aerial phenomena are publicly interpreted and portrayed as UFOs of possibly extraterrestrial origin.
”Collectively, we should all be becoming more intelligent and more perceptive, not more stupid and gullible."
President and scientific director of the J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies in Chicago, Mark Rodeghier, said he was initially sceptical of UFOs.
But, after looking through hundreds of reports by witnesses, he became convinced that UFOs deserve serious study.
Speaking of the AATIP, he said the sightings "confirms something that has been believed for many years … that these sightings are still happening, we just were not learning about them”.
He said he hopes the core AATIP information that has been gathered can be released to the public and made available for scientific study.
He added: "It would be extremely disappointing and frustrating if these reports are not released for scrutiny. We need high-quality data about UFOs to do better science.
"If those reports are never released, all of this is going to be blip in UFO history.
GETTY
Mark Rodeghier said he was initially sceptical of UFOs
"But even if it's only a blip in history, it's still a darn interesting blip."
A spokesman for the Scientific Coalition for Ufology (SCU), Alejandro Rojas, said the revelation of the AATIP is evidence the US Government has been researching the phenomenon for years, despite claiming no interest in the phenomenon since 1969.
Mr Rojas advocates the scientific study of UFOs and believes all information regarding them should be released so the data can be properly analysed scientifically.
He said: "Remember, the 'U' is for unidentified, not alien. We don't know what these things are.
GETTY
The US Air Force had a programme called Project Blue Book
“Just because we get uncomfortable with the idea of aliens does not mean we should not investigate when the people who pilot our most advanced technology say they encounter something that outclasses their aircraft.
“It would be highly negligent not to investigate."
Between 1952 and 1969, the US Air Force’s official UFO-investigation programme called Project Blue Book came to the following conclusions:
No UFO reported, investigated and evaluated has ever indicated a threat to our national security; there is no evidence that sightings categorised as "unidentified" represent technological developments or principles beyond the range of present-day scientific knowledge, and there is no evidence that sightings categorised as "unidentified" are extraterrestrial vehicles.
Performs Flight Attendant duties aboard Company operated aircraft.
Reports to Operations one (1) hour before scheduled flight or as otherwise assigned by supervisor.
Post/Pre-flights aircraft as assigned.
Perform light cleaning of aircraft interiors.
Active Top Secret Clearance Highly Desired
Wait, what? That sounds like the typical job description of a typical flight attendant. However, Janet is anything but typical, which explains that last qualification. Are you interested in flying in and out of Area 51? Are you willing to serve coffee to any passenger – no matter how many arms they have or how big their heads are? Can you keep your big mouth shut about it? Janet is looking for you.
As anyone who knows anything about Area 51 will tell you, Janet is a mysterious airline operating out of a terminal at Las Vegas’ McCarran International Airport that is rumored to fly military and contract employees to the Nevada National Security Site (home of Area 51), and other secretive sites, including Edwards Air Force Base (California), Hill Air Force Base (Utah) and Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (Ohio). Anyone asking questions about it is jokingly (and occasionally nervously) told Janet stands for “Just Another Non-Existent Terminal.” It has six Boeing 737-600s painted white with a red stripe and five executive turboprops painted white with blue stripes.
That’s it. Nothing else to see here. Move along. Any more questions and those men over their in black with the blue gloves will see you in that small room to the right that no one ever comes out of.
Well, that’s normally the case when you try to dig deeper into this airline. However, Janet has opened itself up for scrutiny with the flight attendant job posting on the website of AECOM, the defense contractor which operates it.
“AECOM is a place where you can put your innovative thinking and business skills into high gear and work alongside other highly intelligent and motivated people. It’s a place where you can apply your skills to some of the world’s most challenging, interesting, and meaningful projects worldwide.”
That sounds like a nice place to work, especially if you like living in Las Vegas where all Janet employees are allegedly based. The duties sound like those of flight attendants at any other airline: ensures security practices and procedures are followed; provide leadership, direction, and assistance during an emergency, including aircraft evacuation; assist and administer first aid to ill or incapacitated passengers or crew members; push heavy doors weighing up to 80 pounds; possess a current state driver’s license.
Is this why Janet flight attendants need top security clearance?
And then there’s the big one: Active Top Secret Clearance Highly Desired.
That’s not easy to get. A person cannot apply for it – the application must come from a current or prospective employer. The process can take up to two years due to the high number of background checks required. Individuals with Top Secret Clearance are assumed to have access to information or material that could be expected to cause “exceptionally grave damage to national security if it was released without authorization.” The clearance must be reinvestigated every five years.
Does this job sound like something more than checking seat belts. Closing overhead doors and passing out pretzels?
If you think you can handle it, applications are now being taken. Whatever you do, don’t say you got the information from me.
Does anyone in the world NOT know the story of Noah and his DIY wooden ark filled with family and animals (not necessarily in that order)? After all, it’s been retold many times in many tomes, including the Old Testament, the Quran, the Ethiopian Orthodox Book of Jubilees, the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Epic of Gilgamesh and has spawned hunts for its existence and amusement parks recreating the experience. And yet … a Turkish academic claims all of these have the story wrong. He believes Noah built his ark with steel plates, propelled it with nuclear power, sent a drone to look for dry land, communicated with his son via cellphone and was able to save all of the world’s species because he filled the ark with not pairs of animals but sperm and eggs. Really!
“I am a scientist, I speak for science”
Yavuz Ornek, a lecturer at the Marine Sciences Faculty of Istanbul University, made these bold ‘scientific’ revelations in a recent appearance on a talk show on Turkey’s TRT channel that was translated by Hurriyet Daily News . He based his alternative flood narrative on the idea that the waves were too massive and the distances too far to allow mere wood and doves to function successfully.
“There were huge 300 to 400-metre-high waves and his [the Prophet Noah’s] son was many kilometers away. The Quran says Noah spoke with his son. But how did they manage to communicate? Was it a miracle? It could be. But we believe he communicated with his son via cellphone.”
How many bars do you have on your phone?
If you believe that people living 5.000 to 7,000 years ago – the time when many archeologists suggest an historical deluge occurred and inspired the various accounts of Noah – had modern technology such as cellphones (and towers) to communicate over great distances, it’s not a stretch for Ornek to extrapolate that other advanced (and not-so-advanced) technologies such as nuclear power, drones and steel allowed Noah to build a ship to withstand and sail through 1,300-foot waves and survey the area while buffeted by high winds that would have kept birds from flying.
But in vitro fertilization? That would certainly allow Noah to build a much smaller ark filled with Petri dishes and beakers stored in nuclear powered coolers … right? Remember, Ornek is a “scientist” who speaks “for science,” not religion, so he is looking for scientific solutions to 7,000-year-old problems and, since wood, nails, doves and pairs of animals don’t solve the problem, he solves it with what he knows best – modern technology.
If only there was a better way.
But … how did Noah get this modern technology? Not surprisingly, Ornek doesn’t answer that question. However, if one accepts even just some of the ancient astronauts/aliens theories, is it that farfetched to think that the same beings who helped build the pyramids might have also aided in constructing the ark and saving life on earth? Sure, if they had that kind of knowledge and power, a better choice might be to stop the flood, but what kind of stories and movies would that inspire?
Since he’s in Turkey, perhaps Professor Ornek should join in on one of the expeditions to find the ark on Mt. Ararat. And bring a Geiger counter.
We hear a lot of tales of crashed UFOs and dead aliens secretly taken to well-guarded government facilities for study. But, what about cases where the incident/discovery went down in the heart of the sensitive facility itself? That’s altogether quite another thing. I’ll share two such stories with you, one from the U.K. in the 1990s, and the other from the United States in the early part of the 1980s. Both are deeply weird, but for extremely different reasons. As will soon become apparent.
Porton Down is an installation located in the English county of Wiltshire. Its overwhelmingly-classified work focuses to a very significant degree on exotic viruses, chemical-warfare and biological-warfare. Although work at Porton Down originally, and secretly, began at the height of the tumultuous First World War, it was not until the dawning of the 1940s that the installation became the central hub for British interest in, and concerns relative to, the expanding realms of chemical- and biological-warfare. From 1946 onward, one year after the successful defeat of Nazi Germany, Porton Down’s work began to focus more on the defensive – rather than chiefly offensive – aspects of such issues, and in 1957 the installation was duly christened the Microbiological Research Establishment.
By the late-1970s, a decision was made to place the MRE under the control of a civil body. As a result, significant reorganization duly occurred: on April 1, 1979, the MRE became the Center for Applied Microbiology and Research. Then, in 1995, it was absorbed into the Defense Evaluation and Research Agency. Six years later, there was yet another change: DERA split into two organizations, a private body called QinetiQ, and the Defense Science and Technology Laboratory, a body steeped in official secrecy, as a result of the fact that it is an arm of the Ministry of Defense. After that, the facility became known as DSTL, Porton Down.
View of Porton Down
All of which brings us to a very strange story. Jonathan Downes is the director of the U.K.-base Center for Fortean Zoology. But, it’s not just strange creatures like Bigfoot, Nessie, and Mothman that have attracted Downes’ attention. It’s the issue of Crop Circles too. For years, there have been rumors of classified, military/government investigations into the Crop Circle phenomenon in the U.K.
Downes publicly stated something that may have had a bearing on those same rumors. He said, in 2000: “I am aware that midway through 1996 on land adjacent to the Government’s chemical and biological research establishment at Porton Down, Wiltshire, a Crop Circle was found. When it was first seen, the circle was still in the process of being formed and had actually been surrounded by both troops and police who had cordoned off the area.”
I have heard variations on this very odd story over the years, suggesting that an intricate formation was indeed found within the grounds of Porton Down in the mid-90s. Whether it was the work of fence-jumping circle-makers of a very human mind, or the work of something much stranger, is very much still open to debate. Of course, if the formation really was forming as the police and the military watched on, then that effectively rules out a human connection. Moving onto Area 51…
From 2003 to 2009 I lectured at Ryan Wood’s annual UFO Crash-Retrieval Conference, which was held in Las Vegas, Nevada. As is so often the case at such conferences, an attendee came up to me at the 2008 event with a very strange story to tell. Aged around thirty he said that his now-retired father had worked out at Area 51 in the early 1980s, specifically in the development of Stealth technology for military aircraft. The guy said that on several occasions, in the 1990s, he had asked his father about the rumors of crashed UFOs and dead aliens held at the secret vase. His father said that the only thing he knew about aliens at Area 51 came from watching TV shows. Indeed, he told his son that he had never seen any evidence at all of alien-related activity at Area 51. But, there was one strange event that the man was willing to share with his son – and which was then shared with me.
The story told to me was that on one occasion in January 1981, a pedal bike was found deep in a remote part of the vast amount of land that is collectively known as Area 51. Yes, a bicycle. The highly-sophisticated sensors that are carefully placed all around the facility had picked up the sudden presence of something not far from one such sensor. So, a security team was quickly sent out to investigate. It was that team, I was told, which found the bike. But, there was something very strange about the bicycle: it was extensively damaged – as if it had plummeted to the ground from a great height.
Had it fallen from an aircraft? Probably not! It’s a fact that unauthorized flights over Area 51, and in the immediate vicinity, are treated very seriously. Any such event over the base would have resulted in drastic (maybe even deadly…) action. And, of course, the base would likely have gone on lock-down. Even NASA’s astronauts have almost found themselves in trouble for photographing the facility from space.
The guy who shared the story with me said that the finding of the bike was a matter of deep concern: how had it got there? Where was the rider? Who was the rider? Why did the bike look like it had fallen from a great height? There were no answers. As a result, the investigation was finally closed down. Quiet and concerned discussion of the weird affair apparently continued for quite some time though, among those who had heard of it. The whole thing, the man told me, became a bit “of a legend.”
Extra-terrestrial Hypatia stone rattles solar system status quo
Extra-terrestrial Hypatia stone rattles solar system status quo
Date:
January 9, 2018
Source:
University of Johannesburg
Summary:
Analyses on a small pebble found in south-west Egypt cast significant questions on a widely-held view about the primitive pre-solar dust cloud which our Sun, Earth and other planets were formed from. Researchers found exotic micro-mineral compounds in the 'Hypatia' stone that are not known to occur on Earth, elsewhere in our solar system, or in known meteorites or comets
FULL STORY
Researchers Jan Kramers and Georgy Belyanin found mineral compounds unlike anything on Earth, or in known meteorites or comets, in these fragments from the Hypatia stone, which was picked up in south-west Egypt in the Libyan Desert Glass Field.
Credit: Dr Mario di Martino, INAF Osservatorio Astrofysico di Torino
In 2013, researchers announced that a pebble found in south-west Egypt, was definitely not from Earth. By 2015, other research teams had announced that the 'Hypatia' stone was not part of any known types of meteorite or comet, based on noble gas and nuclear probe analyses.
(The stone was named Hypatia after Hypatia of Alexandria, the first Western woman mathematician and astronomer.)
However, if the pebble was not from Earth, what was its origin and could the minerals in it provide clues on where it came from? Micro-mineral analyses of the pebble by the original research team at the University of Johannesburg have now provided unsettling answers that spiral away from conventional views of the material our solar system was formed from.
Mineral structure
The internal structure of the Hypatia pebble is somewhat like a fruitcake that has fallen off a shelf into some flour and cracked on impact, says Prof Jan Kramers, lead researcher of the study published in Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta on 28 Dec 2017.
"We can think of the badly mixed dough of a fruit cake representing the bulk of the Hypatia pebble, what we called two mixed 'matrices' in geology terms. The glace cherries and nuts in the cake represent the mineral grains found in Hypatia 'inclusions'. And the flour dusting the cracks of the fallen cake represent the 'secondary materials' we found in the fractures in Hypatia, which are from Earth," he says.
The original extraterrestrial rock that fell to Earth must have been at least several meters in diameter, but disintegrated into small fragments of which the Hypatia stone is one.
Weird matrix
Straight away, the Hypatia mineral matrix (represented by fruitcake dough), looks nothing like that of any known meteorites, the rocks that fall from space onto Earth every now and then.
"If it were possible to grind up the entire planet Earth to dust in a huge mortar and pestle, we would get dust with on average a similar chemical composition as chondritic meteorites," says Kramers. "In chondritic meteorites, we expect to see a small amount of carbon{C} and a good amount of silicon (Si). But Hypatia's matrix has a massive amount of carbon and an unusually small amount of silicon."
"Even more unusual, the matrix contains a high amount of very specific carbon compounds, called polyaromatic hydrocarbons, or PAH, a major component of interstellar dust, which existed even before our solar system was formed. Interstellar dust is also found in comets and meteorites that have not been heated up for a prolonged period in their history," adds Kramers.
In another twist, most (but not all) of the PAH in the Hypatia matrix has been transformed into diamonds smaller than one micrometer, which are thought to have been formed in the shock of impact with the Earth's atmosphere or surface. These diamonds made Hypatia resistant to weathering so that it is preserved for analysis from the time it arrived on Earth.
Weirder grains never found before
When researcher Georgy Belyanin analyzed the mineral grains in the inclusions in Hypatia, (represented by the nuts and cherries of a fruitcake), a number of most surprising chemical elements showed up.
"The aluminum occurs in pure metallic form, on its own, not in a chemical compound with other elements. As a comparison, gold occurs in nuggets, but aluminum never does. This occurrence is extremely rare on Earth and the rest of our solar system, as far as is known in science," says Belyanin.
"We also found silver iodine phosphide and moissanite (silicon carbide) grains, again in highly unexpected forms. The grains are the first documented to be found in situ (as is) without having to first dissolve the surrounding rock with acid," adds Belyanin. "There are also grains of a compound consisting of mainly nickel and phosphorus, with very little iron; a mineral composition never observed before on Earth or in meteorites," he adds.
Dr Marco Andreoli, a Research Fellow at the School of Geosciences at the University of the Witwatersrand, and a member of the Hypatia research team says, "When Hypatia was first found to be extraterrestrial, it was a sensation, but these latest results are opening up even bigger questions about its origins."
Unique minerals in our solar system
Taken together, the ancient unheated PAH carbon as well as the phosphides, the metallic aluminum, and the moissanite suggest that Hypatia is an assembly of unchanged pre-solar material. That means, matter that existed in space before our Sun, the Earth and the other planets in our solar system were formed.
Supporting the pre-solar concept is the weird composition of the nickel-phosphorus-iron grains found in the Hypatia inclusions. These three chemical elements are interesting because they belong to the subset of chemical elements heavier than carbon and nitrogen which form the bulk of all the rocky planets.
"In the grains within Hypatia the ratios of these three elements to each other are completely different from that calculated for the planet Earth or measured in known types of meteorites. As such these inclusions are unique within our solar system," adds Belyanin.
"We think the nickel-phosphorus-iron grains formed pre-solar, because they are inside the matrix, and are unlikely to have been modified by shock such as collision with the Earth's atmosphere or surface, and also because their composition is so alien to our solar system," he adds.
"Was the bulk of Hypatia, the matrix, also formed before our solar system? Probably not, because you need a dense dust cloud like the solar nebula to coagulate large bodies" he says.
A different kind of dust
Generally, science says that our solar system's planets ultimately formed from a huge, ancient cloud of interstellar dust (the solar nebula) in space. The first part of that process would be much like dust bunnies coagulating in an unswept room. Science also holds that the solar nebula was homogenous, that is, the same kind of dust everywhere.
But Hypatia's chemistry tugs at this view. "For starters, there are no silicate minerals in Hypatia's matrix, in contrast to chondritic meteorites (and planets like the Earth, Mars and Venus), where silicates are dominant. Then there are the exotic mineral inclusions. If Hypatia itself is not presolar, both features indicate that the solar nebula wasn't the same kind of dust everywhere -- which starts tugging at the generally accepted view of the formation of our solar system," says Kramers.
Into the future
"What we do know is that Hypatia was formed in a cold environment, probably at temperatures below that of liquid nitrogen on Earth (-196 Celsius). In our solar system it would have been way further out than the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, where most meteorites come from. Comets come mainly from the Kuiper Belt, beyond the orbit of Neptune and about 40 times as far away from the sun as we are. Some come from the Oort Cloud, even further out. We know very little about the chemical compositions of space objects out there. So our next question will dig further into where Hypatia came from," says Kramers.
The little pebble from the Libyan Desert Glass strewn field in south-west Egypt presents a tantalizing piece for an extraterrestrial puzzle that is getting ever more complex.
The research was funded by University of Johannesburg Research council via the PPM Research Centre.
The researchers would like to thank Aly Barakat, Mario di Martino and Romano Serra for access to the Hypatia sample material; and Michael Wiedenbeck and his co-workers at the Geoforschungszentrum Potsdam, Germany for their collaboration.
Georgy A. Belyanin, Jan D. Kramers, Marco A.G. Andreoli, Francesco Greco, Arnold Gucsik, Tebogo V. Makhubela, Wojciech J. Przybylowicz, Michael Wiedenbeck. Petrography of the carbonaceous, diamond-bearing stone “Hypatia” from southwest Egypt: A contribution to the debate on its origin. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 2018; 223: 462 DOI: 10.1016/j.gca.2017.12.020
Deze bizarre ruimtesteen bevat iets wat nergens anders in ons zonnestelsel wordt gevonden
Deze bizarre ruimtesteen bevat iets wat nergens anders in ons zonnestelsel wordt gevonden
Een steen die in Egypte is gevonden, komt niet alleen niet van de aarde, maar bevat ook micromineralen die nergens anders op aarde, in andere meteorieten of waar dan ook in het zonnestelsel worden gevonden.
De ontdekking van de steen doet vragen rijzen over het ontstaan van het zonnestelsel.
De zogeheten Hypatia-steen werd in 2013 ontdekt in het zuidwesten van Egypte en vernoemd naar wetenschapper Hypatia van Alexandrië.
Helemaal uniek
Uit een analyse bleek dat de met diamant gevulde steen niet afkomstig was van een komeet of meteoriet en helemaal uniek was.
Onderzoekers van de Universiteit van Johannesburg hebben de steen opnieuw onderzocht en ontdekt dat de samenstelling van het materiaal anders is dan die van ander interplanetair materiaal dat op de aarde terechtgekomen is.
Ze stuitten daarnaast op mineralen die ouder lijken te zijn dan onze zon.
De steen moet onderdeel zijn geweest van een groter stuk rots dat een doorsnee heeft gehad van enkele meters.
Nog vreemder
Bijna alle meteorieten die op aarde vallen zijn chondrieten, die veel koolstof en veel silicium bevatten.
Hypatia bevat daartegen veel koolstof, maar zeer kleine hoeveelheden silicium.
“Nog vreemder is dat de matrix grote hoeveelheden zeer specifieke koolstofverbindingen bevat, die polyaromatische koolwaterstoffen worden genoemd,” zei hoofdonderzoeker Jan Kramers.
“Die maken onderdeel uit van interstellair stof, wat al bestond voordat ons zonnestelsel werd gevormd,” voegde hij toe.
Nóg vreemder
Andere ontdekkingen waren nóg vreemder. De onderzoekers troffen aluminium in zijn pure vorm aan, wat voor zover bekend zelden tot nooit voorkomt in het zonnestelsel.
Ze vonden bovendien een verbinding die grotendeels bestaat uit fosfor en nikkel, maar die geen ijzer bevat, een samenstelling die nog nooit eerder is gezien, niet op aarde en niet bij ander materiaal uit de ruimte.
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ER IS IETS GAANDE BOVEN NEDERLAND EN BELGIË
ER IS IETS GAANDE BOVEN NEDERLAND EN BELGIË
Wanneer één of misschien twee mensen vreemde geluiden horen in de lucht, dan is er misschien nog twijfel over of daar werkelijk iets vreemds aan de hand is.
Echter, na ons artikel enkele dagen geleden over vreemde geluiden boven Zuid- en Noord-Holland krijgen we nu reacties waar je maar één conclusie kunt trekken: Er is echt iets gaande.
We beginnen met Nederland, waar een lezer en haar collega beiden een vreemd geluid hebben gehoord. De één woont in Rijnsburg en de andere in Katwijk, dus grote kans dat beiden hetzelfde hebben gehoord.
De lezer stuurt (dank!) het volgende bericht:
Afgelopen donderdag 4-1-18 nacht kon moeilijk inslapen, hoorde ineens een enorm indringend zwaar motorgeluid alsof er een turbine boven me hing die stationair draaide op een plek, rond 02:38 uur AM
Bij vreemde geluiden ga ik altijd op mijn balkon kijken of er iets te zien is. De hemel was dicht bewolkt en ik zag dus niets, alleen een hele snelle felle rode flits. Het was een gevoel van een soort druk wat boven me hing en intuïtief leek het mij een heel groot object. Na 3of 5 minuten werd het geluid zwakker ik voelde dat het verder weg ging. Weer naar mijn bed gegaan en heb het geluid horen wegebben, maar het bleef piepen in mijn oren, wat ik wel vaker heb.
s 'Morgens op het lokale nieuws gekeken of iemand anders het ook had gezien, niets dus!
Ik woon in Rijnsburg.
Ik was niet thuis die dag, dus s 'avonds opende ik een mail van een jonge collega die diezelfde donderdagnacht is verstuurd, alleen heb ik dat niet meer gezien, met het volgende bericht over die donderdagnacht!
Mijn collega in Katwijk.
*Ik ben momenteel klaarwakker en er gebeurt me toch iets ontzettend raars! Ik hoorde opeens een heel laag en donker / duister geluid hier vlakbij mijn huis. Het was een hard geluid en echt heel duidelijk hoorbaar, alsof er een groot object met een niet ontzettend grote snelheid door de lucht heen vliegt.
Geen vliegtuig, die zijn hier binnen een minuut overgevlogen en het geluid is iets totaal anders. Een helikopter was het ook zeker niet, het is iets wat ik nog nooit gehoord heb! Nu het geluid minder sterk aanwezig is hoorde ik een soort van hoge trillende frequentie, die frequentie hoor ik nu nog steeds af en toe door de lucht. Ik hoor het geluid nu nog in de verte, samen met de hoge frequentie. Er cirkelt hier iets rond wat ik niet kan definiëren. Er zijn ook steeds windvlagen. HAARP? Iets met het weer beïnvloeden? Heel creepy dit. Heb wat op internet gespeurd en er zijn meer mensen die dit horen.
Naast Rijnsburg en Katwijk, kregen we ook een melding binnen (dank!) van twee dames die een vergelijkbaar geluid hoorden in Amsterdam en "dit best eng" vonden klinken.
Drie verschillende waarnemingen op drie verschillende plaatsen in ons land en allemaal in het westen.
Naar aanleiding van bovenstaande, ontvingen wij een aantal reacties (dank!), waaronder de volgende uit Roosendaal, weliswaar iets zuidelijker dan de eerdere waarnemingen, maar weer in het westen van het land:
Ook ik heb al meerdere malen een soort brommend geluid boven mijn gezinswoning gehoord die lijkt alsof er een zware motor van een auto stationair staat te draaien.
Zowel ‘s nachts als ‘s avonds en die houdt dan wel ruim 20 minuten tot een half uur aan.
Ik heb mijn hele leven al een piep in de oren. Ik ben tevens ook helderhorend en heldervoelend en helderziend en helderruikend en daardoor ook veel gevoeliger dan andere voor dit soort zaken.
Tijdens wandelen met mijn hondje heb ik al paar keer zoals ook vanochtend dat ik in mijn oren en ook paar keer ‘s nachts, dat ik ineens gerommel in mijn oren krijg alsof er water in mijn oren zit en soms alsof iemand ineens hard op mijn oor slaat zoals ook afgelopen nacht.
Wat mij opviel dat ik iets in de lucht hoorde, iets van een vliegtuig of een vaartuig maar kan het niet waarnemen.
Mijn oren reageren laatste veel meer dan anders op allerlei geluiden uit de lucht.
Er is daarboven iets gaande wat ze stil voor ons houden.
Ik heb soms ook een beetje angstig gevoel alsof er iets gaat komen.
Ik heb dingen uit de toekomst gezien en tegen soortgelijke als ik vertel ik wel eens iets waaronder ook dat erg veel sciencefiction films op waarheden zijn gebaseerd, maar omdat wij zo dom gehouden worden denken veel mensen dat het fantasiefilms zijn.
Telkens als ik zowel bij jullie als bij andere onafhankelijke sites bevestigingen krijg op wat ik al gezien heb en al weet stuur ik deze door naar mijn kennissen die op hetzelfde niveau als ik zitten om te laten zien dat ik alweer eens gelijk had..
Inmiddels geloven ze mij nu wel hoor haha.
En dan het volgende bericht, dit keer vanuit Antwerpen:
Hierbij wil ik graag reageren op uw artikel van zondag jongstleden. Ik ben woonachtig in de streek rond Antwerpen stad.
Gisterennacht was er bij ons ook een bromgeluid te horen.
Ik geef toe ik ben een lichte slaper maar gisteren kon ik absoluut de slaap niet meer vatten, erger nog, ik ben van het geluid wakker geworden.
Echter ik heb geen flauw idee van wat de oorzaak van het geluid was. Het leek alsof er in de slaapkamer een motor in neutraal stond te draaien.Ik dacht dat het mijn inbeelding was maar toen las ik "toevallig" jullie artikel. En ineens viel het eurootje.
Ik ben overal in huis gaan "luisteren" en op geen enkele verdieping of in geen enkele kamer leek het geluid minder hard.
Het was alomtegenwoordig. Het was ook erg luid en vooral vervelend. Ik vraag me af of ik hetzelfde heb gehoord als uw andere lezers.
Het kan natuurlijk echt inbeelding zijn, maar iets doet me toch reageren op uw artikel.
Deze waarneming is nog verder zuidelijk en inmiddels al niet meer in Nederland, maar België, maar wel weer in het westen.
En de volgende:
Ik las het verhaal van 4 Januari, en ik heb dit geluid ook vernomen. Een laag, brommend geluid. Leek wel motorisch.
Ik lag al in bed maar hoorde dit lage, soort motorisch geluid. Ik ben gewend aan geluid van laagvliegende vliegtuigen, maar dit was zekers anders.
Het geluid was duidelijk hoorbaar. En alsof het heel langzaam bewoog. Of rond cirkelde. Het geluid was constant, niet zoals met een vliegtuig wat je aan hoort komen, boven je vliegt en weer verder vliegt.
Ik weet nog dat ik lag en dacht..dit kan geen vliegtuig zijn, want dit duurt te lang. Dit geluid..
Het motorische geluid duurde zekers minuten. Net of er een vliegtuig stationair boven mijn huis stond te draaien. Met die tijd is het vliegtuig al lang verdwenen normaliter.
Ik moet zeggen dat het mij wel een vreemd gevoel gaf. Ik voelde gewoon dat dit geen vliegtuig kan zijn. Trouwens ik woon ook in Zuid-Holland, Roelofarendsveen.
Ik las het verhaal en moest echt hier even op reageren want het was een bijzondere rare ervaring...
Dit keer weer wat meer naar het noorden, maar wederom in het westen.
Het is duidelijk dat er "iets" was dat deze mensen hebben waargenomen. Het zijn er teveel verschillende om toeval of verbeelding te kunnen zijn.
De enige houvast die we hebben, is dat ze allemaal zijn waargenomen aan de westkant van Nederland en België.
Er is iets gaande: Maar wat? Suggesties of ervaringen zijn welkom.
What caused the Bright Flash that turned night into day over Russia on Jan 7, 2018?
What caused the Bright Flash that turned night into day over Russia on Jan 7, 2018?
A mysterious bright flash turned night into day over a huge area of Russia on January 7, 2018. The phenomenon was seen and felt over thousands of miles in Russia, especially in the regions Bashkortostan, Udmurtia, and Tatarstan.
The flash accompanied by large explosions, whereby even the ground was shaking and moving according to witnesses was blamed on a UFO visitation or a meteor exploding in the atmosphere.
Russian officials and scientists immediately denied that there had been a Russian missile test or any reported space rock crashing to earth, but it is clear that something unprecedented has taken place in the sky.
It reminds us the Tugunska event from June 30, 1908 when a huge explosion, which came out of nowhere, ripped through the air above a remote forest in Siberia, near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River and flattened 2,000 square kilometers of forest.
It is said that in the Tugunska case, a UFO has destroyed itself by crashing into an object to save Russia with as a result that the object is thought to have disintegrated at an altitude of 5 to 10 kilometers rather than to have hit the surface of the earth.
In South Texas, government agents patrol a barrier line that snakes some 500 miles along the course of the Rio Grande. Their mission: to protect their country from would-be invaders. But these aren’t the U.S. Border Patrol—they’re employees of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. And their purpose is to keep out the ticks that carry cattle fever, a deadly bovine disease endemic to Mexico.
The USDA’s “tick riders,” as they are called, are tasked with keeping infected cattle from straying deeper into Texas, where the deadly fever poses a serious threat to the beef industry. Whenever they find a stray or infected cow, they track it down and dip it in pesticide to kill the ticks and prevent them from spreading. Yet despite their best efforts, the tick riders’ challenge has recently increased, as more and more of the hardy ticks find their way across the border.
A large part of the problem is that cattle fever ticks also have another host: Nilgai antelope, a species native to India that was imported to North America in the 1930s as an exotic target for game hunters. These antelope, like the ticks themselves, and the pathogen they carry, are considered an invasive species. They are cursed not only for their role as a disease vector, but because they eat native plants and compete with cattle for food.
That’s why, unlike native white-tailed deer—which also host ticks—they are subject to an unrestricted hunting season, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service sponsors regular Nilgai hunts in protected areas.
The differences in how authorities treat domesticated cattle, native deer and wild, imported antelope illustrate a stark divide in ecology. For decades, both scientists and laypeople have referred to organisms like the Nilgai as “alien,” “exotic” and “invasive.” But as long as ecologists have warned about the danger of invasive species, others have asked whether this kind of language—which carries connotations of war and xenophobia—could cloud the science and make rational discussion more difficult.
In the same border region, U.S. immigration officers patrol their own line, looking for signs of illegal human immigration into the United States. If caught, these immigrants—often referred to as “aliens” by the media or even “illegals” by the president—face arrest and deportation. The parallel has not been lost on those who study invasive species. In a recent essay, New School environmental studies professor Rafi Youatt wrote that a trip to Texas left him contemplating “the opposition of invasiveness to nativeness and purity” and “the many ways that invasiveness attaches to both human and nonhuman life.”
In an era of renewed focus on borders, it’s hard to ignore the similarities between how we talk about non-native animals—hyper-fertile “foreigners” colonizing “native” ecosystems—and the words some use to discuss human immigration. And as international relations have become more heated, so too has the debate among researchers over the pointed rhetoric we use to talk about animals, plants and micro-organisms that hail from elsewhere.
As cattle fever ticks expand their range, “tick riders” patrol a 500-mile quarantine line to protect U.S. cattle populations. (Texas A&M)
Charles Darwin was perhaps the first to posit the idea that introduced species might outcompete natives. In 1859, he wrote that “natural selection … adapts the inhabitants of each country only in relation to the degree of perfection of their associates,” so organisms that evolved under more difficult conditions have “consequently been advanced through natural selection and competition to a higher stage of perfection or dominating power.” It would be another 125 years before invasion ecology coalesced as a subfield. But by the 1990s, it was driving public policy.
Today, governments and non-profits dedicate considerable resources to controlling invasive species. The U.S. and Canada spend tens of millions of dollars a year to keep Asian carp out of the Great Lakes. Eurasian garlic mustard is a common target of volunteer weed-pulls organized by local parks departments. Estimates of the number of invasive species vary widely: according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, there may be as many as 50,000 non-native species in the United States, including 4,300 that could be considered invasive.
The devastation wrought by these plants, animals and microbes has inspired both desperate and creative measures—from government-sponsored eradication of non-natives off entire islands to restaurants that put invasive species on a plate. These efforts are motivated by very real concerns about economics, the environment and human and animal health. But the idea that non-native species are inherently undesirable also has a dark history.
In the 19th century, European and American landscape architects expressed a patriotic pride that was sometimes tinged with nativist suspicion of “foreign” plants. In the 1930s, the Nazis took this concept to the extreme with a campaign to “cleanse the German landscape of unharmonious foreign substance.” One target was an unassuming Eurasian flower, Impatiens parviflora, which a 1942 report condemned as a “Mongolian invader,” declaring, “[A]n essential element of this culture, namely the beauty of our home forest, is at stake.”
Today’s critics of invasive species rhetoric are quick to clarify that they aren’t calling their colleagues racist. But Macalester College ecologist Mark Davis, for one, questions whether our modern campaign against non-native species has gone too far.
Davis is perhaps the field’s most notorious heretic, lead author of a widely-read 2011 essay in the journal Nature, co-signed by 18 other ecologists, that argued for judging non-native species based on environmental impact rather than origin. He believes that invasion ecology has been led astray by its central metaphor: the idea that non-native species are invading native ecosystems, and that we are at war with them.
“Militaristic language is just so unscientific and emotional,” says Davis. “It’s an effective way to bring in support, but it’s not a scientific way.”
Fishers use electrofishing to stun and capture Asian carp, a non-native species that threatens the Great Lakes. (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)
The idea of invaders from elsewhere, whether human, animal or vegetal, taps into one of the bedrocks of human psychology. We form our social identity around membership in certain groups; group cohesion often relies on having a common enemy. Fear of contamination also drives human behavior, an impulse frequently evident in rhetoric about so-called “illegal immigrants” whom President Trump has declared—erroneously—to be bringing “tremendous infectious disease” across the border.
Davis does not dispute that many non-native species are harmful. Novel viruses like Zika and Ebola clearly threaten human health. Long-isolated animals on islands or in lakes have been quickly wiped out after new predators arrived along with humans. But he argues that most introduced species are harmless, and some are even beneficial. The U.S. government has spent 70 years trying to eradicate tamarisk shrubs from the Southwest, for example, but it turns out the plants are now a preferred nesting spot for an endangered songbird.
Inflammatory rhetoric may be counterproductive, encouraging us to expend resources fighting problems that are not really problems, says Davis. “The starting point should not be that these are dangerous species,” he says. “You need to focus on what they do. We’re taught, don’t judge people because of where they come from—it should be the same with novel species.”
Many of Davis’s colleagues argue the opposite: that it’s dangerous to assume non-native species are innocent until proven guilty. Numerous examples from history back them up: In 1935, farmers carried two suitcases of South American cane toads to Australia, hoping they would eat the beetles that plagued their sugar cane crop; today, more than 1.5 billion of the toxic amphibians have spread across the continent, poisoning native animals who try to eat them. Brown tree snakes, inadvertently imported to Guam after World War II, wiped out all the island’s native birds.
Daniel Simberloff, a respected ecologist at the University of Tennessee, is one of Davis’s colleagues who disagrees with his approach. In fact, he compares Davis and others who share his views to people who—despite overwhelming scientific consensus—deny the existence of climate change. “So far it hasn’t been as dangerous as climate denial,” Simberloff says, “but I’m waiting for this to be used as an excuse not to spend money [on controlling invasive species.]”
Simberloff is the author of the 2013 book Invasive Species: What Everyone Needs to Know, a book aimed at policy-makers, land managers and others who are working to fight the spread of invasive species. He recoils at the idea that the work of modern invasion biology, and the language scientists use to talk about it, has any relation to xenophobia against humans. Military language, he says, is often simply an accurate description of the threat and the necessary work of mitigating it.
“If we’re allowed to say ‘war on cancer,’ we should be allowed to say ‘war on cheatgrass,’” he says, referring to the prolific Eurasian weed that has fueled increasingly intense wildfires throughout the Western United States. “Does it help generate policy and higher-level activities that would not otherwise have been? Maybe. Legislators are not scientists and are probably motivated by colorful language—‘They’ve made a beachhead here,’ ‘We’ve got to put out this fire,’ or what have you.”
Tamarisk shrubs, like this one in Greece, were long considered an undesirable invasive species in the American southwest. Today, conservationists recognize the plant as a valuable nesting site for endangered songbirds. (blickwinkel / Alamy)
Still, Simberloff has noted a gradual shift in vocabulary among his colleagues over the past decade, which he reasons has to do with greater awareness of the political implications of certain words—especially words we also use to talk about people. Today, for example, few American scientists use the word “alien” to refer to these species, despite its continued appearance in books and articles directed at a general audience.
“It has a pejorative connotation now in the U.S.,” Simberloff explains. “People tend to say ‘non-indigenous’ or ‘non-native’ now.”
Outside of academia, there is also evidence that conservation workers who confront invasive species directly are moving away from military metaphors. In a recent paper for the journal Biological Invasions, researchers at the University of Rhode Island interviewed New England land managers working on coastal marshes and found that they no longer spoke of the now-common invasive reed Phragmites australis in militaristic terms.
Instead of “trying to battle with, kill, eradicate, or wage war upon Phragmites in coastal ecosystems,” the managers tended to discuss the reed in the context of ecosystem resilience. They even went so far as to note the ability of Phragmites to build up elevation as sea levels rise, perhaps mitigating the impact of climate change on vulnerable marshland.
These shifts in metaphor and terminology are necessary, says Sara Kuebbing, a post doc in ecology at Yale who was a student of Simberloff’s.
“Terms like ‘alien’ and ‘exotic’ have a lot of baggage,” she says. “We’re such a young field, and in the beginning everyone used their own terms to describe non-native species, but I don’t think they were thinking very deeply about the social implications of these words. Consolidating around consistent terminology is really important for the field, and for us to communicate to others, to help people understand the difference between non-native and non-native invasive species as we translate science into policy and management.”
A shift in rhetoric isn’t the only way that international border disputes impact ecology. Today, human-made borders interrupt natural environments, making it harder to control invasive species and protect ecosystems.
The challenge is more than physical. The United States and Canada depend on one another to keep Asian carp from reaching the Great Lakes, for example. And while U.S. border agencies like the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service make numerous references to their role as “our first line of defense” against “alien species,” scientists say that this sort of fortification can only hold so long without communication and cooperation between neighboring countries, trade partners, indigenous groups and local communities.
On the tick line in South Texas, the resurgence of cattle fever and the looming threat of vector-borne pathogens spreading with climate change has made the importance of cross-border cooperation especially clear. While there is no vaccine in the United States, Mexico does have one. The problem? It’s made in Cuba, and despite research showing its effectiveness against one of the two cattle tick species, sensitive international politics have delayed its approval for widespread use north of the border.
The prospect of a vaccine is “exciting,” says Pete Teel, an entomologist at Texas A&M. Meanwhile, however, violent drug cartels in Mexico represent a new complication, as they threaten to make wildlife control and quarantine enforcement more dangerous. While scientists in both countries are eager to work together, the darker side of human nature—our violence, greed and fear of the foreign—is always poised to interfere.
“Despite whatever is going on elsewhere, people are working to manage this, and ideas move back and forth between Texas and Mexico,” Teel says. “But everything is intertwined across the border.”
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )
Fransen geloven echt massaal in complottheorieën. Dit zijn de meest populaire
Fransen geloven echt massaal in complottheorieën. Dit zijn de meest populaire
De CIA was verantwoordelijk voor de moord op John F. Kennedy. De Britse inlichtingendienst MI6 vermoordde prinses Diana. De aarde is plat. De Amerikanen zijn nooit op de maan geweest. Complottheorieën te over en in Frankrijk geloven ze er heilig in.
Maar liefst acht op de tien Fransen zeggen in tenminste één zo’n theorie te geloven, blijkt uit een onderzoek waarover de Franse media maandag publiceren.
Het ministerie van Volksgezondheid spant samen met de farmaceutische industrie om te verbergen dat vaccins schadelijk kunnen zijn, gelooft 55 procent van de Fransen.
Aidsvirus
Onlangs verhoogde de Franse overheid het aantal verplichte vaccins voor alle pasgeboren baby’s naar 11.
De betrokkenheid van de CIA bij de moord op de Amerikaanse president JFK in 1963 vindt 54 procent geloofwaardig.
Een derde denkt dat het aidsvirus is gemaakt in laboratoria en is getest op de Afrikaanse bevolking voordat het een epidemie werd.
Serieuze twijfels
Een vergelijkbare hoeveelheid is ervan overtuigd dat terreurbewegingen Al Qaida en Islamitische Staat in werkelijkheid onder het gezag van geheime diensten in het Midden-Oosten staan.
Bijna de helft van de Fransen gelooft in gestuurde migratie van moslims naar Europa en denkt dat de elite blanke mensen wil vervangen door immigranten.
Maar liefst één op de vijf Fransen heeft serieuze twijfels bij de officiële versie van de aanslag op de redactie van Charlie Hebdo, inmiddels drie jaar geleden.
Complot
Bijna 20 procent van de Fransen vindt dat er nog altijd flink wat onduidelijkheid bestaat rond de aanslag en dat alles wat in kranten en op radio en tv is verteld, niet altijd correct is.
Drie procent gelooft zelfs dat de hele aanslag een complot was ‘waarin de geheime dienst een cruciale rol speelde’.
Meer geneigd
Jongeren zijn meer geneigd in complottheorieën te geloven dan ouderen, blijkt ook uit het onderzoek van Ifop.
Volgens de Franse organisatie Conspiracy Watch is de samenleving ‘tot een verontrustende mate doordrongen’ van dergelijke ideeën.
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:News from the FRIENDS of facebook ( ENG )
NU OOK NEDERZETTING ONTDEKT OP DE MAAN ( VIDEO )
NU OOK NEDERZETTING ONTDEKT OP DE MAAN ( VIDEO )
Er komt steeds meer aandacht voor onze maan en dan in het bijzonder sinds de Chinezen zijn begonnen met het fotograferen van het maanlandschap.
Na de verklaringen van de voormalig CIA piloot over bewoners van de maan en de vondst van een ruimteschip, hebben de Chinezen nu iets vastgelegd dat lijkt op een nederzetting.
De maan blijft ons bezighouden, want als we er binnenkort in slagen om de werkelijke rol van deze kunstmatige constructie te ontrafelen, kon dat wel eens het begin worden van echte Disclosure.
We beginnen vandaag echter met een kritische noot van een lezer (dank!). Het betreft hier de Youtube gebruiker Streetcap1, de man uit Schotland die regelmatig met nieuwe ontdekkingen komt, vaak rondom het ISS ruimtestation, maar ook vreemde zaken op de maan.
Volgens deze lezer kan het allemaal niet en is die Streetcap1 niet te vertrouwen. Hij schrijft het volgende:
Streetcap1 vind van alles en nog wat op NASA foto's, die NASA blijkbaar "vergeten" opkuisen is. NASA maakt volgens mij zo'n fouten niet. Maar nu vind Streetcap1 ook al onregelmatigheden op foto's van CLEP.
Zoals jullie vermelden, fotograferen Chinezen alles. Dus er moeten tienduizenden, zo niet honderdduizenden foto's gemaakt zijn door CLEP. Net zoals NASA honderdduizenden foto's moet hebben gemaakt, als het er niet meer zijn.
Streetcap1 kan best een programma geschreven hebben, om bv. opvallende vlekken op die foto's te detecteren.
Ik weet dat mijn, of eender welke andere game computer, die beelden vlug kan verwerken, want die zijn op maat gemaakt door de eigenaars zelf, om beelden te verwerken van de games die we spelen, zonder dat een game "lagged", maar niet aan het tempo waarmee Streetcap1 "ontdekkingen" doet.
Zoals vroeger gezegd, vind ik het eigenaardig, dat er niemand anders op aarde, uitgezonderd Streetcap1, met zo'n ontdekkingen naar buiten komt. Want Streetcap1 kan niet de enige zijn, die die beelden onderzoekt.
Kijk naar de processing power die nodig is om bitcoins te mijnen. Die kan niet veel groter zijn dan de processing power die nodig is om duizenden beelden per uur te analyseren, maar Streetcap1 doet het thuis op z'n pc?!?
Er klopt iets niet met Streetcap1.
Wat er dan niet klopt met Streetcap1 is niet duidelijk, maar bij deze de waarschuwing voor "what it's worth", zoals ze in het Engels zeggen.
Wij volgen Streetcap1 al jaren, zijn eigenlijk bij hem gekomen via de bekende Scott C. Waring die al jarenlang video's van Streetcap1 gebruikt. Wat wij weten van de man is dat hij inderdaad hele dagen voor zijn PC doorbrengt, een Facebookpagina heeft onder de al dan niet werkelijke naam George Orwell Smith, dat hij niet zo gek lang geleden een aantal video's publiceerde vanuit het ziekenhuis waar hij een open hart operatie moest ondergaan.
Door de jaren heen hebben wij Streetcap1 niet op wat voor hoax dan ook kunnen betrappen en natuurlijk zijn er wel keren geweest waar hij iets zag in bepaalde foto's waar wij het niet mee eens waren of niet zagen wat hij erin zag, maar voor zover ons bekend heeft hij nog nooit (opzettelijk) nepdingen gepubliceerd. Dat wil natuurlijk niet zeggen dat het niet zou kunnen en als er iemand wel bewijs van heeft, dan horen we dat graag.
Onlangs publiceerden wij een artikel met daarin afbeeldingen van een door Streetcap1 gevonden afbeelding van iets dat verdacht veel lijkt op een ruimteschip.
Nu komt dezelfde Streetcap1 met een foto die eveneens door de Chinezen is genomen, waarop duidelijk een aantal structuren op het maanlandschap te zien zijn.
Wat het ook moge zijn, duidelijk is dat het niet natuurlijke is, maar door intelligente wezens gebouwde constructies.
Dit wordt nog duidelijker wanneer van de foto naar het negatief wordt gekeken en je opeens iets ziet dat het veel lijkt op een soort nederzetting op de maan.
In de video hierna legt Streetcap1 zelf nog een aantal bijzonderheden uit van de door hem ontdekte afbeelding.
Hij heeft nog een tweede video gepubliceerd, dit keer gebaseerd op een ontdekking van een NASA foto. Streetcap1 weet niet wat het door hem gevonden object moet voorstellen, maar zegt ook dat door de hoek van 90 graden je hier absoluut niet te maken hebt met een natuurlijk fenomeen.
De originele foto van NASA is hier te vinden en wanneer je met je muis over de afbeelding scrolt, wordt deze groter en zal je misschien verbaasd zijn om te ontdekken dat er nog wel meer vreemde dingen te zien zijn op die foto.
Met andere woorden, iedereen die de tijd neemt om oude en/of recente maanfoto's te doorzoeken, kan bijzondere ontdekkingen doen.
Conflicting reports about the supposed loss of a secret spy satellite have begun to swirl after a seemingly successful mission. SpaceX contends that it fulfilled its duty without a hitch.
WHAT HAPPENED?
Conflicting reports are surfacing after SpaceX’s seemingly successful launch of a Falcon 9 rocket with a secret government payload, code-named Zuma. While it appeared that the launch went off without a hitch, the full launch and separation of the nose cone, which surrounded the secret satellite, was not streamed as it normally is, due to the classified nature of the mission.
Reports coming from the Wall Street Journaland Bloomberg are claiming that Zuma burned up upon reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere. These reports are partially based upon a briefing supposedly given to lawmakers and congressional staffers indicating that the satellite did not separate from the rocket as planned.
SpaceX did not report any problems with the launch; however, while the company usually announces a successful launch regardless of the classification of the payload, no confirmation was given by SpaceX or Northrup Grumman, the company that manufactured the secret satellite.
Futurism reached out to SpaceX and obtained the following statement from Gwynne Shotwell, President and COO of SpaceX, “For clarity: after review of all data to date, Falcon 9 did everything correctly on Sunday night. If we or others find otherwise based on further review, we will report it immediately. Information published that is contrary to this statement is categorically false. Due to the classified nature of the payload, no further comment is possible.”
STICKING THE LANDING
To confuse matters further, the Falcon 9’s first stage was able to successfully landback on Earth, indicating that the rocket was still fully operational.
Even more so, the US Strategic Command added an entry to its Space-Track catalog of artificial objects orbiting the planet, indicating that the new satellite was able to make at least one orbit. That was before another confusing piece was added: their spokesman Navy Captain Brook DeWalt stated that Strategic Command had “nothing to add to the satellite catalog at this time.” This could either indicate that there is nothing to add in addition to the new satellite entry, or that the Zuma satellite is no longer in orbit.
The conflicting reports, coupled with the seemingly incongruous aftermath, are adding a rocket-load of mystery to an already mysterious launch.
Yet SpaceX seems confident that it played its part in the Zuma mission well, and the company does not foresee this mission disrupting its schedule. According to Shotwell, “Since the data reviewed so far indicates that no design, operational or other changes are needed, we do not anticipate any impact on the upcoming launch schedule.”
She continued: “Falcon Heavy has been rolled out to launchpad LC-39A for a static fire later this week, to be followed shortly thereafter by its maiden flight. We are also preparing for an F9 launch for SES and the Luxembourg Government from SLC-40 in three weeks.”
It’s rarely a good sign when things unexpectedly fall from the sky. It’s worse when those things are living or recently dead creatures. It’s probably a sign of extremely unusual weather when some of the creatures are frozen while others are cooked alive. Is it climate change? Or something worse? During a week of freaky hot and cold spells, residents of Florida saw icy iguanas dropping from the sky while people in Australia were bombarded by fried flying foxes boiled to death by the heat. Worried yet?
A number of news sources in southern Florida reported about people finding rigid iguanas in their yards or around their pools during the sub-40 degrees Fahrenheit temperatures caused by the recent so-called ‘bomb cyclone’ that iced the east coast of the U.S. One reporter covering the phenomenon was hit by a falling iguana while driving. The lizard came back to life and ran off, leaving a huge crack in the reporter’s windshield.
Which one doesn’t belong?
Social media posts showed people carrying stiff iguanas by the tail – a practice quickly rejected by wildlife experts who warned that these non-Floridian invaders were merely in a state of hibernation due to the cold and would not be happy when awaked upside down with a human on their tail or when they find bruises due to falling frozen from trees. It’s better to use this opportunity to trap them, according to Kristen Sommers, who oversees the nonnative fish and wildlife program for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. She told CBS News:
“This provides an opportunity to capture some, but I’m not sure it’s going to be cold enough or long enough to make enough of a difference. In most cases, they’re going to warm back up and move around again, unless they’re euthanized.”
Meanwhile, in the air down under where it’s summertime … (Australia)
The Campbelltown-Macarthur Advertiser reports that 111.5 degrees Fahrenheit (44.2 degrees Celsius) temperatures in Campbelltown, New South Wales, knocked a colony of flying fox bats out of their trees near the town’s train station. The flying foxes are favorites of locals, so Kate Ryan, the colony manager, organized volunteers to help rescue them.
“They basically boil. It affects their brain — their brain just fries and they become incoherent.”
Over 200 of the flying foxes (Pteropus poliocephalus), which can have wingspans over a meter (3.3 feet) and weigh over 1 kg (2.2 lbs.) were found dead on the ground, with more caught in the trees. Ryan said most of the dead were babies whose smaller bodies were unable to regulate their temperature. Fortunately, the heatwave has dissipated and the flying foxes are back to eating insects and pollinating fruit trees.
Until the next mysterious crisis (is it really that mysterious?) knocks the iguanas and the flying foxes out of the sky again.
Workers repair a power line near the wall of a local zinc plant which was damaged by a shockwave from a meteor in the Urals city of Chelyabinsk, on Feb. 15, 2013.
(Oleg Kargopolov/AFP/Getty Images)
A blazing light turned night into day over much of Russia on Jan. 8, sparking speculation that North Korea was launching a nuclear attack, —or that the Russian government was testing a new weapon.
Not so, said members of the government and the scientific community. it was just a common meteor.
Many Russian citizens who saw—and felt—the incident are not convinced.
Artyom Russkikh saw the flash, and also felt a shock wave.
“We saw this while driving—there was a vibration and the sound of explosion in the sky. Awesome,” he told The Siberian Times.
“What was it? A meteor, a rocket from space, UFO, North Korea?”
Another witness, Firaya Zaripova, opined: “Probably it was the testing of some military weapon, if even the ground was shaking.”’
The epicenter of the explosion seemed to be over the Ural mountains, in the areas of the Udmurtia, Bashkortostan, and Tatarstan.
Ilnaz Shaykhraziev told the Daily Mail, “I saw the flash in Menzelinsk. There was also the sound of an explosion and then a vibration, I felt it.”
Menzelinsk is about 250 miles north of Kazakhstan and 500 miles east of Moscow, and about 150 miles east of Kazan, the capital of Tatarstan.
One reason residents of the trans-Ural region might suspect a man-made source for this explosion, is that this is not the first. There have been many extremely bright flashes and explosions through the past several years over west-central Russia.
A meteor exploded over Central Russia in February of 2013, injuring about 1,200 people. That blast was centered over Chelyabinsk, a city about 950 miles east of Moscow, Reuters reports.
Another flash was seen in February 2014, over the Kola peninsula, about 600 miles north of Moscow. According to Military.com, the flash was seen around 2:10 a.m. on Feb. 21, and was silent—there was no sound and no shock wave.
This astronomical object lit up the skies on April 19, 2014.
November 14, 2014 several people in the Sverdlovsk region of Russia, also in the Ural Mountains, filmed the night sky bursting into a bright orange-red fireball that quickly dissipated.
Just a Meteor
Astronomers from Kazan Federal University claim that there was nothing man-made about the phenomenon—it was a simply a meteor which exploded in the atmosphere.
“This was a bolide, when all substance burns in atmosphere and doesn’t reach Earth,” Dr. Sergey Golovkin, of Kazan University’s Physics Institute, told The Siberian Times.
“It is accompanied by a loud bang.
“It could have been a fragment of a spacecraft that burnt, but normally it takes them more time to enter the atmosphere, thus they can be observed for longer.
“This was a bolide that burnt in the dense layers of the atmosphere which is why it was seen over such a big territory. We didn’t register the flash because there was strong blizzard on this night.”
Yet not all Russia’s scientists agreed.
Yuri Nefefyev, director of the Engelhardt Astronomical Observatory, said the apparent explosion was, in fact, a massive discharge of atmospheric electricity.
“There are a huge number of effects linked to atmospheric electricity, many of which are not properly studied because of how rarely they occur,” he told The Siberian Times.
One witness, Denis Rozenfeld, told the Daily Mail that he agreed with the scientists.
“A meteor burned out, not reaching the lower layers of the atmosphere. Before this, it exploded and split into many small pieces. That is why there was such a sound, which came to us in a few seconds.”
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Classified documents reveal base was site for secret spy plane programs
If you’re passionate about the high skies, UFOs and top secret activity, put in your two weeks’ notice: the opportunity of a lifetime has officially arrived. As of Jan. 8, the U.S. government is looking to staff flights run by the U.S. Air Force that reportedly travel to Area 51.
According to a new job posting on AECOM, flight attendants are needed on planes that will depart from Las Vegas’ McCarran International Airport, apparently taking government and contract employees to the highly classified area located in the middle of the Nevada desert, Travel + Leisure reports.
The duties are not for the faint of heart, however — the job description details that candidates “must be level-headed and clear thinking while handling unusual incidents and situations” such as severe weather conditions, weather or mechanical delays, hijackings or bomb threats. Moreover, candidates must be able to operate aircraft doors weighing up to 80 lbs., administer first aid, and brief passengers on standard procedures, ensuring that safety protocol is followed.
In addition to holding a high school degree, state issued driver’s license and be skilled in jet aircraft emergency training, requirements also specify that the crew member must “qualify for and maintain a top secret government security clearance and associated work location access.” In other words, “active top secret clearance” from the government is “highly desired.”
Nevertheless, former British Ministry of Defense UFO investigator Nick Pope told the Daily Mail that though Area 51 is certainly part of a military testing range, the new hires will likely not have any extraterrestrial responsibilities in the mysterious region.
“The UFO and conspiracy theory community think it's the place where crashed UFOs are kept and where the U.S. military are trying to back-engineer this alien technology,” Pope said of Area 51. “Sadly, despite the rumors, I've seen no evidence that we've recovered any extraterrestrial technology.
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )
UFO Legacy: What Impact Will Revelation of Secret Government Program Have?
UFO Legacy: What Impact Will Revelation of Secret Government Program Have?
By Leonard David, Space.com's Space Insider Columnist
Believers in aliens visiting Earth's friendly skies via Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) couldn't ask for more: A secretive government group backed by federal "black money," a talkative former U.S. military intelligence official, fighter-jet video of odd objects doing out-of-this-world maneuvers and a space mogul purportedly housing leftovers of unidentified aerial craft.
It all has the feel of sliding open a top drawer in a new "X-Files" TV episode.
Yes, "the truth is out there," a maxim made all the stranger by reports last month by both The New York Times and Politico Magazine of the secretive Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program, or AATIP for short. Along with the reporting, a video was released by the Department of Defense showing a 2004 encounter near San Diego involving two Navy F/A-18F fighter jets and an unknown object. [UFO Watch: 8 Times the Government Looked for Flying Saucers]
Behind the scenes
AATIP was originated by then-United States Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who garnered taxpayer dollars to start the program in 2007, along with the support of the late senators Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) and Ted Stevens (R-Alaska).
But behind the scenes is Robert Bigelow of Bigelow Aerospace, a Harry Reid political donor in Nevada. A hefty chunk of the AATIP's $22 million budget over five years was reportedly given to Bigelow's company to hire subcontractors and carry out research for the program.
Now toss into the mix Luis Elizondo, the former intelligence officer who ran the AATIP, which initially was under the wing of the Defense Intelligence Agency. He resigned from the job last October, advising CNN post-departure that it was his personal belief "that there is very compelling evidence that we may not be alone."
Elizondo also told CNN that the craft studied by AATIP "are displaying characteristics that are not currently within the U.S. inventory nor in any foreign inventory that we are aware of." [7 Things Most Often Mistaken for UFOs]
Turning point
Jan Harzan, the executive director of the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), sees the eye-opening reporting as a "turning point in the study of UFOs." He said his organization is excited about the events beginning to unfold "and feel[s] the public and everyone on this planet should be as well."
MUFON has been investigating and researching the UFO phenomenon since 1969, Harzan said. The group's analysis of over 100,000 UFO reports over the past five decades has shown three things to be true, he has stated:
1. UFOs are real
2. UFOs represent extremely advanced technology
3. Tremendous breakthroughs will happen if we make it safe for our scientists and engineers to study this phenomenon unimpeded. These breakthroughs involve the fields of propulsion, energy, communication, biology and consciousness, to name just a few.
The recently released fighter-jet camera video of craft off the coast of San Diego "is just the tip of the iceberg," Harzan said. "Our military vaults are full of such videos and data on these objects. Now that the spill gates have been opened a little, it is time for the rest to come out in an orderly fashion," he added, "and in so doing make it safe for our scientists and engineers to study this phenomenon without fear of ridicule or retribution, but with funding provided by Congress and private industry." [UFO Watch: 8 Times the Government Looked for Flying Saucers]
Reported UFOs take on all shapes and sizes.
Credit: UK National Archives sightings chart circa 1969.
No national security threat
The new revelation about the AATIP is evidence that the U.S. government has been researching and taking this issue seriously for decades, despite claiming no interest in the phenomenon since 1969, said Alejandro Rojas, spokesman for the Scientific Coalition for Ufology (SCU).
Indeed, between 1952 and its termination in 1969, the U.S. Air Force's official UFO-investigation program, known as Project Blue Book, came to the following set of conclusions: No UFO reported, investigated and evaluated by the Air Force has ever given any indication of threat to our national security; there has been no evidence submitted to or discovered by the Air Force that sightings categorized as "unidentified" represent technological developments or principles beyond the range of present-day scientific knowledge; and there has been no evidence indicating that sightings categorized as "unidentified" are extraterrestrial vehicles.
Advanced technology
Rojas endorses the scientific study of the UFO phenomenon and believes that all information regarding unidentified aerial objects should be released so that the data can be properly analyzed by the scientific community.
"Remember, the 'U' is for unidentified, not alien," said Rojas, who is also director of operations for Open Minds Production.
"We don't know what these things are," Rojas told Space.com. "Just because we get uncomfortable with the idea of aliens does not mean we should not investigate when the people who pilot our most advanced technology say they encounter something that outclasses their aircraft. It would be highly negligent not to investigate."
Another striking point in the recent disclosure, Rojas added, is that the incidents "are very similar to events that have been recorded by the U.S. Air Force and other governments for decades."
Tone of evidence
There is one head-scratcher: Why release this information now? Some see it as a trial balloon to take the pulse of citizens' reactions. Is the public being set up for the really big news about alien visitors?
"I can't say I know why things are coming out at this time," said Stanton Friedman, a retired nuclear physicist and a long-time investigator and lecturer on the UFO phenomenon.
"I appreciate the courage of those former officials who came forth," Friedman said. He criticized debunkers who advocate listening for alien signals "but ignore the tone of evidence of alien visitors."
Small program, little to show
Robert Sheaffer is a writer and one of the leading skeptical investigators of UFOs.
In his summary of recent events, Sheaffer notes that Robert Bigelow has been a strong believer in UFOs and alien visitors all his life. He was a campaign contributor to Sen. Reid and some of Reid's causes and persuaded Reid that the military budget ought to include funds for the study of UFOs.
The AATIP is a small program by Pentagon standards, Sheaffer said; it ultimately spent just $22 million over five years.
"Who knew it apparently only takes three senators to set up a secret Pentagon project?" Sheaffer said.
Funding for the AATIP activity was discontinued in 2012, Sheaffer said, "because it was not producing any results, just reams of paper, although the investigation is reported to still be continuing, but without funding, if that is possible."
"They have only released two very blurry infrared videos of objects that appear to be distant jets, without sufficient information to do a really good analysis of them," he added. "So, ultimately, all you have are a few UFO believers in and outside government who were able to get away with funneling a few million Pentagon dollars to themselves for UFO research, and have very little to show for it." [Ten Alien Encounters Debunked]
Bigelow Aerospace president Robert Bigelow has a long-standing interest in UFOs.
Credit: Bill Ingalls/NASA
UFO artifacts
Sheaffer said that what is really interesting is the statement in The New York Times story that, under Bigelow's direction, the aerospace company "modified buildings in Las Vegas for the storage of metal alloys and other materials that Mr. Elizondo and program contractors said had been recovered from unidentified aerial phenomena."
If that's true, Bigelow supposedly has actual artifacts from UFOs, Sheaffer said, "and in fact has such a large quantity that he needs to modify his buildings to accommodate them? That is just utterly bizarre. We need an explanation of exactly what buildings were modified at federal expense, and what do they contain?" he said.
Purpose of the program
"Threat identification is obviously an important task," said Steven Aftergood of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, D.C.
"But the fact that this program was initiated at the request of Senator Reid — not the Air Force — suggests that national security was not the paramount motivation here," Aftergood said. This impression, he said, is reinforced by the fact that a constituent of Sen. Reid (Robert Bigelow) received funding through the program.
"It is somewhat dismaying to see how quickly 'unidentified' aerial phenomena are publicly interpreted and portrayed as UFOs of possibly extraterrestrial origin," Aftergood concluded. His advice: "Collectively, we should all be becoming more intelligent and more perceptive, not more stupid and gullible."
Serious study
"It is complicated, and I am still trying to make sense of things," said Mark Rodeghier, president and scientific director of the J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies in Chicago, Illinois.
The center was started by Hynek, who served as the astronomical consultant to Project Blue Book. Hynek himself was initially dubious of the whole UFO business, but after culling through hundreds of reports by witnesses, he became convinced UFOs were worthy of serious study.
In broad terms, the outing of the AATIP and its investigation of military UFO sightings "confirms something that has been believed for many years … that these sightings are still happening," Rodeghier said. "We just were not learning about them."
Blip in UFO history?
Rodeghier said he hopes the core of AATIP information that has been gathered can be released to the public and made available for scientific analysis.
"It would be extremely disappointing and frustrating if these reports are not released for scrutiny. We need high-quality data about UFOs to do better science," Rodeghier said.
"If those reports are never released, all of this is going to be blip in UFO history," he added. "But even if it's only a blip in history, it's still a darn interesting blip."
Leonard David is author of "Mars: Our Future on the Red Planet," published by National Geographic. The book is a companion to the National Geographic Channel series "Mars." A longtime writer for Space.com, David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.
A mysterious bright flash turned night into day over a huge area of Russia - sparking fears the US had launched a strike on North Korea.
The explosion of light accompanied by the 'ground shaking' was also blamed on a UFO visitation or a meteor exploding in the atmosphere.
The phenomenon was seen and felt over thousands of miles in Russia, but was especially evident in three regions Bashkortostan, Udmurtia, and Tatarstan.
Russian officials and scientists immediately denied that there had been a Russian missile test or any reported space rock crashing to earth.
A mysterious bright flash turned night into day over a huge area of Russia, prompting fears the US had launched a strike on North Korea. This was the scene in the region of Tatarstan as the sky turned blue in the middle of the night
The explosion of light accompanied by the 'ground shaking' was also blamed on a UFO visitation or a meteor exploding in the atmosphere. Pictured: The sky over Tatarstan during the mysterious explosion of light
Videos show how for a few moments the dark night sky - just after midnight in the Urals - was lit up, turning a vivid blue as if on a bright summer's day.
'It lit the night sky from side to side, making it look brighter than daylight,' said one account.
'We saw this while driving - there was a vibration and the sound of explosion in the sky, awesome,' said Artyom Russkikh, a reported by The Siberian Times, which collected witness statements of the flash on the night following Russian Orthodox Christmas Day this week.
He asked: 'What was it? A meteor, a rocket from space, UFO, North Korea?'
Firaya Zaripova commented on the light show in the early hours of Monday morning: 'Probably it was the testing of some military weapon, if even the ground was shaking.'
But there were denials Vladimir Putin had ordered any military tests that could have produced this dramatic scene.
Videos show how for a few moments the dark night sky - just after midnight in the Urals - was lit up, turning a vivid blue as if on a bright summer's day
There were denials Vladimir Putin had ordered any military tests that could have produced this dramatic scene
Ilnaz Shaykhraziev said: 'I saw the flash in Menzelinsk. There was also the sound of an explosion and then a vibration, I felt it.'
Another witness Denis Rozenfeld said: 'A meteor burned out, not reaching the lower layers of the atmosphere.
'Before this it exploded and split into many small pieces. That is why there was such a sound, which came to us in a few seconds.
'It's a funny coincidence that such a rare phenomenon for our region has happened right over Christmas.'
Reports of similar flashes have occurred three times in 12 years in Russia. Yet experts were split on the cause of the flash.
Reports of similar flashes have occurred three times in 12 years in Russia. Yet experts were split on the cause of the flash
Astronomers from Kazan Federal University in Tatarstan insisted there was a space link
Yuri Nefefyev, director of the Engelhardt Astronomical Observatory, claimed atmospheric electricity was behind the eerie night-to-day explosion of light.
'There are a huge number of effects linked to atmospheric electricity, many of which are not properly studied because of how rarely they occur,' he said.
Astronomers from Kazan Federal University in Tatarstan insisted there was a space link.
'This was a bolide, when all substance burns in atmosphere and doesn't reach Earth,' said Dr Sergey Golovkin, of the university's Physics Institute.
'It is accompanied by a loud bang. It could have been a fragment of a spacecraft that burnt, but normally it takes them more time to enter the atmosphere, thus they can be observed for longer.
'This was a bolide that burnt in the dense layers of the atmosphere which is why it was seen over such a big territory.
'We didn't register the flash because there was strong blizzard on this night.'
If you were excited about the signs of life reportedly spotted on Mars, it’s might be time to reign in your expectations. The tube-like structures identified by Curiosity were probably formed by geology, not biology, mission team members say.
The troublesome structures captured by Curiosity on Jan. 2, 2018, using its Mars Hand Lens Imager. The tubular structures were likely created by crystalline growth, mission team members said.
Image credits NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS.
News that Curiosity stumbled upon fossilized traces of life took the Internet by storm a few days ago. And I get it — Mars is just so tantalizingly right for our first encounter with extraterrestrial life, no matter how dead the latter may be. The planet’s dry as a brick now, but we know it used to have water and a proper atmosphere. It’s relatively close-by, enough so that we actually stand a chance of getting there in the mid-future, but it’s still largely unexplored and mysterious as of now. I too, if I may use a cliche, want to believe.
NASA however, as they tend to do, comes to nip those hopes in the bud. The tubular structures spotted on Mars were probably formed by growing crystals, not burrowing creatures, members of the Curiosity mission said.
“When we looked at these things close up, they’re linear, but they’re not tubular in the sense of being cylinders; they’re actually quite angular,” said Ashwin Vasavada of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
“They have kind of a square or a parallelogram sort of cross section and form at angles to each other when there’s multiple of them together. And all of that’s pretty reminiscent of crystalline growth.”
The team suspects that the structures are either crystals or molds left in the rock when sediments hardened around pre-existing crystals. While that’s less exciting than finding life, it’s not an inconsequential find at all — both scenarios (the second one a bit more) would require quite a lot of liquid water, suggesting that the area Curiosity is roaming around right now was abundantly wet in Mars’ past. The whole area, a flank of the towering Mount Sharp, is pretty elevated as well — over 300 meters (1,000 feet) vertically above the rover’s initial landing site on Gale Crater.
Curiosity found ample evidence for the existence of a (now dry) groundwater network and an ancient lake-and-stream system on the crater’s floor and along the mountain’s lower slopes. The team is confident that evidence of Mars’ transition from a warm and wet world to the cold, dry place it is today remained locked in the mountain’s rocks. The rover is still to find that transition zone, however, and will continue its ascent until it does so.
Everything considered the chances that this will be our first taste of alien life look slim. It’s not impossible that the tubes are trace fossils of life on Mars, it’s just not very likely given what we know so far. And, as someone who’s gone fossil-hunting in the field, I can confirm that it’s really hard to distinguish trace fossils from weird, but random, shapes left over as geology does its stuff. So making a bullet-proof case that these really are fossils would be extremely difficult on Mars.
“We just, unfortunately, may not have the ability with Curiosity to tell that,” Vasavada said.
The rover has two instruments it can use to analyze the structures. The first is a laser-touting ChemCam, supplemented with the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS). These devices can be used to gauge the little tubes’ chemical make-up, but they’ve proven themselves difficult targets. The structures are only about 1 millimeter (0.04 inches) wide by 5 millimeters (0.2 inches) long. Still, Vasavada is confident we’ll have the results within the next week, and with them, we could get the answers we so crave.
Untill then, as the rover tweeted, science continues.
Meanwhile, back on Mars... I’m checking out these stick-like figures. Each is about a quarter-inch long. Maybe they're crystals? Or they could be minerals that filled spaces where crystals dissolved away. Stay tuned! Science continues.
U.S. Cargo Spacecraft Set for Departure from International Space Station
U.S. Cargo Spacecraft Set for Departure from International Space Station
The SpaceX Dragon cargo craft is pictured attached to the Harmony module of the International Space Station after it arrived on Dec. 17. 2017.
Credits: NASA
After delivering more than 4,800 pounds of science and supplies to the International Space Station, a SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft will depart the orbiting laboratory on Saturday, Jan. 13. NASA will provide live coverage of Dragon's departure beginning at 4:30 a.m. EST.
On Friday, Jan. 12, flight controllers will use the space station’s Canadarm2 robotic arm to detach Dragon from the Earth-facing side of the station's Harmony module. After Dragon is maneuvered into place, a ground-controlled command will release the spacecraft as NASA’s Expedition 54 Flight Engineers Joe Acaba and Scott Tingle monitor its departure at 5 a.m. Saturday.
Dragon’s thrusters will fire to move the spacecraft a safe distance from the station before SpaceX flight controllers in Hawthorne, California, command its deorbit burn. The spacecraft will splash down about 10:36 a.m. in the Pacific Ocean, where recovery forces will retrieve Dragon and approximately 4,100 pounds of cargo, including science samples from human and animal research, biology and biotechnology studies, physical science investigations and education activities. NASA will not provide coverage of the deorbit burn and splashdown.
NASA and the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), the nonprofit organization that manages research aboard the U.S. national laboratory portion of the space station, will receive time-sensitive samples from experiments conducted aboard the station and begin working with researchers to process and distribute them within 48 hours of splashdown.
Dragon, the only space station resupply spacecraft capable of returning science and cargo to Earth, launched Dec. 15 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida and arrived at the station Dec. 17 for the company’s 13th NASA-contracted commercial resupply mission to the station.
Get breaking news, images and features from the space station on social media at:
A 2004 encounter near San Diego between two Navy F/A-18F fighter jets and an unknown object.
Photo: NYTU.S DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
A group of former US defence officials and aerospace engineers have set up their own group to investigate UFOs.
Hey, Mr. Spaceman, Won’t you please take me along? I won’t do anything wrong. Hey, Mr. Spaceman, Won’t you please take me along for a ride?
So sang the Byrds in 1966, after strange radio bursts from distant galaxies called quasars had excited people about the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligence.
I recalled those words recently when reading the account of a pair of Navy pilots who were outmaneuvered and outrun by a UFO off the coast of San Diego in 2004. Cmdr. David Fravor said he had no idea what he had seen.
“But,” he added, “I want to fly one.”
His story was part of a bundle of material released recently about a supersecret $22 million Pentagon project called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, aimed at investigating UFOs. The project was officially killed in 2012, but now it’s being resurrected as a non-profit organisation.
Disgruntled that the government wasn’t taking the possibility of alien visitors seriously, a group of former defence officials, aerospace engineers and other space fans have set up their own group, To the Stars Academy of Arts & Science. One of its founders is Tom DeLonge, a former punk musician, record producer and entrepreneur, who is also head of the group’s entertainment division.
For a minimum of $200, you can join and help finance their research into how UFOs do whatever it is they do, as well as telepathy and “a point-to-point transportation craft that will erase the current travel limits of distance and time” by using a drive that “alters the space-time metric” — that is, a warp drive going faster than the speed of light, Einstein’s old cosmic speed limit.
What we know
While there is a lot we don’t know, there is also a lot we do know. We know that when physical objects zig and zag through a medium like air, as UFOs are said to do, they produce turbulence and shock waves. NASA engineers predicted to the minute when the Cassini spacecraft would dwindle to a wisp of smoke in Saturn’s atmosphere last fall.
UFO investigations are nothing new. Most UFO sightings turn out to be swamp gas and other atmospheric anomalies, Venus, weird reflections or just plain hoaxes. But there is a stubborn residue, a few percent that resist easy explication. But that’s a far cry from proving they are alien or interstellar.
As modern psychology and neuroscience have established, the senses are an unreliable portal to reality, whatever that is. The New York Times News Service
A 2004 encounter near San Diego between two Navy F/A-18F fighter jets and an unknown object.
Photo: NYTU.S DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
A group of former US defence officials and aerospace engineers have set up their own group to investigate UFOs.
Hey, Mr. Spaceman, Won’t you please take me along? I won’t do anything wrong. Hey, Mr. Spaceman, Won’t you please take me along for a ride?
So sang the Byrds in 1966, after strange radio bursts from distant galaxies called quasars had excited people about the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligence.
I recalled those words recently when reading the account of a pair of Navy pilots who were outmaneuvered and outrun by a UFO off the coast of San Diego in 2004. Cmdr. David Fravor said he had no idea what he had seen.
“But,” he added, “I want to fly one.”
His story was part of a bundle of material released recently about a supersecret $22 million Pentagon project called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, aimed at investigating UFOs. The project was officially killed in 2012, but now it’s being resurrected as a non-profit organisation.
Disgruntled that the government wasn’t taking the possibility of alien visitors seriously, a group of former defence officials, aerospace engineers and other space fans have set up their own group, To the Stars Academy of Arts & Science. One of its founders is Tom DeLonge, a former punk musician, record producer and entrepreneur, who is also head of the group’s entertainment division.
For a minimum of $200, you can join and help finance their research into how UFOs do whatever it is they do, as well as telepathy and “a point-to-point transportation craft that will erase the current travel limits of distance and time” by using a drive that “alters the space-time metric” — that is, a warp drive going faster than the speed of light, Einstein’s old cosmic speed limit.
What we know
While there is a lot we don’t know, there is also a lot we do know. We know that when physical objects zig and zag through a medium like air, as UFOs are said to do, they produce turbulence and shock waves. NASA engineers predicted to the minute when the Cassini spacecraft would dwindle to a wisp of smoke in Saturn’s atmosphere last fall.
UFO investigations are nothing new. Most UFO sightings turn out to be swamp gas and other atmospheric anomalies, Venus, weird reflections or just plain hoaxes. But there is a stubborn residue, a few percent that resist easy explication. But that’s a far cry from proving they are alien or interstellar.
As modern psychology and neuroscience have established, the senses are an unreliable portal to reality, whatever that is. The New York Times News Service
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Un gigantesque OVNI largue des orbes dans le ciel californien
Un gigantesque OVNI largue des orbes dans le ciel californien
Un gigantesque OVNI largue des orbes dans le ciel californien
De terrifiantes images ont récemment émergé sur Internet. Celles-ci nous montrent un énorme OVNI accompagné de petits orbes qui semblent se disperser dans le ciel. Pour certains, il s’agirait véritablement d’un « vaisseau-mère ».
Dans cette vidéo, on peut voir un grand objet lumineux blanc qui flotte dans le ciel bleu. Le cameraman s’interroge sur ce qu’il est en train de filmer. Et, il n’a apparemment aucun idée de quoi il s’agit.
Quelques instants plus tard et sans raison apparente, trois objets bien plus petits semblent être lâchés par le plus grand des vaisseaux.
Puis, cette mystérieuse formation se met à former un triangle avant de partir à une vitesse extraordinaire au loin.
Ces images ont été prises en Californie et ont été mises en ligne sur YouTube par « UFO Invasion ». La vidéo était accompagnée de la description suivante :
« Étaient-ce des orbes ou un type de spores extraterrestres comme dans le film ‘Invasion of the Bodysnatchers’ ? »
La vidéo a déjà été visionnée plusieurs milliers de fois.
Un internaute spécule : « Cette vidéo est très impressionnante ! Pour moi, cela ressemble à une ouverture de trou de ver que des orbes ou des OVNI utilisent pour entrer dans notre atmosphère … c’est juste une supposition. »
Un autre n’est pas tellement convaincu par l’hypothèse d’un engin alien : « Peut-être une sorte de drone ? Peut-être un MQ-25 équipé d’un réservoir ? J’ai vu d’autres vidéos similaires, mais à cette distance, il est difficile d’en juger. »
Ces derniers temps, il a été noté une augmentation inhabituelle du nombre d’observations d’OVNI.
En ce début du mois de janvier 2018, les images diffusées en direct par SpaceX d’Elon Musk ont été interrompues après qu’un OVNI ait été malencontreusement filmé.
In the clip, we see a large white glowing object floating high in the blue sky.
“Woah, what the f*** is that thing?” The cameraman questions.
Then, for no apparent reason, three smaller orbs seem to be dropped by the larger object.
“Wow, holy s***,” the bloke adds.
They then seem to rush off into the distance in a triangular formation, before the video ends.
SG/YOUTUBE
ALIEN INVASION? Orbs were spotted leaving a 'UFO mothership'
Captured in California, the footage was uploaded to YouTube channel UFO Invasion with the description: “Are they orbs or some type of alien spores like the Invasion of the Bodysnatchers film?”
The clip has clocked up over 1,000 views already with a number of concerned comments.
One read: “That's some serious s***!”
And another speculated: “This is very cool footage! To me this looks like a wormhole opening with orbs or crafts coming into our atmosphere.... just a guess.”
A third wasn’t so convinced though, adding: “A UAV carrier of some sort? Maybe the MQ-25 with some sort of drone drop tank? I have seen other videos similar to this, but at this distance it is hard to judge.”
It comes after a recent surge in the number of reported UFO sightings.
Earlier today, it was reported that Elon Musk’s SpaceX live feed was cut after a UFO appeared on the screen.
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TR-3B Anti Gravity Spacecraft Fleet againts Ufo in South America
TR-3B Anti Gravity Spacecraft Fleet againts Ufo in South America
This is everything you ever expected not to see when talking about the TR3B! A fleet of Tr_3b filmed in South America, Brazil coupled with other alien ship.The TR-3B, a triangular anti-gravity flying platform, powered by nuclear power, appears to be the new aerospace technology craft designed and created by the (CMITF) Military and Industrial Technology Complex in the US aerospace, this aircraft until recently Top Secret was developed and created by the Aurora Program in conjunction with the SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative) and sponsored with a black budget.
The following document is the translation of the description of this artifact that Edgar Rothschild Fouche saw in Nevada in 1998.
Mr. Fouche has worked on Government Programs in the Defense Industry for the past 30 years, including Area 51, the Air Force base of Groom Lake and Nellis for several years, also on top secret projects.
Fouche describes the TR-3B propulsion system as follows: "It is a circular, plasma-filled accelerator ring called Magnetic Field Disrupter, (MFD or Magnetic Field Switch) that surrounds the crew's revolving cockpit, is far beyond any technology imaginable ... The plasma, based on mercury, is pressurized to 250,000 atmospheres at a temperature of 150 degrees Kelvin, and accelerated to 50,000 RPM to generate a superconducting plasma with the result of the interruption of the force of gravity.
The MFD generates a magnetic field vortex, which interrupts or neutralizes the effects of gravity on any mass that is in the vicinity, in a percentage of 89%. This means that the "G" force is reduced by 89%. The MFD that owns the TR-3B causes that the vehicle is extremely light and can carry out maneuvers that no other airplane could ... My sources say that the possibilities are only limited by the physical resistance of the human pilots. Which is a lot really, considering the reduction of 89% of the mass, the G forces are also reduced by 89%. The crew of the TR-3B could comfortably support up to 40G ... reduced by 89% the occupants would only feel 4.2Gs.
Did Something Happen to Secret Zuma Spacecraft After SpaceX Launch?
Did Something Happen to Secret Zuma Spacecraft After SpaceX Launch?
By Mike Wall, Space.com Senior Writer
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the secret Zuma spacecraft for the U.S. government launches from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Jan. 7, 2018.
Credit: SpaceX
The U.S. government's hush-hush Zuma satellite may have run into some serious problems during or shortly after its Sunday (Jan. 7) launch, according to media reports.
Zuma lifted off atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Sunday evening — a launch that also featured a successful landing back on Earth by the booster's first stage.
Everything seemed OK at the time. But on Monday (Jan. 8), rumors began percolating within the spaceflight community that something had happened to Zuma, Ars Technica reported.
"According to one source, the payload fell back to Earth along with the spent upper stage of the Falcon 9 rocket," Ars Technica's Eric Berger wrote.
To be clear: There is no official word of any bad news, just some rumblings to that effect. And the rocket apparently did its job properly, SpaceX representatives said.
"We do not comment on missions of this nature, but as of right now, reviews of the data indicate Falcon 9 performed nominally," company spokesman James Gleeson told Space.com via email.
Space.com also reached out to representatives of aerospace company Northrop Grumman, which built Zuma for the U.S. government. "This is a classified mission. We cannot comment on classified missions," Northrop Grumman spokesman Lon Rains said via email.
Classified indeed. Pretty much all we know about Zuma is its vague destination — low-Earth orbit. It's unknown what the satellite will do, or even which government agency is charged with operating it.
If we hear anything else about Zuma's status, we'll let you know.
Zuma is widely regarded as a national-security mission. Before Sunday, SpaceX had launched just two national-security payloads — the NROL-76 satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office in May 2017 and the Air Force's robotic X-37B space plane this past September.
The news cycle on this latest revelation that the Department of Defense (DoD) had a project called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) that looked into UFOs – remember the U is for “unidentified” not aliens – seems to be coming to a close. Dozens of interviews were conducted, many, if not all, can be seen at this link, and many more stories written. But it seems with all that was learned, many more questions remain to be answered.
On December 16, 2017, The New York Times posted an article that may have forever changed how the general public views the UFO topic. Luis Elizondo, who had previously claimed to work for a UFO project for the DoD, and The New York Times, shared much more detail about the project. The news made worldwide headlines and set off a weeks long media frenzy with interviews with Elizondo, jet fighter pilots who chased UFOs, and retired Nevada Senator Harry Reid, who took the lead on securing funding for the program.
The article that started it all.
However, now that we are almost a month out, the media cycle seems to be coming to an end and the story seems to be fading. But it most likely will not stay that way, because for as many questions that were answered, many more have come to light.
For example, Elizondo said he was able to get permission to release three videos of objects they were unable to identify. So far, only two of those have been released, and even these two warrant further scrutiny. One of the better-known videos was from a case that a few UFO researchers had already been examining. This was a sighting of what has been referred to as a Tic Tac shaped UFO by crewmen in the Nimitz aircraft carrier group. The sighting was in November of 2004 near of San Diego.
Robert Powell, a UFO researcher with the Scientific Coalition for Ufology (SCU), has been working with the Navy on a Freedom of Information (FOIA) request he had made on the case. He outlined his research thus far in a previous article on OpenMinds.tv. Investigative documentarian Jeremy Corbell had also been researching this case.
Most had heard of the case from a blog post made by one of the pilots who witnessed the event. An alleged video from the event was also leaked. Now it has been confirmed the video is from the Nimitz UFO encounter, but we do not know how that video got out to the public in the first place. This was the focus of another recent OpenMinds.tv article by contributor Andreas Muller from Germany. It is video from an advanced infrared camera on an F-18. Not the kind of thing that normally makes its way to YouTube.
Although some detail about this event has made it out to the public, the reports and files on the investigation of this UFO are still under lock and key. Powell has not received any of this, despite his requests. He is hopeful now that it has been revealed AATIP looked into this case more documentation will be released.
The second video, referred to as the GIMBAL video, was released with very little information as to its origins or the situation in which it was acquired. According to the To the Stars Academy (TTSA) website, an organization Elizondo now works for, the video “was captured by a US Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet using the Raytheon AN/ASQ-228 Advanced Targeting Forward-Looking Infrared (ATFLIR) pod.” However, the date, time and location are still kept under wraps. No doubt there is a stack of FOIA requests on this one.
So why release these videos without supporting documentation, and when will we see the third? We don’t know.
The Washington Postwrote: “Elizondo, in an internal Pentagon memo requesting that the videos be cleared for public viewing, argued that the images could help educate pilots and improve aviation safety. But in interviews, he said his ultimate intention was to shed light on a little-known program Elizondo himself ran for seven years…”
Luis Elizondo
(Credit: To the Stars Academy)
This seems to imply Elizondo was able to get the videos released under false pretense. However, I have been told that this statement by The Washington Post is inaccurate, and this is not how the videos got released. Well then, how did he get permission to release them, and what was the rationale behind it? We do not know.
There are a host of other questions. What other cases did AATIP look into? Do they have more video? Are these three the best they have? How many cases did they investigate and how many remain unknown? Even more exciting, how many of these objects do they believe exhibit technology much more advanced than what we Americans, or humans for that matter, have?
Then there is the case of the mysterious metals. The New York Times wrote: “Under Mr. Bigelow’s direction, the company modified buildings in Las Vegas for the storage of metal alloys and other materials that Mr. Elizondo and program contractors said had been recovered from unidentified aerial phenomena.”
WTF? Were these metals analyzed? If so, by whom and what did they find? If the phenomena that produced these metals are still unexplained, does that imply any analysis done thus far was inconclusive? What sort of properties do these metals have? Are they extraordinary? This is kind of a big deal, but we have no answers, and the media is not even asking these questions…yet.
Does this tweet by Tom DeLonge, President and CEO of TTSA, posted two days before The New York Times article, have anything to do with these metals?
After mentioning the metals, The New York Times continued, “Researchers also studied people who said they had experienced physical effects from encounters with the objects and examined them for any physiological changes.”
Physiological changes? Did they find any?
The phrase “who said they had” implies this may have been just anecdotal in nature. This brings to mind a recent case where this claim was made in a long and wild story of a man by the name of John Burroughs, who says he came close to a UFO that appeared to land in a forest outside a base in the UK on lease to the United States Air Force. At the time, he was working security at the base and along with others, approached the object. Years later, in a declassified study on UFOs done by the British government, it was speculated that these men might have suffered some physical effects from the object.
Burroughs did have health issues he believed stemmed from this incident and had to hire a lawyer to get veterans benefits. Incidentally, Burroughs’ efforts lead him to discover the section in the classified UK report that referred to his encounter and other yet to be released UK UFO files despite the fact that the UK had claimed to had released all of their UFO files. For his research, John Burroughs was awarded the UFO researcher of the year award at the 2015 International UFO Congress. DeLonge won that very award in 2017, and his video acceptance went viral early last year. You can read more about Burroughs’ efforts here.
The reason I went off on this tangent is because this case is well known. Is this the case that is being referred to in regards to studying “people who said they had experienced physical effects?”
It feels like we learned a lot in the last few weeks. The media seems to have boiled it all down to the idea that the government has taken UFOs seriously and perhaps it is a more credible topic than previously thought. That is a good takeaway.
However, there are many more questions that need to be answered, and it is likely more revelation will be forthcoming. I would venture to guess some of those revelations will be coming very soon.
Do you have some questions I did not include here? If so, let us know what they are below.
The first-ever World Fly-In Expo was held recently in the central Chinese city of Wuhan. The air sports extravaganza was co-hosted by the FAI, the world governing body for air sports, and the Aero Sport Federation of China.
This global aviation event featured hundreds of aircraft, including jets, helicopters, hot-air balloons, auto-gyros, and ultra-light planes. More than 1000 pilots, athletes, coaches and referees from 37 countries participated in this mega event organized by the Wuhan Economic and Technological Development Zone.
Three big international competitions took place at the expo:
The China International Hot Air Balloon Tournament
The International Para-motor Invitational Championship
The International Skydiving Championship
Another highlight of the event was the creation of a new Guinness World Record, involving 100 hot air balloon weddings.
But the stars of the event were the drones
Chinese-made remote-controlled flying machines stole the show. The drones drew massive crowds at exhibition booths. The tiny propeller-driven flying machines performed in tight formation, high above the ground and competed with each other in events like delivering parcels and spraying plumes of mock pesticide.
An artist's concept of a hot Jupiter, a cloudy Jupiter-like planet orbiting very close to its star.
Credit: T. Pyle (SSC)/ASA/JPL-Caltech
A group of astronomers is using a new method to search for hard to spot alien planets: By measuring the difference between the amount of light coming from the planets' daysides and nightsides, astronomers have spotted 60 new worlds thus far.
The researchers used data from NASA's Kepler space telescope to apply their technique. After training computers to hunt for the worlds, the researchers released the machines on over 140,000 stars. For their first dive into the data, the scientists targeted only stars with no known planets (although some of the systems are suspected to host planets). The computer program looked for changes in the amount of light coming from the star system that could be caused by the telescope alternately seeing a close-orbiting planet's dayside and then its nightside.
"We're searching for the light that the planets reflect from their host stars," Sarah Millholland, a graduate student at Yale University and a co-author of the paper, told Space.com by email. She and her co-author Greg Laughlin, a professor of astronomy at Yale, are using their program to identify exoplanets that otherwise would have been missed in the Kepler data. [7 Ways to Discover Alien Planets]
Normally, Kepler detects exoplanets via the transit method. As a planet passes between its star and the sun, the amount of light Kepler observes drops sharply because it has been blocked by the distant world, and rises again once the planet moves on. The researchers' new method also examines how starlight is changed by a passing planet, but in a whole new way.
"This [new] method of planet hunting uses the same kind of data as transits … but it involves looking for a different kind of signal in the data," Millholland said.
Glowing worlds
Traditionally, scientists have relied on a handful of methods to hunt for planets. One technique, called the radial velocity (RV) method, was the first to reveal a distant world, tracking how a massive planet can cause its parent star to wobble. And using another technique, called the direct imaging method, researchers snap photos of exoplanets, but that method can be applied only to large worlds orbiting far from their stars.
But thanks to the Kepler space telescope, the transit method rules the exoplanet roost. Over the course of its primary mission, which lasted about four years, Kepler revealed thousands of potential and confirmed worlds. (The Kepler spacecraft is now being used for a secondary mission, dubbed K2.) The spacecraft has a numbers advantage: Whereas instruments capable of searching for planets via the direct imaging and RV methods can focus on only one star at a time, Kepler can collect light from thousands of stars simultaneously.
But the transit method of searching for exoplanets also has limitations. For a planet to block the light of its star, it must orbit along the line of sight between Earth and the parent star. For every planet Kepler has spotted, there are likely another 99 that it couldn't see, according to an estimate by astronomy blogger and astrophysicist Ethan Siegel. That's an awful lot of missed worlds.
Millholland and Laughlin weren't content to leave all of those planets hidden. They used the Kepler data to look for worlds lit up by their parent stars, just like the sun lights up the face of the moon and the planets in our solar system (which is why planets in our solar system look like "stars" in the night sky). When an alien planet is on the near side of its star, it radiates a dim light from its nightside (from retained heat), and when the exoplanet is on the far side of the star, it reflects light from its parent star (the dayside). If those variations appear in the Kepler data, they can reveal a planet's presence.
After ensuring that the program could identify already-known, hot gas giants by their glow, the researchers turned their program loose on over 140,000 Kepler stars. The new technique turned up 60 previously unidentified gas giant candidates that don't transit their sun.
Due to limitations in its precision, Kepler can hunt only for the glow of close-in gas giant planets — the so-called hot Jupiters. Future instruments with increased precision could extend the method to smaller worlds, Millholland said.
Compared to the dazzling searchlight glow of a star, the glow from a planet is extremely faint. Stellar activity, such as sunspots and flares, have the potential to give false positives in the search for planets. That's why, Millholland said, any detections made with the new method should be followed up with RV-method measurements; they have not yet used RV to follow up on the 60 detections reported in the new study.
"RV observations are necessary to confirm the planet candidates," she said. (Many "objects of interest" detected by Kepler are also confirmed using RV measurements.) "Close-in giants produce large RV signals, so they should be readily detectable," Millholland said.
Millholland and Laughlin started out with stars with no known or suspected planets, but eventually, they plan to use the method to search for gas giants in systems already known to host small worlds.
Prior to the first discoveries of planets around other stars, planetary evolution models — which were based on Earth's solar system — set the birth of gas giants far from their stars, similar to where Jupiter and the other giant planets orbit the sun. So when the first exoplanet hunts revealed hot Jupiters, scientists were startled. The leading hypothesis became that these massive gassy worlds had migrated inward after forming at a distance.
But several years ago, some scientists proposed that hot Jupiters might have formed closer to their star. Laughlin is among those who question the migration model. Following another line of research, Laughlin predicted that hot Jupiters born near their stars would have small-mass sibling planets with orbits that are not aligned with the parent star's orbital plane. (In Earth's solar system, the eight planets orbit in a kind of flat disk around the sun.) Soon, he and Millholland plan to turn their attention toward known collections of rocky worlds with strange orbital alignments, in hunt of hidden gas giants.
The research was published in The Astronomical Journal on Aug. 4, which is the end of the Northern Hemisphere observing season for the Kepler field, Millholland said. She said several groups of scientists in the Northern Hemisphere plan to begin their hunt for the glowing worlds next spring.
"If we use this technique to find systems with hot Jupiters and misaligned small planets, it would be evidence toward this theory of hot-Jupiter formation," Millholland said. In the near future, the pair plans to use the method to probe stars that host oddly aligned rocky planets, after the 60 new worlds have been confirmed using the radial-velocity method.
"It would be best to study those systems separately," she said.
Theory of Evolution in Extraterrestrials? Makes sense?
Theory of Evolution in Extraterrestrials? Makes sense?
After reading this news from the Public Newspaper, in which scientists used Evolution Theory to explain what life forms would look like on other planets, I have to say that I agree in part with what has been described.
I agree that extraterrestrial life forms do not have to be based on a human model, ie head exchange, and members, nor have the same atomic constitution. The forms of alien lives may have another type of physiognomy and atomic constitution.
For me, they can even have a physical form and be what we consider spiritual entities.
I do not agree with the Theory of Evolution in this respect, just as I do not agree with it in our world. Creationism has a view, in my opinion, smarter than the facts and arguments that make the most sense to me.
Why this? Imagine you have all the ingredients of a cake in a closet. Suddenly there is an explosion and all those ingredients are scattered. However, they began to mix until they were a homogeneous mixture and with the heat of the explosion they baked and made a beautiful chocolate cake. Do you believe that?
Of course not? You know that it is impossible, in the same way, I believe it is impossible that after an explosion such as the Big Bang, carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur, have gathered and mixed by taking advantage of the heat of explosion to become life.
It's too complex so everything has happened from an explosion. How would life come from a primordial soup? Have you ever seen some chickens come out of your chicken soup? Should not you leave as there are molecules of the bird and are receiving heat?
From this, extraterrestrial species cannot originate from a cellular evolution, but from a careful process of creation, such as the whole Universe. Because it is impossible that the whole Universe has arisen with all this order by the simple chance of an explosion.
Of course, you may disagree with me, my opinion is based on theories and fruit of what makes sense to me. For others, my opinion will no longer make sense and I just have to respect it.
The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, a brief history
The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, a brief history
Is there anybody out there? If we don't listen for the answer, we certainly won't hear it. Over at the Planetary Society, Jason Davis posted an excellent survey of the past, present, and future of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. It begins in 1959 with Giuseppe Cocconi and Philip Morrison's historic paper "Searching for Interstellar Communications" and Frank Drake's Project Ozma, the first scientific SETI search:
One year later, the National Academy of Sciences hosted an invitation-only meeting at Green Bank to discuss how to go about conducting further SETI research. The eclectic, interdisciplinary group included Drake, Cocconi, Morrison, the biochemist Melvin Calvin (who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry during the meeting), Bernard Oliver, who was the vice president of research and development at Hewlett-Packard, the young Carl Sagan, and the scientist John Lilly, who had recently published a controversial book arguing dolphins were an intelligent species.
With a nod to Lilly's book, the participants dubbed themselves "The Order of the Dolphin." One product of the meeting was the Drake equation, which attempts to predict the number of advanced civilizations in the Milky Way able to contact Earth. The equation includes variables such as average star formation rate, the number of habitable planets per star, and the number of planets where intelligent life could evolve.
For the rest of the 1960s, SETI research remained mostly dormant, aside from a few searches in the Soviet Union. Starting in 1971, two Project Ozma follow-ups named Ozpa and Ozma II used bigger dishes and listened to more stars.
In 1973, another SETI search began, using a radio telescope called Big Ear at Ohio State University. Big Ear was a flat, aluminum dish three football fields wide, with reflectors at both ends.
On the night of August 15, 1977, Big Ear picked up a signal from the constellation Sagittarius that was 30 times stronger than the cosmic background noise, right at the 1,420 megahertz hydrogen line frequency. No one noticed it for a few days, until a volunteer sifting through the previous week's data circled the signal and wrote "Wow!" in the margin.
Jill Tarter is a legendary SETI scientist. She's the Bernard Oliver Chair for SETI at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, and is the inspiration for protagonist Ellie Arroway in Contact, played by Jodie Foster in the film adaptation.
Tarter told me Big Ear's automated search program had no built-in logic to stop and focus on the Wow! signal. Furthermore, there was no confirmation system such as a second telescope located elsewhere, which could help determine whether the signal was local to Earth or truly from the stars.
Despite decades of follow-up searches, the Wow! signal was never heard again. To this day, Tarter favors SETI programs that can process data in real time, rapidly follow-up on detections, and rule out local interference.
I asked her if the Wow! signal still haunts the SETI field. "Well, it haunts me," she said.
Les sceptiques utilisent d'innombrables excuses, scientifiques ou pas pour soit disant expliquer les Ovnis. Tout est bon pour nier le phénomène ovni. On peut analyser cela d'un côté psychologique et sociologique. De nombreuses personnes ont peur de l'hypothèse extraterrestre, ils vont donc exprimer cet état d'esprit dans leur propre "étude du phénomène". C'est à dire qu'ils vont tenter de se rassurer en formulant des hypothèses tirées par les cheveux. Ainsi on constatera un discours classique du genre " toutes les réponses même le plus absurdes sont valables sauf bien sûr l'hypothèse extraterrestre" trop destabilisante.
Le Comité Condon (comité d'étude scientifique des ovnis, 1968)
“ En 1958, […] il y aura quelques 200 apparitions authentiques d'objets volants non identifiés. Le Pentagone réussira à démontrer qu'il y en avait 210 de fausses. ”
Cette remarque savoureuse, extraite de l'éditorial du magazine Life du 6 janvier 1958, si elle ne permet pas de se faire une opinion sur les ovnis, permet en revanche de situer la façon dont on appréhende souvent ce problème : cette volonté farouche d'expliquer au risque d'en faire trop ; cette volonté d'en appeler à des explications spécifiques — que l'on n'oserait pas servir pour d'autres problèmes — parce qu'il ne faut surtout pas que le cadavre puisse se rétablir. Derrière cet excès de zèle anti-soucoupique, on trouve l’idée, partagée par les universitaires comme par le grand public, qu’il faut être irrationnel, anti-scientifique pour accepter l'existence des ovnis. Comment peut-il se faire que 30% des français (et plus de 50% des américains) croient aux ovnis (sous entendu, malgré l'évidence de leur inexistence) ? Les soucoupes ne seraient pas un phénomène normal à propos duquel on pourrait se contenter de parler d'erreur avant de les oublier et de passer à autre chose. Non, on croit nécessaire, indispensable même, de déployer à leur sujet tout un attirail rhétorique bien précis.
Ne nous y trompons pas même des gens qui ne se disent pas sceptiques fonctionnent comme cela et il y a bien souvent une conviction religieuse, politique et dogmatique sous-jacente qui dicte la conduite.
Les Sceptiques "Rationalistes"
Toutes les observations sont réductibles pour eux à des phénomènes physiques simples et connus, ou à des canulars. Le caractère apparemment inexplicable de certains cas "mystérieux" vient du fait que nous n'avons pas suffisamment de renseignements précis sur les conditions et le contexte de l'observation. Dès qu'il y a suffisamment de détails précis, alors on peut toujours trouver une explication connue qui soit certaine, ou au moins possible. Le fait que cette observation "pourrait être" expliqué ainsi simplement, suffit à rejeter toute autre explication faisant appel à des hypothèses plus "extraordinaires" (voyageurs extraterrestres par exemple).
Donald menzel
Liste (non exhaustive) des causes connues pouvant expliquer une observation d'ovni :
En France les trois principales associations rationalistes luttant activement contre les charlatans et les "para sciences" en général, et les ovnis en particulier sont :
L'Union Rationaliste, l'Association Française pour l'Information Scientifique (AFIS), les Zététiciens
Ailleurs dans le monde les plus connus sont :
Canada : Les sceptiques du Quebec (Claude Lafleur) USA : le CSIOP (Committee for scientific investigation on Claims on Paranormal), auxquel contribuent les 2 debunkers les plus célèbres de la planète : Philipp J Klass et Robert Schaeffer. Belgique : le comité Para http://www.comitepara.be/
Généralement, lorsqu'ils sont interrogés sur le sujet, la majorité des scientifiques se rallient à cette thèse. De manière assez amusante les sceptiques rationalistes sont l'image dans le miroir des "ufologues ultra-croyants" qu'ils pourfendent. Comme eux ils sont "spécialistes en tout" et combattent non seulement les ovnis mais également tous les phénomènes réputés paranormaux ou inexpliqués. Et ce, avec autant de ferveur aveugle et de superficialité, que leurs opposants mettent à défendre ces mêmes thèses.
Ils défendent un dogme rassurant et "excommunient" tous ceux qui prétendraient explorer des domaines de connaissance inconnus, fusse avec une démarche et une rigueur toute scientifique.
En témoigne par exemple la devise apparaissant sur la page d'accueil du site Rationaliste Belge : "Comité Para" :
Bienvenue à ceux qui nous rejoignent sur le site du "Comité Para". Ils y trouveront le réconfort de la rationalité et de la vérité scientifique, celle qui se trouve à la base de tout événement ou phénomène naturel.
Quel aveu accablant dès la 2ème phrase de la page d’accueil.
1. Ces sceptiques Belges offrent avant tout du « réconfort ». A toutes les personnes que les choses étranges, nouvelles, non explicables a priori dans l’instant par une cause naturelle simple, choqueraient, cette association propose un « calmant » un « tranquillisant » : n’ayez pas peur, tout va bien, la Science sereine et immuable a réponse à tout…On frise le concept sectaire …
2. Leur périmètre est restreint aux évènements et phénomènes « naturels » ! Sous entendu : toute explication présupposant une intervention intelligente (qu’elle soit extra-terrestre , humaine (complots, armes secrètes), ou autre) est exclue d’office.
La Girafe n'existe pas un exemple significatif
par Jacques Bergier, 1965
La science contre les mythes
Pour un esprit bien rompu aux méthodes scientifiques modernes, la vraie démonstration de la non-existence de la girafe réside dans le fait que la girafe n'existe pas. Ce genre de raisonnement est appelé « la méthode de Lavoisier » : on sait que le fondateur de la chimie avait démontré de cette façon l'inexistence des météorites en déclarant « qu'il ne peut pas tomber des pierres du ciel, parce qu'il n'y a pas de pierres dans le ciel ».
Dans les temps modernes, cette méthode a été brillamment employée par M. Simon Newcomb qui démontra que les avions ne peuvent pas voler parce qu'un aéronef plus lourd que l'air est impossible et M. Imbert Nergal, qui démontra que les phénomènes parapsychologiques n'existent pas parce qu'il n'y a pas de phénomènes parapsychologiques. D'autres savants ont exercé la même besogne de salubrité, ce qui fait qu'un Américain appelé Charles Fort a pu faire tout un volume, intitulé « Le livre des Damnés », consacré aux faits ainsi expulsés à juste titre du corps de la Science.
Parmi ces faits damnés, la légende de l'animal appelé « girafe » est particulièrement frappante.
Le voyageur arabe Al Kwraismi a, pour la première fois, décrit cette bête mythologique au cou extrêmement allongé. Depuis, de nombreux voyageurs ont prétendu avoir vu ou même photographié des girafes. Et la revue Planète n'a pas hésité, pour abuser ses lecteurs trop confiants, à accréditer ce mythe pernicieux, en dépit des mises en garde du grand savant André Parinaud.
Il est donc intéressant d'examiner comment une telle légende peut avoir pris naissance. Plusieurs explications sont possibles :
1 - L'explication optique :
On sait que les déserts, où l'on a signalé des girafes, sont également les lieux de nombreux mirages. Ces mirages sont dus au phénomène d'inversion. Ce phénomène consiste en ceci : pour des raisons bien connues des météorologistes, il arrive qu'une couche d'air froid se trouve superposée à une couche d'air chaud qui aurait dû se trouver au dessus de la couche d'air froid. La différence de densité des deux couches d'air produit alors une courbure des rayons de lumière et un mirage. Un objet est alors vu à un endroit où il n'est pas, ou sous une forme modifiée. Très fréquemment l'inversion fait apparaître un objet sous une forme allongée comme les miroirs déformants des foires. Il est donc parfaitement admissible qu'un animal tout à fait ordinaire et bien connu, une licorne par exemple, puisse apparaître à l'explorateur sous une forme invraisemblable et allongée et donner ainsi naissance à la légende de la girafe.
2 - L'explication par la soif :
Le mirage qui a donné naissance à la girafe peut également être d'une origine purement psychologique. Perdu dans le désert et assoiffé, l'explorateur peut, dans un état de semi-conscience, rêver qu'il a un cou extrêmement long lui permettant d'atteindre l'oasis la plus proche. Quoi de plus naturel que de le voir aussi imaginer un animal impossible qui a justement le cou d'une longueur invraisemblable ?
3 - L'explication psychanalytique :
Un psychanalyste allemand éminent, Herr Professor Hegebur, dans son ouvrage « Prolégomènes à l'introduction d'une approche de la connaissance de la girafe », fait observer très justement que le long cou de la girafe n'est autre qu'un symbole phallique. C'est là également une explication plausible du mythe de la girafe. On sait que c'est de la même façon qu'on a réfuté la naïve superstition de certains sauvages selon laquelle le suc du champignon penicillium notatum pouvait avoir une action curative sur les maladies. Ce champignon est de toute évidence un symbole phallique. L'existence d'un produit extrait du penicillium notatum appelé « pénicilline » et auquel on attribue des vertus curatives merveilleuses est, bien entendu, pure superstition.
Nous voyons ainsi que le mythe de la girafe peut parfaitement trouver son explication dans des considérations soit optiques, soit de physiologie, soit de psychanalyse.
La méthode scientifique moderne n'aura pas de difficultés à démentir aussi les autres affirmations saugrenues d'excentriques dans le genre de Charles Fort.
Il est bien connu qu'il ne peut pas y avoir de faits qui n'aient été déjà décrits dans les nombreux et excellents ouvrages publiés par l'Union Rationaliste (16, rue de l'école Polytechnique). Tout fait non décrit dans ces ouvrages peut certainement être réduit à des illusions ou à des hallucinations collectives.
Signalons, pour terminer, un fait curieux qui montre à quel point la sagesse populaire rejoint la méthode scientifique. Un fermier américain à qui on avait montré un dessin représentant la prétendue girafe s'est écrié : « Il n'y a pas d'animal comme ça ! » N'est-ce point merveilleux de voir à quel point le gros bon sens populaire rejoint ainsi la rigueur de la méthode scientifique ?
Remarques
Ne voyez dans cette page qu'une ironique analyse du conformisme stérile, de la courte vue, de l'intégrisme pseudo-intellectuel, du mental sclérosé, de la myopie psychologique, du misonéisme, de la mauvaise foi, des préjugés doctrinaires et politiques et de la simple peur animale de l'inconnu des unions rationalistes, heureusement moribondes pour la plupart, étouffées par leur médiocre suffisance de censeurs mineurs. C'est également un hommage à ces hommes, mandarins mondains et superstitieux à leur manière, englués dans leurs poncifs, coincés entre leurs arrières-pensées et leur pensée arriérée, castrés intellectuellement, illustres par ailleurs, morts sans audace avant que le ridicule ne les achève, moins méchants que paresseux, et qui, par des déclarations fermes ont montré les limites de leur imagination. Restent les mieux-nommés : les "sceptiques", petits groupes associatifs d'autruches qui brunchent périodiquement en pérorant du fond de leur fosse homonyme, seulement éclairés par leur "brillant obscurantisme" (Hé oui, ils ne sont pas à une contradiction près).
Je n'évoquerai pas ici la farce zététique pour des raisons de salubrité publique.
La caractéristique commune et principale fonction des groupuscules évoqués ci-dessus ? Alors qu'ils se voudraient être des aiguillons, ce ne sont malheureusement, la plupart du temps, que des lénifiants intellectuels dont la fonction dormitive empêche les soubresauts de cerveaux moins figés que les leurs (bilan de leurs réflexions) ! Je trouve cela bien dommage ! Par pitié, j'adopterai finalement l'analogie suivante : ces pauvres êtres ne sont que des nourrissons qui, encore accrochés au sein de leur mère, sont terrifiés par la "dure" réalité )
Quelle plus belle dédicace que cette citation de Pauli ? "La vérité ne triomphe jamais, mais les imbéciles finissent par mourir !"
Et Chesterton avait beaucoup de bon sens quand il disait : Eloignez-vous des hommes qui prétendent répondre à toutes les questions. Ce sont des ignorants ou des imbéciles.
Et pour être moins acerbe, je terminerai par celle-ci, d'actualité pour l'éternité :
C'est une sotte présomption d'aller dédaignant et condamnant pour faux ce qui ne nous semble pas vraisemblable. Michel de Montaigne, écrivain français du 16ème siècle
Les Ovnis mais bien sûr c'est à cause des "lutinoïdes"
Les ufologues français Dominique Becker et Fabrice Kircher, ce dernier donnant comme qualifications pour la véracité de la théorie qui suit qu'il est un thérapeute titulaire d'un certificat en Naturopathie et d'un certificat en phyto-aromathérapie, ont écrit que les OVNIS sont causés par les lutinoïdes.
Ils écrivent qu'un développement complet de cette théorie exigerait plus de 500 pages et ils la récapitulent donc en environ 50 pages:
D'abord, observent-ils, 80% de l'humanité est attaquée par des parasites, particulièrement les femmes.
Ces parasites causent le spasmophilie, les dermatoses telles que le psoriasis, les désordres obsessifs-compulsifs, mais également les maladies infectieuses, les allergies et même la rage de dents.
Ils disent qu'après des années d'études, ils ont démontré que ce parasite est un organisme vivant, précédemment inconnu, du type parasite, agissant au niveau moléculaire ou submoléculaire, très résistant, et d'un instinct de survie développé à l'extrême.
Il est semblable aux prions, et peut également induire la toxoplasmose, ou une mononucléose infectieuse en association avec le virus d'Epstein-Barr, et le complexe de foetus manquant, l'asthénie, la folie, les problèmes de vue, des douleur dans les muscles, l'insomnie, la mort, des saignements aux oreilles, l'agoraphobie, la phobie des animaux ressemblant aux Petit Gris c'est à dire les daims et les hiboux, l'hypersomnie, les cauchemars, la panique, les impulsions de fermer les portes, et des visions de Men-in-black.
Leurs études, disent-ils, ont révélé que ce sont des bactéries anaérobies et méthanogènes, qu'ils ont appelées "lutinoïdes" parce qu'elles sont si petites que personne me les a encore vues.
Ils font remarquer qu'aucune théorie n'a encore réussi à expliquer tous les rapports d'observations d'OVNIS et tous les phénomènes paranormaux d'un coup. Mais leur théorie, disent-ils, explique non seulement tous les rapports d'observations d'OVNIS, mais aussi tous les phénomènes paranormaux et plus encore, en une théorie unique:
La cause en est les lutinoïdes. Les lutinoïdes parasitent le cerveau des gens et les font avoir des hallucinations et voir des choses comme des OVNIS, des extraterrestres, la Vierge MArie et autres choses de cette sorte.
Parfois, les lutinoïdes soignent les maladies des gens, ceci expliquant pourquoi il y a des témoins d'OVNIS qui sont guéris d'une maladie après une rencontre OVNI.
Dans un chapitre intitulé:
"PREUVES DE L'ASSERTION DE L'EXISTENCE DES LUTINOIDES"
Ils disent:
"Nous nous trouvons, en quelque sorte, dans la situation de l'astronome qui calcule à l'aide des mathématiques l'orbite d'une planète invisible, car il n'existe aucune preuve expérimentale de résultats de laboratoire etc., la science ne disposant pas, à l'heure actuelle, des moyens adéquats de détection."
Ils ajoutent que les ésotériques du passé avaient remarqué que la glande pinéale était plus développée dans le passé qu'elle ne l'est aujourd'hui, une autre preuve que les lutinoïdes colonisent lentement les cerveaux des humains.
Ils continuent comme cela; ce que vous pouvez lire dans leur livre:
"Enquêtes sur les Insaisissables", Volume 1, livre par Dominique Becker et Fabrice Kircher, Ramuel éditeur, 1998, 276 pages, ISBN 2-910401-79-0
Poitiers: la vérité sur les Soucoupes et les Martiens
par l'Abbé LARGEAC
L'article ci-dessous est paru dans le quotidien Le Libre Poitou, France, le 27 octobre 1954.
Faut-il croire aux soucoupes volantes?
- C'est pour répondre à l'émotion générale, en même temps qu'à la demande des Recherches scientifiques, que j'écris ces lignes documentaires.
Les phénomènes stellaires, atmosphériques et même telluriques sont tellement nombreux et parfois fréquents [sic!] sous la calotte des cieux, qu'il ne faudrait pas s'imaginer que les soucoupes et marmites volantes sont une invention exclusive de notre siècle atomique.
Il y a eu, à toutes les époques - quelques noms qui leur soient donnés - des feux célestes, plus ou moins développés, étincelants et parfois terrifiants, qui, descendant en trajectoires verticales ou obliques [redondance] ont attiré les regards stupéfaits des hommes, en prenant dans leur chute sur le globe terrestre les formes les plus sensationnelles et les plus fantastiques, très capables de troubler l'opinion publique.
La Librairie Celtique de Paris nous a fait connaître récemment dans un ouvrage des plus documentés, ce qu'étaient au Moyen Age, en Bretagne, les apparitions de poêlons volants.
C'étaient des phénomènes célestes qui se multipliaient autant au dedans de l'imagination des hommes que dans la réalité, et auxquelles la frayeur populaire attachait des présages de mort et de catastrophes [météores et comètes].
Ces phénomènes lumineux éclataient surtout dans les nuits très sombres, prenant la forme de cierges flamboyants [l'auteur est éclésiastique] qui s'allumaient, s'éteignaient, s'envolaient et disparaissaient mystérieusement.
Tantôt ils prenaient la forme de chandelles brillantes qui se plantaient et flottaient sur un étang [feux follets]; tantôt ils ressemblaient à des cierges vacillants qui brûlaient la tête en bas.
Mais ces cierges n'étaient que de petites lueurs en comparaison des "étavas" aux flambeaux énormes, brillant comme des étoiles, et qui avaient la forme sphériques de grandes poêles à frire [météores].
Leur lumière était d'un bleu verdâtre ou d'un jaune de safran, ou encore d'une rouge violacé, s'unissant aux couleurs assombries [?] de l'arc-en-ciel.
Leur forme se confondait souvent, avec celle du disque des poêlons munies d'une queue, et cette queue [la traînée des météores] elle-même semblait briller d'étincelles stellaires, comme la queue d'une comète.
De l'apparition des disques lumineux aux phénomènes planétaires, il n'y avait qu'un pas, facile à franchir.
Aussi l'opinion publique y voyait très rapidement des avertissements du ciel et des présages de malheur.
Il me suffira d'avoir évoqué ces visions de jadis pour faire comprendre qu'il y a eu de tout temps des phénomènes célestes lumineux, d'une forme souvent troublante, qui ont défrayé les conversations et effrayé les esprits crédules.
On peut ajouter qu'il se forme, à ces époques, de véritables épidémies de voyants qui, dans leur trouble plutôt que dans la possessions d'eux-mêmes, sont portés à transformer les disques lumineux qu'ils peuvent apercevoir en poêles, en cierges, en flambeaux, en cigares, en marmite et même en chariots volants.
Du chariot on passe facilement à la conception d'un conducteur, même accompagné de camarades, comme dans la soucoupe volante, nécessairement moins volumineuse [!], on prétend avoir vu quelque petit nain, d'un autre monde.
C'est ainsi qu'il y a mille ans et plus, les poêlons lumineux étaient dirigés occasionnellement par des pygmées poilus, aux yeux effrayants de lumière étincelante.
Donc, peu de changements parmi les voyants d'aujourd'hui, dont quelques-uns se vantent d'avoir vu des Martiens, bardé de fer blanc ou d'aluminium, qui parlent russe, espéranto ou congolais.
Il semble bien par conséquent que notre siècle l'emporte quand même sur les époques précédentes par les susdites apparitions, ou plutôt par les conceptions imaginaires de spectateurs facétieux. Tant il est vrai que l'homme malgré lui, se tourne obstinément vers le surnaturel [la notion de visiteurs martiens ne relève pas du surnaturel] en raison de cette parole d'Alfred de Musset: "l'infini nous tourmente!"
Il est temps de voir ce que recèlent de vrai ou de faux tous les récits de soucoupes volantes du XXe siècle [ufologie].
J'extrais de l'amalgame les histoire les plus abracadabrantes, qui nous ont été rapportées par les gazettes, quelques exemples qui suffiront [erreur] à nous permettre d'analyser à souhait la valeur intrinsèque ou extrinsèque des engins lumineux qui nous sont présentés.
Premier cas. -- Trois ouvriers agricoles ont vu, dans le ciel de l'Allier, un énorme cigare volant qui après diverses évolutions montantes et descendantes, s'est abattu en flèche sur le sol pour éclater, à la manière d'un obus, dans un nuage de poussières. Vision classique [non].
Deuxième cas. -- Deux automobilistes ont aperçu tout près d'Orléans sur l'heure de minuit, un disque lumineux qui semblait tout d'abord se balancer à travers les nuages, apparaissant et disparaissant, pour prendre tout à coup la verticale et venir éclater au sol en merveilleux feu d'artifice. Autre exemple classique [non], très vraisemblable.
Troisième cas. -- Un cycliste rentrant chez lui à deux heures du matin, l'autre dimanche, s'est rencontré avec un Martien qui l'a figé sur place, en lui sautant au cou et en lui donnant l'accolade de ses lèvres d'aluminium, pour s'enfuir en un coup de vent sur la propre bicyclette de notre homme médusé. -- Burlesque et ridicule, pour ne pas dire absurde [certes, typique d'inventions et d'inventions journalistiques comme celle-ci par l'auteur de l'article lui-même, qui fabrique complètement ce cas à partir de l'histoire Mazaud et quelques autres!].
Quatrième cas. -- Cet exemple est le bouquet humoristique [choisi justement pour cela], qui l'emporte sur toutes les imaginations!
Un Mosellan, Pierre Bardou, des environs de Metz, ouvrier d'usine, ouvrait sa porte, au début d'octobre, vers cinq heures du matin, pour se rendre à son travail lorsqu'il a été on ne peut plus surpris d'apercevoir devant lui ... un joli petit clerc en soutane (tombé de la lune en soucoupe volante) qui lui chantait de sa voix cristalline, sur l'air très connu:
"-Au clair de la lune, Mon gentil Pierrot, Prête-moi ta plume Pour écrire un mot. Dans ma sphère volante Je suis effondré. J'écris à ma tante Que j'suis enterré! ...
Le petit lunaire disparut, et le Mosellan s'évanouit de stupeur!
Nouvelle géographie: Mais aux environs de Marseille! [?]
Conclusion. -- Il y a certainement des observateurs d'occasion qui regardent, admirent, et voient des choses se rapprochant des réalités lumineuses possibles.
Mais il en est d'autres qui voient certainement, les yeux fermés, afin de mieux faire parler toutes les conceptions de leur imagination et leurs plaisanteries tartarinesques. Voilà le résumé de toutes [non] les histoires de soucoupes volantes, les unes vraisemblables [Certes.], les autres complètement imaginaires [certes.].
De quoi s'agit-t-il donc? [discussion venant après la conclusion.] Quelle peut être la base des véritables disques lumineux - qu'ils portent un nom ou un autre - qui semblent apparaître la nuit [non] à diverses époques?
Lisez bien. Il est au-dessus de nos têtes une voûte immense [non] appelée le firmament.
Ce firmament est parsemé d'astres, de planètes et d'étoiles.
Les astres sont d'énormes corps célestes lumineux [!], dont la photographie nous donne une idée. Mais le mot astres se rapporte aussi à des corps lumineux du firmament. Il se dit même de la Lune:
"Et l'astre de nuit Dont les faibles rayons nous guident sous l'ombrage."
(C. Delavigne)
Mais on dit plus scientifiquement [!] du soleil:
"Sur les flots agités par les vents et l'orage, L'astre brillant de jour ne peint pas son image."
(Delilla)
Les planètes sont des corps célestes qui n'ont pas de lumière propre, la recevant du soleil autour duquel elles gravitent [Certes.].
Les huit grandes planètes visibles à l'oeil nu sont, à partir du Soleil: Mercure, Vénus, la Terre, Mars, Jupiter, Saturne, Uranus et Neptune. [M. l'Abbé dit vrai.] Il y a un certain nombre également de planètes secondaires.
Les étoiles, à l'encontre des planètes, sont des astres fixes, qui brillent d'une lumière propre: Sirius est une des plus brillantes parmi les étoiles qui peuvent, à leur tour, comme le soleil, être le centre d'autres systèmes planétaires. Leur nombre est indéfini [En effet; il y a plus de 100 000 000 000 étoiles dans notre galaxie.].
L'article ci-dessous est paru dans le quotidien Le quotidien de la Haute-Loire, France, 19 septembre 1954.
Déclare un astronome allemand
M. Haffner, professeur d'astronomie à l'université de Hambourg a publié dans l'hebdomadaire Die Zeit, un article dans lequel il déclare que toutes les soucoupes volantes qui ont été vues jusqu'à maintenant peuvent être classées en quatre groupes: 1) Les hallucinations; 2) Illusions d'optiques trompant même l'objectif de l'appareil photographique. Les prétendues photographies de soucoupes volantes sont des reflets souvent constatés quand on prend des photos à contre jour; 3) Ballons météorologiques; 4) Objets volants inconnus. Tous les objets de la quatrième catégorie peuvent être expliqués par ce que l'on sait des boules de feu produites par la foudre. Ce phénomène se produit rarement et l'on ne possède que deux ou trois photographies. La majeure partie des boules de feu produites par la foudre sont observées à moins de 200 mètres de hauteur et ont un diamètre de 20 à 100 centimètres. Mais une plus grande quantité d'énergie se trouve libérée quand les éclairs éclatent à haute altitude, et naturellement plus les boules de feu sont grandes. On en a vu ayant 200 mètres de diamètre et à dix kilomètres d'altitude. Le professeur Haffner ajoute qu'en raison de leur rotation les boules de feu sont souvent aplaties. Or les descriptions de soucoupes volantes parlent d'objet ayant la forme de disques ou de cigares et précisent que les objets tournaient sur eux-même. Les boules de feu émettent souvent des rayons lumineux très brillants, ce qui correspond encore aux récits des gens qui disent avoir vu des soucoupes. De même elles peuvent changer de forme et de direction en moins d'une seconde, tout comme les soucoupes. Ces changements de direction s'expliquent aisément par l'influence des champs magnétiques. Enfin les boules de feu se désintègrent toujours brusquement, parfois silencieusement, parfois avec une forte détonation.
Tout est bon pour nier le phénomène ovni - PART II
Tout est bon pour nier le phénomène ovni - PART II
La foudre en boule et les rencontres avions - OVNIS
Par Patrick Gross, 2004.
Résumé:
Nous montrons que les propositions de l'éditeur de magazine d'aviation Philip Klass soutenant que des rencontres entre avions et OVNIS s'expliquent par des phénomènes de foudre en boule sont absurdes. Ces propositions sont faites en dépit des facteurs quantitatifs relatifs aux phénomènes de foudre en boule et en dépit des descriptions des récits circonstanciés de telles rencontres.
Introduction
La proposition que des, sinon les, comptes rendus d'observation d'OVNIS par des témoins aéroportés puissent être expliqués par le phénomène physique atmosphérique des plasma a été maintes fois répétée, par exemple proposée par le Lunar and Planetary Laboratory de l'Université de l'Arizona et par l'éditeur senior de magazine d'aviation Philip J. Klass qui la propose comme une explication pour beaucoup d'OVNI dans plusieurs articles de magazines, (voir Réf 1. pour un exemple) puis comme explication généralisé dans ses ouvrages (voir Réf 2. pour un exemple), et souvent lors de ses interventions dans les media. Elle a reçu un large écho dans le public, qui, sans connaître nécessairement ses détails, semble souvent avoir construit une image floue mais persistante que des OVNIS pourraient s'expliquer par ces phénomènes, et que parce que ces phénomènes sont mal connus, il serait certain ou au moins possible que cette explication soit valide pour retirer tout mystère aux OVNIS qui ne seraient globalement qu'un phénomène naturel, excepté un certain nombre de cas de fraudes et quelques autres causes triviales.
Qu'est-ce que la foudre en boule?
La foudre en boule est un phénomène qui a été longtemps ignoré par les chercheurs, d'une part parce que son existence prétendue reposait sur des témoignages visuels, d'autre part parce que peu de chercheurs voyaient un intérêt particulier à travailler sur un phénomène fugace et sans attrait particulier. La foudre ordinaire elle-même, dont l'existence n'est évidemment pas contestée, n'avait pas fait l'objet de recherches particulières au sujet des mécanismes électriques, physiques, chimiques de sa formation. La foudre existe, c'est une sorte d'arc électrique, et avait longtemps suffit à éteindre la curiosité qu'elle pourrait susciter.
Il est cependant faux de croire que nous en somme toujours là. Le phénomène est maintenant bien compris. Et surtout, les conditions de son apparition son bien cernées.
Il y a plusieurs conditions de base indispensables. La première est qu'il y ait de la foudre normale. S'il n'y a aucun tonnerre, aucun orage, si les conditions météorologiques qui permettent la foudre normale ne sont pas présentes, alors, il n'y a pas de foudre en boule.
La seconde, est que la foudre doit frapper une structure telle qu'un bâtiment, le sol, ou un arbre. L'objet frappé doit avoir un composant métallique ou d'oxyde, tel que l'oxyde de silicium. La foudre ramène cet oxyde à l'état de métal de silicium, exactement de la manière dont le silicium est produit industriellement. La vapeur de silicium se condense pour former des nanosphères de silicium, qui se rassemblent en longs filaments qui forment une sphère.
La troisième condition est la présence des "fulgérides," de longs trous dans le sol remplis de vapeur chaude. Ces fulgérides sont créés quand la foudre normale frappe la terre: les géologues ont creusé le sol après qu'il ait été frappé par la foudre et ont trouvé que ces trous sont faits d'oxydes qui ont été fondus puis à nouveau solidifiés, souvent sous forme de tubes.
La vapeur de silicium est alors éjectée du sol, formant un vortex qui forme une sphère. Une fois cette forme prise, la boule peut se déplacer sur une certaine distance. La couche d'oxyde sur la surface de chacune des particules ralentit le processus de disparition jusqu'à ce que chaque particule manque de métal. A ce moment la boule s'éteint ou implose.
Bien entendu, comme tout un chacun n'est pas un spécialiste de la question, et comme la compréhension du mécanisme est vraiment très récente (2002 pour les meilleures vérifications) les explications pseudo-scientifiques abondent et persistent. On y trouve l'annihilation matière-antimatière, des bouffées de ce que la astrophysiciens appellent "la matière noire" de l'univers, des phénomènes spontanés de fusion nucléaire et ainsi de suite, toutes explications totalement démenties par les faits.
De plus, une certaine confusion règne du fait des nombreuses recherches qui se proposent de créer des plasma en laboratoire. Il y a certes bien des méthodes pour créer un phénomène de plasma "in vitro," méthodes qui ne doivent rien à la composition du sol, ni ne requièrent qu'un orage éclate au-dessus du laboratoire. Mais croire que, puisqu'il est possible de faire apparaître un phénomène de plasma quelconque par quelque appareillage de laboratoire, alors cette méthode est celle utilisée par la nature, est évidemment erroné.
De quelles observations discutons nous?
Il est aisé de trouver dans la casuistique du phénomène un sous-ensemble de cas circonstanciés pour lesquels cette explication ne peut en aucune façon être appliquée. Philip Klass semble considérer comme admis que les OVNIS se présentent visuellement comme des masses amorphes, brumeuses ou floues, incandescentes ou lumineuses, de forme mal déterminées ou vaguement sphériques. Or des OVNIS sont aussi, parfois, rapportés comme des objets visuellement nets, solides, structurés, ayant des formes géométriquement incompatibles avec les phénomènes de foudre en boule, telles des formes cylindriques, parallélépipédiques, en disque avec diverses formes de protubérances telles que dômes et anneaux et ainsi de suite. La texture des phénomènes observés est parfois décrite comme nettement solide, métallique, et les couleurs sombres ou réparties en teintes selon des limites géométriques (dessus sombre et dessous clair, anneau de couleur différente du corps par exemple, s'accommodent plutôt mal avec la théorie des plasma. D'autres récits d'observation comprennent des descriptions nettes de caractéristiques s'accommodant à la théorie des plasma qu'avec une peine immense: lumières disposées géométriquement, telles des phares, découpes espacées régulièrement montrant des luminosités ou couleurs différentes du corps du phénomène observé, évoquant fenêtres, hublots, tuyères, voire occupants, et ainsi de suite. A aucun moment Philip Klass ne propose une explication de la manière dont les plasma pourraient produire de telles impressions visuelles.
Toutefois nous allons ici discuter de situations ou Philip Klass propose effectivement la foudre en boule comme explication, cas ou les observations d'OVNIS sont rapportées par des pilotes en vol, en faisant fi de l'objection présentée ci-dessus, laquelle reste cependant une objection fondamentale et non contournée.
Aspects électriques quantitatifs
Une caractéristique essentielle à la fois des récits d'observation de foudre en boule et plasmoïdes, et des modèles mathématiques proposés pour les expliquer, a permis de dégager un large consensus parmi les spécialistes selon lequel la foudre en boule soit un phénomène étroitement lié à la foudre des orages communs.
Klass au contraire argumente que la foudre de boule est également produite par temps clair exempt de toute activité orageuse, son argument pour l'affirmer se trouve précisément dans des rapports d'observations de masses lumineuses que des témoins décrivent visuellement, et en sus de leur description, attribuent à la foudre en boule. L'argument est confus, consistant à nier que les phénomènes de foudre en boule et plasma ont pour condition nécessaire l'activité orageuse au motif que des phénomènes y ressemblant se déroulent en dehors de telles conditions. Tout au plus pourrait-on concéder qu'il existerait une autre cause, encore inconnue, pour les phénomènes de plasmoïdes en dehors des conditions orageuses qui les expliquent selon le consensus établi. En effet, Klass ne propose aucun argument ni aucune hypothèse n'est formulée sur une quelconque cause pour le phénomène par temps clair. Et en réalité, dans la plupart des cas cités à l'appui par Klass, il est arbitraire de définir l'observation comme étant celle d'un plasma; ceci revient en fait à un simple détournement d'interprétation: puisque des masses lumineuses sont vues en dehors de conditions orageuses et ne sauraient être expliquées autrement que par des plasma, concluons que les plasma doivent exister également en dehors des conditions orageuses. En consultant les exemples donnés par Klass, on peut effectivement se rendre compte que ce qu'il considère comme exemple de plasma vu en temps clair sans orages sont en réalité pris parmi la casuistique des OVNIS, et qu'il n'est nullement évident que ces cas doivent être qualifiés de plasmoïdes.
Mieux, une consultation de sources relatives aux témoignages d'observations de foudre en boule, telle celle donnée en Annexe 1, montrent bel et bien que la quasi totalité des phénomènes de foudre en boule ont bien lieu pendant des orages. Ignorant les détails des observations d'OVNIS qui ne sont aucunement compatibles avec la foudre en boule, Philip Klass ignore également, d'une manière qui ne nous surprend que peu, la cause essentielle de la foudre en boule, et effectue donc sans état d'âme apparent un rapprochement illicite entre deux phénomènes pourtant nettement distincts.
Je ne peux m'empêcher de remarquer une phrase étrange notée sur le site Internet du CSICOP, une association de personnes diverses convaincues de l'inexistence du phénomène OVNI comme quoi que ce soit d'autre qu'une collection de fraudes et phénomènes triviaux: "These glowing balls of light appear very rarely in association with thunderstorms" (ces boules de lumière incandescentes apparaissent rarement en association avec des orages.) Nous avons là une ambiguïté dont, si elle n'est pas volontaire, je suis convaincu qu'elle est particulièrement propre à jeter le lecteur dans une confusion terrible: le CSICOP nous dit-il que la foudre en boule est rare, ou bien nous dit-il que la foudre en boule est rarement associée aux orages?
Le CSICOP nous dit également en une courte présentation du phénomène par un géologue, que "puisque même la foudre ordinaire est mystérieuse, l'activité de la foudre en boule dans la nature l'est encore plus." Là encore, loin de nous éclairer sur ce qui est connu du phénomène, le CSICOP entretient un doute favorable à ses vues sur les OVNIS. En effet, même si l'on a pu convenir longtemps de ce que l'explication des causes physiques profondes du phénomène soit encore matière à études, il est proprement trompeur de passer sous silence ce que nous connaissons maintenant bien mieux ce phénomène. Pire, la circonstance principale et essentielle d'apparition du phénomène, à savoir les orages, est connue depuis bien longtemps. C'est en passant sous silence cette connaissance que le CSICOP renonce à la véritable recherche sur les origines du phénomène OVNI en faveur des thèses de l'un de ses membres, Philip Klass.
Cependant un problème plus fondamental existe et est bien connu des spécialistes de la foudre en boule et des plasmoïdes: les aspects quantitatifs impliqués ne peuvent créer ces phénomènes dans l'air libre, au delà de zones tectoniques actives ou les phénomènes assimilés des "lumières tectoniques" peuvent être causés par des phénomène piézo-électriques liés à la nature des sols et aux tensions tectoniques. En plein air, par temps clair, dans les lieux où volent les avions, il n'y a simplement pas assez d'électricité dans l'air pour permettre l'apparition de foudre en boules et plasmoïdes sauf justement dans les conditions orageuses.
En dehors de conditions orageuses, si nous tentons d'évaluer la surface du secteur d'air nécessaire pour rassembler assez de courant électrique, sur une hauteur de 100 mètres, afin d'aboutir à un échauffement en Joules correspondant à 100 Watts, cette surface s'élève à 10.000 kilomètres carrés, sachant qu'un plasmoïde correspond bien plutôt à un minimum de 1000 Watts. Ce sont là évidemment des conditions qui rendent plutôt absurde la proposition de Philip Klass.
Un autre grave problème pour la théorie de Philip Klass est celui des aspects cinétiques: si le phénomène réel des plasmoïdes comporte encore bien des inconnus, toutes les données observationnelles montrent des caractéristiques de déplacement quasi nulles en regard des caractéristiques trouvées dans les rapports d'observation d'OVNIS. Certes des plasma se déplacent, mais en aucun cas n'ont été observés des plasma supersoniques par exemple. Philip Klass ne propose d'ailleurs aucune explication concernant le déplacement rapide des OVNIS et n'explique pas comment des OVNIS qui seraient des plasmoïdes pourraient montrer des caractéristiques cinétiques jamais observés pour les plasmoïdes.
Il propose toutefois un cas de figure dans lequel l'avion lui-même serait la cause de la création du plasmoïde, dans des conditions particulières qui ne s'appliquent à aucun cas où avion et OVNIS sont distants et restent à distance. Nous discutons maintenant de cela.
L'hypothèse de l'attirance entre les plasmoïdes et les avions
L'idée de Klass est la suivante: les avions en se déplaçant se chargent électriquement par le frottement de leur structure avec la vapeur d'eau, la poussière, la pluie ou la neige de l'air, et ceci attire les plasmoïdes qui semblent alors se rapprocher des avions du fait de l'attraction de Coulomb entre corps de charges électriques opposées.
Le physicien atmosphérique James E. McDonald à pris cette hypothèse au sérieux, et notant que Klass n'a effectué aucune vérification quantitative de son hypothèse, a montré qu'une telle attraction, même en arrondissant les facteurs quantitatifs de manière systématiquement et grandement favorables à l'hypothèse de Klass, était une théorie tout à fait ridicule: dans le meilleur des cas, notre plasmoïde se déplacerait à la lenteur d'un piéton dans la direction de l'avion.
Il reste également qu'il n'est aucunement établi en quoi avion et plasmoïde devraient avoir des charges électriques opposées, et Klass ne remarque aucunement que si les charges impliquées étaient de même signe, avion et plasmoïde s'éloignerait. Philip Klass aurait sans doute vu là une théorie explicative concernant les tentatives d'interceptions d'OVNIS par des avions de chasse dans lesquelles l'intercepteur ne parvient pas à rattraper la cible.
Il reste également une objection amusant à formuler contre cette hypothèse: si les plasmoïdes sont attirés vers les avions, comment expliquerait-on que cette attirance ne se termine pas par une collision systématique? De fait, Klass a abordé cette objection, et propose une explication totalement fabriquée, là encore sans aucune étude quantitative, selon laquelle le plasmoïde s'arrêtera à quelque distance de l'avion en raison des courants d'air qu'il génère. Klass ne nous explique cependant pas en quoi de tels courants d'air ne favoriseraient pas la collision, notamment si le plasmoïde abordait l'avion de front. Il semble que Klass ait là profité du manque de connaissances des détails d'observations par ses lecteurs, ignorant tout rapports concernant l'arrivée d'OVNIS à proximité d'avions devant leur front et laissant régner l'image de l'avion exclusivement suivi par l'OVNI, mais qui serait de quelque façon miraculeuse repoussé par des flux d'air en arrière de l'avion.
De façon qui d'étonne plus une fois que l'on s'est familiarisé avec les théories de Philip Klass, sont également exclus de cette considération toutes les observations d'OVNIS se rapprochant puis s'éloignant d'avions, à l'occasion de manière répétée. Egalement exclu de la discussion, le problème d'OVNIS se rapprochant et s'éloignant les uns des autres ou capable de vol en formation, ou de rupture de formation, ou de l'adoption de formations diverses.
Bien que ceci dépasse le cadre de cette discussion, nous souhaitons rappeler que Klass propose également que les véhicules au sol et même les piétons attireraient les OVNIS en raison de leurs charges électriques opposées, là encore il s'agit d'un aspect de son hypothèse explicative des OVNIS par les plasmoïde qui est peut-être mal connue des chercheurs.
Egalement peu connue, la réponse de Philip Klass au physicien James McDonald dans laquelle il pense réfuter les calculs quantitatifs de McDonald: ayant confondu Volts et Watts, il a cru pouvoir rétablir son hypothèse mais a en fait établi son incapacité à soutenir toute discussion sérieuse sur la question des aspects quantitatifs et sa méconnaissance fondamentale de la physique. A sa décharge, il convient de préciser que Philip Klass n'est nullement un scientifique, et entre autre aucunement compétent dans le domaine de la physique des plasma.
L'un dans l'autre, il est quantitativement absurde de proposer une telle chose que des plasmoïdes fuyant ou approchant des avions en raisons de charges électriques opposées ou égales, et je doute que le public ou même nombre de chercheurs familiarisés ou non avec la problématique des OVNIS ait réellement pris connaissance de ce type de proposition; il me semble au contraire que de telles propositions de Klass sont perçues globalement comme des hypothèses relevant du probable et que leur description échappent à l'attention générale.
Le problème de la durée
L'un des arguments s'opposant à la théorie des plasma de Philip Klass est le problème de la durée du phénomène.
Si l'on s'en réfère aux quelques milliers de témoignages oculaires recensés, la durée de vie moyenne d'un plasma est de l'ordre de quinze secondes, bien que quelques rares témoignages mal vérifiés comportent des durées estimées de l'ordre de 40 secondes, certain, encore plus rares, étant décrit comme d'une durée de plusieurs minutes. (Sont exclus ici des phénomènes atmosphériques électriques tels les feux de Saint Elme et aurores boréales où australes, lesquels s'adaptent encore moins aux observations d'OVNIS soit par leur localisation géographique, soit par leur aspect visuel, et également par les raisons données ici pour les plasmoïdes). Tantôt le plasma s'évanouit simplement, tantôt il explose.
Formation de plasmoïdes par l'action des avions eux-mêmes
Outre la proposition d'une création spontanée de plasmoïdes dans des cieux dégagés et non orageux, Klass propose que les avions eux-mêmes puissent créer des plasma, à l'extrémité de leurs ailes. Il nous propose que les avions créent une pollution, laquelle pollution se trouverait convertie en plasma par les tourbillons générés par les saumons d'ailes des avions.
La proposition est absurde sur tellement de points que l'on doit sérieusement considérer la possibilité que Klass n'ait réellement aucun souci de vraisemblance dans ses théories. Ainsi, la création de charges électrostatiques par les avions nécessite en réalité leur traversée de zones de pluie ou de neige; dans un air sec, aucune charge n'est créée. Si les avions avaient une telle capacité de pollution qu'elle approcherait les quantités impliquées par la pluie ou la neige, nous aurions bel et bien un problème d'aviation majeur, dont nulle trace n'est pourtant apparue à ce jour. Nous avons également peine à comprendre l'étrange proposition de la création de plasmoïde survenant selon Klass à l'extrémité des ailes, certainement le lieu ou cette pollution à la moindre chance de provoquer un tel effet. En réalité il s'agit là d'une proposition tout à fait ad-hoc faites par Klass en rapport avec un récit d'observation d'OVNIS volant de concert avec un avion à proche distance des saumons d'aile de cet avion. Tous ceci nous laisse entrevoir que la nature des hypothèses de Klass est celle d'explications forcées par les comptes rendus. On en peut que se demander pourquoi, si un tel effet était possible, il n'aurait pas plutôt lieu en arrière de l'avion, là où des échappements polluants, bien qu'insuffisants, ont effectivement lieu, tandis que les avions selon mes connaissances ne rejettent aucun produit de combustion ou carburant à l'extrémité de leurs ailes. Il me semble pourtant assez clair que de tels échappements, sauf cas de fuites de réservoir, se feraient systématiquement à la sortie des propulseurs et non au bout des ailes.
La production de plasma in vitro a été tentée, de ces tentatives on peut retenir les facteurs quantitatifs qui ne font que confirmer que l'air sec et sans phénomènes de type orageux ne permet pas la production de plasma, et que les plasma ne persistent jamais au-delà de quelques secondes dès lors qu'ils ne sont plus alimentés.
Autres éléments
Selon John Abrahamson et James Dinniss, de l'Université de Canterbury, en Nouvelle-Zélande, lorsque la foudre touche le sol, elle vaporise des particules de silicium, d'oxygène et de carbone, qui s'associent entre elles pour former de longues chaînes. Leur explication sur la formation des plasma propose que ces filaments, brûlant plutôt lentement, ont tendance à se replier sur eux-mêmes pour former des boules creuses qui dérivent au gré des vents. Si l'on considère ces travaux et théories, (qui ne sont pas largement acceptés, mais simplement parce qu'ils ne sont pas largement connus), il faudrait donc également expliquer comment des particules de silicium pourraient se trouver dans le ciel, pour y participer à la formation de plasma.
La première photographie au monde connue de la foudre en boule aurait été prise par un étudiant à Nagano, Japon, le 25 juillet 1987. Depuis, de nombreux projets amateurs ont été menés et ont donné quelques résultats, les photographies étant toujours réalisées dans des conditions d'orages avec éclair et montrant bien l'apparition de la foudre en boule comme suivant celle de l'éclair. Bien que ceci ne soit pas l'objet de notre étude, notons que l'un des principaux arguments contre la réalité des OVNIS, celui du trop petit nombre de photographies en regard du nombre d'observations visuelles pourrait être discuté en rapport avec cela.
Selon le Dr Michael Persinger, un chercheur américain, des, sinon les, OVNIS s'expliquent par le phénomène des lumières tectoniques. Sa théorie TST (Tectonic Strain Theory) indique que dans des zones ou une activité sismique provoquent des pressions considérables entre des portions de la croûte terrestre, si certaines roches et de l'eau est présente, il se produit un phénomène piézo-électrique dont un indice apparaît sous forme de lumières stationnaires ou à mouvements erratiques, au-dessus du sol, se manifestant à des hauteurs allant jusqu'à des dizaines de mètres au dessus du sol, et caractérisées par des couleurs variées et une longévité allant bien au-delà de celle de la foudre en boule. Divers lieux bien connus semblent bien d'adapter à cette théorie, tel Marfa dans le Texas, où ces phénomènes se produisent de façon répétées et sont observés depuis plusieurs décennies. Cependant, la totalité des arguments développés ici au sujet de la foudre en boule s'appliquera sans difficulté aux lumières tectoniques également: ici, la condition nécessaire n'est plus l'orage mais les pressions tectoniques sur les roches. L'objections les plus fortes s'appliquent: le fait que ces phénomènes piézo-électriques se manifestent uniquement à proximité du sol, que ces phénomènes ne sauraient poursuivre des avions, et qu'ils ne correspondent aucunement au caractéristiques des observations visuelles comportant corps solides, non lumineux, structurés ou montrant des détails pouvant être interprétés en terme de phares, de hublots, d'émissions de rayons, et ainsi de suite. Sensible à l'argument, le Dr. Persinger a ensuite ajouté un pan très controversé même parmi la communauté scientifique traditionnelle, selon lequel le phénomène lui même induirait des perceptions illusoires telles que soucoupes volantes et êtres extra-terrestres dams le cerveau des témoins; laissons ce point en suspens pour un futur examen, en accordant que ce pourrait être un point intéressant, mais en rappelant que cet ajout à la TST ne s'adapte toujours pas à des témoignages d'observations depuis des avions.
Un ami scientifique m'a permis il y a quelque temps de prendre la mesure de l'effort d'information nécessaire avant que l'ufologie n'ait sa place dans le monde académique quand il a pensé m'apprendre que ce que les pilotes voient d'étrange dans le ciel a maintenant reçu une explication triviale. Mon ami se référait à une classe de phénomènes électriques atmosphérique dont les manifestations ont été rapportées par les pilotes avec les mêmes hésitations que les témoignages sur des OVNIS, ce depuis longtemps, et ce accueilli par les dénégations et le scepticisme général identique à celui dont fait l'objet le phénomène OVNI. Absence de photographies, descriptions imprécises, et d'autres points rendaient en fait ces témoignages à vrai dire encore plus étranges que ceux des OVNIS. Les phénomènes en questions, désignés comme "Blue Jets" et "Red Sprites," (voir Ref. 3) nommés "sylphes" en français, sont effectivement enfin reconnus comme réels. Il s'agit de phénomènes électriques atmosphériques liés comme les plasma à la foudre, mais cette fois bel et bien haut dans le ciel, se manifestant sous forme d'immense "champignons" de lumière rouge ou bleue s'étendant sur des hauteurs allant jusqu'à plusieurs dizaines de kilomètres. Ces phénomènes ne sauraient cependant constituer une explication des rapports d'OVNIS qui occupent les ufologues en raison d'une caractéristique systématique bien particulière: exactement comme la foudre vue au sol, les Blue Jets et Red Sprites ont une brièveté inférieure de deux ordres de grandeur (0.01) à la seconde. C'est précisément cette brièveté qui a souvent motivé les pilotes à ne plus rapporter le phénomène, lequel pouvait être interprété à tort à des problèmes psychologique ou de vision. En aucun cas ces phénomènes ne correspondent de près ou de loin à ce que les pilotes et passagers de lignes aériennes rapportent comme étant des OVNIS au sens objets matériels volants. En aucun cas ces phénomènes ne peuvent être présentés comme ayant poursuivi ou été poursuivi par des avions, ou ayant manoeuvré autour d'eux; il n'est même pas ici possible de parler de vitesse, de virages, de déplacement. Et, il n'est pas inutile de le rappeler, ces phénomènes se produisent également exclusivement sur le lieu d'un orage, dont il sont le pendant dans la haute atmosphère.
Conclusions
Il doit être noté que le consensus des chercheurs concernant la foudre en boule est qu'elle est associée à un coup de foudre ordinaire, suivant un éclair, qui lorsqu'il s'éteint, laisse en de rares occasions quelques sphères lumineuses flotter dans les airs au niveau du sol durant quelques secondes. La plupart du temps, ces sphères sont de couleur jaunâtre tirant vers l'orange, et d'un diamètre situé entre 20 et 40 cm. Certains témoignages rapportent cependant des couleurs allant du vert au bleu et des diamètres de moins de 5 cm jusqu'à plus de 1 mètre, quoiqu'il faille prendre ces estimations de taille avec autant de prudence que les estimations de taille données par les témoignages d'OVNIS qui ne comprennent pas de mesure objective des tailles et distances. Ce consensus est étrangement oublié ou ignoré non seulement par Philip Klass, mais par la plupart des chercheurs s'occupant d'ufologie dès lors qu'ils cherchent à établir que les OVNIS seraient essentiellement un phénomène naturel ou trivial.
Si l'on peut convenir aisément que de rares cas d'observations de foudre en boule par des témoins aéroportés ont eu lieu, on note que le récit ne fait nulle allusion à la moindre possibilité que le phénomène soit autre chose que celui de la foudre en boule. Au contraire les récits d'observations d'OVNIS qui occupent les ufologues soigneux montrent des caractéristiques nettes qui excluent les plasmoïdes comme explication.
Il semble évident que Philip Klass, pourtant souvent loué comme ayant avec succès expliqué le phénomène OVNI comme étant causé par des plasma, n'ait en fait que proposé avec l'explication par des plasmoïdes une explication relevant de la fantaisie et de la pseudoscience. Un regard à peine approfondi sur cette explication fait vite entrevoir qu'elle n'est qu'une proposition ad-hoc et confinant à un acte de foi, et aucunement un travail de recherche qualifié. De manière prévisible, nombre de personnes peu au fait des détails des observations d'OVNI et des caractéristiques des plasmoïdes ont été amenés à se désintéresser du phénomène OVNI, sauf en tant que phénomène naturel mal interprété, que la science aurait pourtant expliqué, notamment par des manifestations de plasmoïdes.
Références
1. Philip J. Klass, "Plasma Theory May Explain Many UFOs," Aviation Week, August 22, 1966. 2. Philip J. Klass, "UFOs: Identified," Random House, 1968. 3. "Lightning Between Earth and Space," dans le numéro d'Août 1997 de Scientific American.
Ils les ont vus... et ils l'ont fait savoir. Depuis 1979, trois Brivistes ont affirmé avoir observé des phénomènes étranges dans le ciel. Chaque cas a été traité par le Geipan, Groupe d'études et d'informations sur les phénomènes aérospatiaux non-identifiés.
Depuis 1953, l’organisme public Geipan (Groupe d’études et d’informations sur les phénomènes aérospatiaux non identifiés) a recensé trois « phénomènes » étranges à Brive.
1. Une apparition aux toilettes
Ce matin du 11 janvier 1979, un collégien de Brive se lève pour « aller au WC » vers 6h45. « J’ai ouvert la fenêtre pour observer le temps afin de m’habiller en conséquence », raconte-t-il dans procès-verbal rédigé par la gendarmerie. « J’ai alors constaté qu’un objet ovale, dont la forme ressemblait à un ballon de rugby, se déplaçait au-dessus de la route. » Le jeune homme estime que l’objet qu’il a aperçu est d’un volume équivalent à « une Citroën CX ». Il ajoute qu’il comportait, dans sa partie supérieure, « environ six feux fixes de couleur rouge et verte », ainsi qu’un feu de couleur jaune « bien plus important que les autres ».
La très sérieuse enquête réalisée par la gendarmerie conclura que le témoin a vu un avion de ligne FBOOM bimoteur. Un tel appareil a atterri, ce jour-là, à 6h42, pour redécoller à 6h59 de l’aérodrome de Brive, tout proche du lieu de l’observation. Une thèse confirmée par les déclarations d’un palefrenier travaillant dans un centre équestre tout proche du lieu de l’observation. « Assez fréquemment, à la même heure, j’entends le bruit de cet avion qui doit desservir une ligne […]. Le ronflement que j’ai entendu ce matin m’a paru être plus fort que celui produit par les petits avions de tourisme. Donc, il doit s’agir d’un avion de passagers un peu plus important que ceux de l’aéro-club », a-t-il indiqué lorsqu’il a été interrogé par les gendarmes.
Je ne pense pas que j’aie vu un avion, parce que cet engin ne faisait pas de bruit.
Dans le dossier compilé par le Geipan, figure également le témoignage du chef de l’aérodrome qui précise, à propos du bimoteur qui s’est posé ce matin-là : « Je dois dire que lors de l’atterrissage, cet appareil allume ses feux de position, un vert à droite et un rouge à gauche au bout de chaque aile. À la queue, il a également des feux. Il possède aussi deux phares d’atterrissage groupés très puissants émettant une lumière blanche très vive. » « Je ne pense pas que j’aie vu un avion, parce que cet engin ne faisait pas de bruit », avait pourtant affirmé le collégien dans sa déposition.
2. Une forme ronde derrière le Stadium
Le 26 novembre 1983, un homme à la crédibilité jugée « normale » témoigne auprès d’un adjudant-chef de la gendarmerie de Brive. Il déclare avoir aperçu, vers 9h10, un objet volant non-identifié. « Cet objet était, selon ses dires, de couleur rouge très vif, rapporte le gendarme. Il descendait verticalement à grande vitesse. Une trace blanche d’une longueur moyenne d’un à deux mètres lui était accolée. Il était d’une forme ronde de vingt à quarante centimètres. »
Le témoin affirme que l’Ovni se trouvait à environ cinq cents mètres de distance lorsqu’il l’a vu tomber « à une vitesse relativement élevée » dans le secteur du stadium municipal. « Je me suis immédiatement rendu sur place, par curiosité, pensant trouver une trace. Ma vision n’a été que de très courte durée, environ une seconde. Sur le coup, je me suis demandé si je ne rêvais pas. Néanmoins, je maintiens ma déclaration et je suis très formel. Je peux même dire que j’ai ressenti une vive émotion. »
Il explique avoir cherché une trace de cet objet, dans le secteur du stadium municipal, sans résultat. Les gendarmes ont eux aussi effectué des recherches dans le secteur « susmentionné » sans plus de résultat. « Plusieurs personnes ont été contactées, ainsi que le commissariat de police », écrit l’adjudant-chef en charge de l’affaire.
3. « Peur » à Ussac
Le 25 juin 2010, un homme âgé de trente-sept ans, habitant à Ussac, sur les hauteurs de Brive, aperçoit, pendant environ une minute, un objet scintillant descendant du ciel à grande vitesse. L’objet, « sphérique, blanc et trois fois plus lumineux qu’une étoile » s’arrête en vacillant et sans aucun bruit à cent mètres du témoin, qui affirme n’avoir consommé « ni alcool ni drogue ».
À la gendarmerie, cet homme confiera avoir été très secoué par cette étrange apparition. « Je suis rentré chez moi et je me suis enfermé. J’ai beaucoup réfléchi en me disant que c’était fou ce que je venais de voir. J’ai été pris d’un sentiment de peur et d’affolement. » Persuadé qu’il s’agit d’un « phénomène extraterrestre » ou d’un objet de « très haute technologie militaire », le témoin, qui se décrit comme un « grand lecteur de revues scientifiques », finira par contacter directement le Geipan. Jean-Baptiste Chadelle, correspondant du Geipan dans la région, a mené l’enquête. Pour lui, pas de doute : le témoin a observé un passage de l’ISS, la station spatiale internationale. Deux autres observations similaires avaient été effectuées, le même jour, à La Réole (Gironde) et Bruay-la-Buissière (Pas-de-Calais).
Two Navy airmen describe encounter with what they believe was a UFO
Two Navy airmen describe encounter with what they believe was a UFO
'It accelerated like nothing I've ever seen': Two Navy airmen describe encounter with what they believe was a UFO after the Pentagon reveals its multi-million dollar search program for mysterious objects
Navy Cmdr. David Fravor and Navy Lt. Cmdr. Jim Slaight were flying above Pacific Ocean in November 2004 during training mission
Fravor recounted how they came near mysterious object that he was 'pretty weirded out' by
He said at first it was hovering and then 'it accelerated like nothing I've ever seen'
His revelation comes after the Pentagon announced it ran the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program from 2007 to 2012
Its mission, which had a $22 million annual budget, was to investigate sightings and military encounters with unidentified flying objects, also known as UFOS
Founded amid fears they could be advanced weaponry or technology from foreign states such as Russia or China which could threaten the US
The program was created by then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid
Two Navy airman flying over the Pacific Ocean on a routine training mission claim they encountered mysterious objects that 'accelerated like nothing' they had 'ever seen' before.
Back in 2004, Navy Cmdr. David Fravor and Navy Lt. Cmdr. Jim Slaight were flying about 100 miles off the coast of San Diego in each of their F/A-18F Super Hornets carrying two CATM-9s, which are dummy missiles that could not be fired, the New York Times reported.
According to Fravor, the operations officer aboard Navy cruiser U.S.S. Princeton had been communicating with the pair during their mission and said, 'Well, we've got a real-world vector for you.'
The operator said for the past two weeks the Navy cruiser had been tracking mysterious aircraft.
The objects would first appear at 80,000 feet, and then speed toward the sea before stopping at 20,000 feet and hovering.
Back in 2004, Navy Cmdr. David Fravor (pictured left with his wife) and Navy Lt. Cmdr. Jim Slaight were flying about 100 miles off the coast of San Diego in each of their F/A-18F Super Hornets on a routine training mission when they encountered a mysterious object
According to Fravor, the operations officer aboard Navy cruiser U.S.S. Princeton (file above) had been communicating with the pair during their mission and instructed to investigate the object that was picked up on radar
They then either shot back up into the sky or dropped off of radar.
Fravor and Slaight were instructed to investigate the objects by the radio operator on the Navy cruiser.
The two pilots followed their instructions and as they closed in, they were alerted by the operator that they could not tell which were the objects and which were the fighter jets.
At first, Fravor nor Slaight could see anything and nothing was on their radars.
But then Fravor looked down to the sea and noticed that the waves were breaking over something below the surface, causing the sea to churn.
Hovering about 50 feet above the churn was an aircraft of some sort that was whitish, 40 feet long and oval in shape, Fravor recounted.
He described to the Times that it was jumping erratically but not moving in any specific direction.
Fravor began a circular descent in an effort to get a closer look, but the object began ascending toward him as if it were trying to meet him halfway, he explained.
He then abandoned his slow circular descent and decided to fly straight towards the object.
Fravor said at first they couldn't see anything, but then they noticed the mysterious object that was whitish, 40 feet long and oval in shape. He said that he was 'pretty weirded out' by the encounter while flying in his F/A-18F Super Hornet (file above)
But then he said it quickly flew away.
'It accelerated like nothing I've ever seen,' he told the Times before adding that he was 'pretty weirded out.'
Fravor and Slaight then spoke with operations officer on their Navy cruiser and were told to fly to a rendezvous point about 60 miles away, which is called the cap point in aviation parlance.
As they were flying, the Princeton radioed again saying that radar had picked up the strange aircraft.
'Sir, you won't believe it,' the radio operator said, 'but that thing is at your cap point.'
'We were at least 40 miles away, and in less than a minute this thing was already at our cap point,' Fravor said.
Once they arrived, the object had disappeared and the two fighter jets returned to the Nimitz.
Fravor said that he was made fun of after people aboard the ship had learned of his encounter.
Fravor's story about the mysterious object comes as the Pentagon reveals it had a secret multi-million dollar program to investigate UFO sightings
When asked by another pilot of the situation, Fravor said: 'I have no idea what I saw. It had no plumes, wings or rotors and outran our F-18s.'
He added, 'I want to fly one.'
His superiors did not investigate further.
Fravor has since retired from the Navy after deploying to the Persian Gulf providing air support to ground troops during the Iraq war.
Fravor's account of what he claims happened in November 2004 has emerged after it was revealed the Pentagon set up a secret multi-million dollar program to investigate UFO sightings.
The Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program ran from 2007 to 2012, with a $22 million annual budget, with the mission of looking into reports of military encounters with unidentified flying objects.
The Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program ran from 2007 to 2012, with a $22 million annual budget
The Defense Department finally acknowledged the existence of its long-secret UFO investigation program on Saturday, when officials shifted attention and funding to other priorities.
Its initial funding came largely at the request of former Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat long known for his enthusiasm for space phenomena, the newspaper said.
The program was created by then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada), with the support of the late Senators Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) and Republican Ted Stevens (R-Alaska).
Their fears were that the unexplained phenomena could be advanced weaponry or technology from foreign states such as Russia or China which could threaten the US.
'Was this China or Russia trying to do something or has some propulsion system we are not familiar with?' a former staffer told Politico.
While former career intelligence officer Luis Elizondo, who ran the initiative, stressed he wanted to take the 'voodoo' out of a 'voodoo science,' the program investigated some issues that sound like they're straight out of a science fiction movie.
They included 'wormholes' and 'warp drives' as well as interviewing pilots and military personnel who reported experiences with UFOs.
Elizondo said that many of the Navy pilots described aircraft moving and acting in a way that seemed to be beyond human beings' current capabilities.
'We had never seen anything like it,' he said.
The former staffer said that Reid believed there could be a valid national security issue and so agreed to fund the program.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF A CONSPIRACY THEORIST
Over the course of three online-based studies, researchers at the University of Kent showed strong links between the belief in conspiracy theories and these psychological traits.
The results showed that those people who rated highly on the narcissism scale and who had low self-esteem were more likely to be conspiracy believers.
However, while low self-esteem, narcissism and belief in conspiracies are strongly linked, it is not clear that one - or a combination - causes the other.
But it hints at an interesting new angle to the world of conspiracy and those who reinforce belief.
But after a few years, and very little to show for it, Reid decided it wasn't worth continuing.
'After a while the consensus was we really couldn't find anything of substance,' he recalled. 'They produced reams of paperwork. After all of that there was really nothing there that we could find. It all pretty much dissolved from that reason alone—and the interest level was losing steam. We only did it a couple years.'
'There was really nothing there that we could justify using taxpayer money,' he added. 'We let it die a slow death. It was well spent money in the beginning.'
According to the the Pentagon, the program 'ended in the 2012 timeframe.'
Yet according to its backers, the program remains in existence and officials continue to investigate UFO episodes brought to their attention by service members, the newspaper said.
The Pentagon openly acknowledged the fate of the program in response to a Reuters query.
'The Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program ended in the 2012 timeframe,' Pentagon spokeswoman Laura Ochoa said in an email.
'It was determined that there were other, higher priority issues that merited funding and it was in the best interest of the DoD to make a change,' she said.
The program was created by then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (pictured)
But the Pentagon was less clear about whether the UFO program continues to hover somewhere in the vast universe of the U.S. defense establishment.
'The DoD takes seriously all threats and potential threats to our people, our assets, and our mission and takes action whenever credible information is developed,' Ochoa said.
What is less in doubt is former senator Reid's enthusiasm for UFOs and his likely role in launching the Pentagon initiative to identify advanced aviation threats.
'If you've talked to Harry Reid for 60 seconds then it's the least surprising thing ever that he loves UFOs and got an earmark to study them,' former Reid spokeswoman Kristen Orthman said in a message on Twitter.
Or as Reid himself said in a tweet that linked to the Times' story: 'The truth is out there. Seriously.'
Elizondo has since joined former Blink 182 vocalist Tom DeLonge's company To The Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences - described as a 'public benefit corporation' that has 'mobilized a team of the most experienced, connected and passionately curious minds from the U.S. intelligence community, including the CIA, Department of Defense, who have been operating under the shadows of top-secrecy for decades.'
CIA RELEASES ITS OWN 'X-FILES'
Last year, the CIA released a glimpse into its own set of 'X-Files,' a small compilation of documents pulled from its expansive UFO collection, dating back to the 1940s.
The agency said that these documents appeal to both skeptics and believers – the Scullys and Mulders of the world – who seek to prove scientific explanations, or confirm the existence of extraterrestrial activity.
A reported UFO sighting over Minnville, Oregon, is pictured above
One of the documents among the CIA's 'X-Files' is from East Germany in 1952, where agents were called to investigate what witnesses described as a 'huge flying pan'.
The object was said to have a diameter of about 15 meters, according to the document.
Similar flying saucers were also spotted in North Africa and Spain, the report said.
'The picture [of the object] shows a diagonal stripe of diminishing width and lighter in shade than the sky over the dark bulk of a building cornice,' it was noted.
Included with some of the documents were three pictures of the alleged extraterrestrials.
One of the photos - taken by British student Alex Birch in 1962 - claimed to show a group of flying saucers flying over the city of Sheffield in the UK.
Also contained in the files is the case in Socorro, New Mexico in 1964, when police officer Lonnie Zamora spotted a large flame rise from the ground and pierce the sky above a remote patch of desert.
Upon investigation, he found a shiny object the size of a sedan perched on the hilltop, which was oval in shape and aluminium in color.
The object then began to rise into the air and then sped away from him over the mountains and disappeared.
An explanation for this case has never been determined.
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )
Strange Dimming Star May Be Scarfing Down Wrecked Planets
Strange Dimming Star May Be Scarfing Down Wrecked Planets
BySamantha Mathewson, Space.com Contributor
Vast orbiting clouds of planetary wreckage could be causing a distant young star's strange dimming behavior, a new study shows.
The star, known as RZ Piscium, is located about 550 light-years away, in the constellation Pisces. Observations of the young sun-like star revealed unpredictable dimming episodes, during which the star becomes as much as 10 times fainter, according to a statement from NASA announcing the findings.
"Our observations show there are massive blobs of dust and gas that occasionally block the star's light and are probably spiraling into it," Kristina Punzi, lead author of the study and a doctoral student at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) in New York, said in the statement. "Although there could be other explanations, we suggest this material may have been produced by the break-up of massive orbiting bodies near the star." [10 Exoplanets That Could Host Alien Life]
In the study, the astronomers found that the star's erratic dimming behavior can last as long as two days. Observations also showed that nearly 8 percent of the star's total luminosity is infrared, which is a far larger proportion of infrared radiation than that produced by most other stars, such as our sun. This suggests that an enormous amount of warm dust surrounds the star, according to the NASA statement.
Using the European Space Agency's (ESA) XMM-Newton satellite, the researchers confirmed the star's youth by measuring its X-ray output, which is roughly 1,000 times greater than the X-ray output from our sun, according to the statement — younger stars often release more X-ray radiaton.
Furthermore, ground-based observations from the Shane 3-meter telescope at Lick Observatory in California and the 10-meter Keck I telescope at W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii revealed that the surface temperature of the star is approximately 9,600 degrees Fahrenheit (5,300 degrees Celsius), which is only slightly cooler than the surface temperature of the sun. Also, the observations showed traces of lithium, which is slowly destroyed by nuclear reactions inside a star as it ages.
"The amount of lithium in a star's surface declines as it ages, so it serves as a clock that allows us to estimate the elapsed time since a star's birth," study co-author Joel Kastner, director of RIT's Laboratory for Multiwavelength Astrophysics, said in the statement. "Our lithium measurement for RZ Piscium is typical for a star of its surface temperature that is about 30 to 50 million years old."
Researchers think the young star RZ Piscium's strange dimming may come from clouds of wrecked planetary debris.
Credit: NASA
Generally, the disk of planet-forming material surrounding a sun-like star condenses to form planets and moons within a few million years of the star’s birth. However, a large amount of gas and dust still circles RZ Piscium, which suggests the star is destroying planets in its vicinity, rather than building them.
The clouds of debris, which orbit approximately 30 million miles (50 million kilometers) from the star, likely formed following a planetary collision, and RZ Piscium now feeds on the leftover planetary material, according to the statement.
But there's a twist: In addition to the leftover material falling inward toward the star, the observations suggest that some of the dust is also flowing outward from the star, the researchers said.
This indicates that RZ Piscium may exert tidal forces that strip material from a neighboring stellar companion or giant planet. This, in turn, would produce intermittent streams of gas and dust, according to the statement.
"While we think the bulk of this debris is about as close to the star as the planet Mercury ever gets to our sun, the measurements also show variable and rapidly moving emission and absorption from hydrogen-rich gas," study co-author Carl Melis, an associate research scientist at the University of California, San Diego, said in the statement.
Based on their observations, the researchers suggest that the star is gobbling up a large planet. The star’s gravity would ultimately rip the planet to shreds, causing some of the observed bursts in X-rays, the researchers said.
Their findings were published Dec. 21 in The Astronomical Journal.
Sneeuwdek van 40 centimeter in… de Sahara. Bekijk hier unieke beelden van sneeuw in de woestijn
Sneeuwdek van 40 centimeter in… de Sahara. Bekijk hier unieke beelden van sneeuw in de woestijn
Unieke beelden in de Sahara afgelopen weekend: de woestijn kleurde wit na een sneeuwbui. Het was de derde keer in bijna 40 jaar tijd.
De grootste zandwoestijn van onze planeet was dit weekend bedekt met een laag sneeuw van maar liefst 40 centimeter. De inwoners van het Algerijnse Aïn Sefra konden hun ogen dan ook amper geloven toen ze zondag wakker werden.
Echt verrast
Fotograaf Karim Bouchetata kon er unieke beelden van maken. “We waren echt verrast toen we opstonden met sneeuw,” zei hij.
“Het is bijna de hele dag blijven liggen, maar in de late namiddag begon het te smelten,” voegde hij toe.
Eind 2016 en begin vorig jaar kregen de inwoners ook te maken met sneeuwbuien, al waren die toen veel kleiner. Daarvoor was er sinds 18 februari 1979 geen sneeuw meer gevallen.
Super Rare Blue Blood Moon Lunar Eclipse on January 31, 2018
Super Rare Blue Blood Moon Lunar Eclipse on January 31, 2018
End of January to see stunning collision of three lunar sights. The end of this month we will see the beginning of one of the moon's most beautiful nights. On 31 January appear a blood moon, a Supermoon and a total lunar eclipse, all on one night.
Some people including NASA are referring to it as a super blue blood moon and it is the first blue moon total lunar eclipse in over a century.
The last couple of months we have seen some strange events along the coasts of several countries, like the last week in Ecuador where the ocean suddenly disappeared from the coast.
So without doubt this super blue blood moon will have an effect on tides, due to the gravitational pull of the moon and the sun which arrange themselves more or less along a line in space At these times, the high tides are very high and the low tides are very low.
At the Las Vegas international airport, there's an terminal where planes take off and land all day. The parking lot for this terminal fills up with hundreds of cars, which leave by the end of the day. But no one knows who runs the Gold Coast Terminal, or who boards those planes. We do know what the airline is called--JANET--though we don't know what it stands for. It's suggested that the acronym means Joint Air Network for Employee Transportation, but it's often referred to by secret aviation fans as Just Another Non-Existent Terminal.
Hundreds, or maybe even thousands of people take the airline every day. But where do they go? Tracking the planes, we can see that many of them head to Air Force research facilities and US weapons testing locations like the Tonopah Test Range. But some of them also turn off their transponders right as they reach the location known as Area 51, the center of conspiracy theorist lore for decades.
It's likely that JANET is simply how government employees commute to their top secret jobs every day. But it's sure fun to imagine what else could be going on.
Three days ago, The New York Times published what appeared to be a bombshell of a story. The report revealed that, from roughly 2007 through 2012, the Department of Defense ran a small program out of the Defense Intelligence Agency known as the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. The mission was, in short, to look into UFO reports and assess if any of them represented a threat to the United States. On the face of it, that looks like a big deal in anybody’s book. But was it really?
While wearing the uniform, I had the opportunity to participate in several very interesting, highly-classified efforts. Known as “Special Access Programs,” they are actually higher than Top Secret. Not only do you need a Top Secret Special Compartmentalized Information (TS/SCI) clearance, you also need to be vetted and then specifically given an in-briefing. You cannot even reveal the mere existence of the program itself, let alone anything from within the project. These are the sort of things that make headlines when they are revealed but which are often prosaic in origin or execution.
The fact is that the Department of Defense looks at a huge number of things, from the future effects of global warming to the games that Chinese strategists play as kids that may affect their modes of thinking. The extreme level of classification of many such studies often comes from one of two reasons. The first and most obvious is a desire to conceal a capability from any potential competitor or enemy. The second is, essentially, political: a desire not to be embarrassed, either by political leaders or the leaders of the various branches of the Department of Defense. In some cases, it’s both. This time, however, it appears to be only the latter.
July 30, 1952: Officers of the operations,technical and intelligence divisions of the USAF are shown at a news conference where they announced they are setting up a battery of more than 200 cameras in attempts to obtain data on the ’unidentified objects’ reported from various parts of the nation.
GETTY
This is not the first time the Department of Defense has looked into the issue of UFOs. Indeed, its’s not even the second or third. In fact, the very term “Unidentified Flying Object” came from a USAF officer, Captain Edward Ruppelt, who was the first leader of the largest of these efforts known as “Project Blue Book.” The first of those studies started in 1947 and, under three different names (the last being Blue Book), officially lasted more than 20 years before finally shutting down in 1969.
Though Blue Book went through ups and downs over the years, it was pretty credible under the first director of the program, and over time they received and examined some 12,618 reports. (You can go see their declassified files yourself at the National Archives.) This being the digital age, you can access copies of everything online as well. If that is not enough, you can read Captain Ruppelt’s own summary of the project.
Believers and skeptics alike will probably both dive in on this, and not a few conspiracy theorists will latch onto the fact that the program was classified and funded through a part of the “secret” Department of Defense budget. And truth be told, if the numbers are to be believed, there has indeed been an uptick in UFO reporting over the past decade.
The openly acknowledged facts, however, suggest that my point about the reasoning for the secrecy was much more benign than some vast government cover-up of “the truth.” Spending only $22 million over five years really is small-beans by most measures. It suggests that this whole effort, averaging $4.4 million per year, was likely conducted by no more than a dozen people. The primary reason was likely classified to prevent political egg landing on anyone’s face.
Sure would be interesting to see what they found though.
Robert Bateman is a military historian and is a fellow at New America. He is a former military strategist.
NASADe planeet Jupiter, vastgelegd op de gevoelige plaat door de ruimtesonde Juno.
WETENSCHAP & PLANEETDe Amerikaanse ruimtevaartorganisatie NASA heeft een prachtige foto vrijgegeven van de planeet Jupiter. Kunst uit de ruimte, want de afbeelding lijkt wel van de hand van schilder Vincent van Gogh. Toch is ze echt.
De ruimtesonde Juno legde de atmosfeer van de grootste planeet van ons zonnestelsel vast op de gevoelige plaat. Het onbemande ruimtevaartuig deed er vijf jaar over om het hemellichaam te bereiken en voert nu een jaar lang observaties uit rond Jupiter.
Deze foto werd midden december vorig jaar genomen vanop een afstand van meer dan 13.000 kilometer van de planeet. In de rechterbovenhoek is de overgang van dag naar nacht te zien, legt NASA uit op haar website.
Een geheime spionagesatelliet van de Amerikanen, die zondag gelanceerd werd, is nooit in een baan om de aarde terechtgekomen. Dat laat het Pentagon weten. Het ministerie van Defensie weet niet waar het apparaat dan wel is, maar neemt aan dat de lancering mislukt is.
Een Falcon-draagraket van de Amerikaanse raketbouwer SpaceX moest de satelliet in een baan om de aarde brengen. De lancering vanaf Cape Canaveral was om technische redenen al eens uitgesteld.
Northrop Grumman is de bouwer van de satelliet, die de codenaam Zuma droeg en miljarden gekost heeft. Waarvoor de kunstmaan precies was bedoeld, is geheim. Een woordvoerder van SpaceX van Elon Musk wil niet ingaan op de missie. Wel laat hij weten dat op basis van de eerste data de Falcon 9 normaal heeft gefunctioneerd.
One of the highlights of 2017 was the discovery of the first object in our solar system that definitely came from somewhere else. At first we thought it was a comet, then an asteroid, and now the International Astronomical Union has reclassified it as something new entirely, an interstellar object. The Hawaiian astronomers who discovered it aptly named it ‘Oumuamua, which means “a messenger from afar arriving first”, reflecting that this object is like a scout sent from the past to reach out to us.
Research has already helped us learn a lot about 'Oumuamua’s rare cigar-like shape, what it’s made of (ice with a carbon-rich surface) and its highly unusual orbit, which will take it out of our solar system at a speed of around 26 km/s. The Breakthrough Listen research program has even investigated whether 'Oumuamua is an alien space ship by scanning the object for life forms with the Green Bank Telescope. No intelligent signals have been identified so far, though further observations are planned.
Now my latest study gives us a glimpse of exactly where 'Oumuamua may have come from. Reconstructing the object’s motion, my research suggests it probably came from the nearby “Pleiades moving group” of young stars, also known as the “Local Association”. It was likely ejected from its home solar system and sent out to travel interstellar space.
'Oumuamua’s journey.
Based on 'Oumuamua’s trajectory, I simulated how it has probably travelled through the galaxy and compared this to the motions of nearby stars. I found the object passed 109 stars within a distance of 16 light years. It went by five of these stars from in the Local Association (a group of young stars likely to have formed together), at a very slow speed relative to their movement.
It’s likely that when 'Oumuamua was first ejected into space, it was travelling at just enough speed to break away from the gravity of its planet or star of origin, rather than at a much faster speed that would require even more energy. This means we’d expect the object to move relatively slowly at the start of its interstellar journey, and so its slow encounters with these five stars suggests it was ejected from one of the group.
When was it kicked out of its home?
Stars typically move with an average speed when they are formed and gradually change speed as they encounter very large objects, such as massive stars and molecular clouds and are affected by their gravity. Unlike most nearby stars, 'Oumuamua moves very slowly compared to the average motion of the rest of the galaxy. This suggests it has only been travelling in interstellar space for a relatively short time and hasn’t had a chance to encounter many massive objects that would speed it up.
We also have evidence for 'Oumuamua’s relatively young age from the colour of its surface. Outside of the protection of a star’s magnetic field, objects in space are bombarded with cosmic rays and interstellar dust and gas that gradually alter their surfaces and turn them very red in colour. But 'Oumuamua has a more neutral colour, suggesting it has only been impacted by cosmic rays for, at most, hundreds of million years rather than for the billions of years that our solar system has existed.
How was it ejected?
'Oumuamua is extremely elongated and has quite a different shape from other objects in our solar system. It was probably formed by a relatively high-energy process such as a collision, or ejected from a forming star. Most objects in the outer part of a planetary system are made more of ice and most objects in the inner regions are made more of rocks. Since 'Oumuamua is a more even mix of iceand rocks, it’s likely it came from the middle part of a solar system, similar to the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter that features a mixture of icy and rocky asteroids.
Perhaps the most plausible scenario is that 'Oumuamua was ejected from a closely separated binary star system made of two stars closely orbiting each other. Objects orbiting one of the stars in a binary system will be strongly affected by the gravity of the other and so can be more easily ejected from the system than if it had just one star.
'Oumuamua is probably just the tip of the iceberg. My research suggests there are likely more than 46m similar interstellar objects crossing the solar system every year. Most of them will be too far away for us to see with our current telescopes. But new telescopes and surveys should soon be able to find these interstellar messengers, which may be sending us important information about how stars and planets formed. Studying more objects like 'Oumuamua will enable us to work out how much debris is left over from star formation and how much this adds to the mass of our galaxy.
Another reason to study these interstellar objects is that they could one day threaten to collide with the Earth and cause catastrophic events such as mass extinctions. The more we know, the better prepared we’ll be if that day ever comes.
Oorsprong van eerste waargenomen bezoeker van buiten ons zonnestelsel ontdekt. Hier komt Oumuamua vandaan
Oorsprong van eerste waargenomen bezoeker van buiten ons zonnestelsel ontdekt. Hier komt Oumuamua vandaan
Als Tabby’s ster de meest mysterieuze ster in het sterrenstelsel is, is de asteroïde Oumuamua waarschijnlijk het meest mysterieuze ruimtegesteente. Het object heeft nog het meest weg van een enorme, vliegende sigaar.
De asteroïde werd onlangs nog onderzocht op tekenen van buitenaards leven. Die zijn tot op heden niet gevonden.
Eerdere wetenschappelijke studies over ruimtereizen suggereerden dat langwerpige sondes het meest geschikt zijn voor langdurige reizen in de kosmos.
Plejaden
Dit soort aerodynamische objecten hebben simpelweg het minst te duchten van interstellair gas.
Astronomen ontdekten verder dat het hemellichaam is gehuld in een vreemd organisch laagje en mogelijk uit ijs en gesteente bestaat.
Eén astronoom heeft nu ontdekt waar dit vreemde object vandaan komt. Oumuamua is hoogstwaarschijnlijk afkomstig uit de Plejaden, een verzameling jonge sterren, zo stelt Fabo Feng in een nieuwe studie.
Te zwak
Op basis van de snelheid en baan van Oumuamua berekende Feng dat het gesteente uit het Zevengesternte moet komen.
De sterrenkundige denkt dat jaarlijks 46 miljoen van dit soort interstellaire objecten ons zonnestelsel passeren, maar dat onze telescopen te zwak zijn om ze te kunnen spotten.
Duizenden jaren
Sommige hooggeplaatste personen hebben gezegd dat de aarde al duizenden jaren wordt bezocht door buitenaardse rassen van de Plejaden.
Zo zei de Canadese oud-minister van Defensie Paul Hellyer in gesprek met RT dat buitenaardse soorten uit verschillende sterrensystemen komen, waaronder de Plejaden.
As if astronauts needed one more horror to worry about in the soul-crushing vacuum of deep space. Between the perils of cosmic radiation, the unknown side effects of unexplained genome changes, and the whole blowing up upon launch thing, it’s not easy being a space traveller. Now, a team of international medical researchers has conducted a study of astronauts’ health while aboard the International Space Station and has discovered a new threat: “space fever.” While space fever sounds like a perfect title for a 1950s B movie, the condition is actually a little understood and potentially life-threatening condition which could hamper our plans at deep space travel.
Space very well could be one of the worst places to get sick.
After combing through health records of eleven different ISS astronauts, researchers found that all astronauts’ body temperatures increased by 1°C (1.8°F) after just a few months in space and remained elevated for the duration of astronauts’ time in space. In their published data, the researchers claim that while mild, this “space fever” poses a significant problem for space agencies and their astronauts:
This space fever, as we may call it, has potential implications for long-term spaceflights in terms of astronauts’ health, well-being, and support, including energy, nutrient, and fluid requirements as well as physical and cognitive performance.
Even increase of body temperature of this small magnitude can lead to serious health complications if left unchecked for long periods of time. Along with the increased body temperatures, researchers also discovered increases in certain inflammation markers. Together, these all indicate that the human body is definitely better suited for life on Earth as opposed to space, meaning we have a lot more barriers to overcome than just fuel and food supplies before we can join Elon Musk’s car on Mars. We’ll figure it out though, right?
Should we create a genetically-altered race of deep space supermen to carry our stink throughout the galaxy?
Wouldn’t that be a cruel irony to develop the means of deep space travel but be unable to go due to the limitations of these crude, stinking meat sacs we’re cursed to inhabit. Of course, given recent advances in gene editing, it likely won’t be long before we can simply create genetically advanced astronauts who can withstand deep space much better than our current models. As with everything though, we likely won’t know the long-term implications of such therapies until space stations are crawling with horrifying human hybrids hell-bent on eating brains and chewing gum. And I don’t need to tell you how scarce gum is in space. Should we aim for the stars no matter what the cost? Per aspera ad astra.
This video was filmed in April 2015 but was just recently submitted to MUFON.
Witness report:
I was on my way to work and my first turn was down a hill (My city is in a river valley). I saw these three bright lights in the sky not much higher than my current elevation. I drove down the hill and pulled off at a conveinent place and took out my cell phone. I believe it was a iphone 4s. I began to record these slow moving objects. I propped my cellphone on the hood of my truck so the images wouldn’t be too shakey (I do believe in UFOs and I hate shakey videos). Anyway. I saw what looked like a police car (Gonzaga University Police) was my first thought. I was at a new construction site and having worked the US Census in 2010 I knew these guys were no fun to deal with and cut my video because there was an arson fire at a previous build. Anyway, I left. I was hoping to catch the lights again on a bridge over a valley on my way to work (which would have been amazing). But, I never saw the slow moving lights again. I want to add I have about 10 years in Security and was on my way to work at an airport. These lights were not on any flight path I have ever seen (They mostly fly just north of my house). I believe this is the exact date. I am using my cellphones date / time stamp.
Filer’s Files #1 – 2018 Happy UFO New Year - PART I
Filer’s Files #1 – 2018 Happy UFO New Year - PART I
In special reports, this week’s files cover: President Clinton and Hillary Enjoyed Alien Movies, Mystery Space Machines Above Black Ops, Star Wars Or ET? Senator Harry Reid Pushed Pentagon UFO Program, and More Data About Pentagon UFO Program.
Unidentified Aerial Phenomena sightings were reported over California, Florida, Illinois, Maine, New York, Oklahoma, and Washington.
Unidentified Aerial Phenomena sightings were reported over Australia, Canada, Dominican Republic, and England in the United Kingdom.
The Filer Research Institute feels the scientific study of UFOs is for the benefit of humankind and is an important endeavor. The US Air Force investigated UFOs publicly for more than twenty years under Project Blue Book; and I continue this advanced research. I believe the God of the universe has spread life throughout the cosmos and UFO’s are visiting us in ever-increasing numbers.
I wish you all a most Happy New Year and thanks for your many letters and friendship you have shared with me this past year.
Forward these files to your friends and neighbors.
Special Projects
President Clinton and Hilleary Enjoyed Alien Movies
Grant Cameron writes, “It is a generally accepted fact within the UFO community that Bill Clinton and his wife had an interest in discovering the answer to the UFO puzzle. He had even sent his close friend Webster Hubbell to look into the UFO mystery. What many don’t know, however, is how open Bill and Hillary were about talking about the subject. They talked about UFOs and aliens at least 26 times on the record while in the White House. This was far beyond any presidential administration. Like Ronald Reagan, both Bill and Hillary Clinton expressed interest in the concept of an alien invasion. Reagan had spoken of the “alien invasion” half a dozen times while in the White House. The Clintons would talk about it even more and were sent these files.
The first time President Clinton brought up the idea of an alien invasion idea during an interview with Tom Brokaw of MSNBC. This interview, done on July 15, 1996, involved the just released movie
“Independence day.” Clinton conveyed to Brokaw how much he had enjoyed the movie. “I loved it. I loved it and — Mr. Pullman came and showed it. I thought he made a good president. And we watched the movie together, and I told him after it was over he was a good president, and I was glad we won. And it made me wonder if I should take flying lessons.[1] Interview of the President by Tom Brokaw of MSNBC, Office of the Press Secretary, July 15, 1996. The reception, dinner and premiere of the blockbuster movieIndependence Day occurred in the White House on June 22, 1996.
During the interview, Brokaw took a question asking Clinton if he thought that we could actually win a war against the aliens if they were to attack America.
President Clinton replied, “Yes, I think we’d fight them off. We find a way to win. That’s what America does — we’d find a way to win if it happened.” The President then launched into a speech about the positive elements of an alien invasion.
The good thing about Independence Day is there’s an ultimate lesson for that — for the problems right here on Earth. We whipped that problem by working together with all these countries. And all of a sudden the differences we had with them seemed so small once we realized there were threats that went beyond our borders. And I wish that we could think about that when we deal with terrorism and when we deal with weapons proliferation — the difference between all these others problems. That’s the lesson I wish people would take away from Independence Day.Thanks to Grant Cameron and http://www.presidentialufo.com/
Mystery Space Machines Above Black Ops, Star Wars Or ET?
A young man by the name of John Lenard Walson has discovered a new way to extend the capabilities of small telescopes and has been able to achieve optical resolutions – at almost the diffraction limit – not commonly achievable. He is videotaping many strange and heretofore unseen machines, hardware, satellites, spacecraft and possibly space ships.
Jeff Rense has kindly allowed me to show you his world exclusive images. and videotape footage by John Lenard Walson. All Rights Strictly Reserved. This is story is “Reproduced With Permission “of Jeff Rense and John Lenard Walson..
Editor’s Note: These objects in space may be alien space craft or belong to other nations. The International Space Station (ISS) is the only known unclassified large facility currently being assembled in space. These objects in space are similar to objects seen from the shuttle such as this one filmed near Greenland.
Senator Harry Reid Pushed Pentagon UFO Program
Retired Nevada Senator Harry Reid was behind the recently-revealed Pentagon UFO research program, that has spawned headlines around the world. The shadowy program — parts of it remain classified — began in 2007, and initially it was largely funded at the request of Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat who was the Senate majority leader at the time and who has long had an interest in space phenomena.
Most of the money went to an aerospace research company run by a billionaire entrepreneur and longtime friend of Mr. Reid’s, Robert Bigelow, who is currently working with NASA to produce expandable craft for humans to use in space.
On CBS’s “60 Minutes” in May, Mr. Bigelow said he was “absolutely convinced” that aliens exist and that U.F.O.s have visited Earth.
Harry Reid the former Senate Majority Leader was remarkably forthcoming about the program and how it developed.Asked how he feels about the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program being revealed to the public, Reid responded, “I’m very glad, because now we have scientific evidence.”
To that end, the retired Senator indicated to radio announcer George Knapp that, the results of the study were impressive. The Pentagon acknowledged on Saturday that its long-secret UFO investigation program ended in 2012, when U.S. defense officials shifted attention and funding to other priorities.
The $22 million spent on the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program was almost impossible to find. Which was how the Pentagon wanted it.
For years, the program investigated reports of unidentified flying objects, according to Defense Department officials, interviews with program participants and records obtained by The New York Times. It was run by a military intelligence official, Luis Elizondo, on the fifth floor of the Pentagon’s C Ring, deep within the building’s maze.
The Defense Department has never before acknowledged the existence of the program, which it says it allegedly shut down in 2012. But its backers say that, while the Pentagon ended funding for the effort at that time, the program remains in existence. For the past five years, they say, officials with the program have continued to investigate episodes brought to them by service members, while also carrying out their other Defense Department duties.
But as to whether the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program has continued to investigate UFO sightings since its funding ended five years ago could rank as an unexplained phenomenon. the term threat indicates concern of a possible enemy threat
The New York Times reported on Saturday that the hush-hush program, tasked with investigating sightings of unidentified flying objects, or UFOs, ran from 2007 to 2012 while George W. Bush was President. with $22 million in annual funding secretly tucked away in U.S. Defense Department budgets worth hundreds of billions of dollars.
Yet according to its backers, the program remains in existence and officials continue to investigate UFO episodes brought to their attention by service members, the newspaper said.
The Pentagon openly acknowledged the fate of the program in response to a Reuters query.
“The Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program ended in the 2012 timeframe,” Pentagon spokeswoman Laura Ochoa said in an email. ” But the Pentagon was less clear about whether the UFO program continues to hover somewhere in the vast universe of the U.S. defense establishment.
“The DoD takes seriously all threats and potential threats to our people, our assets, and our mission and takes action whenever credible information is developed,” Ochoa said.
But as to whether the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program has continued to investigate UFO sightings since its funding ended five years ago could rank as an unexplained phenomenon.
Note: My experience is that since World War II the government has had various programs to study UFOs. Generally, the programs are highly classified so only a few high ranking officials have access. Yet according to its backers, the program remains in existence and officials continue to investigate UFO episodes brought to their attention by service members, the newspaper said.
The Pentagon openly acknowledged the fate of the program in response to a Reuters query.
“The DoD takes seriously all threats and potential threats to our people, our assets, and our mission and takes action whenever credible information is developed,” Ochoa said.
What is less in doubt is former senator Reid’s enthusiasm for UFOs and his likely role in launching the Pentagon initiative to identify advanced aviation threats.
According to Senator Reid, Bigelow was awarded the contract because he “gave the best cost” and was “willing to build the infrastructure and build everything on his own.” It is known he worked with MUFON to gain access to important cases. According to Knapp’s report, the program boasted a team of 46 scientists and employed ‘rapid response teams’ to investigate UFO cases which came in to the group. Reid refuted reports that he had a hand in ending the AATIP, saying “I wish it were still going.”
Revealed Data About Pentagon UFO Program
David Watkinson writes as promised, here’s a link to the navy pilot’s account on Fox:
On Wednesday, December 20, 2017, David Mathes wrote:
IMHO he offered a fresh face for an almost 70 year old narrative of seven talking points. IMHO no breakthrough in release of information and “no compelling evidence.” Just a broadcast reminder of hope for a slow news day during the Christmas season.
Note that the Obama administration opened the office and the Trump administration closed the office. Some folks would say both have been briefed but neither has high enough access to the files and current work. So far, only visual sighting evidence has been brought to our attention from him; from a scientific view, there is no physical evidence that he presented. So, don’t get too exuberant since this particular USG office is closed. It’s not the start of disclosure, just a reminder and reinforcement that *something is out there.*
The talking points of Mr. Elizondo are consistent with unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) aka UFO sightings. So far, he has not elaborated beyond things in the air. No USO. Nothing about platforms and vehicles in space. Nothing exotic like Krasnikov tubes or even warp drive. and nothing that goes beyond Paul Hill’s book Unconventional Flying Objects.
So let’s take a look at the seven claims Luis Elizondo puts forth about what his office investigated that parallels General Twinning’s 1947 UFO Report. His words are in quotes.
Electric, magnetic, gravitational (sic) and inertia forces must all be controlled for flight. These craft do it better than our rotating machinery and apparently have internally integrated the flight control for attitude and velocity/acceleration along a path. Field control externally is part of the answer. Internally, there may be moving energy states involving oscillating or circulation of mass states including solid, liquid, gas and plasma.
The lack of “any obvious forms of propulsion” (no prop or jet)
Current known advanced efforts in leading propulsion research (basic R&D, not product R&D)
“Extreme Maneuverability” – Inertia is the issue, especially angular momentum
The key question is how angular momentum is conserved. Keep in mind that multiple sources of thrust may be available and well coordinated. Also, relativistic level analysis (General relativity, not special UFOs have Supermaneuverability, Energy–maneuverability_theory, Angular_momentum
In atmosphere, velocities up to Mach 10 before ionization begins. By Mach 12 in the atmosphere, almost all known materials and coatings ionize and disperse.
“Positive lift” (hover and lift)
Note choice of “lift”. It’s not aerodynamic lift but vertical velocities of a craft from a hover position is what he is speaking of.
“Not known (by him) in US inventory” (that he is aware of)
“Not known (by him) in foreign inventory” (that he is aware of)
Common technologies used to correlate and confirm visual sightings
Beyond radio, there were at least two technologies instrumental in his presentation: radar and electro-optics. Here is a brief summary.
Bob Tarantino ~1929 to 1935
Radar dates back to the 1929 for antiaircraft fire and even further into the 19th century for noticing interference above noise. UFOs are frequently tracked on radar.
Radar developed rapidly after the invention of Cavity_magnetron in the late 1930s.
This device was used for radar then and emDrives now.
For velocities above Mach 3, at two ground air traffic radars are required to simply identify faster moving anythings. Over-the-horizon radars have at least 10x the distance capability of the ~250 mile range of ATC radars. So hypervelocity vehicles traveling Mach 5 or higher are an issue. In the atmosphere, 0he upper limit is above Mach 10 when everything unprotected ionizes. Mach 10 is about 7600 mph. Most sightings from ground are far less but greater than Mach 4 which is the limit of jet craft so far. Above Mach 5, one has to go to scramjet and rocket technologies or borrow something seen leaving the atmosphere.
The most important thing is that in the optical spectrum many of these observers cannot see aerial objects due to cloaking or fast movement. However, most craft have an infrared signature which is more difficult to mask or hide.
The Navy pilot provides an interesting view as if the vehicle were in a cloud chamber. The visual sighting suggests a field driven craft. Field drives us electromagnetic fields as well as gravitational AND inertia fields to control the craft especially in space but quite useful in earth’s atmosphere with no obvious control surfaces.
For attitude and path control of a craft without observable control surfaces for some time there has been in the works at leading aerospace manufacturers. The physics of ions (electrohydrodynamics) can be used to control lift, thrust, drag and even work against gravity. Fully developed, commercial planes could have a no-moving-parts control surfaces within the next ten years.
In order to detect most vehicles or platforms, IR and starlight-type scopes are very useful. In all cases, a thorough scan across the Em spectrum from DC to beyond light is required. A 3D scan of the acoustic spectrum is also required since reflections and refractions can create ghost imaging and hide actual sources of sounds.
We are at a time in history where we may see US or foreign countries produce a vehicle with the propulsion system only on the inside of the craft and generating fields outside the craft for deflection of particles and fields resulting in silent travel.
At the same time one has to be very skeptical of any pronouncement and understand clearly what not only is being said, but what is left unsaid.
For some, the hope of ETs lies in camera/movie evidence. While fascinating, given the graphics, imaging and special effects along with vehicles and platforms such as RC helicopters and quadcompters, this may not be enough in many cases and simply a form of entertaining game of “what’s that?”
As a result of technologies that can simulate, spoof or prank the observer such as CGI and projector systems, the bar of “compelling evidence” needs to be raised.
“Not in our inventory….There is very compelling evidence that we are not alone.” Thanks to Luis Elizondo, recent Head of Pentagon UFO program. On Wednesday, December 20, 2017, Thanks to Bruce Cornet and Bob Tarantino.
Pilots and astronauts who have seen UFOs, often claim the UFO is the size of an aircraft carrier. There is no question in my mind that they exist. I don’t know for certain what UFOs are, who is flying them, but something strange is flying in our skies. They could be a natural phenomenon not understood. Several times while in Air Force intelligence, I briefed UFOs to numerous general officers. I attempted to obtain documentation and films of UFOs from the Air Force. I was told the evidence was there with safes full of evidence, but I needed the signature of my four star commanding general to see it. I have a dozens of friends who also know they exist, and seen various types of evidence. I’m part of the Disclosure Project that includes over one hundred military and government personnel ready to testify to Congress about the phenomenon.”
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Filer’s Files #1 – 2018 Happy UFO New Year - PART II
Filer’s Files #1 – 2018 Happy UFO New Year - PART II
UFO Sightings in the United States
California Object
Lakewood — just look at the sky and there was the
object and I recorded it on December 1, 2017
Thanks to MUFON CMS
Florida Disc
Malabar — At a bombfire with three other people, I always Skywatch. There was a full moon, and I saw an orange object, that was kind of large for a meteor. I yelled for everyone to look, as it headed toward earth, heading into atmosphere it slowed, fraught the atmosphere, moved right, then left, then backwards, all the while getting smaller.
It seemed to either flame out or reversed out of the atmosphere. It lasted about 1 minute and 50 seconds. We all were amazed, trying to understand the way it was moving when it finally disappeared I started to go online to see if there were any other sightings. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Illinois Light
Chicago — My Daughter while visiting the Shedd Aquarium at Chicago Illinois while snapping many photos of aquatic animal life on December 26, 2017, later showed me the photos and I found the following anomaly.
Within the attached photos it clearly shows a manifesting Alien Being with an Aura surrounding the being located behind her approx. 4-6 feet distance.
The photo appears to show its eyes and mouth.
Thanks to MUFON CMS
Note: This may be some form of aquatic life.
Maine Light
Biddleford — I was walking my dog after getting home from work on January 1, 2018. and noticed what looked like a star.
After staring at it I noticed it was moving and there were no other stars in the sky. I asked my girlfriend to come out and when she looked she noticed it too and the movement it was making. Basic hovering but almost like it was struggling to stay up.
Thanks to MUFON
New York Object
Hartsdale – On Central Avenue I observed for 10 minutes an object that hovered from North Central Avenue.
It tracked all the way down North Central Avenue and emitted a bright light and then left on January 1, 2018.
Thanks to MUFON
Oklahoma Object
Observing the December 3rd, 2 017 supermoon I noticed object that was brighter than the moon at the 10 o’clock position.
Took photo and zoomed in as close as I could and noticed 5 diamond/star shaped lights in a perfect line but did not flicker like a star.
Thanks to MUFON CMS
Washington Light
Mt Vernon — This is was I saw between 11 PM and 12 AM last night on December 23, 2017.
I was wondering if anyone else saw it. I zoomed the photo and they look like this. I honestly thought I took a photo of one UFO, but there were four.
Note: The witness stated that four objects were seen. The photo only shows one. Thanks to William Puckett, Director Http://www.UFOsnw.com
Date of sighting: Dec 9, 2017, 10:35 AM Location of sighting: Mandurah, Australia This UFO was caught on security camera.
Thanks to Sighting News
Canada Light
I was smoking outside in the back of my house and noticed this orange ball kinda gliding just below the clouds it looked like can’t really judge the distance probably over 5 km. But noticed it like I said going across the sky then stopped. And it disappeared behind my garage roof and when I moved to see it again it was gone.
Thanks to MUFON CMS
Dominican Republic Object
La Romana — December 15, 2017.. We sighted a bright object high in the sky at the height of clouds. It was hanging for about 1 hour, but we didn’t see the moment when it appeared and the moment when it disappeared. Looking through strong binoculars, it looked like a shiny ball. It was very bright on the side of the sun. Judging the large distance, it should be a very big ball, and judging on bright shining it should be metallic. We took a photo, but due to the large distance the photo shows just the bright spot. No sound was heard from that object.
Note: The object could have been a high altitude balloon, but this is just speculation and not 100% definitive. Thanks to William Puckett, Director Http://www.UFOsnw.com
Thanks to MUFON CMS
UK Disc
Nottingham — My daughter, who lives in Nottingham, was looking at the evening sky late August this year 2017, she just took the photo and didn’t notice the object at the time. Later when looking at it she noticed the object to the right of the photo. it is in the sky in the early evening. I don’t think it is a reflection of any lamp inside of the bedroom on the window pane. It is a large metallic looking ring emitting a lot of light from the top. it is quite bright.
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Fourth time’s a charm: SpaceX’s secret “Zuma” mission finally got underway Sunday night as Elon Musk’s aerospace company completed its first mission of 2018.
Zuma is a Northrop Grumman Corporation-made spacecraft, and it was sent into low-Earth orbit, but that’s all SpaceX or the defense contractor has released about the mission, calling Zuma “restricted payload.” Zuma is the third classified mission SpaceX has performed for the U.S. government. (The first was to launch a spy satellite in May and the second was to launch the X-37B spy plane in September.)
A little after 8 p.m. Sunday, precisely as many Americans might have been sitting down to watch the Golden Globes, this rocket was taking off in Florida:
Zuma's inside this payload fairing, seen here in the pre-launch webcast.
The Falcon 9 launched from the SLC-40 launchpad in Cape Canaveral, Florida, after being moved from its original launch site, Launchpad 39A, which is currently booked with the SpaceX Falcon Heavy, the rocket system that will test launch in late January. The first stage of the rocket separated from the second and headed back to Earth, while the second stage continued on to put the Zuma payload into orbit. The SpaceX webcast cut out video for this part of the mission.
A few minutes later the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket booster landed safely at LZ-1 near Cape Canaveral, as can be seen in this video from a camera mounted on the rocket:
“And the Falcon has landed,” said Brian Mahlstedt, a SpaceX software engineer who was hosting the Zuma webcast.
The rocket landing was the 21st by SpaceX. The first was on December 21, 2015, also at LZ-1. In addition to LZ-1, SpaceX has landed first-stage boosters on the drone shipsOf Course I Still Love You, in the Atlantic Ocean, and Just Read the Instructions, in the Pacific Ocean.
Proof of aliens? What is the Rendlesham Forest incident? UFO sighting in a Suffolk forest
Proof of aliens? What is the Rendlesham Forest incident? UFO sighting in a Suffolk forest
ALIEN encounters of signs of aliens are some of the most intriguing mysteries for human kind. Was proof of aliens found in the Rendlesham Forest incident in Suffolk? Local men claimed to have seen UFO sighting.
Alien encounters such as the Rendlesham Forest incident are often the subject of public intrigue.
This event, which occurred in 1980, is still one of the most compelling stories of a UFO sighting recorded in the UK, and it has been referred to as “Britain’s Roswell”.
It even caused the Ministry of Defence to issue a public statement to the people of Briton to assure them it was not a threat to national security.
Aliens: What is the Rendlesham Forest incident? UFO sighting in Suffolk
Proof of aliens? What is the Rendlesham Forest incident?
UFO sighting
The Rendlesham Forest incident took place over two nights in December 1980. On 26 December a patrol around RAF Woodbridge reported seeing lights, which appeared to land in the near by Rendlesham Forest.
They rushed to the site, thinking the lights might be a crashed human aircraft, however, they were shocked by what they found.
They claimed to have found a round, glowing metal object with coloured light that scared animals in a nearby farm.
Returning to the site in the morning all they found were a number of triangular impressions on the ground.
GETTY
Alien: Was proof of aliens found in the Rendlesham Forest incident in Suffolk?
On December 28 deputy base commander Lt. Col. Charles Halt visited the area and took radiation readings. He and his party then claimed to see another flashing light, which hovered and beamed down a stream of light.
Was proof of aliens found in Rendlesham Forest incident in Suffolk? While some think this could be evidence of an extra terrestrial visit, most agree it is not conclusive.
Some believe it to be a hoax, while others claimed the object was a downed Soviet spy satellite.
A witness of the event, retired U.S. Airforce officer Steve Longero, told the Sun in December 2016: “I think it was something not from this world.”
GETTY
Alien: The Rendlesham Forest incident took place over two nights in December 1980
He said of the object found in the woods: “From what I remember it was like aglow, it was really glowing like a reddish, greenish light. It was really glowing, like something was really hot and it was just glowing.”
He also recalled how the object vanished. He added: “As people were getting close to this thing it kind of came nearer to us and then it would go forward and then go back and all of a sudden it just disappeared, like something out of Star Trek, it was like warp speed and we were all ‘what was that?’”
You can camp in Rendelsham Forest, and the forest has a trial titled the UFO Trail.
Google Maps Street View footage recently revealed footage of a top secret base of a US Air Force airline known as JANET, which flies planes to Area 51 and is based in Las Vegas.
The incredible video was reportedly shot on New Year’s Eve, beginning by showing the blazing object travelling at high speed in the sky above a row of houses.
It speeds across the horizon before disappearing behind a cloud.
Wakefield residents James Javens, 22, and his friend Ryan Butterworth, 20, captured the light on film as they walked through Eastmoor.
VIRALHOG
MYSTERY: Two lads from Wakefield spotted the mysterious fireball on New Year's Eve
More than 1.5 million people have since seen the video, making waves after it was posted on YouTube.
"It was flying across the sky so fast but luckily we had a phone to hand and were able to catch it on film,” the pair told the Wakefield Express.
"The video has gone viral. We are hoping to find out from an expert what it is.
"It was an absolutely amazing sight. It was a big, bright green light, and it flew across the sky.
VIRALHOG
ILLUMINATING: Professor Brian Cox claimed it was a meteorite
“It was travelling really fast and for a really long time."
TV boffin professor Brian Cox, an esteemed physicist and astronomer, later tweeted: “Quite a few people saying they saw a meteor over the North of England this evening - anyone else?
“Sounds like a bright one."
And the UK Meteor Network seemed to confirm his suspicions, claiming they had received hundreds of similar reports of a meteor sighting from across the UK.
New Yorkers have reported seeing 85 UFOs over the city in two years including orange orbs, a cigar-shaped craft and fireballs of lights, researchers have revealed.
There have been a total of 27 sightings above the famous skyscrapers of Manhattan since 2016, according to the Washington-based National UFO Reporting Center.
Brookyln saw 24 over the same period while in Queens, there were 20 reports of unidentified objects including a 'group of about seven UFOs, with a leader to the side, and a cluster to its north,' in June.
New Yorkers have reported seeing 85 UFOs over the city in two years including orange orbs, a cigar-shaped craft and fireballs of lights, researchers have revealed
In Queens, there were 20 reports of unidentified objects including a 'group of about seven UFOs, with a leader to the side, and a cluster to its north,' in June, according to the New York Post.
This compared to just eight strange such incidents in The Bronx and just six in Staten Island.
The Post reports that one report from Manhattan told of an object 'rotating like a drill as it was also moving off axis and in a line towards the east'.
While this was happening, the witness said, you could see 'four lights that would only be on one side and seen' after it fully rotated. The unidentified witness, who saw the object out of a gym window, said it was hundreds of feet long and included 'four other smaller craft appeared that were to me saucer or spherical that blipped in and out.'
Nigel Watson, author of the UFO Investigations Manual, said of the findings: 'It only takes one or two regular witnesses, UFO investigators, groups or promoters to highlight UFO activity in one particular area.
'Another area might have just as many UFO sightings, but if there are no active ufologists there and/or a local media that ignores such stories, then they will never get any attention.
There have been a total of 27 sightings above the famous skyscrapers of Manhattan since 2016, according to the Washington-based National UFO Reporting Center
'Internet reporting sites like the National UFO Reporting Centre make it easy to report sightings, but this is just raw data that needs to be processed and investigated to make any useful basis for analysis.
'When looking at this data you need to obtain detailed reports from witnesses who are reliable and credible.
'Even then expert witnesses, like pilots, can be mistaken and it is notoriously difficult to separate knowns (e.g. misidentified stars, aircraft, rockets etc) from unknowns.
'Large data bases tend to be riddled with a wide variety of errors due to these problems and only give an accurate guide to levels of UFO reporting rather than UFO activity.'
In February last year, it was revealed that more people were reporting sightings of spaceships and UFOs than ever before.
Exactly 104,947 UFO sightings had been reported since the first sign of aliens was spotted in 1905, according to data from the Center's data.
And since the 1990s, the number of other-worldly sightings had shot up from 10,000 to 45,000 a year.
The National UFO Reporting Centre, which is based in Washington, is a site dedicated to keeping track of UFO sightings from across the world.
Data from the site released last year showed that people living in the UK, the US and Australia were most likely to report seeing an alien spaceship, while countries such as Russia, China and Greenland rarely catch a glimpse of extraterrestrial activity.
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )
Alien Spotted Boarding UFO in Romania?
Alien Spotted Boarding UFO in Romania?
A video purportedly shows a small alien boarding a spaceship in a field.
CLAIM
A video showed an alien boarding a spaceship in Romania in January 2018.
RATING
FALSE
ORIGIN
A video purportedly showing an alien boarding a spaceship in a field near the Romanian city of Târgoviște and then flying the UFO over the forest racked up millions of views as it was passed around social media in January 2018.
The most popular iteration of this video was likely the one posted to the Târgoviște+ Facebook page where it garnered more than 15 million views:
Although many expressed skepticism about the footage, some were convinced that this video documented an actual alien making a pit stop in Romania.
This video doesn’t actually show an extraterrestrial being.
For one, internet users couldn’t quite agree on where this video supposedly took place. Most claimed that the video was shot in Târgoviște, but others shared this video as if showed an incident outside of Bacău, a Romanian city approximately 300 kilometers to the northeast, while others claimed that the footage showed an alien invasion in Alaska. This is a common trope of internet hoaxes. As the footage is not rooted in reality, the location can be changed to make it more appealing to audiences in various locales.
But this video was not filmed in Romania or Alaska. This video was posted to the YouTube page “Alien Unleash” on 2 January 2018 (the day before the Târgoviște+ video) and was not accompanied by any information about where this incident allegedly took place. Rather, the description for the video was simply a list of relevant keywords:
The Alien Unleash YouTube page is full of similar videos. Over the last few months, the YouTube page has published videos purportedly showing dragons, alien abductions, motherships, and UFOs all over the world:
In fact, they published a a similar (yet much less convincing) video in October 2017 which showed another little grey alien boarding a spaceship:
This video was not filmed in a field outside of a Romanian city. It originated on an alien-centric YouTube page with a penchant of promoting similar hoax videos.
Although this particular video was good enough to convince some viewers that it was real, it still contained a few errors which revealed it to be a hoax. When the UFO makes its way over the trees, for instance, it appears that the spacecraft is flying through the trees and not over them:
Anyone who's driven alone at night and looked up at the vast sky has probably wondered if we’re alone.
Whether you believe in aliens or not, there’s an undeniable fascination with the unknown. It’s part of our psyche to wonder, to look beyond what we can see - the UFO obsession never goes away.
TV, film, radio...you name it, it’s tried to answer our questions; what it would look and what it would entail.
Perhaps no show has achieved this quite as well as The X-Files, the sci-fi phenomenon from the mind of Chris Carter.
The show ran from 1993 to 2002 initially following the exploits of Agents Mulder and Scully -the believer and the sceptic - who took the cases no one else wanted including the search for alien life.
They believed the truth really was out there.
But while we watched the pair run around deserts and the FBI's corridors trying to save the day, government officials sat in their offices thumbing through ‘secret’ files.
Skip forward to 2018 and some of these have already been released, albeit with redacted sections, but thousands of papers are there ready for people to read.
The man behind many of them is former MoD official Nick Pope, who spent 20 years investigating UFOs. Nick spoke to the Mirror about whether we are actually alone, and how realistic The X-Files were.
Nick Pope is one of the world's leading expert on UFOs(Image: Nick Pope)
“I think it’d be inconceivable that we’d be the only life in the universe,” he said. “I suspect in the cosmos things are pretty crowded and there are other life forms and other civilisations too, which I think poses the fascinating question [of] if they are more advanced than us what might they be able to teach us.”
For much of the 90s Pope ran the Ministry of Defence’s UFO project, where his job was to “investigate sightings and assess whether any were of ‘defence significance’”, a term that really doesn’t have a proper definition.
The X-Files began when Pope was in the role, and the links and parallels were unquestionable.
People would whistle the theme tune at Pope as he walked down the Ministry's corridors or popped into the staff canteen, and they even nicknamed him ‘Spooky’ - the same label given to Mulder.
But the investigator brushes it off.
“It was flattering and a piece of fun to liven up the day,” he says. “Absolutely there were similarities: we were a government programme looking at UFOs and because we looked at UFOs we found ourselves really drawn into anything weird and wonderful that was reported because there was no where else in Government that would take those sort of reports.”
Pope has acted as a consultant on numerous movies and TV show(Image: Nick Pope)
And the team really did get everything. From “bread and butter” UFO sightings to the “things people thought were linked to UFOs, alien abductions and crop circles” and then the even more distantly related, like ghosts on military bases or psychics.
“It could be anything!” Pope says. “There is that direct parallel [to The X-Files]. We really were the real-life X-Files unit. Having said that, we didn’t go running around with torches and guns and sadly I didn’t have a Scully either.”
The comparison, of course, isn’t that simple. There are parallels between the fictional series and real-life, but there are differences. While Scully and Mulder had a deep seated distrust of the establishment, Pope and his team were part of it.
“Much of what we did was perhaps what you’d expect [us] to do. We were alongside air force colleagues and much of what we did was to tie in UFO sightings with anything that would be tracked on military radar and going through the process to eliminate a lot of things that gave rise to a lot of these things.”
Pope explains that a lot of ‘sightings’ were explained by matching them with military aircraft or exercises taking place. They also used data on weather balloon launches, astronomical data at Royal Greenwich observatory - basically anything in the skies we could find out about it.
Pope says there were 200-300 cases a year that they tried to tie in with what they knew about or could find out about.
It wasn’t all plain sailing, and there were areas where they had to “tread carefully”.
“We knew some of these things were likely going to be secret prototype sky planes or aircrafts or drones,” Pope explains.
Among all the cases, there were some that couldn’t be explained or were the closest to confirming something extra-terrestrial.
Pilots revealed their experiences of encountering UFOs
For Pope the stand out case was in 1993 on March 30-31.
“There was a wave of sightings across the UK over a period of about six hours,” Pope says.
“Quite a lot of witnesses were police, military personnel and a civilian who said it was so big he didn’t realise he was looking at a UFO.”
It was dismissed initially as heavy cloud cover, but “one by one, stars disappeared...blocked out by huge triangular shaped craft.”
For Pope it was a direct link back to The X-Files, reminding him of the “alien colonist arc.”
“You see the immense craft, something like that, there’s no middle ground,” he admits. “When they say that and it’s an airforce officer, you can’t turn around and talk about weather balloons and aircraft from unusual angles. I think they’d have a fit!”
Whatever it was, it flew over two air force bases. Pope remembers interviewing one particular officer the morning after - the sighting had been at 2am.
The officer said the “triangular-shaped craft was moving very slowly, no more than 40-50 mph, 200ft or so above the ground, firing a narrow beam of light at the fields.”
The truth is out there(Image: Photographer's Choice)
He heard low humming sound and told Pope from the very slow speed it accelerated to the horizon “in an instant”.
Pope has heard similar stories from many witnesses all echoing “that staggering acceleration, that seems a quantum leap above what we can do, even now.”
And that officer? He simply said: “I’ve been in the air force for eight years and never seen anything like that.”
When Pope pushed him to estimate the speed, he added: “Imagine a fast jet like a Red Arrow. Orders of magnitude above and beyond that.”
Were you a believer?
Having heard case after case, testimony after testimony, Pope found himself changing the way he thought about UFOs and the alien question.
“I think I started as a Scully but ended up as a Mulder. I really didn’t know much about the whole UFO mystery.”
He admitted he came in and saw it as “another government job.”
“We’re moved around every few years and I’d got a promotional transfer,” he says confessing he thought he’d do three years and then “hopefully move on.”
That didn’t happen - but Pope has clearly learnt so much from his time at the MoD.
Doesn’t culture just influence our views?
“I think it’s a two-way street, sceptics would say quite a lot of the witnesses are just picking up things they’ve seen in sci-fi,” Pope says, but asks that people look at it another way.
“When you look at something like The X-Files we know Chris Carter did his research at the start (in great depth) so when you look at story lines and in terms of the Government cover up and syndicate and type of UFOS.
“The whole Scully abduction - that reflects in a way what is in the UFO literature. Art imitates life or life imitates art?
“You can’t get away from the fact the Roswell crash is part of pop culture, but when you see that reflected in The X-Files it’s not like it’s come from nowhere, it reflects what people already believe because of what people have already reported.”
The latest The X-Files offerings are no different, with season 11 premiering for Gillian Anderson’s final season, and Audible creating new audiobooks.
The last being Stolen Lives, which Pope says “brings us back to the fundamental questions” of who exactly knows what.
The new X-Files Audible audiobook Stolen Lives(Image: X-Files)
Though, despite the fact most of us think information is being kept from us, Pope says that’s not really the case, and while there are indeed ‘secret’ files, more and more are being made public.
“It’s huge,” he says. “The MoD has already declassified and released around 60,000 pages of UFO documents, some of which, at the time, were classified as secret ‘UK eyes only’, which is only one down from top secret so there is a vast amount of info out there.”
There’s another batch due for release too, but “there’s been delay after delay after delay”. However, Pope expects the last files to be released soon.
While the documents have been made accessible, it doesn’t mean everything is out in the open.
Due to the FOI (Freedom of information) Act there are exemptions that can’t be released due to intelligence, national security and other security reasons.
When you look at the documents, parts are blacked out. Pope explains: “Now in many cases the reasons are very innocuous, it’s a military base's system, but [with] some redactions I can understand why conspiracy theorists do get quite excited by this sort of thing and why they do believe that they’re not being told the full story.”
That may not go any way towards appeasing theorists, but Pope’s aim isn’t to dissuade people from believing in aliens. In fact, he has even thought about what we’d say to them when they arrive.
“I think the first fundamental question - I say this with my MoD background - is there a threat to us here? What is the reason for coming? Are they conquerors, explorers, scientists or anthropologists? That question turns up if there’s any threat.”
“The biological hazard is a pretty critical first order question to ask,” he adds. “What would first interest me would be their science or technology. What do they have?
“We can make very few assumptions. One good assumption we can make is if they come here their technology is above and beyond our own. We’re only just taking baby steps into the solar system. They would have mastered interstellar travel. That’s a phenomenal leap!
“What have they got and what would they share with us?” That’s the real question.
*Stolen Lives is the latest The X-Files audiobook from Audible, you can listen here .
Information about Suffolk’s best known UFO encounter might be contained in a dossier held by the US government, according to a former MoD staff member.
Colonel Charles I. Halt when he returned to Rendlesham Forest last year.
Picture: TOM POTTER
The incident at Rendlesham back in December 1980 has received a lot of attention from national and global media over the years and has often been called Britain’s Roswell.
American officers stationed at the former RAF Woodbridge site reported seeing strange lights and an alien craft on two occasions in the forest area surrounding the base.
Sceptics have since rubbished the claims of extraterrestrial activity by claiming that the beams were nothing more than lights on a police car or nearby Orfordness Lighthouse.
Recently new information has come to light in the United States about a dossier that may be held by the Department of Defense.
American newspaper the New York Times revealed that over $20 million had been spent on what was known as the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program or AATIP by the Department of Defense between 2007 and 2012.
Another US publication, the Washington Post, stated that a 490 page report from this program contained alleged historical UFO sightings from foreign countries as well as the United States.
Nick Pope was the Ministry of Defence’s UFO desk officer between 1991 and 1994, he led a review into the case years after the event itself.
“For many years the US said we don’t do UFO’s but the Pentagon has had a programme all along,” says Nick.
It is not known exactly what details may be inside the file but Nick believes the incident at Rendlesham has a strong case for inclusion.
“It’s inconceivable to me that information on the Rendlesham Forest incident wouldn’t be in that dossier, as it’s the UK’s best-known and most credible UFO incident, and because it involved US personnel at USAF bases,” says Nick.
“It’s a big deal. It may be that the Pentagon has data nobody in the UK (even in the MoD) has about the case, and possibly a definitive explanation for the Rendlesham mystery.”
What information is or isn’t held about the incident is unclear, but the hope remains that information in the dossier may help to explain what happened nearly 40 years ago.
AREA 51 SENSATION: 'Whistleblower' says secret USAF base has 'time-travelling Roswell UFO'
AREA 51 SENSATION: 'Whistleblower' says secret USAF base has 'time-travelling Roswell UFO'
A "WHISTLEBLOWER" claiming to have worked inside the mysterious Area 51 US Air Force base has extraordinarily said the Nevada facility DOES house UFOs recovered from visiting aliens.
American Robert Miller recorded a sensational YouTube clip which he said he made to "clear his conscience" as he is "getting old."
In the video, seen by more than 300,000 people, he said he was a former marine corps pilot who was recruited to test fly a craft that had been "reverse engineered" from the remains of a Roswell UFO that crashed in 1947.
The US Government did not acknowledge the existence of Area 51 until 2013, but it is now commonly accepted research is done there on new USAF spy craft.
However, conspiracy theorists are convinced if flying saucers have ever crashed on Earth, the wreckage and alien bodies have been secretly taken to storage in Area 51.
One long-running claim is a UFO which allegedly crashed in the New Mexico desert near Roswell in July 1947 and it is now stored at Area 51.
Extraordinarily, Mr Miller suggested the craft could reach the "speed of light" and even travelled through time, Dailystar.co.uk reports.
After explaining how he was sworn to secrecy, with "dire consequences" if he broke this, he described the test flight, and a subsequent crash.
He said: "I do remember they brought me inside the craft and up to the pilot’s seat. There was only room for one person in the giant craft.
“I looked around the cockpit and only saw a seat.
“No joystick, no steering wheel, no other controls. There was, however, a helmet. They told me the craft was controlled telepathically.
“I was told to imagine the craft starting to float off the ground, but it didn’t work.
"Instead I had to imagine that I was the craft, like part of it, and I began thinking of myself floating off the ground and I felt the vibrations.”
I had to imagine that I was the craft, like part of it, and I began thinking of myself floating off the ground and I felt the vibrations.
Robert Miller
It was then that he suggested he may have experienced time-travel after blacking out during the experience.
He said: “I was 500ft off the ground, then the vibrations of the engine stopped. There was no ejection button on the craft. I was effectively helpless.
“[The craft] was plunging towards the ground and I went unconscious.
“The next thing I knew I was in hospital. A man in a black suit came in and explained to me what happened. He said right before the craft hit the ground, it just went, boom, disappeared.
“Then in the middle of the night, they heard a loud crashing noise outside, the craft had crashed in the same spot.
“The scientists had hypothesised that the craft had time-travelled.”
The whistleblower said he had chosen to go against his secrecy agreement in the interest of the truth.
He said: "If anything happens to me in the next few days, you will know why.
Getty*YouTube
UFO PILOT: Robert Miller (pictured) claims he flew a craft modelled on the alleged Roswell wreckage.
"The truth is more important than my safety right now. I wanted get the truth out there, I have been living a lie a long, long time."
There was a mixed reaction to the video.
One viewer posted on YouTube: "I think he's telling the truth no doubt about it.
"It's about time the government come clean about UFOs that they are time machines from the future and they are not from other planets."
Another said: "Absolutely believe you and you are a brave man for speaking out. You made history and you will go down in the history books as the first known human to pilot a UFO."
However, a third branded it fake.
Robby Combs posted: "Everything about this tape screams fake. He is merely reciting things he has heard other people say."
Mr Miller is not the first alleged Area 51 worker to come forward with tales of UFOs.
In 1989 Bob Lazar alleged to be a mole with staggering claims about the facility.
Mr Lazar said he reverse engineered recovered crashed alien flying saucers to try to develop their anti-gravity flying systems, at the mysterious base, which is guarded by armed security.
He spoke of UFOs being hidden in hangars carved out of the mountain sides close to the Nevada military base which is tucked away in the desert.
Mr Lazar's claims have divided the UFO community ever since, with many believing he a credible whistleblower, while others say he is a fantasist who has been debunked.
Roswell has been at the heart of the UFO scene since the military sensationally announced in a press release in July 1947 it had found the remains of a crashed flying saucer in the desert nearby.
But the following day it retracted the statement, saying it was in fact a damaged US Air Force air balloon.
Witnesses later came forward to say there had been alien bodies within the "crashed craft", which along with the wreckage were then taken to Area 51.
The world around us makes sense in only three spatial dimensions: left and right, up and down, forward and backward. Mathematically, on the other hand, some very clever people have argued that reality may be comprised of at least four spatial dimensions. Modern string theory even goes as far as postulating up to 10 spatial dimensions.
All of these are rather abstract ideas with equally abstract proofs. This is why a recent experiment performed by Swiss and American physicists is so exciting. Their work demonstrates a possible pathway by which higher-dimensional phenomena can be observed in a lower-dimensional system, perhaps even ours.
As you may have guessed already, such experiments are based on our good old ally — quantum mechanics — which never fails to scramble our fragile reality and boggle the mind.
Essentially, each of the two teams, one in the USA, the other in Europe, devised an experimental setup — one with ultra-cold atoms and another with light particles — that allowed them to glimpse the fourth spatial dimension by virtue of the quantum Hall effect; the dynamical version of the effect to be more precise which was previously predicted to occur in 4-D systems.
To understand what these researchers are on about, it helps to picture a more familiar example. When struck by light, a 3-D object will cast a 2-D shadow. Though the shadow doesn’t have depth, you can still learn much about the 3-D object that casts it. For instance, a circle corresponds to a sphere and a square corresponds to a cube. Conversely, a cube can be considered the shadow or 3-D projection of a 4-D object called a hypercube, which we can’t really fathom, just like a 2-D ‘flat-lander’ has no hope of visualizing 3-D. Carl Sagan explained this crucial difference during a historic program.
Bearing all of this in mind, we can consider quantum Hall physics as the “4-D shadow” manifesting itself in 3-D.
The Hall effect occurs when charged particles move in a two-dimensional plane in the presence of a magnetic field. The magnetic field deflects the particles in the direction orthogonal to their motion. This can be interpreted by reading a transverse Hall voltage, which can only take certain quantized values. These values are identical irrespective of the specific properties of the experimental sample. What’s more, scientists have proven that this quantum effect cannot take place in three-dimensional systems.
For decades, physicists were convinced that the Hall effect can only manifest itself in 2-D systems, but more recently there have been voices that claimed a similar effect could also take place in four-dimensional systems. In 4-D, there would be even more remarkable properties including a novel, non-linear Hall current, or so the prediction goes.
Finally, two separate groups of researchers led by Professor Oded Zilberberg at ETH Zürich and Professor Mikael Rechtsman at Penn State have now demonstrated a way to observe physical phenomena proposed to exist in higher-dimensional systems.
One group employed so-called topological charge pumps that simulate the transport of electric charges between rubidium atoms that are trapped by lasers. The cloud of atoms that are cooled down close to absolute zero by the lasers is then placed in a 2D optical lattice created by another set of laser beams that fire at a certain wavelength along two orthogonal directions. The resulting ‘charge pump’ resembles an egg-carton-like “crystal of light” in which the rubidium atoms can move. Finally, yet another laser beam which fires with a different wavelength in each direction helps create a superlattice. By carefully monitoring and analyzing at which positions in the superlattice the atoms are located, scientists demonstrated that the transverse motion of modulation that the atoms predominantly use is the equivalent of the non-linear Hall response. This is the essential feature of the 4D Hall effect.
illustration of light passing through a two-dimensional waveguide array.
Credit: Rechtsman Laboratory, Penn State.
Another experiment involved passing light through a series of special glassware eerily similar to fiber wire that can control the shape of the light wave. These photonic structures can also reveal the intricate boundary phenomena that accompany this same transverse motion as a result of the 4D quantum Hall effect.
“When it was theorized that the quantum Hall effect could be observed in four-dimensional space,” said Mikael Rechtsman, assistant professor of physics and an author of the paper, “it was considered to be of purely theoretical interest because the real world consists of only three spatial dimensions; it was more or less a curiosity. But, we have now shown that four-dimensional quantum Hall physics can be emulated using photons — particles of light — flowing through an intricately structured piece of glass — a waveguide array.”
Both experiments demonstrate what an effect would look like were it to happen in four dimensions. However, this is not any proof that a genuine four-dimensional system behaves this way.
“Right now, those experiments are still far from any useful application,” Zilberberg admitted.
Though there is no practical application in the short term, this kind of research might help unravel aspects of string theory, according to which many higher dimensions are simply compressed in such a way that only our normal three-dimensional world exists.
Findings appeared in two separate papers, both published in the journal Nature (one and two).
Titan, one of the least Earth-like places in our solar system, turned out to have surprisingly Earth-like features.
Doom Mons (mountain) and Sotra Patera (depression), two remarkable features on the surface of Saturn. Topography has been vertically exaggerated by a factor of 10 for visibility. The false color shows different surface material compositions as detected by Cassini’s visual and infrared mapping spectrometer.
Image credits: NASA/JPL.
Until recently, not much was known about Saturn’s moon Titan. But the Cassini-Huygens mission changed all that. Titan, a Mercury-sized world with a surface shrouded in a thick, nitrogen-rich atmosphere, was found to be the only place other than Earth where clear evidence of stable bodies of surface liquid has been found.
Titan is also a prime candidate for finding extraterrestrial life, which is why researchers have been trying to better understand its structure. Now, in two published papers, astronomers present the first proper map of Titan, revealing its features in unprecedented detail.
It took doctoral student Paul Corlies a year to assemble the map from all existing data. It was no easy feat since only 9 percent of Titan’s topography has been observed in relatively high-resolution. Another 25-30 percent of the topography imaged in lower resolution. The rest was created using an interpolation algorithm — which means we don’t really know how the rest of Titan is like, but we know how it probably looks like.
Cassini’s radar mapper has obtained stereo views of Titan’s surface during 19 flybys over the last five years.
Image credit: NASA/JPL/USGS.
For starters, the map reveals Titan to be a bit flatter (more oblate) than previously thought. This suggests that the thickness of Titan’s crust also varies more than expected. Corlies also reports that the surface of Titan is covered by mountains, though none of them are higher than 700 meters (2300 feet). The map also shows Titan’s lows, allowing scientists to confirm that two locations in the equatorial region are in fact depressions — and not dried seas, as another theory proposed.
Researchers also analyzed Titan’s impressive lakes, but don’t get your hopes up just yet. As opposed to Earth’s lakes, which are covered by water, Titan’s lakes are filled with liquid methane, a hydrocarbon.
Starting from sea level
Corlies found that Titan’s three most massive lakes (or seas) share a common equipotential surface — which is just a fancy way of saying that they have a common sea level. Titan’s lakes communicate with each other through the subsurface; the lakes that are dry are all at higher elevations than the filled lakes in their vicinity. Alex Hayes, assistant professor of astronomy and also an author, predicted this in his previous models of Titan.
“We don’t see any empty lakes that are below the local filled lakes because, if they did go below that level, they would be filled themselves. This suggests that there’s flow in the subsurface and that they are communicating with each other,”said Hayes. “It’s also telling us that there is liquid hydrocarbon stored on the subsurface of Titan.”
The fact that astronomers are understanding so much about a satellite so far away from Earth is truly astounding, yet this is only a stepping stone for other research. Study authors say that the map will help others working on Titan’s geology and morphology, as well as those trying to improve models for extraterrestrial bodies. Ultimately, it could even help scientists understand whether or not life exists on Titan.
“We’re measuring the elevation of a liquid surface on another body 10 astronomical units away from the sun to an accuracy of roughly 40 centimeters. Because we have such amazing accuracy we were able to see that between these two seas the elevation varied smoothly about 11 meters, relative to the center of mass of Titan, consistent with the expected change in the gravitational potential. We are measuring Titan’s geoid. This is the shape that the surface would take under the influence of gravity and rotation alone, which is the same shape that dominates Earth’s oceans,” said Hayes.
Journal References:
P. Corlies, et al. Titan’s Topography and Shape at the End of the Cassini Mission. Geophysical Research Letters, 2017; 44 (23): 11,754 DOI: 10.1002/2017GL075518
A. G. Hayes, et al . Topographic Constraints on the Evolution and Connectivity of Titan’s Lacustrine Basins. Geophysical Research Letters, 2017; 44 (23): 11,745 DOI: 10.1002/2017GL075468
Rujm el-Hiri in the Golan Heights. Israeli archaeologists called it the Wheel of Giants when they discovered it in 1968.
Credit Yuval G
Israel’s ancient and mysterious Stonehenge -Older Than the Pyramids and as Mysterious as Stonehenge
Scientists and archaeologists agree that the enormous stone structure of Galgal Refaim is one of the oldest and largest in the region. But that's all they agree on.
Morbid theory in mystery of Israel's answer to Stonehenge
Monumental carved dolmen more than 4,000 years old found in Golan rewrites history of civilization
Archaeologists find vast pagan sanctuary outside Roman city in north Israel
Rujm El Hiri, Gilgal or Galgal Refaim, Wheel of Spirits, Golan Heights, , Bashan,Israel
Israel is filled with hundreds of archaeological and historical sites. There are caves, ancient places of worship, amphitheaters dating back thousands of years, and fortresses waiting to be explored at just about every turn.
But there’s one off-the-beaten path archaeological site that many don’t know about, and even those who do haven’t visited.
It’s called Galgal Refa’im (“wheel of ghosts”) or Gilgal Refa’im (“circle of giants” referring to a biblical race of giants) in Hebrew, or Rujm el-Hiri in Arabic (“stone heap of the wild cats”). It is one of Israel’s most puzzling and mysterious places.
With massive rock walls jutting eight feet high into the sky, this Golan Heights structure is fondly called “Stonehenge of the Levant,” as according to many estimates, it is a contemporary of England’s Stonehenge.
Aerial photograph of 4,000-year-old stone structure, known as a dolmen. (Shmuel Magal, courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority)
The prehistoric Stonehenge monument in England, believed to be constructed between 3000 and 2000 BCE, is one of the world’s most famous sites. An average 1.3 million people visit this ring of standing stones every year. Other famous stone monuments popular with tourists include Chichen Itza in Mexico (1.4 million per year) and Machu Picchu in Peru (1.2 million).
Yet, Galgal Refa’im doesn’t draw even close to those numbers. Whether it’s because the magnificence of this approximately 5,000-year-old stone structure comprising some 42,000 tons of basalt stone laid out in huge concentric circles can only be seen properly from the air or whether it’s because of a lack of publicity, this obscure site attracts only a trickle of visitors most of the year.
A slighter bigger crowd – mostly astronomers and astrologists – comes on the days of winter solstice and summer solstice, when the sunrise lines up with cracks in the rocks.
But for the most part, this archaeological treasure — located between roads 808 and 98 in Israel’s Golan Heights about three kilometers south of Moshav Yonatan – is still waiting for its Indiana Jones moment.
Possible tank trench
Theories abound
Scientists and archaeologists agree that this enormous stone structure is one of the oldest and largest in the region. But that’s all they agree on.
“The excavation finished years ago. We have bits of information, but not the whole picture,” Uri Berger, an expert on megalithic tombs with the Israel Antiquities Authority, tells ISRAEL21c. “It’s a mystery.”
Some believe it was an ancient calendar due to the solstice lineup, or perhaps a monument used for astronomical observations and religious calculations.
Others think it was a burial site for important individuals because it has a 15-foot interment mound in the middle and a 20-foot-long burial chamber that visitors can crawl into. Another idea is that this structure was used to lay out the dead for the birds.
Circles of walls and flowers
“Scientists come and are amazed by the site and think up their own theories,” says Berger.
Even the age of the structure has been debated.
When Galgal Refa’im was first excavated in the 1960s, it was dated to the Early Bronze Age II (3000–2700 BCE). But in 2010, Michael Freikman of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem said the mysterious site was more likely built in the Late Bronze Age (1550–1200 BCE) because it matches construction of the Chalcolithic period.
Berger tells ISRAEL21c that each of the archaeologists who studied this place “is certain about his findings. He’s sure he has the dates of the site. But others who have excavated, they have their own theories. There’s always another opinion or theory.”
Within the little cave
Whilst enjoying the coolness of this little cave, I figured I should probably look for more info on the site and I found this: Gilgal Refa’im is believed to be either a tomb, a stellar calender, a ritual centre, an observatory or several other theorised places perhaps even created by biblical giants. Basically, nobody knows what this site is for and that definitely adds to the intrigue of the place. If there was one thing I could see in history, if very well might be watching the biblical giants in the Golan – the terrain is just perfect to see giants thundering down the plains.
Berger encourages people to visit, even though on the ground Galgal Refa’im seems little more than crumbling stone walls overgrown with weeds. From above, it is easier to see its bulls-eye or labyrinth shape. Some of the rock wall circles are complete, while others are missing chunks. The outermost wall is eight feet high and 520 feet in diameter.
The Golan Walking Trail passes Galgal Refa’im, which is only accessible by foot and open to visitors only on weekends and holidays because the area is used by the IDF for training exercises during the week.
Ouder dan de piramides en net zo mysterieus als Stonehenge. Deze Israëlische steenkring is onverklaarbaar
Ouder dan de piramides en net zo mysterieus als Stonehenge. Deze Israëlische steenkring is onverklaarbaar
Rujm al-Hiri is een megalitisch monument in het hart van de Golanhoogten. Er komen maar heel weinig toeristen en de mensen die de steenkring bezoeken staan vaak voor een raadsel, omdat je vanaf de grond alleen maar een berg stenen kunt zien.
Onlangs werd het monument gefilmd met behulp van een drone. Vanaf een hoogte van 20 meter vormt de stapel grijze stenen opeens een perfecte cirkel.
De steencirkel past in hetzelfde rijtje als Stonehenge in Engeland, de piramides in Egypte, de Nazcalijnen in Peru en zelfs de enorme standbeelden op Paaseiland.
Reuzen
De vraag is dan ook hoe het komt dat zo’n fascinerende plek zo ontoegankelijk is en amper bekend is bij toeristen.
De Israëliërs noemen de plek Gilgal Refaim (het Wiel der Reuzen). Volgens de Tenach was het oervolk van Bashan (moderne Golan) een ras van reuzen. Zij werden Refaïeten genoemd.
“De rest van Gilead en heel Basan, het rijk van Og, het hele gebied van Argob, heb ik aan de helft van de stam Manasse toegewezen (heel Basan wordt ook wel het land van de Refaïeten genoemd).” Deuteronomium 3:13
50.000 ton
In de jaren tachtig en negentig werden er opgravingen verricht. In een graftombe werden onder meer gouden juwelen ontdekt, maar het mysterie van de stenen werd niet opgelost.
Geschat wordt dat er voor zo’n 50.000 ton aan basaltblokken op de plek ligt en dat er honderdduizenden tot een miljoen werkdagen voor nodig moeten zijn geweest om het bouwwerk te voltooien.
Rujm al-Hiri bestaat uit vijf drie meter hoge cirkels die een centrale structuur omringen die ongeveer vijf meter hoog is.
Perfect
De buitenste cirkel heeft een doorsnee van 150 meter en de vorm is perfect. De binnenste cirkels zijn 80 en 110 meter in doorsnee.
In de buitenste cirkel bevinden zich twee openingen. Als je op de langste dag van het jaar (21 juni) in het centrum van de steenkring staat, zie je de zon opkomen in het midden van de noordoostelijke opening.
Massachusetts in the early 1600s was a bleak destination, though one with promise. In the early years of the settlement of the Massachusetts Bay, Governor John Winthrop brought just shy of 1000 colonists over from England, first stopping at Salem before moving on toward the Shawmut Peninsula, where they would establish the settlement that would eventually become Boston.
Nearly 200 of the settlers died under the extreme living conditions of that first American winter. Others, if not ill from the harsh weather, were sick of the trials of settlement; a number of the disillusioned returned to England in the spring. However, with the slow growth of the settlement, living conditions improved under the labors of Winthrop and the steadily growing population of New Englanders; by the beginning of 1640, settlers in the new land exceeded 20,000.
During this first pivotal decade in the history of Massachusetts, John Winthrop kept a detailed journal of occurrences in the region, from those civic or political in nature to noteworthy religious events and other happenings.
There were other occurrences, too, which Winthrop chronicled in his journal, some of them quite curious. Such were the details of the entry marked for March 1, 1639, a portion of which read as follows:
In this year one James Everell, a sober, discreet man, and two others, saw a great light in the night at Muddy River. When it stood still, it flamed up, and was about three yards square; when it ran, it was contracted into the figure of a swine: it ran as swift as an arrow towards Charlton, and so up and down about two or three hours. They were come down in their lighter about a mile, and, when it was over, they found themselves carried quite back against the tide to the place they came from. Divers other credible persons saw the same light, after, about the same place.
The account given is a strange one, though not unlike the circumstances popularly reported in conjunction with sightings of strange lights in the skies in modern times. It was, in other words, very much a sighting of an unidentified flying object, though what the actual phenomenon witnessed may have been cannot be easily determined solely from Winthrop’s narrative. Filtered through the puritanical mindset of a pre-Newtonian world, there is indeed much left to the imagination.
There are nonetheless aspects of the report Winthrop gives us that are of interest. Of particular note had been his description of the witnesses, which may imply some degree of disorientation caused by observing the light. As the observers “found themselves carried quite back against the tide to the place they came from,” some might discern from this that something akin to “missing time” had occurred. Indeed, certain similarities to popular UFO reports of the last few decades come to mind here, namely the alleged 1976 Allagash UFO incident, where those involved claimed to have observed a light over the course of several consecutive nights, along with the requisite missing time of many UFO abductions of the era (there have been questions raised about the veracity of this 1976 UFO incident in recent years, which are beyond the scope of the present discussion).
This would not be the sole inclusion of anomalous aerial phenomena in the governor’s journal. Winthrop recorded a similar incident several years later, dated January 18, 1643, where he noted:
About midnight, three men, coming in a boat to Boston, saw two lights arise out of the water near the north point of the town cove, in form like a man, and went at a small distance to the town, and so to the south point, and there vanished away. They saw them about a quarter of an hour, being between the town and the governor’s garden. The like was seen by many, a week after, arising about Castle Island and in one fifth of an hour came to John Gallop’s point.
One week after this incident, lights were seen again in the region and, as Winthrop notes in the following passage, were apparently “seen by many”:
A light like the moon arose about the N. E. point in Boston, and met the former at Nottles Island, and there they closed in one, and then parted, and closed and parted divers times, and so went over the hill in the island and vanished. Sometimes they shot out flames and sometimes sparkles. This was about eight of the clock in the evening, and was seen by many.
In conjunction with the appearance of lights in the sky, Winthrop notes a peculiar circumstance pertaining to this second observation of the Massachusetts “mystery lights”, where voices were allegedly heard along the waterways between Boston and Dorchester:
About the same time a voice was heard upon the water between Boston and Dorchester, calling out in a most dreadful manner, boy, boy, come away, come away: and it suddenly shifted from one place to another a great distance, about twenty times. It was heard by diverse godly persons. About 14 days after, the same voice in the same dreadful manner was heard by others on the other side of the town towards Nottles Island. These prodigies having some reference to the place where Captain Chaddock’s pinnace was blown up a little before, gave occasion of speech of that man who was the cause of it, who professed himself to have skill in necromancy, and to have done some strange things in his way from Virginia hither, and was suspected to have murdered his master there; but the magistrates here had not notice of him till after he was blown up. This is to be observed that his fellows were all found, and others who were blown up in the former ship were also found, and others also who have miscarried by drowning, etc., have usually been found, but this man was never found.
In Winthrop’s narrative, the lights were thus attributed to the devilish dealings of this man, who possessed “skill in necromancy” and other kindred arts of darkness. As to what might really have caused the illuminative apparitions Winthrop recounts is a matter of speculation, although many of the key suspects remain in modern times: these range from natural atmospheric plasmas (i.e. ball lightning), to other related natural illuminations like earthquake lights.
Arguably, these peculiar items in Winthrop’s journal outline what can be considered the first instances of unexplained aerial phenomena in the New World. }While they leave a lot to the imagination, they nonetheless offer a unique, albeit an atypical view of Puritan life in early America.
This wide-field view of the sky around the bright star Alpha Centauri was created from photographic images forming part of the Digitized Sky Survey 2.ESO/Digitized Sky Survey 2
NASA is planning an interstellar mission to search for extraterrestrial life outside our solar system. The space agency will explore the three-star Alpha Centauri system.
Reports claim it will be an unmanned mission which is yet to be named. The technology needed to build a craft that can search for life outside our solar system in the three-star Alpha Centauri system is yet to be developed.
The launch date of the mission is predicted to coincide with the first moon landing's 100th anniversary. The spacecraft needed for the mission should travel at a minimum pace of 10 percent of light's speed.
The Alpha Centauri constellation is situated at a distance of 4.4 light years away. Even if scientists create a craft that can travel at a 10th of the speed of light, it would take a 44-year trip for the craft to reach our nearest celestial neighbour — by 2113.
"It's very nebulous," Anthony Freeman, at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), was quoted by the New Scientist as saying.
The space agency is planning to send small laser-powered probes that are likely to reach a quarter the speed of light in theory.
"Other techniques under consideration include harnessing nuclear reactions, or through collisions between antimatter and matter," Independent reported.
A known exoplanet — Proxima Centauri b — in the Alpha Centauri system orbits a red dwarf star. But the exoplanet is in inhospitable conditions because of the radiations its parent star exposes it to, which lowers the chances of discovering alien life.
Launched in 1977, the Voyager 1 craft is the only spacecraft which has left our solar system successfully. It provided amazing new insights into planets and moons that exist in our solar system, despite the limitations of the technology it was armed with. Voyager 1 was not crafted to be an interstellar vessel.
It is currently situated 11.7 billion miles from Earth and is trundling along at a speed of 61,000 kmph (38,000 mph), which is about 0.0056 percent of light's speed.
This video was filmed in April 2015 but was just recently submitted to MUFON.
Witness report:
I was on my way to work and my first turn was down a hill (My city is in a river valley). I saw these three bright lights in the sky not much higher than my current elevation. I drove down the hill and pulled off at a conveinent place and took out my cell phone. I believe it was a iphone 4s. I began to record these slow moving objects. I propped my cellphone on the hood of my truck so the images wouldn’t be too shakey (I do believe in UFOs and I hate shakey videos).
Anyway. I saw what looked like a police car (Gonzaga University Police) was my first thought. I was at a new construction site and having worked the US Census in 2010 I knew these guys were no fun to deal with and cut my video because there was an arson fire at a previous build. Anyway, I left. I was hoping to catch the lights again on a bridge over a valley on my way to work (which would have been amazing). But, I never saw the slow moving lights again. I want to add I have about 10 years in Security and was on my way to work at an airport. These lights were not on any flight path I have ever seen (They mostly fly just north of my house). I believe this is the exact date. I am using my cellphones date / time stamp.
Mainstream orthodox (or ‘physical’) science contains as many paradigms as it does supposed facts, if not more; but it still tends to treat the former as largely substantiated facts. However, a paradigm – as the dictionary confirms – is merely a model, involving one or more assumptions. In fact, it is representative of the seemingly best functional theory or hypothesis available with accessible data in the face of ignorance of the true facts, which may in fact be quite different. That then, along with all the rest, is then presented to the world as ‘scientific knowledge’.
This, however, presents us with a problem because physical science sees itself as technology based, due to the need for reliably consistent reproduction of accurate data in the face of man’s own psychological and sensory inconsistency. Problematically, physical technology is itself based on paradigmatic assumptions and the associated limitations of then available sub-technology. So where does that put us in relation to the wider human experience which takes into consideration states of existence beyond the physical and even treats these as more real than the physical?
Alternative (or more accurately, sequentially parallel) states of existence have been discussed in openly allegorical or hermeneutic (structured) terms for thousands of years by both mystics and more metaphysically orientated philosophers, by virtue of their own actual experiences through self-experimentation. Those experiences were of course subjective in nature (because other states can only be accessed in such a manner) and it is therefore assumed by critics that they lacked the objectivity necessary to achieve any real degree of reliable accuracy. But this assumption is itself based on the highly questionable hypothesis that laboratory methods and/or modern academic forms of presentation and substantiation are the only reliable ones when these are themselves largely un-natural. So where do we go from here?
Over the last three centuries there has developed a growing belief that the objective physical world and the ‘subjective’ states of existence are or can be inter-connected and can thus directly affect each other. This started with the phenomenon of mesmerism in the eighteenth century and continued with human ectoplasmic manifestations in spiritualistic séances in the nineteenth (although spiders have been producing ectoplasm to form their webs since time immemorial). Subsequent to this, the new science of psychology began to show the subjective worlds of human thought and feeling as having a real consistency of internal dynamics if and when viewed on their own terms. Furthermore, quantum physics in the twentieth century seemed to confirm that physical experiments could be phenomenally affected by the psychological attitude of the observer. Yet we now appear to stand at something of an impasse.
Physical science has accepted that consciousness has to be considered a fundamental part of the equation of existence but it still sees consciousness as a merely electrical phenomenon generated (by extension at the physical level) by aggregations of base atomic and then molecular matter forming itself into organisms. Yet it is unable to answer the question of how it is that organic life can somehow emerge from apparently ‘dead’ matter – or why it should do so. Esoteric philosophy, on the other hand, has always taken the view that there is no such thing as ‘dead matter’; that there is in fact only one principle in the omniverse and that this is Life itself, manifesting as a homogeneous substance called, for want of a better term, ‘spirit-matter’ and appearing in a vast spectrum of qualitatively based states, each with its own potential polarity and apparent fields of progression or limitation, thus giving rise to a sympathetic sense of inter-connectedness, which we call consciousness. Furthermore, esoteric philosophy has always seen the universal spectrum of Life as the manifestation of a single, Universal Consciousness possessing an infinite range of memory and intelligence. Deists call more remote aspects of this by the name ‘God’ and try to give it a sort of humanly interactive personality. However, philosophers say that it is not only inconceivable in all respects, but that it is also approachable only by a progressively expansive understanding of what it is not.
This, of course, is not acceptable to a science which states that everything must have a testable rationale. However, in adopting that stance, science again makes an erroneous assumption. Esoteric philosophy (if properly followed) is itself based on the understanding of a rational approach to the existence of progressive fields of consciousness; but its technique is necessarily both subjective and objective. Subjectivity is necessary for direct experience by self-experimentation and selection; objectivity (which, problematically, is also subjective) is necessary to rationalise and understand the effects in due context. However, these have to be used in tandem by an intelligence specifically trained in their simultaneous use – one that has itself developed the capacity not to merely react to experience. In other words, one that is self-consciously aware but which has also passed beyond the stage of a reactive self-association which is usually based on a mere mixture of like and dislike.
The science and art of true esoteric faculty involves a fundamental detachment of consciousness from that which is being observed. That is to say, one must learn to use a higher quality of consciousness to observe a lesser quality of consciousness in action and thereby understand its qualitative status and its modus operandi. We have to develop an adult perspective based on our own prior experience before we can really understand the motivation and actions of a child. There is no short cut. A child cannot understand the motivations of an adult because he/she does not have the experience and has thus not yet learned of the associated limitations by virtue of which we progress through such experience to a wider perspective of understanding.
Plato made the point that “All is recollection.” In other words, there is nothing new in Universal Nature; but it is up to us to access it. Yet the first thing we have to understand is that memory is organised and works in progressive sequences, each involving its own essential field of limitation. But the progression is not linear. The Ancients tell us that the universe is concentrically organised and so each memory is part of a greater one. So, we have to first explore the plenum of one idea (or field of ideas) before we can break through its field of limitation into a yet greater one. This is the way in which the intelligent development of consciousness works. Thus it is that we first need to establish where a limitation exists (or potentially exists) before we can set out to go beyond it and thus achieve a greater perspective. Otherwise we shall merely go around in chaotically confused circles, merely re-exploring the past over and over again, thereby wallowing in a sea of superficiality. This, sadly, is what many people tend to do throughout their adult lives and it is the cause of needless frustration. Instead, we need constantly to move forward. That is why we have ideals to pursue.
Curiously, science – despite its incessant materialism – is moving in the right direction, albeit grudgingly. It accepts the fundamental principle that a theory has to be fully and carefully examined before it can be accepted for further and wider usage. It also accepts that theories (paradigms) are all ultimately disposable, even though it currently chases the ultimate march hare of a supposed Grand Unified Theory which fails to take consciousness into account. However, many ‘New Age’ theorists are as much at fault in that they comprehensively tend to avoid the rigorous approach to consideration of both esoteric and scientific principles, substituting instead their own off-the-cuff theories, which cannot even be called paradigms because most of them are based on either partial perceptions or even pure wishful thinking. That is why physical science, with all its questionable paradigms, is so suspicious of ‘New Age’ thought. But as they say, “It takes one to recognise one.”
That, however, brings me to one or two examples of mis-orientated scientific thinking (which I have highlighted in my recently published book The Rise & Fall of Atlantis) which may perhaps be of interest to readers of this magazine. The first of these involves the relationship between the core of the Earth and the planet’s surrounding ionosphere. The modern geological orthodoxy is that the core is composed of solid or liquid iron, or a combination of both, this providing the basis of the planet’s gravitational magnetism. However, this idea is based on the supposition that the Earth, originally part of the Sun and thus composed of plasma, was to begin with a superheated mass which cooled down, thereby allowing the heavy element of iron to sink towards the centre. But the supposition that the Sun’s plasmic mass is actually superheated (rather than electrically superactive) in the first place is also pure assumption. My suggestion is that it is not – and also that the core of the planet is still a plasmic mass, which responds to the fluctuations of solar energy coming our way as a result of voltage changes in our ionosphere. Interestingly, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in the USA has already noted that the Earth’s core appears to rotate at a different speed to the crust. Present concepts of the Earth’s core fail to provide any suggestion as to how this could possibly occur.
Now the ionosphere surrounding our planet at a distance of some 60 kilometres from the crust is itself an electrified field of matter whose voltage necessarily fluctuates because of the incessant variations in energy received from the Sun. As that occurs, so it must expand and contract. But this will itself produce a sympathetic response in the Earth’s plasmic core, which must also expand and contract in fluctuation, thereby causing huge changes in the magma sea under the crust. As the magma expands, it must necessarily generate internal pressure in the geological fields which contain it, thereby inducing volcanic activity and localised crustal expansion. Correspondingly, as it contracts, so the magma will cool and recede, thus causing the Earth’s crust to shrink back again, which will in turn lead to earthquake activity. Now the first effect of this different perspective is that it calls into question the paradigm theory of plate tectonics.
The basis of plate tectonics (which was first suggested in 1915 and cast out through general scientific disapproval for some fifty years after that) is that all the visible landmasses were once gathered together as one gigantic continent called Gondwanaland, or Pangaea. For some inexplicable reason this then supposedly split up like a jigsaw puzzle into various continental landmasses, which began cruising around the globe on top of the supporting magma sea, and then started bumping into each other like ‘dodgem cars’ at the fairground. The next part of the theory then has some of the landmasses literally crawling over others and down the other side, this experience however, amazingly leaving both masses looking geographically pretty well just the same. The ‘proof’ behind this idea is that the eastward Brazilian projection of South America supposedly fits geographically very neatly under the westward projection of the African continent, thereby confirming the original, broken jigsaw puzzle theory.
Proponents of the plate tectonic theory also draw attention to what is called the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, the fragmented central area of the Atlantic seabed which we can see on bathyspheric maps. All along this ridge are to be found hydrothermal vents (sometimes known as ‘black smokers’) which are chemically based extrusions, often several metres in length, pumping out volcanic gases from within the crust. These, we are told, are clear evidence that the Atlantic seabed is splitting, so pushing South America and Africa gently even further apart. However, there is no actual proof of such a split.
Now, as is pointed out in my book – citing evidence provided by others far more knowledgeable in the field than I – the idea that continental landmasses can just cruise around in the manner suggested is absurd. It takes inconceivably huge expenditure of energy to shift large geological landmasses – energy levels which scientific measurement itself has proven the planet just does not begin to possess in sufficient capacity to motivate the landmasses in such a manner. Furthermore, the idea that landmasses could somehow slide over each other without damaging their geographic identity is altogether ludicrous. Even more unanswerably, new landmasses are constantly being created by the acre every year (as for example in Hawaii) by the spread of volcanic lava, or destroyed by gradual erosion or cataclysm. So how can plate tectonics work in the face of all these various facts?
Geologists have used their theories to ‘prove’ that the profile of the Atlantic seabed confirms why the ancient idea of a mid-Atlantic continent (aka Atlantis) could not possibly have existed. However, my suggestion (my own paradigm, if you will) as previously explained, provides a very clear indication as to how and why huge masses of the Earth’s crust could indeed be deformed by expansion and contraction generated by electromagnetic pressure from the planet’s core. However, that is not the whole story behind the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Its peculiarly twisted shape tells us of another influence – this time an astrophysical one.
The Ancients described our planet as being suspended in Space between two great magnets. But this does not sound so absurd when one takes into consideration that the indentation of the ionosphere at both poles effectively means that the true poles are in fact to be found far above the Earth’s surface, not on it as is commonly imagined. However, the ionosphere itself is like a giant squeezable crystal – indeed the ancient Egyptian god Ptah was described as containing the planet within a crystal globe which he fashioned. When I suggest that it is ‘squeezable’ I mean to draw attention to the idea that it behaves piezo-electrically. I am suggesting, in other words, that during certain stages of the solar cycles which our planet goes through, it is necessarily forced through much more powerful electrical fields in Space, which cause its biosphere to contract because of the corresponding electrical hypertension generated in the ionosphere.
As the ionosphere is thus ‘squeezed’ centripetally inwards, at both poles, so the plasmic core of the Earth is forced to respond by centrifugal expansion. At a particularly critical point, these two antagonistic forces will literally cause the magma under the planetary crust to generate a coreolis effect, resulting in the upper and lower crustal hemispheres twisting in opposite directions. If you now look closely at a map of the world you will see that the volcanic ridges along the oceanic beds follow an interestingly parallel pattern which could only be achieved, I suggest, by such a twisting in different directions of the upper and lower hemispheres. The nett effect of this, of course, is that the crust in the tropics would be subjected to such terrible force that any geologically ancient landmass in the area would literally crack up and fall apart.
This, I further suggest, is precisely what happened to Atlantis and, as I have described in my book, it is also very probably what caused the almighty cataclysm in the Gulf of Mexico mentioned in the Troano Codex to the Mayan sacred book, the Popol Vuh, as having taken place some 8,060 years before the author’s time, thus killing some sixty million people in the space of one or two days. Just consider the probable extent of the central American landmass before this cataclysm, which itself appears to have coincided historically with the submergence of Plato’s Atlantean island of Poseidonis in the north-eastern Atlantic, plus a variety of other events, such as the sudden raising of the Andes to the south.
Furthermore, this same historical time seems to coincide not only with what my friend Robert Bauval has shown as the Egyptian period of Zep Tepi (the ‘First Time’) but also with the celestial solstice generated by the 25,920 year cycle which we moderns call the ‘precession of the equinoxes’ – which was known to the Ancients as ‘the Great Year of the Pleiades’. It would take too long to describe the importance of the Pleiades in this paper (it is described at some greater length in my book); but suffice it to say that there appears to have been seen a pivotal (cyclic) association between it, our solar system and the seven stars of the circumpolar constellation, Ursa Major, leading to the very appearance of an originally spiritual, proto-human-kind on this planet, literally millions of years ago.
Most astronomers and astrophysicists will of course just laugh at this as the products of ancient superstitions. But then many of our modern scientists – not finding themselves able to credit the possibility of spirit-matter in the first place (notwithstanding their as yet hypothetical ‘dark matter’ and ‘quantum fluid’) – would hardly be likely to consider the possibility of the massed spirit-organisms of humankind (i.e. souls, not human beings per se) perhaps originating in another but kindred celestial system. I hasten to add that this can in no way be considered in terms of UFO activity. Spirits – organised as cellular groups of souls – would not need spacecraft if an astrologically and astronomically helpful period of relative proximity were cyclically available to enable a fluid transmission of celestial consciousness between greater and lesser star systems, which ancient tradition holds to be repositories of such consciousness. But is this not perhaps the origin of the very ancient idea of Man having ‘fallen’ from a superior state of ‘Grace’? Is this not perhaps also why the ancient Egyptians were so focused on spiritual development leading the highest initiates or Piru (not the pharaoh, as Egyptologists fondly imagine) back to the circumpolar stars?
In The Rise and Fall of Atlantis I have quite deliberately addressed the hitherto cloudy issue of spirits and souls in relation to the hugely ancient origins of humankind on this planet and its continued evolution of culture through civilisation. In doing so, I recognise the immediately apparent dangers of being treated as just another New Age nutcase. However, I have gone to some considerable lengths to show that Darwinism and Creationism not only do not work, but are also not the only (or even most viable) alternatives. When consciousness is itself brought into the equation as inherent in all the kingdoms of Nature, in concert with the concept that there is no such thing as dead matter, it will immediately be seen why the universe in toto has to be considered as a psychologically based organism (with a wide spectrum of intelligence) within which spirit and matter are qualitatively polarised aspects of one and the same principle. It will then be understood why astrologically timed and astro-physically organised insemination (or withdrawal) of different qualities of intelligence from any celestial body or system (as an organism) must itself be a quite natural function in universal Nature.
I hope that my book will be seen as providing a logically reasoned, alternative perspective for public discussion, rather than as merely another book on Atlantis and its geographic whereabouts. The sub-title to it – “The Mysterious Origins of Human Civilisation” – should be enough to suggest that there is far more inside it to chew on than one would normally find in a book on the subject. May I therefore wish my readers many happy hours of further discovery.
P. Russell, The Awakening Earth (London RKP, 1982)
G. Santillana & H. von Dechend, Hamlet’s Mill (Boston, D.R. Godine, 1992)
D.E. Scott, The Electric Sky (Portland, Oregon, Mikamar Publishing, 2006)
Sir W. Scott, Hermetica (England, Solos Press, 1993)
S. Wolinsky, Quantum Consciousness (Bramble Books, 1993)
JOHN GORDON (1946-2013) held a master’s degree in Western Esotericism from the University of Exeter and was a senior fellow of the Theosophical Society of England, where he lectured on ancient history and metaphysics. Known for his in-depth knowledge on the ancient Egyptian mystical tradition, he wrote several books, including The Path of Initiation and Land of the Fallen Star Gods.
Het Arecibo observatorium heeft nieuwe radarbeelden gemaakt van asteroïde 3200 Phaethon.
Phaethon is vooral bekend als de veroorzaker van de jaarlijkse meteorenzwerm de Geminiden. Begin december komt stof en puin van de planetoïde Phaethon in aanraking met de aardse atmosfeer, waardoor we vallende sterren zien.
De resolutie van de nieuwe beelden is 75 meter per pixel. “Deze nieuwe observaties laten zien dat Phaethon ongeveer dezelfde vorm heeft als de asteroïde Bennu,” zegt wetenschapper Patrick Taylor. “Bennu is het hoofddoel van NASA’s OSIRIS-REx-missie. Toch is er wel één groot verschil: er passen namelijk duizend Bennu’s in Phaethon.”
Op de beelden is een donkere vlek te zien. “Dit is wellicht een krater of een andere topografische depressie,” concludeert Taylor.
Tweede grootste aardscheerder De onderzoekers beweren dat Phaethon een diameter heeft van zes kilometer. Dat betekent dat de planetoïde ongeveer één kilometer groter is dan gedacht. Daarmee is Phaethon de tweede grootste ‘gevaarlijke’ aardscheerder. Een aardscheerder is een planetoïde die soms dicht bij de aarde in de buurt komt.
Tien miljoen kilometer Gelukkig hoeven we niet wakker te liggen van Phaethon. Op 16 december 2017 was de planetoïde 10,3 milen kilometer van onze planeet verwijderd. Dat is ongeveer 27 keer de afstand van de aarde naar de maan. Pas in 2093 komt Phaethon dichter in de buurt van de aarde.
Dit zijn de beste plaatsen om buitenaards leven te vinden (denken we)
Dit zijn de beste plaatsen om buitenaards leven te vinden (denken we)
Caroline Kraaijvanger
Dit zijn de zeven plaatsen waar wij als eerste zouden gaan kijken.
1. Europa
Terwijl astronomen buiten ons zonnestelsel jagen op potentieel leefbare planeten vinden we de eerste aliens misschien wel veel dichter bij huis: op Europa. Als je deze maan van Jupiter bekijkt, ziet deze er misschien niet zo gerieflijk uit, maar schijn bedriegt. Want onder de dikke ijskap van de maan zit waarschijnlijk een wereldwijde oceaan verstopt. Die oceaan zou uit vloeibaar, zout water bestaan en een aardse chemie bezitten. Bovendien mag de oceaan (en eventueel leven in dit zoute water – zich dankzij het dikke pak ijs erboven beschermd weten tegen gevaarlijke kosmische straling. Al met al zien veel astrobiologen Europa dan ook als de beste plek om op zoek te gaan naar buitenaards leven. Die zoektocht lijkt overigens zo langzamerhand vorm te krijgen: er liggen verschillende plannen klaar om Europa in de nabije toekomst eens van dichterbij te gaan bekijken.
Oké. Ook deze planeet oogt vandaag de dag niet direct heel gastvrij, met zijn koude, droge oppervlak en flinterdunne atmosfeer. Maar in het verleden is dat echt anders geweest. Miljarden jaren geleden was de atmosfeer van Mars dikker, waardoor het oppervlak minder te duchten had van kosmische straling en bovendien een stuk warmer was. In die tijd zou de temperatuur op Mars heel behaaglijk zijn geweest en waren op de rode planeet zelfs meren en rivieren te vinden. Kortom: een walhalla voor het leven zoals wij dat kennen. Velen achten het dan ook waarschijnlijk dat er op de rode planeet in ieder geval leven is geweest. Is Mars dan alleen interessant voor de zoektocht naar gefossiliseerde aliens? Niet zo snel! Het leven aan het oppervlak van Mars mag dan zwaar en misschien zelfs onmogelijk zijn: diep onder het oppervlak is dat wellicht heel anders. En dus sluiten onderzoekers niet uit dat er ondergronds nog wat stugge microben te vinden zijn. Dat we Mars met volle overtuiging in dit rijtje opnemen heeft echter met name te maken met het feit dat we hier al enig materieel hebben rondrijden en er nog genoeg plannen liggen om de rode planeet verder te verkennen. Als er leven is, lijkt het dan ook een kwestie van tijd voor we het vinden.
Marsrover Curiosity poseert op Mars.
Afbeelding: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS.
LEEFBARE ZONE
Een leefbare zone is een denkbeeldige zone rond een ster. Planeten die zich in deze zone bevinden, ontvangen voldoende warmte van de ster om te voorkomen dat eventueel vloeibaar water op hun oppervlak bevriest. Tegelijkertijd ontvangen ze ook weer niet zoveel warmte dat datzelfde vloeibare water de kans krijgt om te verdampen. Kortom: een planeet die in de leefbare zone staat, kan in theorie vloeibaar water herbergen op het oppervlak. En dat maakt een planeet interessant, aangezien vloeibaar water een onmisbaar ingrediënt is voor het leven zoals wij dat kennen.
4. LHS 1140b
De superaarde is ietsje groter dan de aarde, bevindt zich in de leefbare zone en heeft waarschijnlijk een atmosfeer.
Tijd om eens buiten ons zonnestelsel te kijken. Want ook daar bevinden zich hemellichamen die er uitnodigend uitzien voor leven. LHS 1140b bijvoorbeeld. De planeet is ietsje groter dan de aarde, bevindt zich in de leefbare zone (zie kader) en lijkt bovendien te beschikken over een atmosfeer. Bovendien gedraagt de moederster zich ook nog eens voorbeeldig: de rode dwerg roteert langzaam en geeft minder hoogenergetische en potentieel schadelijke straling af dan vergelijkbare sterren met weinig massa. Een mooie extra is dat deze planeet – vanaf de aarde gezien – regelmatig voor zijn moederster langs beweegt, waardoor we regelmatig de kans krijgen om de atmosfeer van de planeet te bestuderen. Wellicht kunnen we in de toekomst met krachtige telescopen – zoals James Webb – gaan zoeken naar sporen van leven in de atmosfeer van LHS 1140b. “Een beter doelwit voor één van de belangrijkste zoektochten in de wetenschap – die naar tekenen van leven buiten de aarde – kunnen we ons nauwelijks wensen,” zo concludeerde astronoom Jason Dittmann eerder dit jaar.
5. Proxima b
Het is natuurlijk één van de wetenschappelijke hoogtepunten van 2016: de ontdekking van Proxima Centauri b. Deze exoplaneet cirkelt om de dichtstbijzijnde ster en is slechts 4 lichtjaar van ons verwijderd. De planeet is 1,3 keer zwaarder dan de aarde en bevindt zich in de leefbare zone, wat betekent dat er mogelijk vloeibaar water op het oppervlak te vinden is. Wel zijn er zorgen over de ster waar Proxima b omheen draait. Die zou nogal onstuimig zijn, waardoor er gevaarlijke straling richting de planeet stroomt. Grote vraag is of de planeet zichzelf – en eventueel leven op het oppervlak – middels een krachtig magnetisch veld tegen die straling kan beschermen. Dat zal vervolgonderzoek uit moeten wijzen. Voorlopig zijn astronomen optimistisch en zetten ze de planeet in de bovenste regionen van het lijstje der potentieel leefbare exoplaneten.
Een artistieke impressie van het planetenstelsel. Je ziet de ster TRAPPIST-1 op de achtergrond staan. Op de voorgrond de planeten. Uit het plaatje blijkt ook dat de binnenste drie waarschijnlijk te warm zijn om vloeibaar water te bezitten. De andere planeten – op de buitenste planeet na, want die is waarschijnlijk te koud – lijken de juiste temperatuur te hebben om vloeibaar water te bezitten.
Afbeelding: NASA / R. Hurt / T. Pyle.
7. Ross 128b
Een artistieke impressie van Ross 128b, met op de achtergrond de inactieve, kleine rode moederster. Dit is op dit moment officieel de meest nabije planeet die om een kalme ster cirkelt.
Afbeelding: ESO / M. Kornmesser.
Deze planeet is echt nog maar net ontdekt, maar nu al razend interessant. En wel omdat deze ongeveer net zo groot is als de aarde en de temperaturen op de planeet mogelijk vergelijkbaar zijn met die op de aarde. En het wordt nog mooier: de ster waar Ross 128b omheen cirkelt, is opvallend kalm. Het vergroot de kans dat hier leven stand kan houden. Is er dan niets op deze planeet aan te merken? Nou, één klein dingetje dan: het is nog onduidelijk of deze zich in, buiten of op het randje van de leefbare zone bevindt.
Het valt nog niet mee om planeten aan te wijzen waar leven zou kunnen zijn. Er zijn immers zoveel factoren die een rol spelen. En dan gaan we nog uit van leven zoals wij dat kennen (en dat bijvoorbeeld water vereist). Maar wie zegt dat buitenaards leven net zo in elkaar steekt als het leven op aarde? Misschien hebben aliens wel heel andere behoeften dan wij. Dan zou het bovenstaande lijstje er heel anders uit kunnen gaan te zien. En de zoektocht naar buitenaards leven ook!
Stel dat jij een ruimteschip cadeau krijgt. Waar zou jij dan als eerste gaan zoeken naar buitenaards leven? Laat het ons hieronder weten!
Bronmateriaal:
Afbeelding bovenaan dit artikel: NASA / ESA / K. Retherford / SWR
Onderzoekers zijn er nog niet uit: wat is die sliert toch in het midden van onze Melkweg?
Onderzoekers zijner nog niet uit: wat is die sliert toch in het midden van onze Melkweg?
Vivian Lammerse
“Het pad naar het antwoord toe is hoe dan ook fascinerend.”
Onze Melkweg bevat voor wetenschappers nog steeds verassingen. Op dit moment proberen astronomen te achterhalen wat die lange sliert toch is, die zich nabij het supermassieve zwarte gat in het centrum van onze Melkweg bevindt. In 2016 werd het ongewone filament ontdekt. Sindsdien zijn er veel astronomen die zich het hoofd breken over de sliert. Het filament is ongeveer 2,3 lichtjaren lang en buigt zich rondom de punt van Sagittarius A*, het supermassieve zwarte gat in het centrum van onze Melkweg.
Afbeelding Een team van astronomen heeft een poging gedaan om het antwoord dichterbij te brengen. Met gebruik van een baanbrekende techniek is het ze gelukt om de sliert op hoge kwaliteit op beeld vast te leggen. “Hierdoor kunnen we het filament nu veel dichter bij het centrale zwarte gat volgen,” zegt Mark Morris, hoofdauteur van het onderzoek. “We hebben echter nog steeds veel werk te verrichten om te achterhalen wat de ware aard van dit filament is.”
Op de afbeelding is het centrum van onze Melkweg te zien. De pijlen geven de mysterieuze sliert en het zwarte gat aan.
Afbeelding: NSF/VLA/UCLA/M. Morris et al.
Drie verklaringen
De onderzoekers hebben al wel drie verklaringen voor de sliert overwogen:
1) De sliert wordt veroorzaakt door deeltjes die met hoge snelheid uit het magnetisch veld van een zwart gat worden geschoten, ook wel jets genoemd.
2) De sliert is eigenlijk een kosmische snaar. Echter is het bestaan van kosmische snaren nog in nevelen gehuld.
3) De positie en de richting van de sliert is slechts een toevallige superpositie en er is geen enkele associatie tussen het filament en het zwarte gat. Toch is zulk toeval erg onwaarschijnlijk.
Scenario’s Welk van de onderzochte scenario’s het uiteindelijk ook zal zijn, elk van hen zou een intrigerend inzicht verschaffen. Stel dat optie 1 waar is, dan zou dit bijvoorbeeld belangrijke informatie over het magnetisch veld in deze speciale omgeving kunnen onthullen. Maar als optie 2 waar blijkt te zijn, dan zou dat het eerste bewijs leveren voor een tot nu toe zeer speculatief idee. Dit zal diepgaande gevolgen hebben voor het begrijpen van zwaartekracht, ruimte-tijd-verhoudingen en het universum zelf.
Dat de sliert bijzonder is, staat hoe dan ook vast. Want zelfs als het filament niet fysiek verbonden is met supermassieve zwarte gat, dan nog is de bocht in de sliert erg ongebruikelijk. “Hoewel we het antwoord nog niet hebben, is het pad naar het antwoord toe fascinerend,” zegt co-auteur Miller Goss. “We zullen blijven zoeken totdat we een verklaring hebben gevonden.”
Burgerwetenschappers Gerald Eichstädt en Seán Doran hebben gegevens van de Juno-ruimtesonde gebruikt om een prachtige foto van Jupiters atmosfeer te maken.
Eichstädt en Doran zijn geen onbekenden. Een foto van dit duo eindigde op de negende plek in de top 10 mooiste ruimtefoto’s van 2017. Eens in de paar maanden publiceren zij weer een nieuwe bewerkte foto van de grootste planeet van ons zonnestelsel.
De nieuwe foto is gemaakt op 16 december, toen Juno ruim 13.000 kilometer verwijderd was van het wolkendek van Jupiter. De resolutie bedraagt ruim negen kilometer per pixel. Aan de rechterkant van de foto zie je een glimp van de dag-nachtgrens.
Op jacht naar aliens: een bijna onmogelijke zoektocht
Op jacht naar aliens: een bijna onmogelijke zoektocht
Caroline Kraaijvanger
Zoeken naar aliens: we moeten het doen, maar we weten eigenlijk niet hoe. “De kans dat we buitenaards leven in onze directe omgeving gaan vinden, is héél klein.”
Het Scientias.nl-archief zit vol met ‘pareltjes’: artikelen waar we trots op zijn, die een interessante discussie hebben losgemaakt of waarin mensen aan het woord komen met een vernieuwende en verrassende kijk op wetenschappelijk gerelateerde kwesties. Het is eigenlijk zonde dat die artikelen naarmate de tijd vordert, wat stoffig worden. En dus stoffen we er zo af en toe eentje af en plaatsen ‘m opnieuw. Dit is zo’n ‘gouwe ouwe’. Het artikel verscheen in mei 2017 op de site, maar heeft aan actualiteitswaarde nog niets ingeboet. Enjoy!
Al decennia speuren we met behulp van radiotelescopen naar signalen van buitenaards leven. Zonder resultaat. Misschien zou je bijna gaan vermoeden dat het leven op aarde uniek is. De meeste wetenschappers willen daar echter nog niet aan. Zij kunnen zich onmogelijk voorstellen dat er in een universum gevuld met miljarden hemellichamen maar één planeet is waarop intelligent leven is ontstaan. Ook Heino Falcke, als radioastronoom en astrodeeltjesfysicus verbonden aan de Radboud Universiteit in Nijmegen, acht het bestaan van aliens “aannemelijk”. Maar op de vraag of hij denkt dat er buitenaards leven is, antwoordt hij wat terughoudender. “We moeten het eerst vinden, tot die tijd weten we het gewoon niet.”
Zeldzaam En het vinden van die aliens: dat blijkt nog niet zo eenvoudig. “Wat is een succesvolle methode om aliens op te sporen? Dat weten we eigenlijk pas als we ze vinden.” Maar dat de radiotelescopen van SETI ondanks dat ze al decennia op zoek zijn naar buitenaardse signalen nog geen succes hebben gehad, wil niet gelijk zeggen dat die methode niet deugt of dat er geen aliens bestaan. “Intelligent leven is zelfs in de geschiedenis van onze planeet een heel zeldzaam verschijnsel,” stelt Falcke. Het lijkt dan ook aannemelijk dat intelligent buitenaards leven ook niet zomaar overal ontspringt. En dus is het zoeken naar een speld in een hooiberg. Die spreekwoordelijk hooiberg is enorm. “Je moet de omvang van het heelal nooit onderschatten.” En op het moment kunnen we zelfs met de krachtigste radiotelescopen in een gegeven periode slechts in een klein hoekje van die hooiberg naar de spreekwoordelijke speld zoeken. “De kans dat we buitenaards leven in onze directe omgeving gaan vinden, is klein,” denkt Falcke. Maar hoe meer planeten en sterren we op steeds grotere afstand van de aarde bestuderen, hoe groter de kans wordt dat het een keer raak is.
“WAAROM ZOU JE WILLEN COMMUNICEREN MET IEMAND DIE ONS WEL KAN BEZOEKEN, MAAR WAAR WIJ NIET NAAR TOE KUNNEN?”
METI Terwijl SETI in een fractie van dat enorme universum op zoek is naar buitenaardse signalen, gaan er ook stemmen op voor een actievere zoektocht naar leven: METI. METI staat voor Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Het is eigenlijk heel simpel: in plaats van te zoeken naar buitenaardse signalen gaan we zelf radiosignalen uitzenden in de hoop dat aliens die dan opvangen. Falcke is echter niet enthousiast. “Ten eerste denk ik niet dat het wat oplevert. De kans dat iemand dat oppikt, is klein. Ten tweede vind ik het geen goed idee om met heel veel energie echt in de Melkweg bekend te maken dat wij er zijn. Je weet tenslotte nooit wat je tegenkomt.” Want de kans dat aliens de signalen opvangen, is klein, maar weldegelijk aanwezig. En daar krijgt Falcke eerlijk gezegd de bibbers van. “We weten uit de geschiedenis dat een botsing tussen twee beschavingen altijd uitvalt in het voordeel van de beschaving met grotere resources en betere technologieën. In dit geval zou dat de beschaving zijn die de ander kan bezoeken.” En dus lijkt het erop dat we bij voorbaat al aan het kortste eind trekken. “Waarom zou je willen communiceren met iemand die ons wel kan bezoeken, maar waar wij niet naar toe kunnen?” Falcke lijkt er nu al van uit te gaan dat we van aliens geen amicale houding hoeven te verwachten. “Waarom zouden zij beter zijn dan wij? Mensen die dat denken, zijn naïef.”
Aan boord van de beide Voyager-ruimtesondes bevindt zich een boodschap voor aliens. Mocht buitenaards leven de sondes – waarvan er één vermoedelijk al in de interstellaire ruimte is beland – tegenkomen, kunnen ze dankzij de grammofoonplaat onder meer aardse geluiden (wind en vogelzang) horen.
Afbeelding: NASA / JPL.
LOFAR Maar als SETI – tot op heden – onsuccesvol is en METI ronduit gevaarlijk, hoe moeten we dan verder? Falcke is wel te spreken over Breakthrough Listen, een project waarbinnen met meerdere radiotelescopen naar buitenaardse radiosignalen en laserpulsen wordt gezocht. “Dat is een slimme aanpak.” Maar als Falcke het voor het zeggen had – en een ongelimiteerd budget toegewezen kreeg – zou hij de zoektocht naar aliens toch net wat anders aanpakken. “Ik zou zoiets als LOFAR (een radiotelescoop met duizenden radioantennes, red.) opnieuw gaan bouwen, maar dan groter. En dan de hele hemel doorzoeken.” Met een beetje geluk resulteert het in het oppikken van een buitenaards signaal. “En anders levert het sowieso fantastische wetenschap op.” Maar zo’n LOFAR 2.0 blijft – ondanks dat we in staat zijn om deze te bouwen – voorlopig een hersenspinsel, denkt Falcke. “Voor zoiets heb je miljarden nodig.”
Vragen Terwijl wetenschappers zich het hoofd breken over hóe we die aliens nu het beste kunnen vinden, rijst wellicht bij jou de vraag waarom we zo nodig op zoek moeten naar buitenaards leven. Falcke kan er kort over zijn: “Het is een bijzonder fundamenteel vraagstuk.” Hij wijst erop dat er wel miljoenen vragen te bedenken zijn die met de ontdekking van buitenaards leven wellicht beantwoord kunnen worden. “Hoe werkt het leven ergens anders? Welke kennis hebben de aliens? Hoe zit hun samenleving in elkaar? Hoe kijken zij naar het heelal of naar religie?” somt Falcke op. “En door naar anderen te kijken, ga je ook nadenken over jezelf.”
“STEL JE STUURT: “IK BEN ER, ZULLEN WE NAAR DE KROEG GAAN?”, DAN BEN JE AL DOOD VOOR JE ANTWOORD KRIJGT”
Communiceren Om die miljoenen prangende vragen te kunnen beantwoorden, moeten we echter niet alleen buitenaards leven ontdekken, maar ook een manier vinden om ermee te communiceren. En dat is waarschijnlijk een stuk lastiger dan veel mensen – afgaand op sciencefictionfilms – denken, vertelt Falcke. “Waarschijnlijk bevinden aliens zich op grote afstand. Als we een signaal van hen oppikken, is dat misschien al wel 1000 of 10.000 jaar onderweg.” En dus is niet bewezen dat de beschaving die dit signaal uitzond er nog steeds is. “Wie zegt dat wij er over 1000 jaar nog zijn?” En als je dan een signaal terugstuurt, is dat ook weer duizenden jaren onderweg. “Stel je stuurt: “Ik ben er, zullen we naar de kroeg gaan?”, dan ben je al dood voor je antwoord krijgt.”
Falcke was vorig jaar te zien in de documentaire ‘Searching for Aliens‘. De documentaire gaat over vijf mensen die op verschillende manieren zoeken naar buitenaards leven. Je kunt de documentaire online bekijken.
Religie Maar zelfs als communiceren lastig of onmogelijk is, zal de wetenschap dat aliens bestaan of bestaan hebben, toch verstrekkende gevolgen hebben op aarde? Falcke denkt van niet. “Misschien dat de kranten er de eerste dag vol van staan, maar de volgende dag gaat het leven weer verder. Dat gaat onze beschaving echt niet op zijn kop zetten.” Zelfs religies zouden het bestaan van de alien kunnen overleven, denkt Falcke, zelf christen. “Bijna 900 jaar geleden werd er binnen de kerk al gediscussieerd over het bestaan van andere planeten. En toen werd besloten dat het verboden was om uit te sluiten dat andere werelden bestaan. En een Parijse bisschop voegde er later aan toe dat je niet mocht zeggen dat buitenaards leven niet bestaat. Want zo beperk je de macht van God en je moet God niet voorschrijven wat hij wel en niet mag creëren.”
Aliens zetten de wereld dus niet op hun kop. Anders is dat voor de wetenschappelijke wereld. “Als we ze vinden, leren we ontzettend veel. Dan verdubbelt in één klap het aantal beschavingen in de Melkweg! En misschien vinden we wel leven op planeten waarop we het helemaal niet verwacht hadden.” Een andere optie is natuurlijk dat we geen intelligent, maar eenvoudig buitenaards leven vinden. “Plant- of dierachtigen of eenvoudige cellen,” somt Falcke op. Hij benadrukt dat het vinden van sporen van die levensvormen misschien nog wel lastiger is dan het vinden van intelligent leven. “Daarvoor moet je in de dampkring van planeten kijken en daar heb je heel krachtige telescopen voor nodig.” Met de nieuwe generatie telescopen – zoals de James Webb-telescoop – kunnen we die dampkringen onder de loep gaan nemen, maar grote doorbraken verwacht Falcke nog niet. “De komende decennia verwacht ik dat we zo af en toe horen dat er misschien een aanwijzing voor buitenaards leven is gevonden.” Maar zeker zullen we daar – zonder nog betere telescopen – dus niet van zijn. Dat het zo lastig wordt om aliens te vinden, kan eigenlijk geen verrassing zijn. Neem nou Mars, een planeet waarvan sterk vermoed wordt dat deze ooit leven herbergde. “Deze bevindt zich in de achtertuin en we kunnen de planeet bezoeken en nog weten we niet zeker of er leven is geweest.” Of buitenaards leven bestaat, kan dan ook nog eeuwen een raadsel zijn. “Maar dat raadsel kan ook morgen opgelost zijn.”
Bronmateriaal:
Interview met Heino Falcke De afbeelding bovenaan dit artikel is gemaakt door Pawel86/ Pixabay
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Project ISIS: The Extraterrestrial Mummy found by the KGB in Egypt (Video)
Project ISIS: The Extraterrestrial Mummy found by the KGB in Egypt (Video)
A documentary was broadcast exclusively in 1998 by the US television network Sci-Fi, called “The Secret KGB Adduction Files” based on a video showing an extraterrestrial mummy found in Egypt by the KGB.
Work of concealment of a real event or simply a false incident?
The only authorized opinion was provided by the same US television station at the time of the broadcast, according to which the team of experts that evaluated the film confirmed its authenticity.
The US network has broadcast the film only once, and there is no other copy available from the video, except those that are available thanks to those who took the time to record the broadcast.
The film would show a secret expedition from the KGB to Egypt as part of the “Isis Project”, in which Soviet intelligence discovered the existence of what appears to be an extraterrestrial mummy . Before the broadcast, the film was never shown outside the structures of the KGB.
Is it an elaborate and expensive deception, or could the “ancient astronaut of the grave” be the discovery that will revolutionize the understanding of the principles of human civilization?
It all started with the revelations of Viktor Ivanovich , a neurologist and a Russian astrophysicist hired by the Kremlin as a scientific advisor for the development of advanced propulsion systems. As Sci-Fi says, Ivanovich had access to some secret files of the KGB, which narrate an expedition in 1961 as part of the “Isis Project”, aimed at discovering remnants of knowledge and technology from Egypt that could be used for military applications.
KGB
Extraterrestrial mummy found by the KGB
The mission team consisted of Egyptologists from the Soviet Academy of Sciences, Alekseen Herman (supposed Egyptologist at the Hermitage Museum), military experts specializing in chemistry and radioactivity, some astronomers, including Vladimir Yuri and Sami Sharaf, Secretary of Gamel Abdel Nasser, second president of the Republic of Egypt.
The extraterrestrial mummy found by the KGB in Egypt
If we consider the historical period in which the expedition will take place, the political axis between Egypt and the Soviet Union is not surprising. Since the conflict in 1956, when Israel invaded Egyptian territory, as a result of the Canal crisis, the Soviet Union sided with Egypt. It is estimated that when the Isis Project was started, a Soviet military contingent of 20,000 units arrived in Egypt.
The expedition was organized after the accidental discovery of a mysterious tomb by two Bedouins Magbarat Alzoar in one of the pyramids of Giza. These were the first people who entered the tomb, and were the first victims, having to be hospitalized due to being very sick. When questioned by agents of the KGB and Egyptian intelligence, the Bedouins said they had found the “visiting God” .
Since then, the “Isis Project” became the highest priority and everything was organized to find and analyze the tomb discovered by the two Bedouins. The expedition was organized jointly by the two countries in secret, for fear that the CIA and the US intelligence services might have knowledge of the discovery.
According to the report held by Ivanovich, the Soviets found the tomb full of artifacts. This is read in a note addressed to a senior official of the KGB:
My agents have secured notes from scientists working at the Tomb of the discovered visitor “
Note addressed to a senior KGB officer about the discovery.
This is followed by the following list of information: Place of discovery: not revealed; 15 boxes of artifacts; 1 partially mummified body; A stone sarcophagus, 8 samples of hieroglyphs.
In the report prepared by one of the first scientists to enter the tomb, it reads: “During the inspection of the walls we have noticed a strange repulsive force that comes out of the walls. We could not find any scientific explanation. ” Finally, the report prepared by one of the cryptographers, who participated in the partial decoding of the engravings on the walls of the tomb message, reads a prophecy that implies the “return of the winged” . But the most surprising thing about the discovery is related to the mummy. The mummy seems to have a height of more than 2 meters high, much higher than the average height of the inhabitants of ancient Egypt.
Extraterrestrial mummy found by the KGB
Carbon 14 analysis conducted by molecular biologist Boris Timoyev revealed that the body dates back about 12,000 years ago, thousands of years before the Egyptian dynastic period.
Could the mummy found in the sarcophagus be of the god Osiris?
According to Egyptian mythology, a family of gods descended from the stars in Egypt. They taught them knowledge and wisdom. Later, when their work was over, they left Earth to return to heaven, with the exception of Osiris , who was left with the task of protecting and maintaining the ancestral knowledge given.
The god Osiris. According to Egyptian mythology, Osiris came down from heaven in a “flying ship”. Was it a UFO?
Osiris brought civilization to men, taught them to cultivate the land and the production of wine, and was loved by the people. After his death he was mummified and buried in a secret place.
On the basis of this ancient myth, shortly after the discovery of the visitor’s tomb, a group of scientists, computer programmers, doctors and other academics met to discuss the scope of the event. The group was convinced that the body in the coffin was the mummy of Osiris, the alien king!The group adopted the name of “followers”, a movement of almost religious borders, dedicated to the adoration of the “visitor of the stars”.
The Kremlin took the matter under a more pragmatic profile. Soviet scientists began to wonder what would have been the actual function of the pyramids and if they had been designed for a particular purpose. Some of them had the hypothesis that they are powerful machines capable of channeling part of the energy of the cosmos or some type of interstellar transmitter.
The KGB and the encounter with the Ancient Astronaut
What sparked the interest of science fiction in the subject was a film that seems to have obtained the American chain of the Russian mafia through an intermediary.
The film obtained from the archives of the KGB and the high security images show the discovery of the sarcophagus inside the tomb of the stellar visitor. The science fiction experts guarantee the authenticity of the film.
The black and white video shows a number of soldiers and officers entering what appears to be an Egyptian burial chamber without gas masks. In the opening of the sarcophagus, you can see a cloud of toxic gas that invades the environment and the reaction of the soldiers affected by the breath and fear, to see the mummy that was contained in the sarcophagus.
Later, the place seems to have been organized for further scientific analysis. Now the soldiers are wearing special protective suits
KGB personnel wearing protective masks enter the site to protect themselves from the gases issued in the first incursion.
On the walls of the compound the KGB agents find a series of hieroglyphics and engravings.
What value can this film be given?
Is it a joke made on the basis of Ivanovich’s revelations? There is no doubt that the video shows the concordance with the data contained in the Ivanovich documents. This, according to some, would be another test to support the authenticity of the film.
In addition, it seems that during the private screening organized by the Sci-Fi team, issued before the documentary was broadcast, a daughter of those who were part of the “followers” group, recognizing her father in the film’s images , begins to cry.
“There is no doubt that a small group of Russian scientists with military experts have discovered a tomb in Egypt in 1961,” says Ivanovich. “But in the documents has never been revealed exactly what was found inside the sarcophagus. Only through the sources of the highest ranks of the KGB do we know that we have found the remains of an alien creature that died in Egypt 10,000 years before Christ. ”
If the information released by Dr. Ivanocih is true, we have to reconsider the entire cultural evolution of human civilization. Constantly, there is news that reveals the past of the Earth much more sophisticated and enigmatic than previously thought.
“The fundamental question about ancient Egypt is to understand how such an advanced civilization, at the height of its development around 2500 BC, has lasted through time and has appeared on the world stage,” says McNaughton of the Roselyn Institute of Egyptology. “All other ancient civilizations have experienced a progressive historical development in the design of their technology in hundreds or even thousands of years. This has not happened in ancient Egypt. A completely formed society suddenly came out of the desert. ”
Blue Velvet: Jupiter's Cloud Tops Appear Azure in New Juno Image
Blue Velvet: Jupiter's Cloud Tops Appear Azure in New Juno Image
By Calla Cofield, Space.com Senior Writer
Citizen scientists processed this image of Jupiter's cloud tops using data from NASA's Juno probe.
Credit: Gerald Eichstädt and Seán Doran
Jupiter's twirling, swirling cloud tops look like a sheet of blue velvet in a new image from NASA's Juno probe.
The image was created by citizen scientists Gerald Eichstädt and Seán Doran using raw data from the JunoCam instrument on Juno. While Jupiter's cloud tops wouldn't actually look blue to an observer hovering above the planet, the image processing allows our eyes to see the contours of Jupiter's turbulent atmosphere — details that aren't always visible in other images.
Juno captured this snapshot on Dec. 16, 2017, when it was 8,292 miles (13,345 kilometers) — a little more than Earth's diameter — above the tops of Jupiter's clouds. The dark side of the planet just barely creeps into the image, in the upper-right corner.
The raw images are posted to the JunoCam website, and many citizen scientists post their processed images, which range from scientific to highly artistic. You can see a selection of featured Jupiter images from citizen scientists on the JunoCam website.
The $1.1 billion Juno spacecraft arrived at Jupiter in July 2016. The spacecraft's elongated orbit around Jupiter means it gets close to the planet only every 53 days. The spacecraft's instruments were designed primarily to study Jupiter's interior, which can help scientists learn about the planet's formation and the history of the solar system.
These noctilucent, or night-shining, clouds are seeded by debris from disintegrating meteors. They glow electric blue when they reflect sunlight.
Noctilucent (“night-shining”) cloud over Antarctica in early January, 2018, from NASA’s AIM satellite.
The sky over Antarctica is now glowing electric blue with noctilucent, or night-shining, clouds. That’s according to recent images from NASA’s AIM spacecraft (Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere), which monitors these clouds for the whole Earth. The season for night-shining clouds in the Southern Hemisphere is November to April, so they are right on schedule. These are ice clouds, and Earth’s highest clouds, located some 50 miles (80 km) above the ground in a layer of the atmosphere called the mesosphere. The clouds – made of ice crystals – are seeded by fine debris from disintegrating meteors.
The season for noctilucent clouds in the north is May to September. In both hemispheres, they happen when it’s summertime, when water vapor wafts up into the high atmosphere, providing the moisture needed to form these spectacular ice clouds at the edge of space.
As for the electric-blue glow, it comes from sunlight shining through the high clouds.
Cora Randall, a member of the AIM science team at the University of Colorado’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, said:
The current season began on November 19. Compared to previous years of AIM data, this season seems to be fairly average, but of course one never knows what surprises lie ahead, particularly since the southern hemisphere seasons are so variable.
If you were in Antarctica now, would you see these clouds shining overhead? Not likely, since there’s 24-hour daylight shining on that part of the globe now. But we’re past the December solstice, meaning that summer is waning in the Southern Hemisphere. People outside the Antarctic, at relatively high Southern Hemisphere latitudes, might be able to glimpse the clouds, especially as their sunsets come earlier and night lengthens on that part of the globe.
We frequently see images of noctilucent clouds, taken from the ground, during the northern summer. Our friends at high northern latitudes – typically from northern Europe and Scandinavia – capture them.
Examples below:
Here’s a shot of some very early-season noctilucent or night-shining clouds caught from Denmark (about 56 degrees N. latitude) on May 25, 2017 by Adrien Mauduit, at the beginning of the Northern Hemisphere’s season for these clouds. The clouds are seen at high latitudes during the summer months.
There was a dazzling display of noctilucent clouds over northern Europe on the morning of July 14, 2016. Photo via our friend Jüri Voit Photography in Estonia (58 degrees N. latitude).
View larger. | Here are clouds – the electric-looking clouds near the horizon in this photo – and a greenish aurora, higher in the sky, captured in June 2015 by Harlan Thomas in Alberta, Canada (about 53 degrees N. latitude).
Bottom line: NASA AIM image of notilucent clouds, shining in the high atmosphere, or mesosphere, over Antarctica in early January, 2018.
Artist's rendering of the interstellar object `Oumuamua, whose unusual shape had some wondering if it could be artificial. Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser
As we discover numerous habitable planets around other stars in the Milky Way galaxy, including the nearest star, Proxima Centauri, one cannot help but wonder why we have not yet detected evidence for an alien civilization. As the physicist Enrico Fermi asked, “Where is everybody?” Even though the first interstellar object to be discovered in the solar system, 'Oumuamua, had an unusually elongated shape as might be expected from an alien probe, it does not appear to maneuver and is radio-quiet below the level of a single cell phone.
True, a signal from an alien civilization might be subtle or sophisticated, but the disappointing silence of the sky may also indicate that long-lasting extrastellar civilizations do not use technologies that would make them visible to our telescopes.
Based on our own experience, we expect that civilizations much older than ours will be scientifically savvy and hence technologically advanced. But it is also possible that a simpler lifestyle rather than scientific prosperity has dominated the political landscape on other planets, leading to old civilizations that are nevertheless technologically primitive.
Could exoplanet politics explain Fermi’s paradox?
Human history allows us to imagine the possibility that under a different political scenario, our planet could have remained dominated by the anti-scientific mindsets of the middle ages. Such a scenario is imaginable over the timescale of thousands of years, although the likelihood that it would prevail over millions or billions of years is unclear. Perhaps Earth was lucky to see technology arise (in the spirit of the novel Origin by Dan Brown). Environmental or political disasters could have easily reset the evolutionary clock.
Or perhaps the ultimate lifetime of civilization on Earth will turn out to be shorter than it would have been if humans remained technologically primitive. Technology poses long-term risks to our future in the form of climate change and nonconventional (nuclear, biological or chemical) wars. In this case, the surfaces of other planets will show either relics of technologically advanced civilizations that destroyed themselves in self-inflicted catastrophes or living civilizations that are technologically primitive.
We could search for the remnants of technological civilizations from afar. But if we detect nothing through our telescopes, the only way to find out whether long-lived civilizations are technologically primitive is to visit their planets. Astrosociology could become a particularly exciting frontier of exploration as we venture into space.
Traditional astronomers would argue that it is much less expensive to remotely observe distant planets than to launch a probe that will visit them. But remote observing can only detect civilizations that transmit electromagnetic signals, change the planet’s atmosphere through industrial pollution, or leave artifacts on the planet’s surface such as photovoltaic cells, industrial infrastructure, artificial heating or artificial illumination. If the aliens do not dramatically modify their natural habitat or transmit artificial signals, we will be forced to visit their home planets in order to uncover their existence.
Civilizations on other worlds might mesh seamlessly with their natural environment for a variety of reasons. At a minimum, camouflage is a natural survival tactic, so alien civilizations might prefer to appear indistinguishable from other forms of life, such as vegetation. One could also imagine a civilization so intelligent that it deliberately keeps a low-key technological profile to sustain its biosphere, maintaining a lifestyle reminiscent of Henry Thoreau on Walden Pond. The only way to find these extraterrestrials would be to send probes that visit their planets and report back.
The first significantly funded project to visit another planetary system, Breakthrough Starshot, was inaugurated in 2016. Starshot aims to reach the nearest stars within a couple of decades. Since even Proxima Centauri is 4.24 light years away, this necessitates a technology capable of accelerating a spacecraft to at least a fifth of the speed of light. The only suitable concept involves a lightweight sail (to which the payload is attached) pushed by a powerful beam of light. The downside of reaching such a high speed with this design is that braking near the target planet is not feasible without a similar light-beamer there.
Visiting the surface of another planet therefore requires slower speeds and longer travel times. For example, conventional rockets would bring us to the nearest stars within hundreds of thousands of years. This might still be appealing from a theoretical perspective, since this timescale is tens of thousands times shorter than the age of the Universe. Over the billions of years available to our technological civilization to explore the Milky Way, we could compile a sociological census of billions of exoplanets. And even if we find mostly faith-based alien cultures instead of advanced infrastructure that would accelerate our own technological development, it would be fascinating to explore the diversity of galactic interpretations of the concept of God.
WETENSCHAP & PLANEETNa herhaaldelijk uitstel heeft een Falcon-draagraket van de Amerikaanse raketbouwer SpaceX afgelopen nacht een ultrageheime satelliet van de Amerikaanse overheid gelanceerd. Er is enkel van geweten dat de codenaam ‘Zuma’ is.
Een zeventig meter hoge Falcon-9 van SpaceX vertrok vandaag om 02.00 uur Belgische tijd op Cape Canaveral met de ‘Zuma’. De Zuma had al twee maand eerder moeten vertrekken, maar er kwam om technische redenen herhaaldelijk uitstel. Noch de raketbouwer, noch het Pentagon wilden iets kwijt over de aard van de missie die de naam draagt van een album van de Canadese rockster Neil Young en van de Zuid-Afrikaanse president.
SpaceX had voorheen voor de Amerikaanse overheid twee keer een geheime lancering verricht. Bijna routinematig liet SpaceX de eerste rakettrap terugkeren. Die landde minder dan acht minuten na de start weer op Cape Canaveral. Daarmee is de raketbouwer aan een 21ste succes toe qua hergebruik van de eerste trap. Dit drukt de lanceerkost. SpaceX boekt ook zijn negentiende succes op rij. Het was de eerste lancering van SpaceX dit jaar, na vorig jaar aan een record van achttien stuks te zijn gekomen. Dit jaar rekent het bedrijf op 25 tot 30 missies.
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ER WONEN 250 MILJOEN MENSEN OP DE MAAN, VOLGENS VOORMALIG CIA-PILOOT ( VIDEO )
ER WONEN 250 MILJOEN MENSEN OP DE MAAN, VOLGENS VOORMALIG CIA-PILOOT ( VIDEO )
Alle nieuws dat we via mainstream media tot ons nemen over UFO's en/of buitenaardsen is niet omdat kranten op dit gebied nu de waarheid zouden spreken zoals sommigen beweren.
Het heeft alles te maken met afleiding van wat er werkelijk gebeurt en tot welke dingen de geheime ruimtevloot op dit moment al in staat is.
John Lear is een bijzondere man die heel wat uren in de lucht heeft doorgebracht. Als piloot heeft hij in meer dan 150 verschillende vliegtuigen gevlogen in meer dan 50 verschillende landen.
Hij is de zoon van William P. Lear, de ontwerper van de Learjet, de 8 track stereo en oprichter van de Lear Siegler Corporation en heeft maar liefst 17 wereld snelheidsrecords op zijn naam met de Learjet.
John Lear is inmiddels is gepensioneerd en heeft tijdens zijn werkzame leven onder andere gewerkt als captain in de burgerluchtvaart, maar ook als piloot voor het uitvoeren van (geheime) missies voor de CIA en andere overheidsinstellingen.
Nu verschijnt er een opmerkelijk bericht waarin John Lear zegt dat er minimaal 250 miljoen mensen op de maan wonen en dat er zich daar enorme steden bevinden, zowel aan de voor- als aan de achterkant van de maan.
John Lear beschikt over de volgende foto die een enorme stad op de maan laat zien met de naam Damoiseau City.
Alles wat ons door NASA over de maan wordt verteld, is een leugen, aldus Lear. Volgens hem heeft ook de maan wel degelijk een atmosfeer, alhoewel veel kleiner dan die van de aarde. Ook zijn mensen niet volledig gewichtloos, maar bedraagt de zwaartekracht daar ongeveer twee derde van die op aarde. Dit betekent dat mensen die daar komen ongeveer een week nodig hebben om te acclimatiseren, maar verder kunnen ze daar gewoon rondlopen.
Het verhaal van Lear ligt wel aardig in lijn met wat wij altijd hebben geschreven over de geheime ruimtevloot, de ontbrekende biljoenen dollars en het feit dat wij als mensheid technologisch vele malen verder zijn dan officieel bekend wordt gemaakt.
John Lear is geen onbekende op deze website, want we hebben al eerder over hem geschreven, in verband met onthullingen door hem over dat wij al meer dan 40 jaar actief zijn op planeten zoals Mars, wat weer precies in lijn ligt met eerdere dingen die wij schreven zoals de ontdekkingen door de Engelse hacker Gary McKinnon en de geheime ruimtevloot van de Bilderbergers.
Zo was hij op 11 mei 2006 te gast bij het radioprogramma van George Noorey op Coast to Coast radio, waar hij vertelde dat wij als sinds het begin van de jaren zestig op Mars komen. Niet alleen komen we sinds die tijd op Mars, maar gaan we ook op reis door ons gehele zonnestelsel.
Een interessant gegeven is dat hij zegt dat het ISS ruimtestation hoort bij een afleidingsmanoeuvre om de waarheid voor de bevolking verborgen te houden.
Je kunt hem dat zelf horen vertellen in het volgende radiofragment:
Tijdens diezelfde radio-uitzending belt er een vrouw, Jackie genaamd. Zij woont iets ten noorden van Las Vegas en vraagt of John Lear haar kan helpen met de oplossing van een raadsel waar ze al 27 jaar mee rondloopt.
In die tijd werkte zij voor NASA en was verantwoordelijk voor de binnenkomende telemetrie gegevens. Zij vertelt dat terwijl ze op een nacht samen met haar collega’s naar de schermen kijkt waar de beelden van Mars binnenkomen, ze ineens twee mannen in een soort pak (niet echt een ruimtepak) ziet lopen op het Mars oppervlak.
De twee mannen verschenen aan de horizon en liepen naar de Viking. De beeldverbinding werd plotseling verbroken.
Het bovenstaande zou een verklaring kunnen zijn voor de vele UFO’s die we bij het ISS waarnemen.
Indien dit verhaal op ware feiten berust, dan rest de vraag natuurlijk hoelang NASA er nog in zal slagen om de waarheid voor de mensheid verborgen te houden.
Yesterday, a gentleman named Mauricio Morales posted some remarkable pictures on the internet that ended up going fairly viral across social media. They were snaps of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs, which does not mean they are extraterrestrial in origin).
That being said, don’t be fooled, there is a tremendous amount of evidence pointing toward the fact that some of these UFOs, whose presence were officially acknowledged within the mainstream using declassified documents and hundreds of high ranking military/political whistleblowers, are indeed extraterrestrial in origin.
There is ample evidence suggesting that many are ‘ours’ as well.
We’ve written about this quite extensively, and if you want to learn more about that and sift through all of the evidence we’ve accumulated over the past 8 years, please visit the exopolitics section of our website here. Another great place to start is with UFO researcher Richard Dolan.
Here’s Morales’ statement on what he experienced from his Facebook post:
“As I was driving back to Phoenix this evening, I was a few miles past Parker, AZ when I saw a shooting star with a green hue in the corner of my eye. I kept driving for a few miles and noticed a small orange light far in the distance to my right. At first I thought that maybe a meteor had hit nearby and set a fire in the desert or possibly a distant antenna light.
I didn’t quite think much of it and continued to drive for another three miles. I noticed that the light was gone. I drove another half of a mile and I saw the light appear again. This is when I realized that whatever this was, wasn’t normal.
I was about a quarter of a mile from the crossing between Highway 72 and Highway 95 between Parker and Quartzsite, Arizona.
I immediately pulled over and attached my camera to my tripod. To my SW direction, there were six orange-red lights floating around in the horizon. Some of them would dim out and then brighten back up, others just seemed to float and hover away slowly. They seemed to travel in a parallel pattern with a very bright fiery glisten. I took photos and videos and in less than 15 minutes, the mysterious objects vanished without a trace.
All of the photographs are timestamped and are not edited whatsoever. The video is slightly cropped for better viewing.
Whatever this was, I have never seen anything like this in my life before. Super cool experience.
*UPDATE* 4/11/17 11:22pm I have noticed that my cameras clock is set 8 minutes ahead. Which means that the time stamps are all 8 minutes ahead. I also saw a video of the same exact thing but from the opposite end in El Centro, CA. That means that whatever this was, it was visible for at least 100 miles.
ABC15 is reporting that the photos were part of the meteor. They were not. The meteor struck about 10 minutes before I pulled over on HWY 95 and got footage of these lights. The difference in lighting you see in the photos is because I was using different settings to get a more visible photo of what they were.”
Below are a few pictures, but you can view the video Timelapse on his Facebook page.
Some Recent Video Footage
Below is some footage from Dr. Steven Greer, founder of The Disclosure Project and the Center for the Study of Extraterrestrial Intelligence (CSETI). Known to some as the “Father of the Disclosure Movement,” he was instrumental in bringing forth hundreds of military whistleblowers of all ranks, with verified backgrounds, to share their experiences and testify on the UFO/extraterrestrial phenomenon.
He has had high-level meetings within the Pentagon about this issue, and that was confirmed (in his documentary Sirius Disclosure) by Apollo 14 astronaut and the 6th man to walk on the Moon, Dr. Edgar Mitchell.
“Yes there have been crashed craft, and bodies recovered. . . . We are not alone in the universe, they have been coming here for a long time. . . . I happen to be privileged enough to be in on the fact that we have been visited on this planet, and the UFO phenomenon is real.”
– Doctor Edgar Mitchell, 6th man to walk on the moon (source)(source)(source)
“Intelligent beings from other star systems have been and are visiting our planet Earth. They are variously referred to as Visitors, Others, Star People, Et’s, etc…They are visiting Earth now; this is not a matter of conjecture or wishful thinking.
– Theodor C. Loder III, Phd, Professor Emeritus of Earth Sciences, University of New Hampshire (source)
Has NASA just found traces of alien fossils on Mars?
Has NASA just found traces of alien fossils on Mars?
After having landed on the Red Planet more than five years ago, the Curiosity Rover has explored the red planet unlike any other rover before it, making incredible discoveries that helped us understand just how similar Mars is to Earth.
Every new image snapped by the Curiosity Rover has helped scientists get to know Mars a bit better.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
By analysing different images, scientists have managed to formulate an idea of how Mars looked like in the distant past.
Now, thanks to a fresh batch of images taken by the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI), and beamed back from the surface of the red planet, researcher Barry DiGregorio, author of Mars: The Living Planet and The Microbes of Mars spotted something very unusual on the surface of the red planet.
Meanwhile, back on Mars... I’m checking out these stick-like figures. Each is about a quarter-inch long. Maybe they're crystals? Or they could be minerals that filled spaces where crystals dissolved away. Stay tuned! Science continues.
While speaking to Inside Outer Space, he said that this could be a groundbreaking discovery:
“They look exceptionally similar to Ordovician trace fossils I have studied and photographed on Earth,” he said. “If not trace fossils, what other geological explanations will NASA come up with?”
Despite the fact that the Curiosity Rover has offered us an unprecedented view of Mars with amazing images of the Martian landscape, the recently spotted tiny formations on Mars may be the biggest discovery to date.
Mysterious ‘stick-figures’ are clearly visible on the surface of Mars in what NASA says may be crystals or minerals left in the gaps where crystals dissolved.
However, some researchers like DiGregorio have a different theory: Trace Fossils which offer indirect evidence of life in the past, such as the footprints, tracks, burrows, borings, and feces left behind by animals, rather than the preserved remains of the body of the actual animal itself.
Now, the Curiosity Rover will head back to the area it first spotted the enigmatic features to take another look. “This site was so interesting that we backtracked to get to where the rover was parked for this plan,” wrote Curiosity team member Christopher Edwards in the January 3 Curiosity mission update.
Despite the fact that the most likely explanation for the mystery structures is a natural formation, Pascal Lee of the Mars Institute said: “The Curiosity images really pique our curiosity,” he said. “It’s difficult to tell what the mystery sticks are, and a strictly mineral origin is, of course, the most plausible.”
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity captured this image on Jan. 2, 2018.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
The enigmatic miniature tubes could be evidence of bioturbation, which is something that happens when organisms residing in sediments leave an imprint on their structure.
“A typical example of bioturbation is the creation of worm burrows,” Lee explained. “The burrows once refilled with sediments, fossilized, and then exposed by erosion, can end up looking like wiggly sticks.”
“To claim that we’re seeing bioturbation on Mars — which I did not say — would be an extraordinary claim,” he added.
The difficult part is to science the sh*t out of the discovery, and find out what they are. The structures are really small, around a millimeter wide and five millimeters long. Experts indicate that their angular nature indicates that they might have been formed by tiny crystals.
Crystal molds are often found on Earth and form when crystals in rock dissolve.
However, the difficult part is finding out what they are because, despite the fact that NASA’s Curiosity rover is a small mobile laboratory, it would be nearly impossible to find out whether the structures are organic in nature without taking them back to a lab on Earth.
“That’s pretty challenging on Earth to distinguish those two things without being able to put these things into a lab to look for the presence of organics,” said Ashwin Vasavada, project scientist for Curiosity.
“We have a very limited capability overall to understand whether something is biological or not.”
There is no shortage of conspiracy theory lore when it comes to the moon and contemplating what really happened on the moon. As we’ve witnessed within the past few years alone, not all that we are told is actually true. Whether it’s information that a select few deem too mind-altering for the human race to handle, or information that threatens big corporate and/or the financial interests of the powerful “1 percent”, it’s no secret that our world is currently drenched, and has been drenched in tremendous amounts of secrecy. This fact became even more known when NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden released official documentation of clandestine black budget operations.
Black budget programs haven’t been investigated much, but those who have investigated it have uncovered some startling facts. Former Canadian defence minister, Paul Hellyer, said it best:
“It is ironic that the U.S. should be fighting monstrously expensive wars, allegedly to bring democracy to those countries, when it itself can no longer claim to be called a democracy when trillions, and I mean thousands of billions of dollars have been spent on projects with both congress and the commander in chief no nothing about.”
We really should have listened to president Eisenhower when he warned us about the military industrial complex, and the potential for a rise of “misplaced power” and how it exists and will persist. Right after him, President Kennedy warned humanity “that an announced need for an increase in security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of censorship and concealment.” Stating that this is something he does “not tend to permit, so long as it’s in my control.”
Who is in control of this shadowy world? Perhaps it’s, as president Rosevelt referred to, the “invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.”
Senator Daniel K. Inouye once referred to it as the “shadowy government” that has “its own Air Force, its own Navy, its own fundraising mechanism, and the ability to pursue its own ideas of the national interest, free from all checks and balances, and free from the law itself.”
Today, all of this secrecy is locked up in “Black Budget Special Access Programs” as well as “unacknowledged black budget special access programs.” We previously published an article going in depth into these programs. It’s a heavily sourced article that provides a good overview into our world of secrecy, linked below:
These programs, admittedly from a 1997 senate report linked below, have absolutely no oversight from congress.
The point is, not all that goes on behind the scenes is told to the public, and this is becoming way more evident, and will continue to do so as we move through 2018 and beyond. Secrecy is a problem, but truth always comes out. Paradigm shifts are big moments in human history, and we still have plenty of “the Earth is not flat” moments on the way.
“Ladies and gentlemen, my government, NASA, which many of us in the United States say stands for Never A Straight Answer, proceeded to erase 40 rolls of film of the Apollo Program — the flight to the Moon, the flight around the Moon, the landings on the Moon, the walking guys here and there. They erased, for Christ’s sake, 40 rolls of film of those events. Now we’re talking about several thousand individual frames that were taken that the so-called authorities determined that you did not have a right to see. Oh, they were ‘disruptive,’ ‘socially unacceptable,’ ‘politically unacceptable.’ I’ve become furious. I’m a retired Command Sergeant Major. I was never famous for having a lot of patience.”
A big part of government secrecy deals with space, and what’s happening in outer space. This became even more evident at the end of 2017, when the Pentagon, for the first time ever, released an official video of Navy pilots tracking a UFO (articles linked below). Keep in mind, military encounters with UFOs is nothing new, as over the past few years millions of pages of documents have been released by multiple governments and intelligence agencies detailing encounters with technologically advanced objects that can perform maneuvers no known air-craft can, as well as defy the laws of physics.
Whatever they are, it’s clearly something we shouldn’t be ignoring.
The UFO topic is actually filled with an overwhelming amount of evidence. We know something is going on, but nobody can really say for certain what exactly is going on. To read our archived articles about the topic of UFOs and extraterrestrials, you can refer to the exopolitics section of our website here, where we’ve documented some of that evidence.
When it comes to the moon, there is no shortage of interesting information available, just as there was for the topic of UFOs before their official disclosure.
What I mean by that is, before we had the documents and evidence of video footage as well as radar tracking, we had witness testimony. Not just any witness testimony, but testimony from some of the highest ranking military personnel in the world, of all ranks. This also included similar people within the realms of politics, aerospace, academia and more. From a scientific standpoint, this was not really considered credible, but that’s ridiculous given the fact that there are hundreds, furthermore, we’re talking about extremely credible people who have been in the position to “know,” from Generals, to defence ministers, to astronauts, to directors of corporations like Lockheed Martin and Bigelow Aerospace, and more.
In 2011, Dr. Jacques Valle, codeveloped the very first computerized mapping of Mars for NASA among others things, gave quite the speech at the Global Competitiveness Forum regarding the physical evidence that’s been made available to scientists. You can watch that here.
The point is, we have the same with regards to the Moon.
Dr. Steven Greer, founder of the The Disclosure Project, and the main brain behind the hit documentary, “Unacknowledged.”He is the man who created the platform for these whistleblowers, with verified credentials, to speak up. They came forward years ago, at the National Press Club.
It’s interesting how the US government recently gravitated towards Tom Delonge and To The Starsto let people know that UFOs are real, and some of them are probably extraterrestrial, instead of someone like Dr. Greer, who has been doing this type of work for a long time.
The main point of the recent US governments disclosure of UFOs seems to be emphasizing the “threat” that they propose. Perhaps this is why they didn’t want to go with Greer, because he’s been creating awareness about how the US government wants to use the UFO subject as they do with others, like terrorism, to create a “false flag” event.
He’s even had high level meetings within the Pentagon, which was confirmed by Apollo 14 astronaut Dr. Edgar Mitchell, in Greer’s documentary “Unacknowledged.”
We covered the topic of a false flag alien invasion in a previous article, for more details you can refer to it below:
“Yes there have been crashed craft, and bodies recovered. . . . We are not alone in the universe, they have been coming here for a long time. I happen to be privileged enough to be in on the fact that we have been visited on this planet, and the UFO phenomenon is real.”
Who are the people who have made some strange comments about what really happened up there? There are a few Apollo astronauts, and a number of Ex-NASA personnel, reputable scientists who’ve worked within the industry, and more.
We’ve covered the moon in detail, and instead of re-typing what we’ve already provided, you can refer to the below articles for more detail. One of the articles goes into specifically what Dr. Greer mentions below. All articles provide sources to let the reader make up their own mind.
With so much disclosure happening right now, it was only a matter of time before a university or college created a course to take the topic more seriously. It’s about time, and comes as no surprise given the fact that the topic is rapidly creeping its way into mainstream discussion.
Academia and extraterrestrial contact go hand in hand, and it started decades ago. For example, a declassified document from the CIA’s own electronic reading room shows that the agency actually tried to recruit renowned quantum physicist John Wheeler to look into their “flying saucer problem.” This was decades ago, and even further back, ever since President Truman went on live television and announced that the UFO problem is discussed at “every conference that they’ve had with the military,” many people have been paying attention.
Combined with all of these leaks over the years, there has no doubt been a campaign of official secrecy and ridicule,” where “many citizens are led to believe the unknown flying objects are nonsense.” This is according to the first Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Roscoe H. Hillekoetter, speaking to the New York Times in 1960.
Today, we have physical evidence, papers published in peer-reviewed scientific journals, and statements from some of the highest ranking military, political, and government personnel, with the latest examples coming from Tom Delonge, a former rock star who just brought forth recently retired Steve Justice, a director of Lockheed Skunkworks, to let the world know that these things are real. For more information on that, you can check out To The Stars Media.
“Intelligent beings from other star systems have been and are visiting our planet Earth. They are variously referred to as Visitors, Others, Star People, ETs, etc. . . . They are visiting Earth NOW; this is not a matter of conjecture or wistful thinking.”
– Theodore C. Loder III, Phd, Professor Emeritus of Earth Sciences, University of New Hampshire
The course at the Turkish university will be called “Ufology & Exopolitics,” and the purpose of the class is to prepare students for the possibility of extraterrestrial contact.
A class tutor, Erhan Kolbasi, told the Dogan News Agency,
“We believe representatives from the world and extraterrestrial civilizations will soon be making official contact with each other. We thinking they will be in an open and mass contact. . . . It will be the biggest change seen in the history of the world.”
The course will concentrate on the history of the UFO/extraterrestrial contact, and well as the implications of extraterrestrial contact and more. According to the Dogan, Kolbasi expects open extraterrestrial contact to happen within 15 years, and claims that extraterrestrials have been and are visiting our planet.
Again, he’s part of a long and growing list of people who seem to think so, and with all of the evidence that’s emerged over the past few years, it’s not hard to see why he feels that way.
Where is the evidence you say? Well, that depends on your definition of evidence. Many people don’t believe witness testimony to be credible, but when you have military generals, NATO generals, high ranking politicians, academics, and people who have and do hold high positions for several military contractors, like Lockheed Martin, making these statements, it should clearly be taken into consideration.
“There are objects in our atmosphere which are technically miles in advance of anything we can deploy, that we have no means of stopping them coming here … [and] that there is a serious possibility that we are being visited and have been visited for many years by people from outer space, from other civilizations. That it behooves us, in case some of these people in the future or now should turn hostile, to find out who they are, where they come from, and what they want. This should be the subject of rigorous scientific investigation and not the subject of ‘rubishing’ by tabloid newspapers.”
–Lord Admiral Hill-Norton, former Chief of Defence Staff, 5 Star Admiral of the Royal Navy, Chairman of the NATO Military Committee (source)
There are also documents that detail objects travelling at tremendous speeds performing maneuvers that no known air craft can, and you can view some examples and links within this article to learn more:
“There are unidentified flying objects. That is, there are a hard core of cases —perhaps 20 to 30 percent in different studies — for which there is no explanation. We can only imagine what purpose lies behind the activities of these quiet, harmlessly cruising objects that time and again approach the Earth. The most likely explanation, it seems to me, is that they are simply watching what we are up to.”
– Margaret Mead, “UFOs – Visitors from Outer Space?,” Redbook, vol. 143, September 1974
Below is one of many recent tweets about the exciting news in Europe.
Kolbaşi is currently the deputy chair of the Sirius UFO Space Sciences Research Center in Istanbul. This is a big step for disclosure. The implications are tremendous, and will touch all aspects of human life as we know it, from history, science, and technology to our understanding about the nature of reality and more.
Of course, there is also the problem of beliefs, and our tendency to label things as “good” or “bad,” “angels” or demons.” ET disclosure has more implications than we can possibly imagine, and perhaps this was one out of several reasons for the cover-up.
There are a lot of questions to be answered, and still many who are in their infancy regarding knowledge of what’s really been happening .
Collective Evolution has covered this topic extensively with multiple heavily soured articles. Feel free to browse through them, as all of our articles are archived. You can do this by visiting the exopolitics section of our website.
Below is a great little speech by Richard Dolan, one of the world’s leading authorities on the topic. It provides a great introduction for those who are new to the topic. His work is a great place to start.
You can check out our exclusive interview in our Explorer Lounge where Richard discusses recent UFO related happenings – including Trump’s reformation of the Space Council.
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SpaceX Launches Secret Zuma Mission for US Government, Lands Rocket
SpaceX Launches Secret Zuma Mission for US Government, Lands Rocket
By Mike Wall, Space.com Senior Writer
SpaceX lofted the super-secret Zuma spacecraft for the U.S. government tonight (Jan. 8), successfully executing a mission that also featured yet another landing by the first stage of the company's Falcon 9 rocket.
The Falcon 9 lifted off at 8 p.m. EST (0100 GMT on Jan. 9) from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, on Florida's Space Coast
The booster's two stages separated 2 minutes and 19 seconds into flight. The second stage continued carrying the mysterious Zuma to its destination in low-Earth orbit (LEO), while the first stage began maneuvering its way back to terra firma for a touchdown at Landing Zone 1, a SpaceX facility at Cape Canaveral. [How SpaceX Lands Falcon 9 Rockets]
The first stage aced that landing, a little less than 8 minutes after taking off.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the secret Zuma spacecraft for the U.S. government launches Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Jan. 7, 2018 in this still from a SpaceX video.
Credit: SpaceX
SpaceX now has 21 successful first-stage touchdowns under its belt, nine of them at Landing Zone 1 and the other 12 on "autonomous spaceport droneships" stationed in the ocean. (SpaceX has two of these uncrewed vessels, which are named "Just Read the Instructions" and "Of Course I Still Love You.")
These landings are part of SpaceX's effort to develop fully reusable rockets and spacecraft — technology that company founder and CEO Elon Musk has said will slash the cost of spaceflight. To date, SpaceX has re-flown five of these landed boosters, as well as two of its uncrewed Dragon cargo capsules, which make resupply runs to the International Space Station. (The Falcon 9 that lifted off tonight was brand-new.)
But the main goal of tonight's flight was getting Zuma aloft, so the spacecraft can start going about its business. Just what that business may be is unclear; little has been revealed about the payload.
We do know that aerospace and defense company Northrop Grumman procured Zuma's launch atop a Falcon 9 for the U.S. government — but we don't know which agency will operate the satellite, or if its mission is civilian or military.
Northrop Grumman did reveal that Zuma is going to LEO, but that information doesn't tell us much; this range of altitudes houses a variety of spacecraft, from reconnaissance, weather and communications satellites to the International Space Station. And we don't know what Zuma's exact orbit is (though it's a safe bet that amateur satellite trackers will be working hard over the coming days and weeks to figure that out).
If Zuma is a national-security mission, it wouldn't be the first one that SpaceX has launched. Falcon 9s also launched a satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office in May 2017 and the Air Force's robotic X-37B space plane this past September.
The Zuma mission was originally supposed to launch in mid-November, but SpaceX stood down for a while to study data from payload-fairing test performed for another customer. (The payload fairing is the protective nose cone that encases a spacecraft during launch.)
John Young, the ninth man to walk on the moon, flew on three NASA programs: Gemini, Apollo and the space shuttle.
Credit: NASA
John Young was NASA's longest-serving astronaut. He first became an astronaut when the agency was flying two-man space capsules. He left when the agency was flying the space shuttle. In between, he flew six space missions — the first person to do so.
In his decades with the agency, Young racked up several milestones. He made it to the moon's neighborhood twice, and walked on it once. He commanded the first space shuttle flight and then came back into space yet again to command another. His flight experience spanned three different programs: Gemini, Apollo and the space shuttle.
In 2004, with an impressive 15,000 hours of spaceflight training across four decades, Young retired from the agency. Young died on Jan. 5, 2018, following complications from pneumonia.. He was 87.
Early life
John Watts Young was born on Sept. 24, 1930, in San Francisco, Calif. When he was 18 months old, Young's parents moved, first to Georgia and then Orlando, Florida, where he attended elementary and high school.
Young earned his bachelor of science degree in aeronautical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1952.
After graduation, he entered the U.S. Navy, serving on the destroyer USS Laws in the Korean War and then entering flight training before being assigned to a fighter squadron for four years.
Young graduated from the U.S. Navy Test Pilot School in 1959 and served at the Naval Air Test Center at Naval Air Station Patuxent River in Maryland, where he evaluated Crusader and Phantom fighter weapons systems. In 1962, he set world time-to-climb records to 3,000 and 25,000-meter (82,021 and 9,843-feet) altitudes in the F-4 Phantom.
'Snoopy and Charlie Brown are hugging each other'
NASA picked Young as an astronaut in September 1962, just as the one-man Mercury spacecraft program was winding down and the Gemini program was starting up. In fact, Young flew on the first manned Gemini flight — Gemini 3 — in 1965, transferring his test pilot skills to figuring out the new spacecraft.
Young then joined Michael Collins to do two rendezvous with two separate target Agena spacecraft in 1966, during Gemini 10. Working in close vicinity with other spacecraft was a requirement for moon missions, when two spacecraft would need to dock together to get to the moon and return home.
This experience came in handy for Apollo 10 in 1969, which featured the first moon-orbiting docking between two spacecraft. At the controls of the command module Charlie Brown, Young successfully joined with the lunar module, Snoopy, that had been doing a landing test a few miles above the surface.
"Snoopy and Charlie Brown are hugging each other!" said an exuberant Tom Stafford, who was commanding Apollo 10.
Driving on the moon
Young went back to the moon in 1972, during Apollo 16. He commanded a scientifically ambitious journey to the Descartes highlands, searching for volcanic rock and some possible clues to the moon's history. He and his crewmates, Charles Duke and Ken Mattingly, brought back 200 lbs. of rock during more than 20 hours on the surface.
Young and Duke only found sedimentary rocks along the way, which surprised scientists back home. Despite the challenges, however, the men kept their sense of humor. They did a controlled but wild-looking test with the lunar rover, for example, skidding it across the surface in front of a video camera.
"One-sixth gravity on the surface of the moon is just delightful," Young said in a 2006 interview with NASA. "It's not like being in zero gravity, you know. You can drop a pencil in zero gravity and look for it for three days. In one-sixth gravity, you just look down and there it is."
John Young, astronaut and Navy veteran, salutes the U.S. flag at the Descartes landing site during the first Apollo 16 extravehicular activity (EVA-1). Young, commander of the Apollo 16 lunar landing mission, jumps up from the lunar surface as astronaut and Air Force veteran, Charles M. Duke Jr., lunar module pilot, took this picture.
Credit: NASA, Charles M. Duke Jr.
After Apollo
In 1974, Young was named the fifth chief of the Astronaut Office, after serving for a year as the office's space shuttle branch chief. For 13 years, Young led NASA's astronaut corps, overseeing the crews assigned to the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, the approach and landing tests with the prototype orbiter Enterprise, and the first 25 space shuttle missions.
In 1981, Young moved to a very different kind of vehicle: the space shuttle, which acted and performed more like a plane than a spacecraft. Development on the ambitious vehicle was not without its challenges, as Young and his crewmate Robert Crippen discovered.
"I remember [senior NASA official Bob] Gilruth telling me it's going to be as reliable as a DC-8 and right after he said that, Crip and I, every time we went out to Rocketdyne or somewhere to see what was happening, engines were blowing up. So I wasn't sure it was going to be as reliable as a DC-8. It was a lot of fun," Young quipped.
Young and Crippen lifted off in the space shuttle Columbia in April 1981, on a test flight of a vehicle that had never before been used in space. There were questions about how its systems would perform, and whether the new tile heat-shield system for re-entry would hold up. The flight was a success.
Still with a taste for spaceflight, Young returned to space once more at the helm of STS-9. This flight, like his last Apollo mission, was scientifically heavy. The crew flew the experimental Spacelab module for the first time, performing hours of experiments during 10 days. "The mission returned more scientific and technical data than all the previous Apollo and Skylab missions put together," NASA stated.
After the loss of space shuttle Challenger and its seven-person crew in January 1986, Young penned internal memos critical of NASA's attention to safety, a topic he had championed since his days flying Gemini. Young expressed concern over schedule pressure and wrote that other astronauts who had launched on missions preceding the ill-fated STS-51L mission were "very lucky" to be alive.
Young was subsequently reassigned to be special assistant to the director of the Johnson Space Center for engineering, operations and safety until 1996, when he was named the associate director for technical affairs, a position he held until his retirement from NASA on Dec. 31, 2004.
Young was the recipient of many honors for his contributions to space exploration, including the Congressional Space Medal of Honor, NASA Distinguished Service Medal, Rotary National Space Achievement Award, and six honorary doctorates. Young was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 1988 and Astronaut Hall of Fame in 1993.
He was awarded the NASA Ambassador of Exploration in 2005, including a moon rock he assigned for display at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, and was bestowed the General James E. Hill Lifetime Space Achievement Award from the Space Foundation in 2010. A stretch of Florida State Road 423 that runs through Orlando is named John Young Parkway in his honor.
Reflecting on his time as a veteran of three programs, Young said the role of an astronaut has not changed, although the technology certainly did.
"I don't think it changed it any," he told the Houston Chronicle in 2004. "You just had to learn a lot of systems and learn how to operate them and be a systems person. That's what we were. We were systems operators."
Additional reporting by Robert Z. Pearlman, collectSPACE.com editor.
Live Stream Interview with ISS Astronauts gets a Remarkable End
Live Stream Interview with ISS Astronauts gets a Remarkable End
Aboard the International Space Station, Expedition 54 Flight Engineers Mark Vande Hei and Scott Tingle of NASA and Flight Engineer Norishige Kanai of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) discussed life and research on the complex during a pair of in-flight interviews Jan. 3 with KMSP-TV, Minneapolis and the Voice of America.
The interview which seems to be live gets a remarkable end, which starts at about 13.55 in the video what looks like a glitch in a Chroma Key Layer.
A chroma keying technique is commonly used in video production and post-production. So if it is really a glitch in a Chroma Key Layer, then it is not a live broadcast but a post-production, moreover if that should be the case then we may wonder whether the interview was recorded from an unknown location on Earth and edited by NASA?
If we look at a similar interview recorded in 2013 then it seems that certain “Live” interviews indeed happen from a location on earth instead directly “Live” from the ISS.
During that 2013 interview Chris Cassidy accidentally admits they are filming in the USA.
After an innocuous question from a student about his high school days Chris offers some unscripted information about where they are filming which makes the jovial space case seem pretty stressed out for a minute knowing he has said something truly stupid ( 0:56 ) "...Across the United States from where we are talking to you right…”
Chroma key compositing, or chroma keying, is a visual effects / post-production technique for compositing (layering) two images or video streams together based on color hues (chroma range).
The technique has been used heavily in many fields to remove a background from the subject of a photo or video – particularly the news casting, motion picture and videogame industries. A color range in the foreground footage is made transparent, allowing separately filmed background footage or a static image to be inserted into the scene.
Is the ISS live stream feed really "Live" or is it fake and it is all a matter of post production and editing?
Video 1:Fast forward the video to 13:55 and you see a glitch in the three astronauts’ layer. Video 2: Fast forward the video to 00:56 and you hear Chris Cassidy’s remarkable statement.
Humans have made a staggering amount of scientific and technological progress over the past century. We’ve created technology that has transformed our society; scientific advances have helped us answer fundamental questions about who we are and the world that we inhabit. And, yet, mysteries persist.
Why are we compelled to sleep every night? Why are we still not able to “see” dark matter? And where the heck are all the aliens?
People have debated questions like these for decades — sometimes centuries. Fortunately, our unfaltering will to uncover the world’s mysteries has brought us closer to some answers than ever before. Here are six mysteries that still keep scientists up at night, and how close they are to solving them.
1. Why Do We Need Sleep?
Why do we need sleep? This may seem like a straightforward question, but the answer is far more complex than you might think. There have been countless attempts to find a definitive reason as to why humans need to sleep every night, but scientists are still unable to offer a single, definitive answer.
Findings in sleep science have shed some light on the intricacies of sleep stages and brain activity, but ultimately, they have merely offered pieces to an ever-growing, incomplete puzzle. It doesn’t help that we don’t have much to compare ourselves to — as sleeping patterns and brain activity in other animals often deviate significantly from those of humans, further mystifying our understanding of sleep.
Jerry Siegel, a psychiatry professor at UCLA’s Semel Institute of Neuroscience and Human Behavior, has been studying the sleeping habits of animals to understand why humans need to enter a hibernation-like state every night.
“Our understanding and orientation [of sleep] is different than in any other animal because most of us would like to stay awake 24 hours a day. But in the natural world, animals that use a lot of energy are not going to survive,” Siegel tells Futurism. Nature values inactivity — for instance, winter hibernation allows certain animals to recover and store energy when it is not needed. “Across species, energy savings is the main evolutionary impulse for sleep,” Siegel explains. African elephants, for example, only sleep for two hours a day in the wild, likely because they need the rest of that time to feed in order to give their large bodies enough energy to function.
The energy saving theory is one of several that scientists use to explain why we sleep. As scientists have created tools that can track brain activity during the act of sleep, they have come closer to finishing the puzzle and uncovering all of sleep’s mysteries.
For example, the brain has mechanisms in place allowing it to purge itself of unnecessary information during sleep.“Sleep is the price we pay for learning,” Giulio Tononi, a psychiatry professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison tells New Scientist. Tononi and his team conducted experiments on sleeping mice and found that, after sleep, synapses were significantly smaller than those before sleep.
Tononi’s team concluded that the brain needs to allow this activity to diminish in order to solidify information it gathered while it was awake. The brain is bombarded with information during the day, and it reinforces it with strong neural connections. To mix the new information in with all of the existing information, those connections need to weaken to “absorb” it. In other words, sleep allows the brain to make new information pliable enough to fit in with all of the old.
While this theory elegantly describes the brain’s process of making new information stick during sleep, Tononi and other neuroscientists have yet to prove that sleep is actually required for this to happen.
To fully understand sleep, sleep scientists need a better sense of the neurobiological processes of the brain during both wake and sleep cycles. For instance, how come some of us are able to sleep through extremely noisy environments, and some of us can’t? Once we are able to measure exactly how awake or asleep the human brain is, it will bring us even further to knowing all there is to know about sleep.
But one thing has remained clear as ever: Without sleep, we are far worse off. “We know that, if you are sleep-deprived, you have lapses in attention that are actually correlated with intrusions in sleep,” Siegel says. Not getting enough sleep has a direct affect on how much attention you can pay to the world around you. “Certainly when you are driving, losing alertness just for two seconds can be lethal.”
2. What Is Dark Matter, And Why Can’t We See It?
We don’t know what it looks like. We can’t see it. But it makes up more than 26 percent of the matter in the known universe. Since Dutch astronomer Jacobus Kapteyn hypothesized its existence in 1922, we have come to know it exists because of how it interacts with the matter we can observe, but dark matter is still mysteriously invisible to us.
Most of the matter that’s visible to us is made of neutrons, protons, and electrons. But dark matter does not adhere to these classifications. It’s made up of different types of particles we haven’t yet been able to categorize and that interact with light and matter in a completely different way. Dark matter does not absorb, reflect, or emit light. But its gravitational influence does bend light as it passes nearby — that kind of observation is how scientists know that dark matter exists.
Researchers have been studying this phenomenon, trying to unravel its mysteries, almost since its inception. More recently, the Large Hadron Collider at the European Council for Nuclear Research (CERN) has brought us closer to actually doing so — researchers there are working to identify the invisible material by accelerating tiny particles and then studying the energy and momentum involved in their movements when they collide at high speeds.
Recent studies suggest that gravitational wave detectors could allow us to “see” dark matter for the first time. But the truth of the matter (so to speak) is that we are still very much in the dark about one of the most abundant entities in our universe.
Perhaps the best-known theory about the beginning of the universe is the Big Bang theory, in which the universe expanded from an extremely hot and dense singularity around 13.8 billion years ago. But people misunderstand if they think that matter simply exploded into being from nothing, Sutter says. “The Big Bang happened everywhere in the universe simultaneously; it’s not an explosion in space but an explosion of space.” Yet, the exact process of what caused this (and of course, what was there beforehand) remains unknown.
“The earlier we go in the history of the universe, the less we understand,” Sutter says. While we have caught brief glimpses of the universe when it was only 300,000 years old, scientists are still speculating about the extreme forces at play during the universe’s first moments.
Like all good mysteries, a question that seems simple yields more questions that must be solved before we can find the answer to the initial question. “We’re prevented from knowing the very earliest moments (like, less than 10^-40 seconds) because we don’t fully comprehend the quantum aspects of gravity,” Sutter says.
To this end, to fully understand the creation of our universe, we will need to have a comprehensive understanding of the laws of physics that govern matter and antimatter. This is a bit of a problem, as CERN recently confirmed that the Standard Model of particle physics may have to be turned on its head, as it doesn’t account for the majority of the matter the Big Bang produced.
Once we have fully understood the nature of antimatter and how it interacts with matter, we won’t have a final answer to the origin of the universe, but we will come much closer to understanding how it came to be.
4. Where is Planet Nine?
Beyond the Kuiper belt, a mysterious cluster of objects is orbiting the Sun. They orbit even more distant from the Sun than Neptune, but some of the objects’ trajectories don’t seem to fit the expected pattern. Most of them circle around Neptune, kept in the planet’s orbit by its powerful gravity. But a handful of these objects seem to be pulled out of place by something with much greater mass.
Konstantin Batygin, assistant professor of planetary science at the California Institute of Technology, believes that these peculiarities are at least partially caused by the existence of Planet Nine — a yet-to-be-discovered ninth planet in our solar system.
Think of the solar system as a giant disc. The orbits of these strangely behaving objects seem to bend the disc upwards at its edge. Planet Nine needs to be massive to have this kind of influence — a bigger mass than Earth, even. However, despite its apparent mass, we have not yet been able to prove its existence. In part, this is because we only just started looking for it; scientists first started theorizing about its existence in 2014.
However, that’s not the only reason that the planet remains undiscovered. “We haven’t found it yet because it is staggeringly dim,” Batygin says. “With the best telescopes around, we could just barely detect it, we think.” Infrared analysis is out of the question because the instruments are simply not sensitive enough. That forces astronomers to look for reflected light — an even more challenging task than infrared analysis. This is because any light that Planet Nine reflects has to travel from the Sun to the far reaches of the solar system, bounce off Planet Nine, and then arrive back to Earth. Reflected light diminishes exponentially as it crosses a distance; the properties of reflected light are stacked against us finding Planet Nine.
However, with advancements in technology, a more sensitive telescope may be able to register light reflected from it, once and for all confirming Planet Nine’s existence. Astronomers are also using computer simulations to estimate its orbit to get a better sense of where it will be and when. It’s possible that Planet Nine may be simply at a point in its orbit that makes it too distant to be observed.
5. Why Do These Sounds Make My Brain Tingle?
You might have encountered them on YouTube: thousands of videos narrated in hushed voices and accompanied by soft sounds, like massaging a textured piece of fabric or the faint hum of a hair clipper. A specialized microphone gives you the sensation that you are there. For some people, the sound creates the sensation of a scalp massage.
The result of this experience: a relaxing, tingling sensation in the brain in about 90 percent of the population. But why it happens, and why it doesn’t work for everyone, is still unknown.
Craig Richard, a professor of biopharmaceutical sciences at Shenandoah University and founder of ASMR University, has been studying this peculiar sensation since 2013. “We are at the very beginning of unraveling the science behind ASMR,” Richard tells Futurism. While past biological studies have shown that functional connectivity (regions of the brain that light up on a fMRI) is different in brains that experience ASMR than in those that don’t, ASMR remains a mystery. Why is it that only a certain percentage of humans experiences it? Why does it even exist? “I don’t think there will ever be one explanation that satisfies everyone,” he says.
6. Where Is Intelligent Alien Life?
The universe is billions of years old. Considering the age and sheer vastness of our cosmos, it’s hard to comprehend why we haven’t found other signs of intelligent life. Basic probability indicates that we should have found extraterrestrials by now, so where are they?
If extraterrestrial life does exist in our solar system, researchers suggest that it is likely microbial, as opposed to intelligent alien life. These alien organisms are thought to be on small, icy planets, such as the moons of Saturn or Jupiter. Scientists at NASA have conducted studies to investigate the composition and stateof the large oceans on these moons because, they predict, the presence of abundant water might allow alien life to thrive. But so far, these are only educated guesses based on findings of NASA’s Galileo satellite and extensive scanning and observation. NASA is planning to get a closer look by traveling to Jupiter’s icy moon Europa within the next decade.
But even if we did find alien life, would we be able to recognize it? Looking for familiar carbon-based lifeforms that use water as life support might limit us in our quest to find alien life. Scientists must be able to fully distinguish alien messages from all the other noise in space — and even that is far from simple. What if their message is indistinguishable from other frequencies? What if they don’t want to be found?
US has top secret airline that flies directly to mysterious military base Area 51
US has top secret airline that flies directly to mysterious military base Area 51
It turns out that flights that depart from Janet's hub at Las Vegas airport won't show up on departure boards.
Going by the name of Janet, it has a fleet of Boeing 737 airliners operating from McCarran Internatonal Airport in Las Vegas.
If theories are to be believed, there is a top secret airline that one is not meant to know exists. And this airline flies directly to UFO hot spot Area 51.
Going by the name of Janet, it has a fleet of Boeing 737 airliners operating from McCarran Internatonal Airport in Las Vegas and tourists on the Strip may have seen the distinctive red and white jets taking off and wondered where they go on their daily flights.
However, it is interesting to note that they won't show up on departure boards as only US military personnel are allowed to board from a separate hangar called the Gold Coast Terminal, which is guarded by armed men with walkie-talkies.
Apparently Janet, which stands for Just Another Non-Existent Terminal is run by the US Air Force to shuttle workers to secret test sites in the Nevada desert.
Flight tracking radar shows some of the flights - with call signs starting XXX - making the 45-minute journey to the nuclear facility at Tonopah, which has been the focus of many conspiracy theories.
The U.S. Air Force's SR-71 (double cockpit training version pictured)
Other brief flights go to an unspecified destination nearby - believed to be the Area 51 facility famous with alien hunters.
Furthermore, Groom Lake is believed to be used to test experimental aircraft and "black projects" weapons systems. Its existence was only acknowledged publicly for the first time in 2005.
Conspiracy theorists believe the top-secret military base contains the remains of an alien spaceship that crashed in the 1940s. Nobody who flies on the special Janet flights is allowed to reveal where they are going or what their job is.
Conspiracy theorist Nick Pope says, “Area 51 exists - it's part of a military testing range in Nevada - and because of the remote and sparsely-populated location, it's where various secret prototype aircraft and drones are developed and test flown. The UFO and conspiracy theory community think it's the place where crashed UFOs are kept and where the US military are trying to back-engineer this alien technology.”
Janet's six 737 jets and five executive turboprops mostly shuttle back and forth to the two sites in Nevada but also fly to US air bases in California, Utah and Ohio.
The planes can be seen waiting at the private terminal from some rooms at the Mandalay Hotel on the Las Vegas strip, which back on to the airport.
"A New Reality or Science Fiction?" The Complete Guide to This Week's Pentagon UFO Revelations
"A New Reality or Science Fiction?" The Complete Guide to This Week's Pentagon UFO Revelations
December 21 2017: Today's links to headline stories from around the world on the revelation of the Pentagon's secret UFO program and its implications. Coverage includes Alien Minds, AI Has Been Out There for Eons, Why Haven't We Found Aliens, You're Not Crazy If You Believe in UFOs, UFOs in Scientific Terms, What We've Learned from 60 Years of Probes, Gaian Bottleneck, The Great Filter, The Great Silence, The Tom DeLonge Radio Interview, John Podesta Interview, and more.
On December 16, the New York Times publishedtwo stories that read almost like science fiction. For at least five years, the Defense Department housed a $22-million, clandestine program to investigate UFOs. Military pilots had sent in reports of objects they observed that moved in unfamiliar ways; the mission of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, as it was called, was to investigate those claims to see if there was truly something otherworldly behind those sightings.
It’s unclear just how many reports pilots had filed to the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, but people who have come forward about the program have made it clear that there would have been a lot more reports filed if it hadn’t been for one thing: stigma. “The sightings were not often reported up the military’s chain of command, [former senator Harry Reid] said, because service members were afraid they would be laughed at or stigmatized,” one Times piece reads.
American culture is steeped in depictions of what would happen if sophisticated aliens visited Earth, from E.T. to Arrival to Independence Day. Some are more hackneyed than others; some are downright terrifying. But outside the clear genres of fiction, most conversations about UFOs happen online, and with varying degrees of vehemence.
Let’s face it — believing in the paranormal has become shorthand for crazy.
“60 years of folklorization and Hollywood production have, in the minds of the general public, definitely trivialized the subject. It has become a ‘standard’ consumer product,” Jean-Christophe Doré, the technical manager for UFO-SCIENCE, the French association that aims to scientifically evaluate aspects of UFO phenomena, tells Futurism.
But to some, that association might be changing. Luis Elizondo, the military official formerly in charge of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, told The New York Times’ Daily podcast:
I think we’re entering an era of actual evidence. We’ve reached a moment of critical mass of credible witnesses, and these are witnesses that are in charge of multi-million-dollar weapon platforms with, in some cases, the highest level of security clearances and in some cases they’re trained observers. When these individuals are trying to report something, ‘Hey I saw this when I was flying,’ that can be turned around and people say ‘hey look if you’re crazy, there goes your flight status.’ Or all of a sudden commander so-and-so in charge of this very elite fighter wing will no longer be taken seriously. In fact, people are going to start to judge whether or not maybe our friend here might not be a little crazy, or maybe some loose screws. That’s always a threat to these people’s career. And let’s face it, these people have to pay their taxes, they have to pay their mortgages, they have families, they’re putting their kids through school. And frankly, they’re just really good patriots and they want to do the right thing. And that stigma is pretty powerful. It stops a lot of people from reporting something maybe they would normally report.
Government officials are no longer hiding their belief that extraterrestrials might be out there. Could this be a turning point for once-fringe communities and open doors for those looking to bring scientific rigor to the quest to understand UFOs?
Logical Fallacy
Most phenomena thought to be the doings of extraterrestrials are eventually explained. Take Project Blue Book, for example, the U.S. government’s program to investigate unidentified flying objects that ran from 1947 until 1969. Of the more than 12,000 reported sightings, investigators found out the real (not paranormal) story for all but 700 or so. That’s a pretty good percentage, says Joe Nickell, senior research fellow at the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and paranormal investigator — about as much as you’d expect from any other scientific discipline. “A lot of these cases are never going to be solved because I don’t know what you think you saw 10 years ago. They’re not investigatable,” Nickell tells Futurism.
In other disciplines, a certain amount of uncertainty will mean that more studies are needed to definitely prove a link. But that’s not what happens with UFOs. “We spend all these years, virtually our entire lives (it’s what I’m doing with mine), and we’re solving most cases. We’re down to, say, 5 percent [that we can’t explain], and we’re arguing over the 5 percent,” Nickell says. You give someone a level-headed, thorough, earthly explanation for a particular report, and they’ll just respond, “But what about this other one?” This is, as Nickell points out, an argument from ignorance — in essence, X must be true because you can’t prove that X is false. “Why don’t we assume that, if we can explain 95 percent, that if we knew the answer, it would fall into the same category as the others?” Nickell says.
Belief in extraterrestrials is fueled by a lack of evidence, not its presence. For some people, that’s enough.
The Psychology Of Believers
More than half of Americans believe that aliens exist, according to a 2015 poll. Scientists have evaluated what distinguishes believers and non-believers and didn’t find much, the Conversation notes. But people that believe they had an abduction experience, perhaps a more extreme form of belief, are more likely to have fantasy-prone personalities, have experienced childhood trauma, or be prone to hypnosisthat can make them suggestible to false memories, studies have shown. That doesn’t mean they’re lying about their experiences — they often genuinely believe they happened — but those experiences were often not quite what the individuals thought they were.
What distinguishes people who believe in Big Foot, for example, from those who believe in UFOs? It’s the suspicion of government involvement, Nickell says. More peoplebelieve in conspiracies than ever; if someone were looking to find a black-ops government program and a conspiracy to keep it secret, they’d find the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program.
“I think, for most people who believe in these UFO claims, it’s tied up with conspiracy. If you want to believe that UFOs are visiting the planet, there kind of has to be a cover up,” Rob Brotherton, a psychology professor at Barnard College and the author of Suspicious Minds: Why We Believe Conspiracy Theories, tells Futurism. And because they’re built on secrecy, it’s really hard to disprove a conspiracy theory, Brotherton points out.
Conspiracy theories about UFOs, in particular, are pretty widespread, and they have a psychological appeal that goes against the stereotype of weirdos wearing tinfoil hats. Conspiracy theories rely on the same pattern-recognition techniques we use in our daily lives, and in science as well. “Conspiracy theories make for great stories, they’re tantalizing, mysteries not yet fully solved. Your brain is like, ‘What’s up with that?’ it’s not satisfied until it knows if these things are related.”
Most of the time, people who believe in them are psychologically normal. But the belief that the government or aliens are specifically pursuing you as an individual — a me and not an us focus —might indicate a psychiatric disorder like schizophrenia, though that would be one of a number of symptoms.
“It’s not impossible [that extraterrestrials are visiting Earth],” Brotherton says. “Maybe they’re technologically advanced, maybe they are able to make it here. That’s not beyond the realms of possibility; it doesn’t defy the laws of physics necessarily. It’s worth keeping an eye out for this stuff.”
Worthy of Pursuit
Science hinges on discovery and the pursuit to understand the unknown. It’s not out of the realm of possibility, then, that some of these UFO reports are worthy of rigorous investigation. They could reveal something new about atmospheric phenomena, or physics, or, yes, possibly even extraterrestrials.
It’s not easy to separate the mysterious sightings, the ones that could yield something scientifically interesting, from the sightings that can quickly be resolved. “These are, almost by definition, unusual things to start with, something in the sky that we don’t know what it is. We don’t see them every night. So we have no idea [at the beginning of an investigation] if they’re going to be productive or not,” Nickell says.
Despite these difficulties, some investigators are already bringing the rigor of science to examine UFO reports. Some, like Nickell, are hunting down witnesses and testing theories; others, like Chase Kloetzke, the deputy director of investigations at MUFON, the world’s oldest and largest UFO investigation group, are retrieving physical evidence and testing alloys of unknown metals with cutting-edge microscopes and trained metallurgists. A number of organizations receive private funding, which sometimes means they have fewer resources than they would if they received governments grants. And the work is often thankless. “I’m trying, in the name of science, to do what most scientists don’t have time to do, what they consider frivolous nonsense,” Nickell says. “UFOs have been looked into now by the tens of thousands, even by official government studies. And what do we have to show? Not a lot. How many more will we have to look into? I would say we will never be done. I’m in it for the long haul.”
To do these sorts of investigations, it’s irrelevant whether or not they believe that extraterrestrials have really visited Earth. All people need is a rigorous scientific mind, perseverance to investigate doggedly, and a sensitive nose for falsehoods.
Now that information about the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program has spilled out, it buoys those who hope that the government might have evidence that could more clearly indicate the presence of extraterrestrials, something that stands up to the rigor of scientific evaluation. “Do we have a smoking gun? We do, it’s just locked up,” Kloetzke, of MUFON, says referring to the “physical material [the government] has been holding and analyzing.” “We’re pushing down the doors. We’re trying to breach this information,” she says.
Still, opinions vary on how much evidence is enough to prove the existence of extraterrestrials. “I think most people are going to need a craft to land in Central Park [to believe UFOs are real],” Kloetzke says.
“There is absolutely no solid evidence that meets any standards of scientific ‘proof’ that UFOs exist. That’s why people can’t take it seriously,” Sara Seager, an astrophysicist at MIT who studies exoplanets and was quoted in the New York Timesarticle, tells Futurism. To some, in the end, evidence doesn’t matter. “I am not a UFO supporter in any way. It’s just like why do people believe in God? There’s no way to scientifically prove the existence of any God or gods. People just want to believe.”
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Former Astronaut Confessed Before Dying: Aliens Prevented Nuclear War On Earth
Former Astronaut Confessed Before Dying: Aliens Prevented Nuclear War On Earth
Edgar Mitchell, former NASA astronaut, and the sixth human being to set foot on the moon during the Apollo 14 mission in 1971.
After retiring, he devoted his life to the unconventional scientific study of extraterrestrial life.
He died in Florida, United States, at 85 years of age.
However, before leaving Earth in his final trip, Mitchell shocked the general public when, during an interview with the British newspaper Mirror Online, he revealed that aliens visited the Earth during the Cold War, and prevented a nuclear war.
“My own experience talking to people has made it clear the ETs had been attempting to keep us from going to war and help create peace on Earth,” he told Mirror Online in an interview.
“The extraterrestrials were trying to prevent war by helping create peace on Earth,” he said.
Millions of people around the world are convinced aliens are real, and we have been contacted in the past.
Image Credit: Shutterstock.
Specifically, the astronaut made reference to UFO sightings in military bases:
“I spoke with several Air Force officers who worked in these bases during the Cold War. They told me that UFOs were frequently seen and that they were able to deactivate their missiles. Other officials on the Pacific coast said that their missiles were frequently shot down by alien ships. There was a lot of activity in those days. “he revealed.
According to Mitchell, the US government systematically hid all kinds of information about these incidents.
To this end, in 1974, a National Security Act was signed, which prohibited the disclosure of any information regarding such sightings.
“White Sands was a testing ground for atomic weapons – and that’s what the extraterrestrials were interested in. They wanted to know about our military capabilities,” said Mitchell.
But many people remain skeptical despite the fact that not only Mitchell but many other former astronauts, military officers, and high-ranking government officials have spoken about UFO’s and alien life, not to mention the countless declassified top-secret documents that have been made available to the general public in the last couple of years.
Furthermore, Dr. Mitchell, who had a Bachelor of Science degree in aeronautical engineering and a Doctor of Science degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics claimed the Roswell UFO cover-up was real.
NASA responded to Dr. Mitchell’s accusations in the past by saying: “Nasa does not track UFOs. Nasa is not involved in any sort of cover-up about alien life on this planet or anywhere in the universe. Dr. Mitchell is a great American, but we do not share his opinions on this issue.”
Recently, the general public has been made aware of a top-secret Pentagon program called The Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, which investigated UFO sightings.
The man who ran the top-secret project, Mr. Luis Elizondo wrote in a resignation letter to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis the following:
“Despite overwhelming evidence at both the classified and unclassified levels, certain individuals in the [Defense] Department remain staunchly opposed to further research on what could be a tactical threat to our pilots, sailors and soldiers, and perhaps even an existential threat to our national security,”
For anyone trying to learn more about a potential connection between UFOs and nuclear weapons please visit UFO’s and Nukes.
Radio astronomer John Ball at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US has come up with a very shocking statement. He has said aliens will contact Earth when we are ready.
According to the "zoo hypothesis" by Ball, we are not advanced enough to contact or hear from the extraterrestrials.
The zoo hypothesis refers to the assumed behaviour and existence of the technically advanced extraterrestrial life and the reasons they refrain from contacting us on Earth.
According to the hypothesis, the extraterrestrial creatures are way too advanced than us and consider our civilisation to be very basic in contrast to theirs, a report by Daily Star revealed.
Humanity can pose little threat to them, while we would have been "squashed" by them, as per Ball's belief.
"Either we're more valuable to them alive than squashed, or at least we're not interfering much with whatever he's doing," Ball said.
"How could we interfere? We can't even get out of our solar system – yet," he added
Nuclear physicist Enrico Fermi's 1950 theory, which claimed there are alien beings in the galaxy, based purely on the almost-infinite size of the universe, is what Ball's hypothesis is based on.
A total of 4,655 flying saucers were reportedly spotted, of which 490 sightings were made in California, making it a UFO-sighting hot spot. Florida was the next significant spot with 305 sightings reported in 2017, while 55 UFO sightings were reported from Nevada, according to Daily Star.
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Close encounters of the racist kind
Close encounters of the racist kind
Alexander Zaitchik
The modern far right is crisscrossed with pseudo-scientific research into lost Aryan super-civilizations, biblical giants, ancient astronauts and the occasional inter-dimensional alien.
On December 6, 1830, Andrew Jackson used his second State of the Union address to defend the Indian Removal Act, the administration’s sole legislative victory. He described the law promulgating the expulsion and resettlement of southeastern Native American tribes as the “happy consummation” of U.S. Indian policy. To his critics who “wept over the fate of the aborigines” — and who, it turned out, accurately predicted the horrors of the forced migrations known collectively to history as the Trail of Tears — Jackson offered an archeology lesson. Any “melancholy reflections” were ahistorical, he said, because the Indians were neither innocent victims nor first peoples, but perpetrators of what Jackson’s modern admirers might call “white genocide.”
Jackson knew this because the evidence was everywhere in plain sight.
“In the monuments and fortifications of an unknown people, we behold the memorials of a once-powerful race,” said Jackson, “exterminated to make room for the existing savage tribes.”
This reference to a “once-powerful race” was not lost on the American public of 1830. Every schoolboy and girl knew it to be the Lost Race of the Mound Builders, believed to be the continent’s original Caucasian inhabitants. From the colonial era into the twentieth century, it was widely accepted that certain earthen structures and burial grounds proved the existence of “white” or Indo-European peoples who settled North America only to be wiped out by the arrival of Jackson’s “savage (Asiatic) tribes.”
As the country expanded west, the “Moundbuilders” myth had obvious utility: If the Indians destroyed earlier waves of (white) settlers, their own extermination was just another turn of history’s wheel.
In the early 1890s, the U.S. ethnologist Cyrus Vance discredited the theory in a series published by the Smithsonian Institution. But the idea of a pre-Colombian “white genocide” never disappeared. It survived in subcultures, influenced by the occult and Atlantis legends, which clung to theories of lost ancient super-civilizations that, curiously, always seemed to be racially “white.”
In recent decades, as evidence of a richer paleoamerican record than previously realized has come to light, Jackson’s “once-powerful race” has found a new generation of boosters on the far right, where fantasies of “white genocide” distantly past and currently unfolding are an animating obsession.
In the fractured and constantly cross-fertilizing galaxy of extremist conspiracy culture, the white Moundbuilders — now known on the far right as “the Solutreans” — share a stage with other characters from an ancient and racially glorious but “suppressed” past: ancient Nordic-looking astronauts, biblical Aryan giants, Nazi scientists under the South Pole, and the occasional inter-dimensional alien in league with the Jews.
Alt-History Goes Prime Time
Over the last decade, the History Channel has exploited and fueled the popularization of alternative archeology, or alt-history. Numerous programs on the network showcase ideas that, while not explicitly racist or anti-Semitic, have origins in colonial projects and have been championed (for a reason) by modern extremists.
Take “America Unearthed,” which aired between 2012 and 2015 on H2, a defunct History Channel network. That show’s host, a geologist named Scott Wolter, promoted theories that ancient Celts and Scots settled North America and hybridized Native Americans centuries before Columbus. The details can be found in Wolter’s contributions to Lost Worlds of Ancient America, a 2012 anthology edited by Frank Joseph, born Frank Collin, founder of the National Socialist Party of America. (In 1993, following his expulsion from the party for “impure blood”, Collin became editor of Ancient American magazine and has authored dozens of books dealing with ancient “suppressed” history.) In another episode, when a guest professes admiration for the Knights of the Golden Circle, a group of wealthy Southerners who sought to create a hemispheric slave empire, Wolter just nods. (Wolter has denied that he or his ideas are racist, and claims to be politically liberal.)
Whatever the personal politics of the host, these shows serve as vectors for racist ideas and scholarship, argues the independent scholar Jason Colavito, who has been tracking this cultural crossover and amplification of fringe history for years. In books like Foundations of Atlantis, Ancient Astronauts, and Other Alternative Pasts, Colavito explores and debunks many of the ideas promoted on the History Channel and far right websites alike.
“These shows serve as entry points for discredited nineteenth-century ideas and point viewers toward the sources of extremist pseudo-scholarship and politics,” says Colavito. “The idea that aliens built the pyramids isn’t so funny when it draws young people to websites that quickly switch out aliens for Jews and start talking about gas chambers.”
Shows like “America Unearthed” are heavily discussed on white nationalist alt-history forums, as well as general far right political sites like Stormfront. They are routinely praised for introducing viewers to variations on the Solutrean Hypothesis (see below) and raising the profile of racist pseudo-scholarship.
Consider the H2 series “In Search of Aliens,” which, before its demise, promoted the work of Jan Udo Holey, a German writer whose antisemitic books have been banned across Europe. (Holey’s pen name, Jan Van Helsig, is a blunt Dracula reference, i.e. Jews are bloodsuckers.) The History Channel’s long-running series “Ancient Aliens,” meanwhile, features David Childress, whose books cite and build on the work of James Churchward, who promoted an ancient empire called the “lost continent of Mu,” whose “dominant race” was an “exceedingly handsome people, with clear white or olive skin.”
While the appeal of these theories has roots in Jacksonian justification for Manifest Destiny, their current manifestations are closely intertwined with the venomous persecution complexes that motivate the modern far right .
“Pseudo-histories feed the self-importance and aggrievement of neo-Nazis and alt-right folk,” says Benjamin Radford, a fellow with the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry who has written widely on pseudo-history and claims of paranormal activity. “They feel their rightful place in the world has been denied them — by ‘Big Archeology', by Jews, by an oppressive government.”
There is another source of the far right’s far-out ideas about ancient history, one that requires no psychologizing.
The Nazi Connection
The basic tenets of alt-archeology and alt-history were foundational to the ideology and program of National Socialism, but the Nazis did not invent them. The Nazi belief in a pure Aryan race with a glorious ancient past and distinct genetic history was central to a transatlantic nineteenth-century occult scene (that featured a heavy German influence.) After Hitler assumed power, this belief was institutionalized in the form of the Ancestral Heritage and Teaching Society, or the Ahnenerbe, an alt-archeology research outfit founded by Heinrich Himmler and the Atlantis theorist Herman Wirth.
Under the banner of the Ahnerbe, Nazi explorers fanned out across Europe and the globe in search of relics holding (possibly supernatural) hints of ancient Aryan glory. In 1938, a team was dispatched to Iceland in search of the lost Aryan civilization of Thule, which Nazi leaders discovered in an Icelandic epic poem. Among the Nazis’ interests in Thule was the legend of a race of ancient Aryan giants. (Versions of this myth remain common among biblically focused alt-historians like Steve Quayle and L.A. Marzulli.)
Belief in these legends was possible because of the Nazis’ sharp rejection of the Enlightenment. Dismissing the science of racial diversification and the archeological record, they reveled in symbology, myths and legends of “pure” ancient kingdoms that conquered the world under its symbol, the swastika. (This, the Nazis believed, explained the symbol’s presence in both Native American and Indian art.)
The Solutreans and the Original “White Genocide”
In the U.S., the average member of the far right is likely more familiar with the modern version of Jackson’s Race of the Moundbuilders, known as the Solutreans.
The name is taken from a hypothesis first promoted in the 1930s by the American archeologist Frank Hibben, who discovered arrowheads in North America that pre-dated the earliest Native American culture known at the time, the Clovis. The arrowheads, argued Hibben, resembled those of the Solutreans, a Stone Age people who inhabited southwestern Europe. Most of the field quickly dismissed the similarity as meaningless, but Hibben found adherents among those yearning for a new and more scientifically respectable version of Jackson’s “once-powerful race.” For them, the arrowheads (and other contested findings) prove that “European” Solutreans migrated to America across the northern ice-shelf millennia before “the Mongoloids” (as Solutrean adherents are apt to describe Native Americans.)
There is a second punchline to white nationalists continuing to hold up the Solutreans as victims of a prehistoric white persecution drama: Most scholars believe the Solutreans preceded racial diversification, and their arrowheads are artifacts of a dark-skinned people not long out of North Africa.
Atlantis, Aliens & Ancient Astronauts
In 1882, a decade before the Smithsonian debunked the Race of the Moundbuilders, a Minnesota Congressman and writer named Ignatius Loyola Donnelly published Atlantis: The Antediluvian World. The book provided another and more elaborate theory of an Aryan-looking super civilization that diffused technology to the rest of the world. Donnell’s book, based on mentions of Atlantis by Plato, cut the template for the sci-fi-tinged lost white civilization theories now experiencing a revival on cable television and beyond.
But just as Atlantis theory gained traction following the debunking of the Moundbuilders, so have theories of ancient Aryan astronauts superseded Atlantis with the mapping of the oceans and their floors.
“When there was nowhere left to explore, a group of thinkers started to project these ideas into the sky,” says Colavito, the historian. “Today, ancient astronauts are one of the more elaborate theories in pseudo-history with a racist component.”
In the 1960s and 70s, Erich von Daniken and Zecharia Sitchin put a twist on myths about Aryan visitors from a lost civilization predating the last Ice Age. These visitors to Mesoamerica didn’t come from Atlantis but from the sky. Bestsellers like von Daniken’s Chariots of the Gods (seven million sold and counting) popularized the idea that Aryan-looking aliens brought science and technology to primitive peoples around the world. In recent years, Graham Hancock has repackaged Ancient Astronaut Theory for a new generation in his bestselling Fingerprints of the Gods, and through steady work as a History Channel talking head.
Today’s far right is divided on Ancient Astronaut theory. On the one hand, it denies agency to brown-skinned peoples, and features Aryan-looking heroes, which they consider good things; but it also deprives ancient (human) Aryans of the accomplishments credited to them so lavishly in Atlantis and other theories.
Consider the case of Patrick Chouinard, a prolific writer who operates the alt-history sites RenegadeTribune.com and ancientaryans.com. (The latter site’s symbol, the Norse rune, was also the logo of the Nazi Ahnenerbe.) Like the Nazis, the sites are dedicated to recapturing a lost, pure Aryan civilization — one respectful of, but not dependent on alien life. In September, Chouinard cast a critical eye on the upcoming tenth season of the History Channel’s Ancient Aliens, in an article titled “Are Ancient Aliens Theorists Selling Our People Short?”
Chouinard believes they are. He cites an old episode of the H2’s In Search of Aliens in which the hosts, Giorgio Tsoukalos and David Childress (see above), explore the alleged mystery of some “elongated skulls” discovered in Peru. Chouinard scoffs at the hosts’ conclusion that the skulls belonged to aliens. Rather, he argued, reconstructions “show a very Nordic facial structure with [a] huge cranium.” This could be proof, furthermore, of “a separate branch of the White race the went along its own evolutionary path over 5,000 years ago.”
And who, you might wonder, does Chouinard believe is behind the Ancient Alien Theory that is “selling his people short”?
“The Jews,” writes Chouinard, “are using … the ancient alien camp to confound our race to the point that we deny our own accomplishments. The White race did not need ancient aliens to build our ancient civilizations, or to found other civilizations in remote corners of the Earth. Our race is capable of so much more.”
In 2018, it is dangerous in alt-ancient history circles to completely discount Ancient Aliens. Chouinard knows this. Rather than risk alienating his readers, he concedes, “It is very possible that visitations from extraterrestrials did happen in ancient times, [but] I will not conclude that the majority of our accomplishments as a race can be attributed to extraterrestrials.”
UFOs & “Refracted” Anti-Semitism
Massive and hopelessly intricate cover-ups. Nefarious alien races with gnomish physical features. Tales of secret Nazi super-technologies. It was always inevitable that the UFO and far right scenes would end up in bed together. UFO culture cast a shadow over everything in the postwar years, and as noted above, the far right has never been a stranger to the supernatural.
In Culture of Conspiracy, the historian Michael Barkun locates the early 1990s as the decade this convergence accelerated. Books like William Cooper’s Behold a Pale Horseand journals published by Gyeorgos Ceres Hatonn described UFO conspiracies that fit snugly into the New World Order conspiracy template, heavily influencing that decade’s militia movement. (Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh was reportedly a fan of Cooper’s radio show.)
But the seeds of this union are much deeper in the postwar record. One of the most important early UFO writers in the early 1950s, William Dudley Pelly, was an American occultist and fascist; his most important disciple, George Hunt Williamson, produced Byzantine UFO theories that incorporated anti-Semitic themes. Williamson’s 1958 book, UFOsConfidential, claimed every government on earth was under the control of a handful of (mostly Jewish) “international bankers,” which for some reason the author believed included U.S. Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter.
Pelley and Williamson’s successors are not always or even often so blatantly anti-Semitic. But the fingerprints of anti-Semites are visible in the works of influential modern UFO writers like Jim Marrs and Jim Keith. These fingerprints appear in what Barkun calls “refracted racism and anti-Semitism,” in which old tropes are repackaged as an episode of the X-Files. This repackaging often includes not very subtle distinctions between “benevolent” aliens (tall, Aryan-looking) and “malevolent” aliens (short, grotesque, often in league with “international bankers”).
More than anyone else, the British conspiracist David Icke has popularized the Alien version of New World Order conspiracy. The former sportscaster’s elaborate theory is the Sgt. Peppers album-cover of the genre, featuring the Masons, the Vatican, the Illuminati, the House of Windsor — everyone is there. At the center of the theory is an alien race of lizard people from the fifth-dimension. Though Icke has always denied trafficking in anti-Semitism, he has endorsed the Protocols of the Elders of Zion — the famous forgery and foundational text of modern anti-Semitism — choosing to call it “The Illuminati Protocols.”
This is Barkun’s “refraction,” in action, and Icke’s shadow is long indeed, visible across the far right media spectrum.
Hollow Earth, Secret Nazi Labs & the South Pole
Another inevitable development in postwar conspiracy subculture was the rise of a belief in secret Nazi bases underneath Antarctica. The idea of a “hollow” or “inner” earth was a key tenet of nineteenth-century occultism, and in the postwar years it reemerged as a setting for escaped Nazi scientists working in secret technology and weapons labs.
The legend took root during the mid-1970s, nurtured by the Canadian neo-Nazi Ernst Zundel, who argued that Nazis invented flying saucers and had taken their breakthrough technology to bases deep under the South Pole.
The Third Reich was interested in a possible base at the South Pole, and a few high-level Nazis did escape to Argentina, whose national territory includes a slice of Antarctica extending to the South Pole. Zundel and his successors have infused these facts with Victorian inner-earth legends, and then marinated them over multiple viewings of the 1968 B-flick, They Saved Hitler’s Brain. Versions of the theory remain popular on neo-Nazi alt-history sites, and in recent years British tabloids like the Mirror and Daily Star have found click-bait gold in spreading them.
The story’s persistence led Colin Summerhayes of Cambridge University’s Polar Research Institute to look into the matter. In a 2006 edition of The Polar Record, Summerhayes presented his heavily footnoted and researched conclusion that secret Nazi bases do not exist, and have never existed, on or below Antarctica.
As exhaustive as it was, it is unlikely Summerhayes’ study had much impact among the theory’s adherents. It was, after all, competing with an ever expanding glut of “hidden history” books, podcasts and websites. One of many such titles to appear that year was SS Brotherhood of the Bell: The Nazi's Incredible Secret Technology, penned by Joseph P. Farrell, a prolific alt-historian and regular on Red Ice Radio.
DUST IN THE WIND Dust surrounding KIC 8462852 (known as Tabby’s star), shown in this artist’s illustration, could explain the star’s odd dips in light. But scientists don’t know where the dust came from.
JPL-CALTECH/NASA
The first observations of Tabby’s star flickering in real time have put the last nails in the “it’s-an-alien-megastructure” coffin.
The star’s most recent winks show that the dimming is from small dust particles surrounding it, a team of more than 200 scientists and amateur astronomers reports in a paper posted at arXiv.org January 3.
The oddball star, officially named KIC 8462852, is best known for its sudden drops in brightness (SN Online: 2/2/16). Astronomers have invoked everything from evaporating comets to an enormous edifice built by intelligent aliens to explain the sporadic winks.
In March 2016, astronomer Tabetha Boyajian of Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge (for whom the star was nicknamed) and her colleagues began trying to catch light dips in the act using two automatic ground-based telescopes with the Las Cumbres Observatory, a worldwide network of telescopes.
On May 18, 2017, as Tabby’s star started to dim, at least 12 other telescopes rushed to follow up. That event turned out to be the first of four distinct light dips between May and the end of December, when the star moved behind the sun from Earth’s perspective.
Boyajian and colleagues report that the star grew dimmer in blue wavelengths than in red ones. That dimming is best explained by dust particles less than a micrometer in size, Boyajian says. If a large, opaque object — say, an alien megastructure — was blocking the star, then multiple telescopes should see the same level of dimming across many wavelengths of light. An earlier paper reported the same wavelength difference in the star’s dimming spanning several years (SN: 9/30/17, p. 11), but this is the first time it has been seen for the short-term dips.
“This is a very exciting step towards understanding this object,” says Brian Metzger of Columbia University, who was not involved in the new study. “It’s a nail in the coffin of anything where you imagine it’s some sort of solid structure.”
But declaring dust the culprit raises a new mystery. The dust is small enough that the star’s radiation should blow it away, so something must be constantly creating more of it.
“None of the ideas we have at this point are really great at putting all the pieces together,” Boyajian says. “Yeah, it’s dust, but where is it coming from? That’s still up in the air.”
And now … a big bubble theory. Scientists are discussing the possibility that our solar system formed in wind-blown bubbles around a giant, long-dead star.
This simulation shows how bubbles form over the course of 4.7 million years from the intense stellar winds off a massive star. UChicago scientists postulated how our own solar system could have formed in the dense shell of such a bubble.
Image via V. Dwarkadas/ D. Rosenberg/ UChicagoNews.
For decades, astronomers have accepted the theory that our sun and planets – our solar system – formed about 4.6 billion years ago from a spinning cloud of gas and dust. In recent years, they’ve added to that idea a triggering mechanism: a nearby supernova, or exploding star. A nearby supernova might have triggered a gravitational collapse in the cloud of gas and dust, ultimately leading to our sun and its planets. But questions have remained, and now University of Chicago scientists have described a new comprehensive theory, which can explain some of the mysteries. According to their theory, our solar system might have formed in the wind-blown bubbles around a giant, long-dead Wolf-Rayet star.
Wolf-Rayet stars are a type of star – more than 40 to 50 times the size of our own sun – that aren’t supernovae yet, but will likely become supernovae in the future. The new scenario by the UChicago scientists starts with this type of star, which, their statement said:
… burns the hottest of all stars, producing tons of elements which are flung off the surface in an intense stellar wind. As the Wolf-Rayet star sheds its mass, the stellar wind plows through the material that was around it, forming a bubble structure with a dense shell.
Geophysicist Nicolas Dauphas at UChicago is a co-author on the new study. He said:
The shell of such a bubble is a good place to produce stars.
That’s because dust and gas become trapped inside where they can condense into stars, and presumably solar systems like the one in which we live.
These scientists estimate that 1 percent to 16 percent of all sunlike stars could be formed in the bubbles produced by Wolf-Rayet stars.
This setup differs from the supernova hypothesis in order to make sense of two isotopes that occur in strange proportions in the early solar system, compared to the rest of the galaxy. Meteorites left over from the early solar system tell us there was a lot of aluminium-26. In addition, studies, including a 2015 one by Dauphas and a former student, increasingly suggest we had less of the isotope iron-60.
This brings scientists up short, because supernovae produce both isotopes.
Coauthor and astronomer Vikram Dwarkadas explained:
[The production of both elements by supernovae] begs the question of why one was injected into the solar system and the other was not.
That’s why these scientists turned to the idea of Wolf-Rayet stars. They are well-studied stars, known to release lots of aluminium-26, but no iron-60. Dwarkadas said
The idea is that aluminum-26 flung from the Wolf-Rayet star is carried outwards on grains of dust formed around the star. These grains have enough momentum to punch through one side of the shell, where they are mostly destroyed—trapping the aluminum inside the shell.
Eventually, part of the shell collapses inward due to gravity, forming our solar system, these scientists suggest.
As with all new theories, this one will have to undergo scrutiny by other scientists.
Slices of a simulation showing how bubbles around a massive star evolve over the course of millions of years (moving clockwise from top left).
Image via V. Dwarkadas/ D. Rosenberg/ UChicagoNews.
Bottom line: A new theory suggests the possibility that our solar system formed in wind-blown bubbles around a giant, long-dead Wolf-Rayet star.µ
More than five years after it landed on the red planet, NASA’s Curiosity Rover is still cruising around and discovering curious things that have scientists here on Earth scratching their heads. While perusing the latest batch of photos taken by the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI), something unusual caught the eye of researcher Barry DiGregorio, author of Mars: The Living Planet and The Microbes of Mars.
It could be a ground-breaking discovery, he told the website Inside Outer Space. “They look remarkably similar to Ordovician trace fossils I have studied and photographed here on Earth,” he said. “If not trace fossils, what other geological explanations will NASA come up with?”
The rover has given us some stunning images of the red planet’s landscape, but tiny formations in a Martian rock may be the biggest find yet.
The stick-like features were first spotted in black-and-white photos takes by the rover. They’re quite unusual, so Curiosity is heading back there to take a closer look. “This site was so interesting that we backtracked to get to where the rover was parked for this plan,” wrote Curiosity team member Christopher Edwards in the January 3 Curiosity mission update.
NASA/JPL
The most likely explanation for the strange images is a natural formation, said Pascal Lee of the Mars Institute. “The Curiosity images really pique our curiosity,” he said. “It’s hard to tell what the wiggly sticks are, and a strictly mineral origin is, of course, the most plausible.”
The tiny tubes could be evidence of bioturbation, which is what occurs when organisms living in sediments leave an imprint on their structure. “A common example of bioturbation is the formation of worm burrows,” Lee explained. “The burrows, once refilled with sediments, fossilized, and then exposed by erosion, can end up looking like wiggly sticks.”
“To claim that we’re seeing bioturbation on Mars — which I did not say — would be an extraordinary claim,” he added.
The structures are very small, about a millimeter in width and five millimeters long. Their angular nature may indicate that they were formed by tiny crystals. Crystal molds, which are often found here on Earth, can form when crystals in rock dissolve. Even a roving laboratory like Curiosity would be hard pressed to make a definitive analysis, noted Ashwin Vasavada, project scientist for Curiousity.
“That’s pretty challenging on Earth to distinguish those two things without being able to put these things into a lab to look for the presence of organics,” he said. “We have a very limited capability overall to understand whether something is biological or not.”
Still, Curiosity does have some tools at its disposal, with Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer analysis planned for the site. The color camera on MAHLI will also be used to collect more detailed images for scientists to study.
“But I have to say, the imagery is really intriguing, and I hope Curiosity spends more time in the area to get to the bottom of this,” Lee said. “This is exciting!”
Photo Credit: NASA, ESA, & F. Paresce (INAF-IASF), R. O'Connell (U. Virginia), & the HST WFC3 Science Oversight Committee
The Week's Top Space Stories
NASA satellites capture amazing images of the "bomb cyclone" that hit the U.S. East Coast this week, SpaceX delays the launch of the secret Zuma mission, the loss of a $45 million Russian satellite is attributed to a launch site mix-up and a jetstream on Jupiter could give hints at what atmospheres are like on alien planets. Here are this week's top stories at Space.com.
Photo Credit: NASA/GSFC
1. Winter Storm Grayson created brutally cold temperatures
Many people are reeling from a powerful winter storm system that swept the U.S. East Coast on Thursday (Jan. 4). The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) used Earth-observing satellites to watch the "bomb cyclone," which has produced hurricane-levels winds and heavy snow over several states.
2. Winter storm likely behind delay of mysterious SpaceX mission
A Falcon 9 rocket will launch the secret Zuma mission no earlier than Sunday (Jan. 7), after "extreme weather" apparently delayed the liftoff originally scheduled for Friday (Jan. 5). The new launch window from SpaceX's pad at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida opens Sunday at 8 p.m. EST (0100 GMT).
3. Curiosity spots weird features in Martian rocks
The possibility that weird structures in Martian rocks could be fossils was an idea that one researcher entertained while poring over the first set of 2018 images from the Curiosity rover. But the Curiosity team isn't jumping to this conclusion, saying that crystals may have created the features.
Photo Credit: ESO/Digitized Sky Survey 2 Acknowledgement: Davide De Martin
4. New tech could help astronomers spot rocky alien planets
In the 2020s, technology may be able to produce imagery of a rocky exoplanet in the nearby Alpha Centauri star system. The new technique announced on Dec. 15 could also make multi-star systems visible to researchers, too. According to previous work, two-thirds of sun-like stars coexist with at least one other star.µ
A Russian satellite was programmed for an incorrect launch site, and it was this human error in setting coordinates that caused Meteor-M No.2-1 to be lost in November 2017. A high-ranking Russian official announced the $45 million weather satellite was programmed as if it were to launch at Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, but actually launched at a site in eastern Russian.
New images reveal surface bubbles on a red giant star in the Crane constellation, showing the star's heat-transfer process for the first time. The star is known as Pi1 Grius, and it is about 350 times the diameter of the sun. The star's large size is attributed to swelling, caused when a sun-like star runs out of hydrogen to burn.
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station successfully sequenced microbial DNA, and did so under extreme circumstances. While NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson was collecting the sample and getting ready to perform the never-before-seen procedure with guidance from a microbiologist at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, reports came in about Hurricane Harvey's approach.
8. Jupiter jetstream physics could apply to alien planets
Jet streams passing over Jupiter's equator have been known to change direction, somewhat like those on Earth and those seen on Saturn. A new study reveals gravity waves could be the reason the jet streams on Jupiter switch their flow, and scientists predict the new data could help pinpoint how atmospheres move across the skies of distant worlds.
Photo Credit: NASA, ESA, & F. Paresce (INAF-IASF), R. O'Connell (U. Virginia), & the HST WFC3 Science Oversight Committee
9. Heavyweight stars may play big role in cosmic evolution
New findings suggest that the universe might be home to more heavyweight stars than previously thought. Stars up to hundreds of times the mass of the sun are the source of many dramatic cosmic events, like black holes and massive explosions, and if these heavyweight stars are more common, perhaps they also play a bigger role in the universe's evolution than scientists had thought.
10. Asteroid with geological layers created Australian meteorite
Bunburra Rockhole is a meteorite that originated from a parent asteroid so large that it had a core, mantle and crust, according to a new analysis. While the asteroid was not as big as a planet, it should be large enough to at some point have been catalogued, meaning that this big asteroid is unknown or has eroded into a smaller space rock.
China Plans to Grow Plants and Insects on the Dark Side of the Moon
China Plans to Grow Plants and Insects on the Dark Side of the Moon
Chris Mahon
Image credit: YouTube
Did you know that profits from Pink Floyd's famous album, Dark Side of the Moon, helped fund Monty Python and the Holy Grail? How about the fact that Paul McCartney was originally supposed to sing on the album? Congrats! You now know more about that album than most people know about the actual dark side of the moon.
Chinese is planning to land a probe on the far side of the moon to see if plants and insects can be grown on the lunar surface.
Creative Commons
Sure, NASA has photographed the far side of the moon in the past, but no one has ever landed on it, much less explored it. That's supposed to change this year if China's ambitious new Chang'e 4 mission is successful.
The mission comes in two parts: the first part will launch in June and put a relay satellite into orbit 60,000 km behind the moon (meant to overcome the long-running difficulty of communication on the far side of the moon), while the second mission will launch a rover and lander to explore the surface. Included in this second launch will be a canister containing vegetables and insects—according to Zhang Yuanxun, who designed it:
"The container will send potatoes, arabidopsis seeds and silkworm eggs to the surface of the moon. The eggs will hatch into silkworms, which can produce carbon dioxide, while the potatoes and seeds emit oxygen through photosynthesis. Together, they can establish a simple ecosystem on the moon."
Chang'e 3 Chinese lunar mission.
Chang'e 4 will be the first time anyone has ever landed on the far side of the moon. The planned location of the landing will be close to the Von Karman crater, the oldest (and largest) impact feature on the moon. The area around Von Karman also has abnormally high levels of thorium, which could serve as a potential nuclear fuel source in the future.
In 2013, China’s Chang’e 3, deploying the Jade Rabbit rover, makes the first soft landing on the moon since 1976. Chang’e 4 is set for lift-off in 2018.
Photograph: CLEP/CNSA
Chang'e 4, originally scheduled for 2015, is a precursor to China's stated goal of landing a human on the moon in the 2030s, an achievement that falls in line with their recent plans to become the world leader in space exploration. At the heart of those plans is its new generation of Long March-series rockets, which are slated to carry huge payloads and employ reusable components to make space exploration more efficient.
I mean we all know China is going to lead the 21st century, but now they’re just rubbing it in our sad little faces. Who knew a tyrannical one-party government would be able to crack enough eggs with its iron first to make the world’s largest human omelette? Progress heals all wounds, I suppose they’re telling themselves. China is proving itself capable of tackling nearly any engineering challenge at nearly any cost, and now the Middle Kingdom has its eyes cast upward on the icy, black reaches of space. China has several Mars missions planned for the next few years, a space station in orbit (for now), and has just finished constructing the world’s largest radio telescope. Now, Chinese news outlets have just announced that China will further its space program with a plan aimed at colonizing the moon – with insects, at least.
Hey, it’s a start.
The People’s Daily reports that China’s second lunar lander, the Chang’e 4, will land on the moon’s surface with a miniature “eco-base” meant to test the viability of establishing colonies on the moon. According to Zhang Yuanxun, the module’s designer, the pod will contain several symbiotic organisms which could create a stable miniature ecosystem:
The container will send potatoes, arabidopsis seeds and silkworm eggs to the surface of the Moon. The eggs will hatch into silkworms, which can produce carbon dioxide, while the potatoes and seeds emit oxygen through photosynthesis. Together, they can establish a simple ecosystem on the Moon.
Of course, there are some significant challenges the ecosystem will face, namely temperature control and protection from radiation. If it succeeds, however, the module could lead to tests of larger eco-modules. China’s Chang’e 4 will be sent to the South Pole-Aitken Basin, an 8-mile-deep (13 km) crater which stays in constant shadow. That region is of particular interest to space agencies who hope its abundant water ice could be of use to future colonists.
Chinese astronauts took already silkworms for a “spacewalk” aboard the Tiangong-2 space station last year.
Yeah that’s neat and all, but I’m more interested in what the irradiated silkworms and potatoes might evolve into given a few million years after they’ve been forgotten on the cold, desolate surface of the moon. Is this how life on Earth started? Some abandoned alien science experiment? It certainly sounds a lot cooler than those other guys’ stories. Maybe if they had pamphlets about an ancient alien race’s potatoes and silkworms instead of some dead dude with a funny name and his witnesses, I wouldn’t have to spray them with my hose in the dead of winter to get them to leave.
APDe vijver in Nahualac, met in het midden, onderwater, het schrijn.
Mexicaanse wetenschappers vermoeden dat de Mexicaanse Tetzacualco geconstrueerd werd als ‘miniatuurmodel van het universum.’ De constructie bevindt zich onder water.
Het heiligdom ligt in een vijver aan de rand van de Iztaccihuatl-vulkaan, nabij Mexico-Stad. De constructie behoort tot de archeologische site Nahualac. Sommige Meso-Amerikaanse mythen beschrijven de schepping van de wereld door een krokodil, genaamd Cipactli. Deze dreef op de oerwateren. Uit zijn lichaam werden aarde en lucht geschapen: het mythische begin van het universum.
Mede omdat het heiligdom midden in een vijver ligt, vermoeden archeologen dat het een weergave is van het scheppingsverhaal. Archeoloog Iris Hernández van het Mexicaanse Nationaal Instituut voor Antropologie en Geschiedenis leidde de opgravingen. Zij stelt dat het plaatsen van architectonische elementen in water veel zegt over het Meso-Amerikaanse denken.
APDe archeologische site bij Nahualac.
Hernández vermoedt dat de watertoevoer van de vijver uiterst gecontroleerd gebeurde. Zo konden Meso-Amerikanen een effect creëren waardoor het schrijn leek te drijven.
Nahualac
De opgravingen begonnen in 2016 waarna archeologen snel tekenen van menselijke aanwezigheid aantroffen. Denk daarbij aan keramiek, delen van obsidiaan-messen, steenkool en het mineraal schist, dat mogelijk werd gebruikt bij offers.
De nederzetting Nahualac bestond uit twee delen. Het eerste is het schrijn, dat bestaat uit opeengestapelde stenen. Het twee deel ligt 150 meter verder. Hier vonden archeologen voorwerpen die in verband kunnen worden gebracht met Tlaloc, de god van de regen. Archeologen denken dat de site in zijn geheel in het teken stond van deze god.
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Vreemde structuren ontdekt op Mars. Heeft NASA’s Curiosity sporen van leven gevonden?
Vreemde structuren ontdekt op Mars. Heeft NASA’s Curiosity sporen van leven gevonden?
Zijn er sporenfossielen gevonden op Mars? NASA’s Curiosity heeft op de rode planeet een aantal foto’s gemaakt van vreemde buisvormige structuren.
Barry DiGregorio van het Buckingham Centre for Astrobiology zegt dat ze opvallend veel gelijkenissen vertonen met sporenfossielen uit het Ordovicium die op aarde zijn ontdekt.
Ashwin Vasavada van NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Californië zei dat de structuren zeer klein zijn, waarschijnlijk één tot twee millimeter breed en vijf millimeter lang.
Sluiten niet uit
Ze zien er zo vreemd uit dat wetenschappers Curiosity terugstuurden om ze nader te onderzoeken.
“We sluiten niet uit dat het sporenfossielen zijn,” legde Vasavada uit. “Maar het is ook zeker niet het eerste waar we aan denken.”
Bioturbatie
Geoloog Pascal Lee van het SETI Institute dacht bij het zien van de foto’s gelijk aan bioturbatie, het proces waarbij sediment door organismen door elkaar wordt gewerkt en verplaatst.
Als voorbeeld hiervan noemt Lee gaten die door wormen worden gemaakt in de grond. Die gaten worden gevuld met sediment, fossiliseren en worden blootgesteld aan erosie, waardoor ze eruit komen te zien als buisvormige structuren.
Mysterie
Hoewel hij niet beweert dat de foto’s bewijs zijn voor bioturbatie op Mars, vindt Lee dit alles wel erg intrigerend en hoopt hij dat Curiosity meer tijd in het gebied zal doorbrengen om dit mysterie tot op de bodem uit te zoeken.
Meest mysterieuze ster in Melkweg blijft astronomen beroeren. Verklaart dit haar vreemde gedrag?
Meest mysterieuze ster in Melkweg blijft astronomen beroeren. Verklaart dit haar vreemde gedrag?
Tabby’s Ster of KIC 8462852, de meest tot de verbeelding sprekende ster in onze Melkweg, blijft astronomen beroeren.
Wetenschappers merken voortdurend schommelingen op in haar helderheid en er blijkt tussen de ster en ons af en toe iets groots en donkers te passeren.
Sommigen suggereerden eerder dat er buitenaards leven in het spel is.
Nieuwste ontwikkelingen
Anderen dachten dat de ster een erg afwijkend lichtpatroon vertoonde vanwege een gigantische meteoor die in de omgeving van de ster te vinden is.
Tabetha Boyajian van de Universiteit van Louisiana, naar wie de ster vernoemd is, onderzoekt KIC 8462852 al sinds 2015.
Onlangs publiceerde het team van Boyajian een artikel in het tijdschrift Astrophysical Journal Letters over de nieuwste ontwikkelingen.
Aliens
Sommige van haar collega’s denken dat andere planeten of zelfs activiteiten van aliens de ster aan het zicht onttrekken.
Boyajian: “Volgens de gegevens die afkomstig zijn van de Kepler-telescoop, is de helderheid van de ster door de jaren heen met 22 procent afgenomen.”
“Als een groep planeten het zicht zou belemmeren, dan zouden dat meer dan 50 planeten moeten zijn die allemaal perfect op één lijn staan om de helderheidsdipjes te kunnen verklaren,” voegde ze toe.
Ook UFO’s ziet ze niet als antwoord op het vreemde gedrag van de ster.
Stof
Zelf denkt Boyajian dat stof mogelijk de reden is dat de ster ‘aan- en uitgaat’. “In het heelal is er overal stof, dus astronomen herkennen de structuur ervan,” zei ze.
“Stof verklaart de ongewone activiteiten van de ster het best,” vervolgde ze.
Maar het team blijft met veel vragen zitten, bijvoorbeeld hoe het stof geproduceerd is en waarom het rond de ster hangt.
MENSEN HOREN VREEMDE GELUIDEN BOVEN NOORD- EN ZUID-HOLLAND, NEDERLAND
MENSEN HOREN VREEMDE GELUIDEN BOVEN NOORD- EN ZUID-HOLLAND, NEDERLAND
Nog steeds worden er overal ter wereld vreemde geluiden gehoord waarvoor geen logische verklaring te vinden is.
In Amerika krijgt nu de vorst de schuld van enorme explosies die de huizen op hun grondvesten doen schudden en ook in Nederland hoort men vreemde dingen.
We beginnen met Nederland, waar een lezer en haar collega beiden een vreemd geluid hebben gehoord. De één woont in Rijnsburg en de andere in Katwijk, dus grote kans dat beiden hetzelfde hebben gehoord.
De lezer stuurt (dank!) het volgende bericht:
Afgelopen donderdag 4-1-18 nacht kon moeilijk inslapen, hoorde ineens een enorm indringend zwaar motorgeluid alsof er een turbine boven me hing die stationair draaide op een plek, rond 02:38 uur AM
Bij vreemde geluiden ga ik altijd op mijn balkon kijken of er iets te zien is. De hemel was dicht bewolkt en ik zag dus niets, alleen een hele snelle felle rode flits. Het was een gevoel van een soort druk wat boven me hing en intuïtief leek het mij een heel groot object. Na 3of 5 minuten werd het geluid zwakker ik voelde dat het verder weg ging. Weer naar mijn bed gegaan en heb het geluid horen wegebben, maar het bleef piepen in mijn oren, wat ik wel vaker heb.
s 'Morgens op het lokale nieuws gekeken of iemand anders het ook had gezien, niets dus!
Ik woon in Rijnsburg.
Ik was niet thuis die dag, dus s 'avonds opende ik een mail van een jonge collega die diezelfde donderdagnacht is verstuurd, alleen heb ik dat niet meer gezien, met het volgende bericht over die donderdagnacht!
Mijn collega in Katwijk.
*Ik ben momenteel klaarwakker en er gebeurt me toch iets ontzettend raars! Ik hoorde opeens een heel laag en donker / duister geluid hier vlakbij mijn huis. Het was een hard geluid en echt heel duidelijk hoorbaar, alsof er een groot object met een niet ontzettend grote snelheid door de lucht heen vliegt.
Geen vliegtuig, die zijn hier binnen een minuut overgevlogen en het geluid is iets totaal anders. Een helikopter was het ook zeker niet, het is iets wat ik nog nooit gehoord heb! Nu het geluid minder sterk aanwezig is hoorde ik een soort van hoge trillende frequentie, die frequentie hoor ik nu nog steeds af en toe door de lucht. Ik hoor het geluid nu nog in de verte, samen met de hoge frequentie. Er cirkelt hier iets rond wat ik niet kan definiëren. Er zijn ook steeds windvlagen. HAARP? Iets met het weer beïnvloeden? Heel creepy dit. Heb wat op internet gespeurd en er zijn meer mensen die dit horen.
Naast Rijnsburg en Katwijk, kregen we ook een melding binnen (dank!) van twee dames die een vergelijkbaar geluid hoorden in Amsterdam en "dit best eng" vonden klinken.
In Amerika horen mensen op dit moment heel andersoortige geluiden. Geen diep brommend geluid of trompetgeluiden, maar dat van een enorme explosie, terwijl er niets te zien is.
Zoals dat gebeurde rond vier uur 's middags op Nieuwjaarsdag in het dorpje Pewamo in Michigan, waar volgens Bethanie Kramer een geluid te horen was wat je alleen kunt omschrijven als een explosie en waardoor het hele huis stond te trillen. Zij was uiteraard niet de enige inwoner die het had gehoord en de sociale media stonden dan ook bol van de verhalen.
Aangezien men geen verklaring heeft en het daar momenteel vriest, krijgt de vorst de schuld en wordt het verklaard als een soort ijsbeving. Deze klinken echter in werkelijkheid heel anders dan een explosie die het hele huis doet schudden.
Een dag later, op 2 januari 2018, gebeurde hetzelfde in delen van de staat Georgia. Ook daar meldden bewoners een enorme explosie die de huizen deed trillen en ook daar geen enkel spoor van iets dat dit zou kunnen veroorzaken.
Weer een dag later, op 3 januari 2018, meldden inwoners van de staat Tennessee vergelijkbare explosies en ook daar geen verklaring en dus krijgt ook daar de vorst de schuld.
Ook vorig jaar werden deze mysterieuze "booms" zoals ze worden genoemd, veelvuldig gehoord, voornamelijk in Amerika en Engeland. En dat gebeurde ook in tijden dat het niet vroor. Tot op de dag van vandaag is voor deze 64 "booms" geen verklaring gevonden.
Wij zijn natuurlijk nieuwsgierig of meer mensen iets vreemds hebben gehoord in de nacht van 4 januari 2018 en als laatste hebben we nog een vraag van een lezer die graag wat wil weten en reactie vraagt van onze lezers:
Al een tijdje check ik waar 's ochtends de zon opkomt en waar deze 's avonds ondergaat. Volgens mij moeten deze locaties ongeveer lijnrecht - dus in een hoek van ca. 180 graden - tegenover elkaar liggen. Maar wat schetst mijn verbazing dat deze hoek slechts iets meer dan 90 graden bedraagt. Is hier nu sprake van de beruchte Nibiru 'wobble' waardoor de aardas schommelt?
Mijn verzoek: zouden jullie eens een oproep kunnen plaatsen om lezers bovenstaand fenomeen te laten onderzoeken? Bij voorbaat dank.
UFO'S GEFILMD VANUIT RYANAIR VLIEGTUIG ONDERWEG NAAR EINDHOVEN, NEDERLAND ( VIDEO )
UFO'S GEFILMD VANUIT RYANAIR VLIEGTUIG ONDERWEG NAAR EINDHOVEN, NEDERLAND ( VIDEO )
De laatste jaren worden er opvallend veel ufo's waargenomen in de buurt van verkeersvliegtuigen, overal ter wereld.
Zo zijn er nu beelden van een ufo bij een vliegtuig in de buurt van Eindhoven, Liverpool en Paaseiland.
Wie ook de intelligentie is die achter de kleine ronde ufo's, één ding lijkt zeker en dat is dat ze belangstelling hebben voor vliegtuigen. Zo kregen we via een lezer (dank!) de volgende opnames toegestuurd.
Deze zijn gemaakt aan boord van een Ryanair toestel, onderweg van Milaan naar Eindhoven.
Hij schreef het volgende:
01/10/2017 17.33 uur boven Duitsland ( stuur screenshot tijd en lokatie )
Rayanair vlucht van Milaan naar Eindhoven.
Ik schat de afstand rond 400 meter, kleine witte bollen, zag er eerst een toen meerdere, denk 7 stuks, sommige versnelden en verdwenen, andere verdween achter vleugel.
In vliegtuig vlak voor vertrek in Milaan oppeens 4 uur vertraging, vervolgens met 55 minuten vertraging vertrokken, misschien had de vertraging te maken met de ufo dacht ik achteraf.
Beste wensen ook, beeld voor beeld kijken paar bij vleugel en drie samen richting wolk.
Hierna volgen de videobeelden die door de lezer werden opgestuurd en omdat het vaak niet meevalt om de ufo's te spotten, hebben we in bovenstaande plaatjes aangegeven waar te kijken.
Het vliegtuig bevond zich ten tijde van de opname in Neustadt an der Weinstrasse, een plaatsje tussen Heidelberg en Kaiserslautern in Duitsland.
De tweede opname van een vliegtuig en ufo is gemaakt rond 17 of 18 december 2017 en het betrof hier een vliegtuig dat vertrok vanaf Paaseiland, verdere gegevens ontbreken. En dan een opname die al wat ouder is, maar nu pas boven water komt en die met recht spectaculair genoemd mag worden. De volgende afbeelding laat zien waar de ufo zich bevindt ten opzichte van het vliegtuig.
De opname schijnt gemaakt te zijn in 2015 en het betreft een vliegtuig dat is vertrokken vanaf Liverpool in Engeland. Als je de volgende bewegende beelden bekijkt, dan zie je rond de 32 seconden dat de ufo met een enorme snelheid plotseling wegvliegt. Een acceleratie die zo groot is dat geen vliegtuig dit ooit zou kunnen.
The Origin of ‘Oumuamua revealed: Mystery object came from the Pleiades
The Origin of ‘Oumuamua revealed: Mystery object came from the Pleiades
The year 2017 was of great importance as numerous groundbreaking discoveries were made in outer space. One of the highlights of 2017 was the arrival of the first interstellar object, first thought to be a comet, an asteroid, and then an alien spaceship. Discovered by a Hawaiian astronomer, it was quickly named ‘Oumuamua, which means “a messenger from afar arriving first,” reflecting the origin of the mystery object. However, the exact origin of the mystery rock remained a mystery, at least until now.
Astronomers believe they have finally tracked down the origin of the interstellar object.
According to experts, the cigar-shaped asteroid originated from the nearby “Pleiades moving group” of young stars, one of the closest to Earth and best perceived by the naked eye.
Astronomers believe how ‘Oumuamua was most likely expelled from its home star system, and sent out towards interstellar space.
Astronomers already know that the mystery object is composed of ice with a carbon-rich surface and has an extremely unusual orbit, and is traveling at around 26 km/ s, and will soon leave our solar system.
The hyperbolic trajectory of ʻOumuamua through the inner Solar System, with the Sun at the focus, showing its position every 7 days. The planet positions are fixed at the perihelion on September 9, 2017. Shown from a three-quarter perspective, roughly aligned to the plane of ʻOumuamua’s path.
‘Oumuamua was scanned using the Green Bank Telescope by astronomers from the Breakthrough Listen research program for any signs of alien signals, however, of intelligent signals have been identified so far, though further observations are planned, notes an article by the Conversation.
Now, a recent study published at arXiv gives us a glimpse of exactly where ‘Oumuamua may have originated from.
By reconstructing the object’s motion, Fabo Feng, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Hertfordshire indicates how ‘Oumuamua most likely originated from the nearby “Pleiades moving group” of young stars, also known as the “Local Association”.
Astronomers believe it was likely ejected from its home solar system and sent out to travel interstellar space.
Based on the trajectory of ‘Oumuamua, this scientist simulated how ‘Oumuamua traveled through the galaxy and compared it to the movements of nearby stars. The conclusion is that the object passed 109 stars at a distance of 16 light years.
Five of these stars corresponded to the Pleiades or Local Association (a group of young stars that probably formed together), at a very slow speed in relation to their movement.
The study notes how it is likely that when Oumuamua was first expelled into outer space, it would have traveled at just enough speed to separate itself from the gravity of its home star, rather than at a much faster speed that would require even more energy.
An artist’s impression of the ‘Oumuamua asteroid, which scientists scanned for signs of intelligent life.
Photograph: ESO/M Kornmesser/PA
This means, according to the new research, that we would expect the object to move relatively slowly at the start of its interstellar travel, so it’s slow encounters with these five stars suggest that it was expelled from one of the groups.
Usually, stars move with an average speed as they form and gradually change velocity when encountering very large cosmic objects, such as massive stars and molecular clouds, and are therefore affected by their gravity.
“Unlike most nearby stars, Oumuamua moves very slowly compared to the average movement of the rest of the galaxy. This suggests that it has only been traveling in interstellar space for a relatively short time and has not had the opportunity to find many massive objects that accelerate it, “the study emphasizes.
As to what the asteroid ejected from initially, this study considers as a plausible scenario that Oumuamua was ejected from a binary star system consisting of two stars orbiting closely together, explains Feng in an article written in The Conversation.
“Objects orbiting one of the stars in a binary system will be strongly affected by the gravity of the other and so can be more easily ejected from the system than if it had just one star.”
Furthermore, Feng indicates how ‘Oumuamua is probably just the tip of the iceberg. And that there are likely more than 46m similar interstellar objects crossing the solar system every year.
Artist’s illustration of planet formation. Credit: NASA / Lynette Cook
One of the highlights of 2017 was the discovery of the first object in our solar system that definitely came from somewhere else. At first we thought it was a comet, then an asteroid, and now the International Astronomical Union has reclassified it as something new entirely, an interstellar object. The Hawaiian astronomers who discovered it aptly named it 'Oumuamua, which means "a messenger from afar arriving first", reflecting that this object is like a scout sent from the past to reach out to us.
Research has already helped us learn a lot about 'Oumuamua's rare cigar-like shape, what it's made of (ice with a carbon-rich surface) and its highly unusual orbit, which will take it out of our solar system at a speed of around 26 km/s. The Breakthrough Listen research program has even investigated whether 'Oumuamua is an alien space ship by scanning the object for life forms with the Green Bank Telescope. No intelligent signals have been identified so far, though further observations are planned.
Now my latest study gives us a glimpse of exactly where 'Oumuamua may have come from. Reconstructing the object's motion, my research suggests it probably came from the nearby "Pleiades moving group" of young stars, also known as the "Local Association". It was likely ejected from its home solar system and sent out to travel interstellar space.
Based on 'Oumuamua's trajectory, I simulated how it has probably travelled through the galaxy and compared this to the motions of nearby stars. I found the object passed 109 stars within a distance of 16 light years. It went by five of these stars from in the Local Association (a group of young stars likely to have formed together), at a very slow speed relative to their movement.
'Oumuamua’s journey.
It's likely that when 'Oumuamua was first ejected into space, it was travelling at just enough speed to break away from the gravity of its planet or star of origin, rather than at a much faster speed that would require even more energy. This means we'd expect the object to move relatively slowly at the start of its interstellar journey, and so its slow encounters with these five stars suggests it was ejected from one of the group.
When was it kicked out of its home?
Stars typically move with an average speed when they are formed and gradually change speed as they encounter very large objects, such as massive stars and molecular clouds and are affected by their gravity. Unlike most nearby stars, 'Oumuamua moves very slowly compared to the average motion of the rest of the galaxy. This suggests it has only been travelling in interstellar space for a relatively short time and hasn't had a chance to encounter many massive objects that would speed it up.
We also have evidence for 'Oumuamua's relatively young age from the colour of its surface. Outside of the protection of a star's magnetic field, objects in space are bombarded with cosmic rays and interstellar dust and gas that gradually alter their surfaces and turn them very red in colour. But 'Oumuamua has a more neutral colour, suggesting it has only been impacted by cosmic rays for, at most, hundreds of million years rather than for the billions of years that our solar system has existed.
Young visitor. Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser, CC BY-SA
How was it ejected?
'Oumuamua is extremely elongated and has quite a different shape from other objects in our solar system. It was probably formed by a relatively high-energy process such as a collision, or ejected from a forming star. Most objects in the outer part of a planetary system are made more of ice and most objects in the inner regions are made more of rocks. Since 'Oumuamua is a more even mix of iceand rocks, it's likely it came from the middle part of a solar system, similar to the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter that features a mixture of icy and rocky asteroids.
Perhaps the most plausible scenario is that 'Oumuamua was ejected from a closely separated binary star system made of two stars closely orbiting each other. Objects orbiting one of the stars in a binary system will be strongly affected by the gravity of the other and so can be more easily ejected from the system than if it had just one star.
'Oumuamua is probably just the tip of the iceberg. My research suggests there are likely more than 46m similar interstellar objects crossing the solar system every year. Most of them will be too far away for us to see with our current telescopes. But new telescopes and surveys should soon be able to find these interstellar messengers, which may be sending us important information about how stars and planets formed. Studying more objects like 'Oumuamua will enable us to work out how much debris is left over from star formation and how much this adds to the mass of our galaxy.
Another reason to study these interstellar objects is that they could one day threaten to collide with the Earth and cause catastrophic events such as mass extinctions. The more we know, the better prepared we'll be if that day ever comes.
REAL-LIFE X FILES - The final part of Britain’s real-life X Files has been released – but does the Government have something to hide?
REAL-LIFE X FILES - The final part of Britain’s real-life X Files has been released – but does the Government have something to hide?
Government officials have finally finished the ten-year process of declassifying Britain's real-life X Files, but some think they've been made deliberately hard to access. Former MoD alien expert Nick Pope wonders what's really been going on
EXCLUSIVE
By George Harrison
THE MoD has spent ten years releasing a trickle of declassified files relating to UFO sightings... and now the final three documents have been made public.
Nick Pope, former UFO investigator at the MoD, has suggested that alien enthusiasts won't be too chuffed with this final release
Over the past decade, the files, which have been drip-fed into the public domain to hush any claims of a conspiracy, were ushered out without any fanfare from the Government, with batches steadily and unceremoniously cropping up online.
The final three documents appeared on the National Archives website on January 1, and are all dated from 1986.
But, even after spending the past three decades behind the closed doors of the MoD, they're unlikely to satisfy conspiracy theorists.
SOURCED
Past file releases have included eyewitness accounts of UFO sightings
Unlike many of the releases before it, this final wave of files won't be available online, and the timing of their publication is sure to cause more a stir among the UFO community.
Officials originally decided to circulate the documents to save the hassle of responding to thousands of freedom of information requests about the Government's knowledge of UFOs.
But Nick Pope, who used to run the Ministry of Defence's UFO project, says conspiracy theorists are likely to be "incensed" by the questions thrown up by the final file dump.
Now, believers will want to know why the Government waited ten years to release these files, and why they've been made so hard to get hold of.
GETTY - CONTRIBUTOR
The release of these files prove governments are taking alien life more seriously than we thought... and some reckon they're still hiding something
Why January 1?
One reason why UFO hunters are unlikely to be happy is the precise timing of the release, on New Years Day.
Nick says: "This looks suspiciously as if The National Archives tried to sneak out this release when nobody was looking."
Some will be asking whether this was an attempt to bury the release by shuffling it out on a bank holiday when everyone was in bed.
It's true that January 1 is a common release date for public files, but hardcore UFO hunters will want to know why the MoD has held on to these for so long in the first place.
SOURCED
Previous files include sketches and police reports relating to UFO sightings
Is there a link to the Pentagon's UFO research?
This final wave of files, which caps off a ten-year release programme, was published after the big news broke that the American government was hiding its own X Files.
Nick said: "Coming so soon after the revelations about the Pentagon's UFO program, this will raise suspicion in the UFO community that there's been co-ordination between the US and UK government on this."
Conspiracy theorists may also wonder whether the MoD's UFO reports ever tied in with the Pentagon's £16 million investigation into the existence of UFOs and aliens.
Dubbed the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, the secret project ran for five years, proving that both US and UK governments take aliens more seriously than we all thought.
GETTY - CONTRIBUTOR
News about the Pentagon's own UFO research project will cause some to question whether the MoD's research is linked
Why aren't they online?
Unlike many of the other X Files, the final three documents haven't been digitised.
That means anyone who wants to read them will have to either visit the National Archives in person or fork out to order a copy of the documents.
While hardcore alien chasers are unlikely to be put off by this, it does make it harder for members of the public to access the declassified files.
Nick has previously been critical of the way the release has been handled, and he says having to pay for the final files is sure to outrage the UFO community.
GETTY - CONTRIBUTOR
The files don't prove that there's 'smoking gun' evidence of alien life, but it does include fascinating details of UFO sightings
He added: "Having worked on the MoD's UFO investigations in the Nineties I'm pleased that these files are finally in the open.
"There's no smoking gun in these files that says UFOs are extraterrestrial, but there are plenty of interesting sighting reports and other related material relating to MoD research on the subject.
"These recent revelations in the UK and the US show that whatever you believe about the UFO mystery, some of us in government took the subject seriously."
Sergey Trushkin, an astronomer at the Special astrophysical Observatory of the RAS, spoke about why scientists are interested in the mysterious fast radiosystemy, the so-called radio signals of the aliens, and explained how Russian telescope RATAN-600 had a unique chance to reveal their essence.
«Given our modest capabilities, we expect that we manage to fix in the best case three to five such outbursts in a year of observations. On the other hand, even if we can find at least one event at the frequencies where we are searching, it will change radically the understanding of the nature of these signals,» said Trushkin, speaking at the annual conference «high energy Astrophysics» in the walls of the IKI in Moscow.
The call of the cosmos
For the first time about the existence of a mysterious flares of radio emission (fast radio burst FRB), open accidentally during observations of radio pulsars using the Parkes telescope (Australia), astronomers began in 2007.
«Why don’t we find these phenomena 50 years ago, when the first radio telescopes? The problem was that our predecessors were not so high-quality radio that exists today. They were discovered with the help of parks upgrade of its detectors, which allowed the pioneers to understand that these interference signals are not born on Earth, and flashes from distant galaxies» — said the scientist.
In subsequent years, failed to find traces of another nine such bursts. The comparison showed that they can have an artificial origin, and even potentially be signals of extraterrestrial civilizations due to the unexplained periodicity in the structure.
Last spring it became clear that the source of one of such FRB-flares were an elliptical galaxy, located six billion light years from the milky Way, and this led the scientists to conclude that such outbursts are born during the merging of neutron stars or other compact objects, turning into a black hole.
This theory suffered a crushing defeat in March 2016. Using the same parks, canadian researchers found that one of the first found flares — burst FRB 121102 is re-originated at the same point in the constellation Auriga, where it was found six years ago.
«Now the number of theories that explain such outbursts, much higher than the number of those phenomena known to science. We are the observers and the experimenters are more interested in opening events and receiving new data, which our colleagues-theorists can use to create their theories,» continues Trushkin.
Two key features of «radio alien», as the scientist, is their high brightness and extremely low duration — allow you to bypass the main drawback of the RATAN-600 — the failure of any continuous monitor one point on the sky.
During observations of FRB Russian telescope will scan the entire night sky, watching his every segment for a very short time. This will allow, despite the modest angle of view RATAN, cover a large enough area of the sky, which is only four times less than the similar indicator for the telescope parks.
«We have long thought, what frequency to choose for these observations, and highlighted the importance 4.7 GHz. All other bursts were detected at frequencies of 1.4 GHz or less, but these observations need a fairly expensive installation for which we simply have no money. High frequency, in turn, reduce the number of channels necessary for the conduction of observations, and allow us to go in the area on which the FRB had never seen,» continues Trushkin.
The last car space train
According to him, these observations are in fact «hobby» for employees of the Observatory — will lead to the Western sector of ring of RATAN-600, previously mothballed, and with the help of four backup detectors, sets of filters and other radio equipment, which was purchased in the pre-crisis years and were not used.
«We were in preliminary talks with the Fund Yuri Milner supporting such initiatives, however, nothing substantial, they have not ended. On the other hand, we need a little money, about 30 thousand dollars to double the number of detectors and significantly increase the probability of detection of new outbreaks» — said the scientist.
As noted by the astronomer Russian scientists will focus their efforts on observations of the portion of the sky where the FRB 121102. Recurrent outbreaks as hope Trushkin and his associates, will increase the chances of RATAN-600 to the detection of at least one such phenomena and will allow us to study it at wavelengths that are inaccessible to other telescopes.
Work updated the RATAN-600 scientists have checked on two sites — one of the brightest pulsars located in our Galaxy, as well as trying to detect FRB 121102. According to Trushkina, in August this year his team «caught» the signal coming from the same point, that this re-surge.
CC BY-SA 3.0 / Pticy uleteli / radio Telescope RATAN-600 in Special astrophysical Observatory RAS,CC BY-SA 3.0 / Pticy uleteli / radio Telescope RATAN-600 in Special astrophysical Observatory of RAS
While there is no assurance that managed to fix FRB-flash, since that time the telescope was not yet fully configured. Therefore, astronomers were unable to determine the distance to the «alien signal» and calculate its exact coordinates.
On the other hand, the other two radio Observatory — telescopes in the United States GBT and WSRT in the Netherlands — re-fixed burst FRB 121102 around the same time, which confirms the hypothesis of Russian scientists.
«These observations of colleagues and our preliminary data suggests that FRB 121102 is not simply a variable and recurring source. He can emit such a pulse kind of queues. In other words, it is able to produce several outbreaks in a single month, and then «silence» for a week, a month or conditional a thousand days,» says Trushkin.
According to him, today the main problem for the RATAN-600 is time. While such observations can only lead to Russian telescope, however, those same frequencies will be available for megatelecom SKA, the construction of which will begin in South Africa next year.
«SKA and the canadian project CHIME is expected the participants will find dozens of similar outbreaks every day. While they have not yet put into operation, we have the opportunity to make a unique contribution to the study of FRB-outbreaks due to the high frequencies at which we work, and somehow compete on the international level,» concludes astronomer.
A mysterious UFO sighting over RAF Cosford could have been investigated in a top-secret Pentagon study, a leading expert has claimed.
The Pentagon could have investigated the UFO sighting over RAF Cosford
In 1993, an MoD police patrol reported a large triangular craft over the Midlands airbase which fired a beam at the ground before speeding off.
It was one of a dozen UFOs reported flying at speed over the skies of Britain at the same time.
Nick Pope, who ran the MoD’s UFO project, believes the ‘high-profile’ event, dubbed the ‘Cosford Incident’, formed part of the AdvancedAviation Threat Identification Program.
The programme, run secretly by the American government, operated between 2007 and 2012, but its existence was only revealed last month in December by US-based journalists.
However it generated a 490-page report consisting of UFO sightings from across the world.
Mr Pope, who wrote a report on the incident at the time, told the Express & Star: “The Cosford Incident was the most high-profile and compelling UFO incident that took place during my time on the MoD’s UFO project in the early Nineties.
“It is probably among the best cases in our entire archive, that goes back decades and includes around 12,000 sightings.
“It is inconceivable to me that this wouldn’t be one of the incidents mentioned in the secret US report. I’m sure the Americans knew all about the Cosford Incident, and maybe conducted some discreet enquiries of their own.”
On March 31 at around 1.15am, MoD officers reported ‘a vast triangular shaped craft flying at about 200ft’. The craft made a low humming noise and fired a beam of light which swept the ground. It left trails of luminous vapour and sped off in a South East direction.
Most eyewitnesses described the craft as having two white lights, but some said there was a third giving an impression the object was triangular.
In his report at the time, Mr Pope said there was a UFO of ‘unknown origin’ operating in the UK air space without showing up on radar.
He said the incident was of ‘considerable defence significance’ and recommended it for further investigation.
Although no new details have come to light, Mr Pope believes the severity of the event would have prompted the American government to carry out its own investigation.
Nick Pope, who ran Britain's UFO project between 1991 and 1994
He added: “Officials connected with the Pentagon’s AATIP project have disclosed that it (the programme) generated a 490-page report detailing UFO sightings from not just the US, but from all around the world.
“If US intelligence found any answers (about the Cosford Incident), it’s not clear whether they told British defence chiefs. I’d left the MoD by the time AATIP was set up, so I don’t know whether the Americans briefed us on their findings.”
UFO websites claimed that the event was a major indicator alien life existed.
But sceptics believed there could have been different causes. The day before the sighting, a Russian radio satellite was jetted into the sky and the debris from its rocket booster fell back down to Earth.
The severity of the Cosford Incident was made even more extra-ordinary because at the same time, dozens of triangular-shaped UFOs were reported moving at speed in the sky across western Britain. They were also reported in other areas of the Midlands on the night. One family from Rugeley even claimed they chased a UFO across the Staffordshire countryside into a field before it disappeared.
The first sighting took place in Somerset the day before at around 8.30pm, said Mr Pope.
Then at 9.30pm in Quantock Hills, Somerset, a police officer with a group of scouts reported seeing aircraft described as ‘looking like two Concordes side by side and joined together’.Mr Pope said: “The reports came in thick and fast and when I arrived at work the following morning I received a steady stream of reports.
“It was soon clear that I had a major UFO event on my hands. One of the most interesting reports came from a member of the public in Rugeley, Staffordshire, who reported a UFO that he estimated as being 200 metres in diameter.
“He and other family members told me how they had chased the object in their car and got extremely close to it, believing it had landed in a nearby field.
“When they got there a few seconds later, there was nothing to be seen.
“Many of the descriptions related to a triangular-shaped craft or of the lights perceived as being on the underside of such a craft.
“Indeed, in an apparent coincidence these sighting occurred three years to the very day after the famous wave of sightings in Belgium that had led to F-16 fighters being scrambled to intercept a UFO being tracked on radar.
Mr Pope, who ran the British government’s UFO project between 1991 and 1994, believes UFO’s exist ‘beyond reasonable doubt’. And he believes some of their origins could be other-worldly, or extraterrestrial.
He recently tweeted: “Existence of UFOs proven ‘beyond reasonable doubt’, claims former Pentagon UFO investigator. Having run the UK MoD’s #UFO project I agree, but I contend that the true nature of the phenomenon remains unexplained. It’s possible but not proven that some UFOs may be extraterrestrial.”
Fuhr, a retired farmer who lives in Langenburg, Sask was in a cheerful mood when I called him one afternoon in the summer. I was doubtful that he would want to speak to me after having done countless interviews about his experience. But Fuhr was still happy to chat, and even took us outside of Langenburg to the field where he saw five saucer-shaped objects floating above the ground.
I originally heard about Fuhr’s story from retired Leader-Post photographer Don Healy. Healy went out to Fuhr’s farm in 1974 and took pictures of him pointing to the markings the saucers left in the field. Of all the stories Healy had accrued during his more than 40 years at the Leader-Post, this was my favourite. I never got tired of hearing it.
Edwin Fuhr indicates where multiple flying saucers landed on his farm in Langenburg, Saskatchewan in September, 1974.
DON HEALY / REGINA LEADER-POST
I was hooked on The X-Files when I was a kid, and ate up UFO books before you could read about the subject on the Internet. So naturally, I was drawn to Fuhr’s story.
After seeing an interview with Fuhr on YouTube that was done by Russell Klitch, I decided it couldn’t wait any longer. Even though it was a story that had been told before, I wanted to speak to Fuhr myself.
Fuhr is of course only one half of the story. There’s also the RCMP member who investigated his sighting, Ron Morier. Like Fuhr, I was surprised at how willing Morier was to talk about the sighting, about which he has also been interviewed several times.
Morier has also done an incredible job preserving the story by keeping a file of paperwork, photos and newspaper clippings from over the years.
The response I got after doing the story proved that after all these years, Fuhr’s story still draws interest. I got one email from a man from California who was adamant that Fuhr was lying. I got another from a man who attempted to explain the technology behind the UFOs Fuhr saw, which he referred to as “unifying field oscillation.”
I prefer not to tell people whether or not I believe Fuhr. Part of what makes his story so enjoyable is deciding on that for yourself. The uncertainty is what makes it so intriguing. There is no concrete proof of UFOs landing in that field, just the account of a friendly farmer who did not have a reputation for making up stories.
The lack of hard evidence, but compelling account from a likeable person makes Fuhr’s sighting the quintessential UFO story. UFO enthusiasts want to believe him, and skeptics are incensed that Fuhr still won’t concede what he saw.
I guess that old X-Files slogan applies here too: The truth is out there.
Why the dreams of UFO enthusiasts are stuck in 1950s technology
Why the dreams of UFO enthusiasts are stuck in 1950s technology
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE VIA THE NEW YORK TIMES
In an undated handout image taken from a video released by the Defense Department’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, a 2004 encounter near San Diego between two Navy F/A-18F fighter jets and an unknown object. UFOs have been repeatedly investigated over the decades in the United States, including by the American military. Astronomers have their noses pressed against the windows of the unknown, wanting to believe in life elsewhere just like many outer space enthusiasts.
By Dennis Overbye, New York Times News Service
Hey, Mr. Spaceman, Won’t you please take me along? I won’t do anything wrong. Hey, Mr. Spaceman, Won’t you please take me along for a ride?
So sang the Byrds in 1966, after strange radio bursts from distant galaxies called quasars had excited people about the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligence.
I recalled those words recently when reading the account of a pair of Navy pilots who were outmaneuvered and outrun by a UFO off the coast of San Diego in 2004. Cmdr. David Fravor said he had no idea what he had seen.
“But,” he added, “I want to fly one.”
His story was part of a bundle of material released recently about a supersecret $22 million Pentagon project called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, aimed at investigating UFOs. The project was officially killed in 2012, but now it’s being resurrected as a nonprofit organization.
Disgruntled that the government wasn’t taking the possibility of alien visitors seriously, a group of former defense officials, aerospace engineers and other space fans have set up their own group, To the Stars Academy of Arts & Science. One of its founders is Tom DeLonge, a former punk musician, record producer and entrepreneur, who is also head of the group’s entertainment division.
For a minimum of $200, you can join and help finance their research into how UFOs do whatever it is they do, as well as telepathy and “a point-to-point transportation craft that will erase the current travel limits of distance and time” by using a drive that “alters the space-time metric” — that is, a warp drive going faster than the speed of light, Einstein’s old cosmic speed limit.
“We believe there are transformative discoveries within our reach that will revolutionize the human experience, but they can only be accomplished through the unrestricted support of breakthrough research, discovery and innovation,” says the group’s website.
I’m not holding my breath waiting for progress on telepathy or warp drive, but I agree with at least one thing that one official with the group said. That was Steve Justice, a former engineer at Lockheed Martin’s famous Skunk Works, where advanced aircraft like the SR-71 high-altitude superfast spy plane were designed.
“How dare we think that the physics we have today is all that there is,” he said in an interview published recently in HuffPost.
I could hardly agree more, having spent my professional life in the company of physicists and astronomers trying to poke out of the cocoon of present knowledge into the unknown, to overturn Einstein and what passes for contemporary science. Lately, they haven’t gotten anywhere.
The last time physicists had to deal with faster-than-light travel was six years ago, when a group of Italy-based physicists announced that they had seen the subatomic particles known as neutrinos going faster than light. It turned out they had wired up their equipment wrong.
So far Einstein is still the champ. But surely there is so much more to learn. A lot of surprises lie ahead, but many of the most popular ideas on how to transcend Einstein and his peers are on the verge of being ruled out. Transforming science is harder than it looks.
While there is a lot we don’t know, there is also a lot we do know. We know how to turn on our computers and let gadgets in our pocket navigate the world. We know that when physical objects zig and zag through a medium like air, as UFOs are said to do, they produce turbulence and shock waves. NASA engineers predicted to the minute when the Cassini spacecraft would dwindle to a wisp of smoke in Saturn’s atmosphere last fall.
In moments like this, I take comfort in what the great Russian physicist and cosmologist Yakov Zeldovich, one of the fathers of the Soviet hydrogen bomb, once told me. “What science has already taken, it will not give back,” he said.
Scientists are not the killjoys in all this.
In the astronomical world, the border between science fact and science fiction can be very permeable, perhaps because many scientists grew up reading science fiction. And astronomers forever have their noses pressed up against the window of the unknown. They want to believe more than anybody, and I count myself among them.
But they are also trained to look at nature with ruthless rigor and skepticism. For astronomers, the biggest problem with E.T. is not the occasional claim of a mysterious light in the sky, but the fact that we are not constantly overwhelmed with them.
Half a century ago, the legendary physicist Enrico Fermi concluded from a simple back-of-the-envelope calculation that even without warp drive, a single civilization could visit and colonize all the planets in the galaxy in a fraction of the 10-billion-year age of the Milky Way.
“Where are they?” he asked.
Proponents of SETI, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, have been debating ever since. One answer I like is the “zoo hypothesis,” according to which we have been placed off-limits, a cosmic wildlife refuge.
Another answer came from Jill Tarter, formerly the director of research at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California. “We haven’t looked hard enough,” she said when I asked her recently.
If there was an iPhone sitting under a rock on the moon or Mars, for example, we would not have found it yet. Our own latest ideas for interstellar exploration involve launching probes the size of postage stamps to Alpha Centauri.
In the next generation, they might be the size of mosquitoes. By contrast, the dreams of some UFO enthusiasts are stuck in 1950s technology.
Still, we keep trying.
In the fall, when a strange object — an interstellar asteroid now named Oumuamua — was found cruising through the solar system, astronomers’ thoughts raced to the Arthur C. Clarke novel “Rendezvous With Rama,” in which the object was an alien spaceship. Two groups have been monitoring Oumuamua for alien radio signals, so far to no avail.
Meanwhile, some astronomers have speculated that the erratic dimming of a star known as “Boyajian’s star” or “Tabby’s star,” after the astronomer Tabetha Boyajian, could be caused by some gigantic construction project orbiting the star. That has not worked out, but none of the other explanations — dust or a fleet of comets — have, either.
A pair of Harvard astronomers suggested in the spring that mysterious sporadic flashes of energy known as fast radio bursts coming from far, far away are alien transmitters powering interstellar spacecraft carrying light sails. “Science isn’t a matter of belief, it’s a matter of evidence,” astronomer Avi Loeb said in a news release from Harvard. “Deciding what’s likely ahead of time limits the possibilities. It’s worth putting ideas out there and letting the data be the judge.”
UFO investigations are nothing new. The most famous was the Air Force’s Project Blue Book, which ran from 1952 to 1970 and examined more than 12,000 sightings.
Most UFO sightings turn out to be swamp gas and other atmospheric anomalies, Venus, weird reflections or just plain hoaxes. But there is a stubborn residue, a few percent that resist easy explication, including Fravor’s story. But that’s a far cry from proving they are alien or interstellar.
I don’t know what to think about these stories, often told by sober, respected and professional observers — police officers, pilots, military officials — in indelible detail. I always wish I could have been there to see it for myself.
Then I wonder how much good it would do to see it anyway.
Recently I ran into my friend Mark Mitton, a professional magician, in a restaurant. He came over to the table and started doing tricks. At one point he fanned the card deck, asked my daughter to pick one, and then asked her to shuffle the deck, which she did expertly.
Mitton grabbed the deck and sprayed the cards in the air. There was my daughter’s card stuck to a mirror about 5 feet away. How did it get there? Not by any new physics. Seeing didn’t really help.
As modern psychology and neuroscience have established, the senses are an unreliable portal to reality, whatever that is.
Something might be happening, but we don’t know what it is. E.T., if you’re reading this, I’m still waiting to take my ride.
Anyone driving across a barren interstate freeway at night has likely looked up into the sky and wondered about the possibility of witnessing the unexpected. For people who have held beliefs in extra-terrestrials or alien craft, the entire history of the UFO phenomenon is an obsession that goes beyond mere fascination.
Books, movies, and television help alien seekers conceptualize what an encounter could potentially look like. Perhaps no show has flown as close to the sun with depicting real-life accounts of the UFO phenomenon than The X-Files, the seminal sci-fi series from Fox and Chris Carter.
When Carter’s series made its return to Fox for a revival in 2016, it honed in on a new extra-terrestrial threat for the digital age. Ever since they successfully blurred the line between fiction and real world events when the pilot debuted in 1993, The X-Files has depicted triangle-shaped crafts, or disc shaped crafts of various sizes, or even more recently in the new episodes, ARV’s - Alien Reproduction Vehicle’s. But the series drew from real world belief in the phenomenon, as well as the belief in global conspiracies.
The Basis for The X-Files
Chris Carter’s pre-pilot research revealed something startling. He read a Roper Organization survey stated that three percent of the U.S. population believes they have been abducted by aliens. When Carter would later direct the “Duane Barry” episode, a fill-in crew member revealed his brother-in-law believed he had been abducted. Carter’s persistent mantra in the early years was that the show had to be “scientifically plausible.” This meant that a lot of the research was pulled from real UFOlogy archives.
One key plot element in the series has been the Roswell incident, which the Deep Throat character first mentioned in season one’s final episode “The Erlenmeyer Flask,” when he comments that “Roswell was a smokescreen.” It was a comment that would be mirrored by the old man in “My Struggle I” from the new event series.
The Roswell incident from 1947 in New Mexico has remained the holy-grail source for the subject, touching on most of people’s concerns. As The X-Files heavily played up in the first episode of season 10, “My Struggle,” they showed the military retrieving wreckage from an unidentified craft, and using intimidation, misdirection, deniability, or direct threats to hide from the public secret military technology, or the existence of extra-terrestrials. What is known about the incident is that an event took place in July of 1947. The public might not have known about it had it not been for a military press release on Tuesday, July 8th that confirmed a disc-shaped object that “landed” on a Ranch, just outside of Roswell Army Air Field.
"Are They Really A Hoax?"
The Roswell story caused a sensation for hours in the press before a second story was released that the wreckage of a weather balloon was recovered. Major Jesse A. Marcel was the head of 509th Bomb group intelligence office at the time of the incident. But the story of a landing wouldn’t jive with one of the eyewitness accounts of a foreman named William Brazel, who was working for rancher J.B. Foster at the time.
William and his son Vernon claimed to have come across an area strewn with unfamiliar material that was part of some collected wreckage. In a matter of days, Major Marcel and Captain Sheridan Cavitt of the Counter-Intelligence Corps contacted them and took the materials. In spite of residential eye witness accounts by the Wilmonts, the flying saucer story was debunked by the Roswell Dispatch by July 9th. Interest in the story was revived by the late ‘70s, but most of the eyewitnesses had passed away by then.
Many UFO believers regard the incident as a key moment, pointing fingers at segments of the military, whom they say created smokescreens to cover up alien technology, or secret military aircrafts. Original witnesses had offered conflicting stories; some had described a crashed disc, with two hundred yards in diameter that formed a long, thin strip some three quarters of a mile long, between two hundred to three hundred feet wide, and at one end was a deep gouge in the ground, ten feet wide, and five hundred feet long. That account would have indicated a significant amount of debris.
Some of the wreckage recovered had “I-beams” which Marcel’s son described as having hieroglyphic-type characters. These first accounts would describe something fairly mundane, and likely a crashed experimental craft in development near Roswell Army Air Field, or a shot down foreign craft.
The mythology of Roswell became evident here. There were no initial reports of an intact craft or alien bodies recovered. In 1974, TV researcher Robert Carr put out comments about a craft, and frozen alien bodies being held in Wright-Patterson AFB, related to a crash in 1948 that was later debunked.
Despite the falsehood, it triggered interest in the UFO research community, and the Roswell case started to be taken seriously. Other figures have elaborated the story with greater claims, such as Frank J. Kaufman, Glenn Dennis, Jim Ragsdale, “Pappy” Henderson, Mr. Rowe, and Major Edwin Easley. Several figures even claiming there were two crash sites, which has only complicated the narrative about what was found.
Some theories suggest that a Japanese Balloon bomb from World War II was recovered, or a V-2 rocket that veered off course, as part of the MOGUL project, a project developed with sensitive instruments and high altitude balloons to monitor soviet nuclear test activity.
Roswell’s Rumble is Chris Carter’s Treasure
What The X-Files did do well was add fragments from the known history to create an unsettling agenda in the series’ mythology. Carter and Co. borrowed much of the tone of the 1960s ABC sci-fi series The Invaders, which starred Roy Thinnes, a future X-Files acting alumnus who played the character of Jeremiah Smith.
In The Invaders, Thinnes played David Vincent, a man who witnesses a flying saucer land with alien beings intent on taking over the Earth. Over the course of the series, Vincent manages to gather a small circle of people who believe him, and eventually the invaders change their plans.
The series had an obvious parallel to the plight of the X-Files iconic villain. “We had a perfect conspiracy with an alien race,” The Cigarette Smoking Man ominously intoned in The X-Files season six episode, "One Son"; “Aliens who were coming to reclaim the planet and destroy all human life. Our job was to secretly prepare the way for their invasion. To create for them a race of human-alien hybrids. They were good plans, right plans. Kept secret for over fifty years, ever since the crash at Roswell.”
Some of the events in the series that speak of a clandestine meeting between the Colonists and the Syndicate in 1973 revealed in “One Son” mirror a rumored alleged clandestine meeting in February 1954 at Muroc, now Edwards, air force base, with on-going contact between Extra-Terrestrials and eminent people, including Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Which has also lead to the argument with some UFOologists that recovered technology from Roswell was “reversed-engineered,” and lead to developments like the current laser, transistors, microchips, Velcro, and microwave ovens. It has also been argued that such "reverse-engineering" gave the United States leverage with such contact. Deep Throat certainly suggested the Military use of “reverse-engineering” in season one’s second episode.
In The X-Files season five episode “Redux,” Michael Kritschgau offered up an counter explanation regarding Roswell as a cover, a red herring for other agendas.
“The Military saw a good thing in ’47 when the Roswell story broke. The more we denied it, the more people believed it was true. Aliens had landed – a made-to-order cover story for generals looking to develop the national war chest.”
Kritschgau further noted that such official investigations as Grudge, Twinkle, Project Blue Book, and Majestic 12 fed into the belief in UFOs, Kritschgau also noted that the first supersonic flight was in 1947, after which, every experimental flight was considered a U.F.O. All of these points are part of the historical lore.
The new X-Files episode, “My Struggle” depicted a version of the Roswell Crash, while also citing several other events, including the Kenneth Arnoldsightings from June 24, 1947, near Mount Rainier, Washington.Other events noted were the Maury Island sighing from June 21, 1947 near Tacoma, Washington, as well as the 1952 UFO flap over Washington D.C.
The Arnold sighting is notable. A pilot was commanding his own light aircraft to Pendleton Oregon from a job at Chehalis Air Service, Washington State, when he found himself near a location where an aircraft had vanished. At an altitude of 9,200 feet (2,760 m), he saw a bright flash, which he described as a “screwy formation… a chain of nine peculiar-looking aircraft” flying north to south at approximately 9,000 feet (2,790 m) elevation and going in a definite direction at an angle of 170 degrees.
The objects approached Mount Rainier at a very high speed, some of them changing or dipping direction. He realized they were moving much too fast to be a flock of birds. Upon landing in Yakima, Arnold described what he had witnessed to his fellow pilots. He would later describe them as half-moon-shaped oval in front and convex in the rear. At first, the news of his sighting was treated as a hoax, but Arnold’s impeccable record and integrity prompted people to take him more seriously. Arnold had assumed it was some sort of secret weapon or Soviet aircraft invading US airspace, an idea that was reinforced in private by a former USAF officer, that it was some rocket-powered jet, skeptics have suggested he witnessed a flock of pelicans, but this ignores the little known fact that Arnold had another sighting in the same area five days later at La Grande Airfield, Oregon.
Another key sighting that was visually referenced in the “My Struggle” teaser was the Maury Island incident. Harold A. Dahl, a harbor patrolman at Tacoma, was on his boat with his fifteen-year-old son, his dog, and two crewman on the 21st at around 2 p.m. when they saw five doughnut-shaped objects with rows of portholes circling around a sixth object. They estimated it was about 2,000 feet (600 m) above the water at the Puget Sound. They estimated that the objects were about 100 feet wide with a 25-foot hole in the middle.
While landing on the beach of Maury Island, Dahl took several photographs. One of the ships appeared to be trying to repair the other ship. There was a thunderous explosion, and the entire object emitted dark, almost molten, rock-like material and sheets of an extremely light metallic substance. Being directly under the shower, Dahl’s dog was killed, his son’s arm was injured, and the boat was damaged. After the UFOs headed out to sea, Dahl tried to get help via his radio, but it was dead. Dahl and others collected sample evidence and took it back to Tacoma to his boss, Fred Crissman. Soon, Kenneth Arnold was investigating the incident, and within days had his own encounter.
Lastly, there was the incident in Washington from 1952. As the nuclear age developed through the ‘50s, the ratio of UFO activity seemed to increase. In June of 1952, there were reports of UFOs over the skies of the east coast of the United States. Starting in Quantico, Virginia, there were various accounts of witnesses from Pan American Airline and National Airline crews spotting crafts through July, seen on radar at the Air Route Traffic Control. At Washington’s National Airport, the sightings near the capital reached such a degree that B-52s and F-94s were dispatched to intercept but to no avail.
These cases would evolve and become more complicated, and many themes were cited and explored on The X-Files. UFO abductions, the alien-human hybrid hypothesis as first cited in “The Erlenmeyer Flask,” UFO cults cited in episodes like “Red Museum,” or Ancient Astronaut Theory first cited in “Biogenesis,” or animal experimentation as cited in “Fearful Symmetry.”
Such real life incidents fed into the story arc’s of The X-Files, and often acted as a starting off point for the writers imagination. What is also to be noted is the point that writers would attend conventions about the UFO phenomenon in the early years, which would lead to the invention of characters like The Lone Gunmen, or other UFO investigators, there’s even accounts of the series writers enjoying cooperation from some government agencies. This cross pollination helped to shape the science and speculation that detailed the series.
Chris Carter and The X-Files took subjects that had been discussed in whispers and brought them into the mainstream, hence the popularity of Ancient Aliens for the History channel, or NASA’s Unexplained Files for the Discovery channel. Indeed, The truth is often stranger than fiction.
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )
06-01-2018
UFO believers got one thing right. Here's what they get wrong.
UFO believers got one thing right. Here's what they get wrong.
The government did have a secret program to investigate odd aerial phenomena, but that doesn't mean UFOs are alien spacecraft.
by Seth Shostak
Fanciful illustration of alien spacecraft.
Chris Clor / Getty Images/Blend Images
The past few weeks have been good for UFO believers. For decades they’ve clamored for “disclosure” — an admission by the government that it knows of galactic gatecrashers, and that aliens are irrefutably here. This always struck me as a classic argument from ignorance: We lack good evidence to prove our case because it’s been hidden.
That wouldn’t work in the courts or in science, but hey, it kind of sounds good.
Well, it turns out something was hidden. In 2007 Senator Harry Reid initiated a secret Pentagon program to investigate strange aerial phenomena. It ran for five years and cost $22 million. Finally, the skeptics — those who doubt that we’re hosting extraterrestrial visitors — had been shown the error of their disbelieving ways.
Except that the Pentagon study seems to have found no good evidence for visitors. Yes, there was an intriguing military video purportedly showing a cluster of alien craft. But when I watched it, I noticed that the cluster was always in the center of the field of view — which suggests that these “craft” were actually caused by the instruments aboard the plane rather than something in the airspace in front of it. Experts will undoubtedly weigh in.
What would be good evidence of alien presence? Nearly every day I receive an email or phone call from someone who claims to have seen “something very important” (which I’ve learned from experience is code for “UFO”). They want to chat.
So what do I do? First off, I generally dismiss witness testimony, or, put another way, stories. It’s not that I think people are lying. But if someone tells you he saw a ghost at the mall, you’ll have a hard time doing much with that information unless ectoplasm hangs out there on a regular basis.
Witness testimony isn’t terribly reliable in criminal court cases. It’s even less useful for science.
So I ask about physical or photographic evidence. There never seems to be any of the former, but often there is imagery. Some folks won’t send it, apparently afraid that I’ll sell their pix and deprive them of a Nobel Prize or a photo royalty. The photos I do see tend to show obvious optical effects — often bright lights caused by internal reflections in the lens or color fringes resulting from the workings of the camera’s chip. Other photos show diffraction patterns caused by “hunting” of the camera’s autofocus system. Many people interpret these patterns as spacecraft markings.
A lot of the images are shot at night, making them particularly hard to interpret. Perhaps daylight is too dangerous for aliens, because then it might be possible to see detail in photos taken of them. I wonder if, when the sun is shining, they hang out underground like bats.
I’m also wary of anthropomorphic touches — for example, when someone says, “They seemed friendly and just want to establish contact” or “They’re buzzing our missile silos.” The latter is particularly goofy. Any aliens who come from the stars are way ahead of us. If you could visit America 150 years ago, would you spend time inspecting the Union Army’s cannon-making factory at Pittsburgh’s Allegheny Arsenal?
Hoaxes — and of course there are some — don’t seem to be common. The people who contact me all sound pretty sincere. But the one UFO claim that has zero worth for me is: “I know what I saw.” After all, if that’s what someone asserts, there’s no room for discussion.
More than anything, I ask myself if the extraterrestrial explanation is compelling — or merely possible. Is the evidence proof-positive or only puzzling? The latter isn’t good enough.
Personally, I’m mystified by the stage illusions of David Copperfield. Did he really walk through that giant fan, or is that only a possibility? Just because I don’t know what really happened is hardly reason to conclude that he can saunter through whirling metal blades without chopped Copperfield flying into the audience.
The Pentagon study is certainly interesting, but not because it proves alien visitation. Of course, you can be sure that the “disclosure” folks will soon be claiming that UFO evidence is still being covered up. Conspiracy theories never end.
In the era of Google Earth, when every square yard of the continents has been photographed and put online, it’s hardly surprising that we have an unsatisfied craving to explore the unknown, to do what Columbus, Magellan, Cook, and others did a half-millennium ago.
Of course, in the 21st Century, a sailing vessel may no longer satisfy that need. A sailing saucer just might.
"Strange Signals Have Been Detected" --China Aims to Be First to Discover an Alien Technological Civilization (A 2017 Most Viewed)
"Strange Signals Have Been Detected" --China Aims to Be First to Discover an Alien Technological Civilization (A 2017 Most Viewed)
"We don't know when earthlings will discover ET. It could be 1,000 years from now, or in our lifetimes. It could be next year, when FAST gets going on the sky surveys," said Dan Werthimer, chief scientist for the SETI Research Center at University of California, Berkeley.
However, with no clues of extraterrestrial life over the past five decades, questions are constantly asked as whether the search methods are appropriate. "Some strange signals have been found, but it's hard to confirm their origins, because these signals do not repeat," says Li Di, chief scientist of China's new FAST Radio telescope. "We look for not only television signals, but also atomic bomb signals. We'll give full play to our imaginations when processing the signals," Li says. "It's a complete exploration, as we don't know what an alien is like."
With a dish the size of 30 football fields, China's new FAST radio telescope, which measures 500 meters in diameter, dwarfs Puerto Rico's 300-meter Arecibo Observatory. Having the world's largest and most powerful new radio telescope, the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST), "We can receive weaker and more distant radio messages," said Wu Xiangping, director-general of the Chinese Astronomical Society, "It will help us to search for intelligent life outside of the galaxy and explore the origins of the universe," he added underscoring the China's race to be the first nation to discover the existence of an advanced alien civilization.
The dish will have a perimeter of about 1.6 kilometers, and there are no towns within five kilometers, giving it ideal surroundings to listen for signals from space. Scientists have depicted it as a super-sensitive "ear", capable of spotting very weak messages - if there are any - from "cousins" of human beings.
The telescope, nicknamed Tianyan, or the Eye of Heaven, can accurately image twice as much the sky as the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, which had previously been the world's largest single-dish radio telescope, with double sensitivity and five to 10 times the surveying speed.
Douglas Vakoch, president of METI International, an organization promoting messaging outer space in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, noted that astronomers worldwide will be invited to use the facility through a competitive review of observing proposals.
"By opening FAST to use by the broader international community, China is demonstrating its commitment to fostering astronomy as a global scientific enterprise," he told Xinhua, saying it may lead to "discoveries beyond our wildest imagination."
As for FAST's scientific missions, Vakoch said it will be used to look for the signatures of complex organic molecules in interstellar space, which will show how widely the basic building blocks of life are distributed throughout the cosmos.
"For over a half century, astronomers have been using radio telescopes to answer the haunting question, 'Are we alone?' But astronomers face a daunting challenge: the signals they seek are so weak that an incredibly sensitive telescope is needed to detect them," he said.
"FAST's innovative design and huge collecting area give it unsurpassed speed and sensitivity, making it vital to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence in the coming decades," said Vakoch. "We can expect China to become a world leader in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence because of its demonstrated commitment in building FAST."
However, FAST will not initially be outfitted with the signal processing capabilities to search for aliens, he said. This technology will be added at a later stage, and when that happens, FAST will be able to scan the heavens for signals that "can't be created by nature, but only by advanced civilizations," Vakoch said.
Sometimes, radio telescopes are "confused" by signals from astronomical objects. For example, astronomers once mistook signals from a pulsar for extraterrestrial signs, because a pulsar can also give out very stable periodical signals.
"It is highly possible that life on other planets is entirely different from that on Earth, and it might not be carbon-based," says Jin Hairong, deputy curator of Beijing Planetarium.
Liu Cixin, a Chinese science fiction writer and winner of the Hugo Award for his novel The Three Body Problem (check out the fascinating video trailer below), points out the current method assumes that aliens also communicate in radio waves. "But if it's a truly advanced civilization, it is possible to use other more advanced forms of communication, such as gravitational waves."
But Mao Shude with the National Astronomical Observatories of China and professor of astrophysics at the Jodrell Bank Observatory believes many methods deserve a try: "Who knows what they are and how they think? "When we study the origin of life, we risk going down a blind alley if we only have one sample from Earth," Mao says. "If we could find more samples in the universe, we could look at the puzzle more comprehensively and solve it more easily."
Shude gives an example in astronomy to explain the limitations of a single sample. "When scientists started to look for planets around Sun-like stars, they thought it must be difficult as their period might be as long as a year. However, the first such planet discovered outside our solar system takes only four days to orbit its host star - much faster than astronomers expected. At that time, some people doubted it, showing how the example of our solar system narrowed their thinking."
"If we really discover extraterrestrial life, I'd like to know how life spreads in the universe. Is it distributed uniformly in space, or clustered?" Mao wonders.
However, the idea communicating with aliens comes with concerns.
Astrophysicist Stephen Hawking has warned that communicating with aliens could be a threat to Earth: "If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans."
The Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin depicted the universe as a jungle with every civilization as a hidden hunter. Those who are exposed will be eliminated.
But Han Song, another leading Chinese science fiction writer, believes humans naturally want to connect, citing the Internet as proof. "I think aliens might think similarly. It is a biological instinct to connect with each other. Everyone wants to prove that they are not alone in the universe. Loneliness is intolerable to humans," he says.
He also points out that the contact will be driven by curiosity and real requirements. "Humans will ultimately go to space to find resources and expand their living area, so it will be hard to avoid aliens. Contact with them, especially those with more advanced intelligence, may help us leap forward in civilization."
Regardless of the theoretical debate, scientists have never wavered in the search. "I think we shall call out. As a matter of fact, we have been yelling for years, and our radios and televisions are broadcasting in space all the time," Mao says, "Aren't you curious what our counterparts would look like?
If they are inferior or equal to us in terms of civilization, we won't be easily destroyed. If they are much more intelligent than us, they wouldn't be so narrow-minded as to compete with us. Some worry they will come to rob us of our natural resources, but they likely have the power to transform the entire globe already. What's the point of eliminating a much lower civilization?"
Mao believes the result will be significant however it turns out. "If we find other life, it will undoubtedly be the most important scientific discovery in our history; if not, it shows that life on Earth is unique and we should respect life and cherish each other.
"No matter the outcome, we shall never stop searching, and I hope to hear more voices and contributions from Chinese scientists."
If you were to encounter humans from 300,000 years ago, you might be struck by how much they look like humans in 2018. Anatomically modern and large-brained, with faces and teeth not dissimilar to our own, these early Homo sapienswent to war, formed relationships, and created tools, just like us. There’s still plenty to learn about our direct evolutionary ancestors, but this year, thanks to the widespread use of genomic sequencing, scientists gave us an unprecedented glimpse into how humans came to be. Here, Inverse lists everything we’ve learned about human evolution in the past year.
While we are the only hominids to walk the Earth today, this year genomic evidence proved that the DNA of some people contains traces of Paleolithic trysts between humans and other Homo species, like the Neanderthals and the Denisovans. A decade ago, scientists would have been extremely skeptical. University of Buffalo evolutionary anthropologist Omer Gokcumen, Ph.D. tells Inverse that it’s only in the past five years that scientists have been able to confirm that early Sapiens didn’t only hang out with other Sapiens.
“You can think of the world 100,000 years ago like a Lord of the Rings world, where different, pretty smart human-like creatures are roaming,” Gokcumen says, explaining that this situation is called interaction dynamism. “One of them would be our ancestors in Africa, but there would also be other species like Neanderthals, that we could tell were different — but not different enough to not interbreed and produce fertile offspring.”
This year, academics including Gokcumen published an extensive amount of research filling in the details of this Tolkien-esque world, furthering our understanding of how our minds, bodies, and behavior came to be. Learning what it means to be human, it seems, means learning about really old humans.
1. Ancient Spit Reveals Mysterious Human ‘Ghost’ Ancestor
In July, Gokcumen and a team of scientists announced in Molecular Biology and Evolution that a protein in the saliva of people from sub-Saharan Africa indicates that they carry genetic evidence of an unknown hominin ancestor. The saliva protein became a point of interest when University of Buffalo oral biologist and co-author Stefan Ruhl, Ph.D. compared the saliva proteins of primates and humans. Typically, these proteins look very similar. That’s why it was startling when they discovered that one protein from the sub-Saharan African population was revealed to be very different in size than the others.
This protein, known as MUC7, is thought to be the result of genetic material left over from mating between Homo sapiens and a ‘ghost’ species as recently as 150,000 years ago. Gokcumen believes this mysterious species was confined to Africa and split from Homo sapiens’ evolutionary path around three million years ago. This study is further proof that we, in Gokcumen’s polite words, “absorbed different populations that lived around us” — mating with other Homo species, many of which are still unidentified.
“Our study adds to this generally more colorful picture of human history, and it’s becoming very clear that it’s not as simple as we previously thought,” says Gokcumen. “It’s become very clear to researchers that even though the majority of our genome can be traced back to particular, Homo sapien ancestral population, there’s observable evidence that other, smaller populations made their way into our modern human gene pool.”
2. Newly Discovered Fossils Pushed Back Our Origins by 100,000 Years
Scientists announced a textbook-changing discovery in June, writing in Nature that they discovered three Homo sapiensfossils that date back to approximately 300,000 years ago. Previously, the oldest Homo sapiens found were 200,000 years old. These fossils were excavated in Jebel Irhoud, Morocco, contradicting the popular claim that our species evolved from a “cradle of mankind” in East Africa.
“The dating was a bit, wow!” co-author Jean-Jacques Hublin, Ph.D., said in his interview with Inverse in June. “No one imagined these remains could be that old. In the meantime, the interpretation of the fossil evidence suddenly made much more sense.”
A facial reconstruction of one of the ancient samples found in Morocco.
3. Neanderthal Genes Responsible for Bad Habits and Modern-Day Looks
Research published in October by scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology added further detail to what we know about the Neanderthal genes some humans carry around today. In the American Journal of Human Genetics, the team explained that Neanderthal DNA strongly influences the hair and skin color of the one to five percent of European and Asian people who carry this DNA. Neanderthal alleles also shape whether people have lighter and darker skin tones and determine hair color, indicating that ancient hominids had many different hair and skin colors, too.
Drawing from a sample of 112,000 study participants, the scientists additionally determined that there was a significant link between people who carry Neanderthal DNA and those who had experienced “loneliness of isolation, frequency of enthusiasm or disinterest in the last two weeks, and smoking status.”
4. The Remains of One of the Oldest Americans Were Found in Mexico
Human remains found in 2012 in Mexico’s Tulum system of submerged caves were re-analyzed this year, leading scientists to believe the remains are the oldest osteological remains of humans in the Americas. In a paper published in PLOS One in August, the scientists behind the research, led by Heidelberg University paleoecologist Wolfgang Stinnesbeck, Ph.D., explain the bones likely belong to a young man who lived around 13,000 years ago.
Stinnesbeck and his team dated one bone, the pelvis, by measuring the levels of uranium, carbon, and oxygen isotopes within it as well as that within the stalagmite that had grown through it. Calcite layers, which contain oxygen and carbon isotopes, store information about climate and precipitation data, which helps determine an age.
The researchers claim this discovery adds further proof to the theory that humans came to the Americas at least 5,000 years before the Clovis, a prehistoric group of people who have previously been called the first Americans.
5. Neanderthal Brains Grew At a Slower Pace Than Human Brains
In a paper published in Science in September, an international team of scientists reported that they found 13 ancient Neanderthal skeletons in a 49,000-year old cave in northern Spain. To the astonishment of the researchers, one of the specimens, which they named El Sidron, was a nearly complete specimen that belonged to a boy who died when he was almost eight years old.
El Sidron’s teeth and endocranial features suggested that his brain growth wasn’t done by the time of his death, giving away his age. A human brain is essentially grown to its full size by the time a person is six, but El Sidron’s brain was still growing at a period when the brains of his peers had long since stopped. This extended period of brain growth, the study authors hypothesize, suggest Neanderthal children spent more time acquiring cognitive skills than human children.
But perhaps the most marvelous revelation from this study was the fact that, barring brain growth, Neanderthal children were much like human children in terms of physical growth and maturation, reducing the gap between us and our not-so-distant cousins.
Comparison of modern human and Neanderthal skulls.
6. Some of Man’s Earliest Ancestors Were Furry Rat-Like Creatures
If you imagine your ancient human ancestors, you might an envision a bulky, strong caveperson, ready to hunt and provide. But if you look past that ancestor and deeper into their lineage, you’d see a something that looks a lot like a rat.
In November, scientists reported in Acta Palaeontologica Polonica that they excavated two fossilized teeth belonging to this rat-like creature in the rocky cliffs of Dorset, England. The teeth are believed to be 145 million years old, and the scientists claim they are the oldest evidence of this human ancestor ever found. The claim is contested by a different team of scientists, who say theirfinding is the oldest at 160 million years old, but their study’s validity is still being debated.
The nocturnal, placental mammal is thought to be an ancestor of mice, pygmy shrews, blue whales and elephants — putting us humans in good company within the animal kingdom.
7. Human Speech Is Our Evolutionary Advantage Over Monkeys
In a very Planet of the Apes-like turn of events, scientists announced in July that the reason that monkeys can’t talk like humans isn’t because of their vocal anatomy but their neural wiring. In a Science study led by the University of Vienna’s W. Tecumseh Fitch, Ph.D., scientists used x-ray videos to examine the vocal tracts of living macaques while they ate, made facial displays, and vocalized monkey sounds. Analysis revealed that their vocal tracts could “easily produce an adequate range of speech sounds to support spoken language,” disproving previous theories that both human anatomy and the human brain give us our specialized ability to speak.
Instead, Fitch argues that the “evolution of human speech capabilities required neural changes rather than modifications of vocal anatomy.” This revelation likely offers a clue to a bigger mystery: Understanding why human language emerged in the first place. Maybe we’ll find that out this year.
APDe vijver in Nahualac, met in het midden, onderwater, het schrijn.
Mexicaanse wetenschappers vermoeden dat de Mexicaanse Tetzacualco geconstrueerd werd als ‘miniatuurmodel van het universum.’ De constructie bevindt zich onder water.
Het heiligdom ligt in een vijver aan de rand van de Iztaccihuatl-vulkaan, nabij Mexico-Stad. De constructie behoort tot de archeologische site Nahualac. Sommige Meso-Amerikaanse mythen beschrijven de schepping van de wereld door een krokodil, genaamd Cipactli. Deze dreef op de oerwateren. Uit zijn lichaam werden aarde en lucht geschapen: het mythische begin van het universum.
Mede omdat het heiligdom midden in een vijver ligt, vermoeden archeologen dat het een weergave is van het scheppingsverhaal. Archeoloog Iris Hernández van het Mexicaanse Nationaal Instituut voor Antropologie en Geschiedenis leidde de opgravingen. Zij stelt dat het plaatsen van architectonische elementen in water veel zegt over het Meso-Amerikaanse denken.
APDe archeologische site bij Nahualac.
Hernández vermoedt dat de watertoevoer van de vijver uiterst gecontroleerd gebeurde. Zo konden Meso-Amerikanen een effect creëren waardoor het schrijn leek te drijven.
Nahualac
De opgravingen begonnen in 2016 waarna archeologen snel tekenen van menselijke aanwezigheid aantroffen. Denk daarbij aan keramiek, delen van obsidiaan-messen, steenkool en het mineraal schist, dat mogelijk werd gebruikt bij offers.
De nederzetting Nahualac bestond uit twee delen. Het eerste is het schrijn, dat bestaat uit opeengestapelde stenen. Het twee deel ligt 150 meter verder. Hier vonden archeologen voorwerpen die in verband kunnen worden gebracht met Tlaloc, de god van de regen. Archeologen denken dat de site in zijn geheel in het teken stond van deze god.
While images sent back from NASA’s Mars Curiosity Rover have proven to be delightful fodder for the endless numbers of armchair detectives with YouTube channels looking for evidence of aliens on the Red Planet, NASA itself occasionally does point out curious structures or odd objects its rover comes across. This week NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory wasted no time in adding some mystery to the new year, announcing the discovery of some strange “stick-like figures” the Curiosity Rover came across this week.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory posted the raw images online.
After collecting images and data about the odd formations, the Curiosity Rover immediately took to Twitter to give an update about its activity and post a picture of the strange objects. NASA scientists aren’t quite speculating yet what the objects might be, but their tweet suggests they are geological in nature:
Meanwhile, back on Mars… I’m checking out these stick-like figures. Each is about a quarter-inch long. Maybe they’re crystals? Or they could be minerals that filled spaces where crystals dissolved away. Stay tuned! Science continues.
Of course, they could be something else entirely that we haven’t yet encountered on Mars. Fossilized Mars bug larvae? Martian coprolite? Doubtful. It’s probably just some dumb rock, one more dumb rock in a long line of dumb rocks found on the dumb Red Planet, itself a big dumb rock. For those of us who have spent most of our lives eagerly awaiting first contact, these little curiosities only add to the bitter realization that the discovery of alien life is likely still a few generations away. For their part, though, NASA is still hopefully that life may be soon found on Mars. NASA and the European Space Agency are sending two more missions to the Martian surface over the next two years designed to look for evidence of long-dead microscopic organisms. More and more evidence of microbial life thriving in harsh environments has been found, leading many astronomers and scientists to speculate that any alien life we discover on our own might be microscopic.
But then again, would we recognize alien life if it happened to take forms not found on Earth?
That’s why I still think these “weird Mars rock” stories should be taken seriously (at least the ones released by space agencies themselves. Sorry, YouTubers). There have already been claims that the Viking landers of the 1970s might have discovered evidence of life on Mars without even realizing it. Who knows what any of these weird-looking dumb rocks might turn out to be after years of analysis or examination by more advanced rovers? Hopefully not Martian coprolites. What a bittersweet, cruelly symbolic discovery that would be.
The Ocean disappears from Ecuador – Natural Phenomenon or Something is going on?
The Ocean disappears from Ecuador – Natural Phenomenon or Something is going on?
Inhabitants of the locality of Santa Rosa, in the canton Salinas of the province of Santa Elena; and Bahía de Caráquez, in Manabi, all on the Pacific coast of Ecuador, were alarmed at the moment the sea retreated more than 100 meters from the shore, reports Actualidad.RT.
Several photographs of the phenomenon circulated on social networks, which users associated with what happens before a tsunami.
However, the Oceanographic Institute of the Navy (Inocar) ruled out that it is a tsunami. In a statement, they explained that until Friday, January 5, there will be tides of sicigia or aguajes, and it is precisely this that has caused the withdrawal of the sea.
From January 2 to 5, 2018, there has been a maximum water level that also coincides with perihelion (when the Earth is closer to the Sun).
This coincidence, in addition to oceanographic and atmospheric factors that have contributed to a decrease in sea level, made these days in some sectors of the coast a recollection of the sea that is not usual, "reads the statement.
But is it really a phenomenon that is caused as a result of the earth being closer to the sun?
What about all the ocean water that mysteriously vanished from the beaches last year in Brazil, Bahamas, Uruguay, Mexico and what about the water in many lakes and rivers, like the Mississippi, lake Georgia, PA Lake that suddenly disappeared, yet the many sinkholes, cracks and land-slides throughout the country.
Water in the oceans, lakes and rivers just don’t disappear, unless something is happening and we are not getting the truth about this “phenomenon’.
Possible triangle UFO sighting over Nicosia, Cyprus 2-Jan-2018
Possible triangle UFO sighting over Nicosia, Cyprus 2-Jan-2018
Here’s one new footage of a possible triangle UFO sighting over Nicosia in Cyprus.
Witness report:
I, my father and my two children ( 7 and 3 years old), at 2nd of january 2018 around 19:30, in Nicosia in Cyprus observed 3 or 4 red lights in a form of triangle stay in the sky, moving up and down , above and under the clouds, flushing, going left and right and app. In 5 minutes dissapeared. It happen on the parking place close to the kids carousel park in Nicosia, all of us saw same things.
Interview with Nick Pope on the Pentagon UFO Program. Jan 2, 2018
Interview with Nick Pope on the Pentagon UFO Program. Jan 2, 2018
Nick Pope comes on to Portal to Ascension to discuss the current UFO disclosure occurring via the Pentagon and Department of Defense in the US. Nick has been asked to comment on this by many main stream news outlets due to his involvement in identifying UFOs for the UK Government. Nick will be presenting at the Extraterrestrial Disclosure Online Summit on 1/20 and 1/21 to give a further in depth analysis.
Le Pentagone a révélé qu’ils ont récupéré des alliages métalliques d’un OVNI qu’ils ne reconnaissent pas. Les matériaux sont censés avoir des propriétés qui sont incroyables et sont actuellement censés être stockés dans des bâtiments à Las Vegas qui ont été modifiés,peu après le stockage des matériaux.
DOD admis à 22 millions de dollars Secret Programme d’enquête sur les ovnis
Le ministère de la Défense a admis qu’il y avait un programme qui avait été gardé secret qui a coûté 22 millions de dollars et ce programme a fonctionné entre 2007 et 2012, et son seul but était de se pencher sur les rapports d’OVNIS et d’enquêter avec discrétion.
Un auteur du New York Times qui a révélé que les matériaux ont des propriétés étonnantes a déclaré que les scientifiques essayaient de découvrir ce qui se cache derrière leurs propriétés.Ralf Blumenthal a poursuivi en disant que le ministère de la Défense n’avait aucune idée de ce que sont les matériaux car c’était un composé qui leur était inconnu.
En 1945 ,il y eu le Crash d’un OVNI à San Antonio, au Nouveau-Mexique :l’enquête compris l’analyse microscopique de matériaux réels pris à partir des débris de l’OVNI.
Le Pentagone a été invité à commenter mais ils (les responsables) ont refusé de commenter. Le New York Times a également déclaré que des chercheurs avaient étudié des personnes qui prétendaient avoir des effets physiques après avoir eu des rencontres rapprochées avec les phénomènes OVNI. Une vidéo qui avait été précédemment classée a été révélée par le ministère de la Défense, et elle a montré les réactions des pilotes de la Navy qui ont été envoyés pour regarder un OVNI car il planait juste au large de la côte de San Diego.
Le film, qui vient juste d’être publié, a montré une rencontre en 2014 entre ce qui était censé être un objet de la taille d’un avion typique et les Super Hornets F / A-18 de la Navy, qui ont décollé du porte-avions Nimitz . Le capitaine de frégate Jim Slaight et le commandant David Fraver participaient à une mission d’entraînement routinière à environ 100 milles au-dessus de l’océan Pacifique et on leur a demandé d’aller voir l’objet. Fraver a dit que l’objet semblait avoir environ 40 pieds de long et qu’ils ne pouvaient pas y voir de rotors, de panaches ou d’ailes. Il a également souligné que l’objet était capable de distancer les F-18 dans lesquels ils se trouvaient et aussi assez grand pour faire le barattage de l’océan, qui était d’environ 50 pieds en dessous.
Blumenthal a dit que même aujourd’hui personne n’a une idée de ce que l’objet a été vu cette nuit-là. Beaucoup de recherches ont été faites pour essayer d’identifier les moyens de propulsion des objets ainsi que leur aérodynamique phénoménale, qui ne représenteraient rien de ce qui a été vu sur Terre dans aucun pays. Les experts ont dit qu’il y a généralement une bonne explication des observations d’OVNIS et qu’elles peuvent être expliquées, et il faut faire attention de ne pas sauter à la conclusion qu’elles sont extraterrestres juste parce qu’il n’y a pas eu d’explication mondaine.
AATIP peut ne pas être complètement fermé vers le bas
Alors que le Pentagone a déclaré que le Programme d’identification avancée des menaces aériennes avait été fermé il y a cinq ans en raison des fonctionnaires du ministère de la Défense déplaçant des fonds vers d’autres priorités, ses partisans disent qu’il est resté en vie sous une certaine forme.
Laura Ochoa, porte-parole du Pentagone, a révélé que l’AATIP a pris fin en 2012 après que d’autres priorités aient été annoncées. Ochoa a été demandé si le Département de la Défense avait continué à se pencher sur les observations d’OVNI suite à la dissolution, elle a dit que le DOD avait pris des menaces potentielles très au sérieux et ils ont pris des mesures si toute information crédible venait à être révélée.
Que savons-nous…
Que savons-nous? Nous savons que le gouvernement ment tout le temps à tout. Nous savons que le pentagone achète des médias et influence autrement les médias. Nous savons que sur le NYT,on ne peut pas faire confiance. Nous savons qu’ils nous ont menti dans la guerre en Irak, au Viet Nam, à la guerre de 1812 et à chaque action en Amérique du Sud et aussi à beaucoup d’autres opérations de faux-drapeaux. Des tas d’actions illicites de la CIA, du FBI, de la DEA, etc.,nous sont connus. Ce même gouvernement a tué JFK, Bobby, King et d’autres. Alors pourquoi devrions-nous faire confiance à cela? Pourquoi ne serait-ce pas une sorte de manipulation? Peut-être pour nous distraire du fait qu’un coup d’État est en train de se produire? Le rasoir d’Occam: Il est beaucoup plus probable que le gouvernement tire nos chaînes et ce qu’ils nous disent n’est pas vrai. Le cinéma et une bonne histoire ne sont pas des preuves. Juste un autre faux drapeau (false flag) très popularisé.
Les Alliages et les technologies extraterrestres récupérées de la zone d’accident d’OVNI et leur utilisation par l’armée
Bien que l’opinion publique américaine ait insisté pour déclassifier les documents d’incident de Roswell, les autorités américaines n’ont pas suivi ces étapes et ont même contourné la loi sur l’obligation de déclassifier les documents après un certain nombre d’années.
Cependant, des informations sur ce qui s’est passé à Roswell sont venues de divers scientifiques qui ont indépendamment enquêté sur l’incident.
L’affaire Roswell s’est déroulée de la même manière en 1986 à Dalnegorsk, URSS.
Le 29 janvier, les habitants de Dalnegorsk ont remarqué une sphère lumineuse qui s’est écrasée sur une colline voisine. L’objet était à une vitesse de 15 km / h et volant chaotique, montant, descendant, volant en zigzag. Après l’effondrement, l’épave a brûlé pendant une heure.
Parce que l’accès à la zone de l’accident était difficile, l’armée est arrivée à l’épave le lendemain.En plus de l’épave, des sphères contenant de l’or, du fer, du magnésium et de l’aluminium ont été récupérées sur les lieux de l’accident.
Métaux extraterrestres et alliages | Quand leur accident a façonné notre histoire
La zone a été évitée par les animaux et les insectes pendant trois ans, le niveau de radioactivité étant élevé.
Périodiquement, il attire l’attention des personnes intéressées, à travers des témoignages ou des documents, sur l’incident de la forêt de Rendlesham dans le Suffolk, à environ 150 kilomètres au nord-est de Londres, considéré comme le plus important événement ovni du Royaume-Uni.
Ici, en 1980, deux bases militaires inaugurales, Bentwaters et Woodbridge, ont été louées à la Force aérienne de l’OTAN et ont accueilli un nombre indéterminé d’ogives nucléaires.
À l’aube du 27 décembre 1980, vers 3 h, une patrouille de sécurité près de la porte est de la RAF Woodbridge a signalé que des lumières étranges avaient atterri dans la forêt voisine de Rendlesham. Croyant qu’un avion s’était écrasé ou avait atterri, une troupe de trois soldats a marché à pied pour enquêter sur ce qui s’était passé.
Au début, ils ont vu des lumières étranges se déplacer à travers les arbres, ainsi qu’une forte lumière provenant d’un objet non identifié.
Puis, comme indiqué, ils y ont vu une forme triangulaire étrange, brillante, apparemment métallique, d’environ deux à trois mètres de large à la base et d’environ deux pieds de haut.
Il y avait une lumière pulsante rouge sur le dessus et un laiton bleu bleu dessous. Lorsque la patrouille s’est approchée de l’objet, elle a manoeuvré à travers les arbres et a disparu.
L’objet a également été trouvé pendant une courte période, environ une heure, près de la porte arrière. Il a réapparu la nuit suivante.
Parallel Universes Could Solve One of the Biggest Mysteries in Physics
Parallel Universes Could Solve One of the Biggest Mysteries in Physics
IN BRIEF
Black holes have long since presented something of a contradiction considering our current understanding of physics. Now, the many worlds interpretation offers a convincing explanation.
BLACK HOLES AND REVELATIONS
Black holes are the source of a major quandary when it comes to our understanding of physics; either they can destroy information, which contradicts what we know about quantum mechanics, or they seemingly disregard Einstein’s theory of relativity. However, it’s now thought by some that the many worlds interpretation might help explain the situation.
It suggests that each one of the multiple possible outcomes of a quantum event splinters off into its own discrete world.
Now, a team of researchers at the California Institute of Technology led by Sean Carroll has suggested that this interpretation can explain away inconsistencies pertaining to black holes. They say that general relativity is upheld within each single possible world, while information is preserved across the entire global wave function, if not among individual branches.
MANY WORLDS
Aidan Chatwin-Davies, a member of Carroll’s team, told Futurism that other scientists have already suggested applying the many worlds theory, also known as Everettian, to the black hole information problem. “Cosmetically, we’re perhaps the first to cleanly label our perspective as Everettian,” he said. “More substantively, we wanted to perform some concrete calculations to mathematize otherwise abstract ideas.”
“Previous attempts considered statements of general relativity and quantum mechanics to be applicable to the same world,” Yasunori Nomura, professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley told Futurism. “My approach separates the two – quantum mechanics allows for a quantum state to be a ‘superposition’ of many classical worlds; statements of quantum mechanics apply to the entirety of these many worlds while those of general relativity apply only to each of these worlds.”
This line of thinking is important because it could potentially explain more about the nature of gravity and spacetime. Nomura suggests that these ideas have a broader relevance to how quantum gravity works at a fundamental level, particular in relation to the origins of the universe.
“We know that we need both general relativity and quantum mechanics to understand black holes, and so they are a good starting point for testing out ideas about quantum gravity,” explained Chatwin-Davies. “If we really understood how to describe black holes, then we would be a great deal closer to being able to describe quantum gravity in broad generality.”
By using the many worlds interpretation, scientists and astronomers are finding new ways to approach longstanding questions about black holes. With further study, this research might offer up further information about the very fabric of our universe that could fill in some persistent gaps in our knowledge.
Fourteen years ago in Bremen, Germany, astronomer Seth Shostak gave a lecture that included a wager. “I bet everybody in the audience a cup of Starbucks that we would find E.T. within two dozen years,” he told a new audience in October. You don't have to be a Klaatu-level math whiz to calculate that Shostak has 10 years left before he'd have to shell out for a lot of tall drips. I'm talking about the coffee.
Shostak is senior astronomer at the Center for SETI Research based in Mountain View, Calif. SETI stands for “Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence,” of course, as the millions who have loaned out their home computer time for the SETI@home project know. He mentioned the wager at a session on the current state of the search for any signs of alien intelligence at the World Conference of Science Journalists in the San Francisco Bay Area. The SETI conversation in question took place on the University of California, Berkeley, campus. No protesters or extraterrestrials attended. Probably.
“To have some reasonable chance of success,” Shostak said, “you'd have to look at at least a million star systems.” Which may be possible within the coffee challenge's time parameter, thanks to $100 million from Russian physicist and entrepreneur Yuri Milner in 2015 to establish what is called Breakthrough Listen—an effort to use multiple radio and optical telescopes to survey the million stars closest to us. (It recently came out that in 2015 Milner had invested in a start-up co-owned by Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who is a senior White House adviser. Perhaps Milner's SETI funding represented his realization that looking for intelligent life in outer space was a better bet.)
Shostak thinks his Bremen audience comes out ahead either way. “Because either [by 2027] a signal has been found and you have something to talk about at lunch—or you get a cup of coffee. You can't lose.”
But what about sending out messages inviting contact with intelligent aliens rather than just listening for incoming missives from faraway smarty-pants or whatever clothing may be appropriate for their anatomy? “I think the risks outweigh the benefits,” said Dan Werthimer, chief scientist at the Berkeley SETI Research Center, which oversees Breakthrough Listen. “When advanced civilizations come in contact with less advanced civilizations, it hasn't been good on Earth. So I think there's a lot of risk.”
But Shostak thinks we already might have attracted somebody's attention: “The kind of equipment that we have today is within four orders of magnitude of being able to detect radars on nearby worlds, within a few tens of light-years. Now this speed of increase in the collecting area of radio telescopes on Earth is roughly two orders of magnitude per century.... That means that any society that's at least 200 years more advanced than we are has equipment that can pick up SFO, alright? That's the local airport for those of you from out of town. So ... if you really think there's a potential of killing seven billion people because the aliens get ticked off by hearing I Love Lucy and send their interstellar battlewagons here to wipe us out..., you better turn off all the radars. Not for the weekend, not for this year, you better turn them off forever. And to me, that doesn't sound like a good idea.”
Shostak also brought up a less frightening but perhaps more existentially dreadful possibility about some future first contact: what if we finally hear from aliens broadcasting their presence as sentient beings, and the big announcement is their understanding of well-known mathematical phenomena such as the Fibonacci sequence. “That would be a real bummer, wouldn't it?” he asked. “I mean, we finally hear from E.T., and he tells us something you learned in 10th grade.”
Actually I'd be okay with it—and with them watching Lucy gobble chocolates off the conveyor belt. What I worry about is them catching the iconic Twilight Zone episode where the aliens show up with a manuscript entitled “To Serve Man,” and it ends up being a cookbook. Why give advanced carnivores any cravings?
This article was originally published with the title "Is Anybody Anywhere?"
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )
Mysterious X-Ray Emission May Reveal Nature of Dark Matter
Mysterious X-Ray Emission May Reveal Nature of Dark Matter
By Doris Elin Salazar, Space.com Contributor
X-ray light from the Perseus cluster of galaxies may finally reveal the true nature of one of the most mysterious substances in the cosmos: dark matter.
Dark matter is a bizarre material that does not emit light or energy, yet is thought to make up about 85 percent of the matter in the universe. Researchers use creative and indirect observations to deduce dark matter's presence, but it remains challenging to pin down solid evidence of the substance's existence. Thanks to mounting observations by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, a Japanese-led X-ray telescope known as Hitomi and the European Space Agency's (ESA) XMM-Newton, scientists may be on the verge of a groundbreaking discovery about the mysterious material, researchers said in a statement from the Chandra X-Ray Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The subject of study is the Perseus cluster, a dusty region of galaxies gathered together 250 million light-years from Earth. Scientists estimate that the Perseus cluster is 11.6 million light-years across and that it may contain a whopping 660 trillion times the mass of the sun.
An optical image of the Perseus cluster taken using the Hubble Space Telescope.
Credit: NASA/ESA/IoA/A. Fabian et al.
In 2014, an unusual spike of intensity in X-ray wavelengths caught the attention of researchers using the XMM-Newton space observatory. The waves were coming from heated gas in the Perseus galactic cluster, near the center. Researchers also found that this same wavelength of radiation, known as an emission line, was coming from 73 other galaxy clusters, according to the statement.
That 2014 observation showed radiation emanating with 3.5 kiloelectron volts (keV) of energy, and a new analysis detected an absorption of X-rays — also at 3.5 keV — surrounding a supermassive black hole at the center of the Perseus cluster. Researchers have found it nearly impossible to explain why that particular wavelength is being emitted and absorbed, and because previously-seen astronomical objects don't seem to reveal clues about the wavelength emission, they suggested dark matter could be the cause.
A composite image of X-ray and optical observations of the Perseus galaxy cluster. This image contains X-ray data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory (blue) of the Perseus galaxy cluster. The observations have been combined with optical data from the Hubble space telescope (pink) and radio-emission data from the Very Large Array (red) in New Mexico. If these findings are confirmed with future observations, it would signal a major step forward in comprehending the nature of dark matter, researchers said in a statement.
Credit: NASA/ESA/CXO/Oxford University/NRAO/AUI/University of Montreal
"We expect that this result will either be hugely important or a total dud," said Joseph Conlon of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, lead author of the recent study. "I don't think there is a halfway point when you are looking for answers to one of the biggest questions in science." The new paperdescribing the team's results was published in the journal Physical Review D on Dec. 19.
If dark matter caused the atypical emission and absorption lines at that wavelength — both giving off and absorbing X-rays within the collection of galaxies — further observation could teach researchers more about the mysterious substance, the scientists said.
Fortunately, powerful X-ray telescopes currently being developed will let scientists make more-precise observations of these fascinating X-ray emission lines.
New Study Finds TRAPPIST-1 Planets Have Atmospheres Which Could Support Life
New Study Finds TRAPPIST-1 Planets Have Atmospheres Which Could Support Life
One of the outer planets of the TRAPPIST 1 system that resides in the habitable zone, where water can be maintained in a liquid state, has conditions to retain a long-term atmosphere and be fit for life, astronomers have recently found.
The TRAPPIST-1 star system is composed of seven temperate terrestrial planets, of which five (b, c, e, f, and g) are similar in size to Earth, and two (d and h) are of an intermediate size ranging in size between Mars and Earth. Three of the planets (e, f, and g) orbit within the habitable zone of the star.
This artist’s concept shows what each of the TRAPPIST-1 planets may look like, based on available data about their sizes, masses, and orbital distances. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech
A team of astronomers led by Michaël Gillon of the Institute of Astrophysics and Geophysics at the University of Liège in Belgium used the TRAPPIST telescope (Small Telescope for Planets and Planetesimals in Transit) at the La Silla Observatory in the Atacama Desert ( Chile) to observe TRAPPIST-1 and search it for potential planets.
So far, this is the most promising solar system discovered to date, that may host life as we know it.
What do we know so far?
TRAPPIST-1 is located around 40 light years from Earth and as we’ve already indicated, astronomers know that there are seven rocky planets orbiting the star, similar in size to Earth and three of those planets could contain water on their surface.
TRAPPIST-1 is a red dwarf star. It’s cooler, smaller, and much more active than our sun, despite being the size of Jupiter. Its stellar flares can erupt out to millions of miles, which isn’t really good news as its outermost planet is only 5.5 million miles away. Furthermore, each planet is located about a quarter-of-a-million-miles away from each other at closest approach.
The TRAPPIST-1 system.
Despite the fact that TRAPPIST-1 planets may be bombarded by solar flares, astronomers have recently found that all seven planets could retain their atmosphere, but the more likely scenario is that the outermost two planets orbiting the red dwarf, -1g and -1h, have the best odds.
Now, a new study published in PNAS has determined the atmospheric escape rates for the planets of TRAPPIST-1 and shows that it is likely that TRAPPIST-G, located within the habitable zone, may have the ability to retain its atmosphere on a timescale of billions of years. This means that TRAPPIST-1G has great odds of having water on its surface, and when looking for alien life, we consider water as the number one key ingredient.
“…the outer planets are potentially likely to retain their atmospheres over billion-year timescales.”
Further studies will be made when the James Webb Space Telescope becomes active in 2019, and astronomers will use it to detect traces of the atmospheres on the planets, proving more accurate data and perhaps even answering whether or not the planets of the TRAPPIST-1 system are habitable and suitable for life as we know it.
Our bright neighboring star system, Alpha Centauri, could harbor an Earth-size planet — but new jumps in technology are needed for us to see it.
Credit: ESO/Digitized Sky Survey 2 Acknowledgement: Davide De Martin
Technology in development could capture images from an Earth-size planet in the nearby Alpha Centauri system in the 2020s, new research suggests.
The new technique, presented Dec. 15 at the American Geophysical Union's annual meeting in New Orleans, could also help researchers see exoplanets in other systems with more than one star.
Although there's only one star in Earth's solar system, previous work found that two-thirds of so-called class G yellow dwarf stars (the group that includes our sun) are in multiple systems, or systems with two or more stars orbiting each other. Some known multiple systems are home to up to seven stars. [What Do We Know About Alpha Centauri?] Because multiple systems are common, they may be rich targets in the hunt for alien planets, according to Ruslan Belikov, an astrophysicist at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, and his colleagues. For example, the sun's closest neighbor, the Alpha Centauri system, possesses three stars and potentially multiple planets, such as the Earth-size Proxima Centauri b.
To capture images of an exoplanet, astronomers typically employ an instrument known as a coronagraph, which blocks out its star's glaring light, thus letting them seeany faint light reflected off or emitted from that world. When researchers want to directly image an exoplanet in a system that has more than one star, light from a star's companion may drown out their view of the planet even after they block the first star's light.
Although scientists could conceivably use more than one coronagraph to block out the light from all the stars in a multiple system, tiny imperfections within the components of a telescope would inevitably cause light to leak through a coronagraph, Belikov said. "This light is only a small fraction of the original star's light but can still overwhelm planets, which are much fainter still," he told Space.com.Belikov and his colleagues have developed a way to get around that issue and image exoplanets in multiple-star systems.
"We are developing the technology to search for Earth-like planets around other stars," Belikov said in an email. "If, when I was a kid, somebody told me that I would be doing this as an adult, I would not have believed it — in my mind, detecting Earth-like planets is 'Star Trek' science that rightly belongs in the 23rd century. But we are doing it now."
The new method the researchers have devised, known as the multi-star wavefront control, relies on deformable mirrors within telescopes that are used to bounce light from stars and planets onto sensors. These mirrors can alter the shape of their surfaces to correct for imperfections within the optical components of telescopes.
The new technique controls a deformable mirror "in a way that allows it to remove light from more than one star," Belikov said. The mirror can superimpose multiple shapes onto itself, each of which can factor out light from a star.
"It's a bit like when an audio speaker plays a symphony," Belikov said. "It uses its lower-frequency range to represent the cellos and the higher-frequency range to represent the violins. In our case, the cello would correspond to one star and the violin to the other."
A major advantage of this new system "is that it is compatible with many already-designed instruments," Belikov said. "A deformable mirror is all that's needed, which is almost always present with modern coronagraphs."
Ideally, "we hope to infuse our technology into future space telescopes to enable them to target Alpha Centauri and other binaries," Belikov said. "These range from small telescopes like ACESat or Project Blue that can be launched in the early 2020s, WFIRST in the mid-2020s, and LUVOIR or HabEx in the 2030s. There are also telescopes on the ground that can use this technology."
Belikov cautioned that any exoplanet pictures that researchers capture in the near future will not resolve details such as continents and oceans. "Rather, an image of another Earth will be a pale blue dot," he said. "However, there is a lot of information that we can discern from the spectrum of that dot, including signs of life."
The engineers wanted to see if they could determine some cardiovascular risks simply by looking a picture of someone’s retina. They developed a convolutional neural network — a feed-forward algorithm inspired by biological processes, especially pattern between neurons, commonly used in image analysis.
This type of artificial intelligence (AI) analyzes images holistically, without splitting them into smaller pieces, based on their shared similarities and symmetrical parts.
The approach became quite popular in recent years, especially as Facebook and other tech giants began developing their face-recognition software. Scientists have long proposed that this type of network can be used in other fields, but due to the innate processing complexity, progress has been slow. The fact that such algorithms can be applied to biology (and human biology, at that) is astonishing.
“It was unrealistic to apply machine learning to many areas of biology before,” saysPhilip Nelson, a director of engineering at Google Research in Mountain View, California. “Now you can — but even more exciting, machines can now see things that humans might not have seen before.”
Observing and quantifying associations in images can be difficult because of the wide variety of features, patterns, colors, values, and shapes in real data. In this case, Ryan Poplin, Machine Learning Technical Lead at Google, used AI trained on data from 284,335 patients. He and his colleagues then tested their neural network on two independent datasets of 12,026 and 999 photos respectively. They were able to predict age (within 3.26 years), and within an acceptable margin, gender, smoking status, systolic blood pressure as well as major adverse cardiac events. Researchers say results were similar to the European SCORE system, a test which relies on a blood test.
To make things even more interesting, the algorithm uses distinct aspects of the anatomy to generate each prediction, such as the optic disc or blood vessels. This means that, in time, each individual detection pattern can be improved and tailored for a specific purpose. Also, a data set of almost 300,000 models is relatively small for a neural network, so feeding more data into the algorithm can almost certainly improve it.
Doctors today rely heavily on blood tests to determine cardiovascular risks, so having a non-invasive alternative could save a lot of costs and time, while making visits to the doctor less unpleasant. Of course, for Google (or rather Google’s parent company, Alphabet), developing such an algorithm would be a significant development and a potentially profitable one at that.
It’s not the first time Google engineers have dipped their feet into this type of technology — one of the authors, Lily Peng, published another paper last year in which she used AI to detect blindness associated with diabetes.
Journal Reference: Ryan Poplin et al. Predicting Cardiovascular Risk Factors from Retinal Fundus Photographs using Deep Learning. arXiv:1708.09843
The moon has been neglected for far too long, and China seems keen on moving fast to cover all the lost lunar ground. The nation’s ambitious space program, among other things, is set on achieving several important milestones.
A trifecta, consisting of a lunar probe, lander, and rover, will be deployed to the moon’s orbit and surface respectively. This will be the first time a man-made contraption makes a soft landing on the far side of the moon, a site of renewed interest for many scientists. The mission will also carry insects and plants that will form a mini-ecosystem on the moon whose response will teach us valuable lessons in preparations for a manned outpost or even a colony.
Potatoes on the dark side of the moon
This remarkable mission is part of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program (CLEP), otherwise known as the Chang’e Program, named so in honor of the Chinese goddess of the moon. Previously, the Chang’e program had already sent two orbiters and one lander to the moon.
In the first half of 2018, Chang’e 4 will initially launch a relay satellite aboard a Long March 5 rocket that will be positioned at the Earth-moon Lagrange point 2 (EM-L2).
Artist impression of the relay satellite slated for launch. Credit: CNSA.
This is where the satellite can essentially remain stationary relative to the bodies, since the Earth and Moon gravities cancel each other out. From this point, the communications satellite will relay data between controllers on Earth and the Chang’e 4 lander and rover slated to touch down on the moon’s far side — also known as the dark side of the moon since it faces away from Earth.
The lander and rover will be launched together six months after the relay satellite is deployed at EM-L2. The lander will be equipped with various instruments designed to study the lunar environment and geology in detail, but also a mini-habitat comprised of insects and plants.
“The container will send potatoes, arabidopsis seeds and silkworm eggs to the surface of the moon. The eggs will hatch into silkworms, which can produce carbon dioxide, while the potatoes and seeds emit oxygen through photosynthesis. Together, they can establish a simple ecosystem on the moon,” Zhang Yuanxun, chief designer of the lunar habitat, told the Chongqing Morning Post.
Last year, researchers grew potatoes in Mars-like conditions. Pulling the same stunt completely outside of Earth will be a whole different challenge which will be very intriguing to follow.
The Chinese lunar rover which is supposed to land on the dark side of the moon by the end of the year.
Credit: CASC/China Ministry of Defense
The lander and rover will be deployed in the huge South Pole-Aitken Basin. This is the single-largest impact basin on the moon, measuring a staggering 2,500 km (1,600 miles) in diameter and 13 kilometers (8.1 miles) deep. Previously, missions like the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and India’s Chandrayaan-1 orbiter confirmed that the basin contains water ice, likely sourced from meteors and asteroids.
This ice can survive in this form because the Aitken Basin is always shadowed. Once this finding was confirmed by NASA, the site has immediately been singled out as an important candidate for a possible lunar base. With this context in mind, the Chang’e 4 mission is valuable in the sense that it can help establish not only what the local terrain in the basin is like but also how the environment will influence organisms. For instance, gravity on the moon is just 16% that of Earth. Plants use gravity to decide the direction of their growth, and a strong or weak gravitational pull will also affect the height of plants.
If all of this sounds exciting, know that once the lunar habitat container is deployed at the end of this year, China plans to live stream the plants’ growth and development. Your message can also be among the 20,000 that will be sent into space via the relay satellite. You can submit it to the WeChat account ‘slecbj’ from Dec. 19, 2017, to March 6, 2018.
Researchers working on behalf of Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) have unearthed an ancient Aztec site unlike anything they’ve found before. The shrine was found at an elevation of 13,000 feet in a volcanic pond near the dormant Iztaccihuatl, or “White Woman” volcano in central Mexico which is central to several Aztec legends. The stone shrine was found lying at the bottom of a shallow pond, and researchers believe the shrine was originally constructed to appear as if it were floating just below the surface of the water. Most fascinating of all, archaeologists believe that this site may be an early ‘map’ of the known universe according to Aztec mythology.
Aerial view of the shrine with water drained.
(INAH).
According to several Mesoamerican creation myths, the primeval sea monster Cipactli floated on primordial waters until it split itself in two, creating the heavens and Earth in the process.. In a statement, INAH archaeologists claim the flow of water within this tetzacualco, or shrine, could have been controlled using nearby springs, creating a visual effect meant to evoke the Cipactli creation myth:
The existence of a tetzacualco in the middle of a natural pond and the optical effect that occurs when the water mirrors, from which it seems that the structure emanates, suggests that the place is the representation of a primeval time and space, a miniature model of the universe.
Evidence of a temple which once housed the site has been found along with numerous other artifacts including blades, pottery, and stone tools. Several finds suggest the site also could have been a site of worship for the Aztec rain god Tlaloc.
Excavations of the site are still underway. (INAH).
While far from proving any ancient astronaut theories, the discovery of this mythological representation of the known universe adds to a growing body of evidence which suggests Aztec civilization and technology may have been more advanced than we currently know. Plus, a floating crocodile-god shrine sure is a lot cooler than that creation museum in Kentucky. I wonder what future archaeologists are going to have to say about that one.
Aerospace watchdog sites reported last year on a mysterious, highly secretive rocket launch scheduled by SpaceX.
NASASpaceFlight.com noticed a last-minute addition to SpaceX’s launch calendar, adding a mission known only as “Zuma.” An issue with the Falcon 9 rocket nose cone caused the launch to be delayed, but SpaceX has now announced that the Zuma mission could be its first launch of 2018, set to blast off on Friday, January 5th.
SpaceX launched 18 rockets in 2017, all of which were successful.
As of now, SpaceX meteorologists predict a 90% chance of “go” conditions at the scheduled launch time. Despite several months of wait time between the last scheduled launch, little is still known to the public about the mysterious Zuma mission. What is known are two facts: one, that the rocket is launching an object into a low-Earth orbit; and two, that SpaceX’s client for the launch is aerospace and defense contractor Northrop Grumman. You might know Northrop Grumman from such top-secret black-ops projects as the B-2 stealth bomber and a wide range of unmanned aerial vehicles.
Aside from war machines, Northrop Grumman also develops technologies for use in space telescopes.
Given Grumman’s extensive pedigree in some of the most high-tech and clandestine examples of military engineering, many outlets have taken to wondering just what exactly might be aboard the Zuma rocket. For its part, Northrop Grumman has stated only that Zuma is carrying a “restricted payload.” Some sources have claimed the National Reconnaissance Office is behind the launch, but the NRO has denied any part in the mission – but then again, why would they want to admit to launching some new type of spy technology if its purpose is to remain in the shadows?
While it’s hard to hide a massive rocket launch, the contents of those rockets are not always public record.
Given all of the recent weirdness surrounding so-called “killer” satellites and what appears to be a burgeoning arms race taking place in low-Earth orbit, chances are high that this launch could be a test of some new space weapon or other defensive technology. Telecommunications and live data from satellites are key to modern-day military operations, and many nations are already testing methods of attacking or hijacking other nations’ satellites. Could the Zuma mission hint that SpaceX getting in on the defense contractor market while competition is still scarce? Some sources claim SpaceX could launch close to 40 rockets for U.S. military and intelligence clients in 2018. I mean, Elon’s gotta find funding to send his car into space by whatever means necessary.
Due to several recent discoveries, much of the conversation surrounding the search for alien life has turned to wondering if we might discover microbial life long before we find green, three-breasted alien women. Microbes have been discovered here on Earth which can survive on air alone, or even by ‘eating’ radiation in some cases. Microbes have even been sustained in a simulated Martian atmosphere and Russian state media claims microbes were found on the outside of the ISSlast year. Are macroscopic, walking, talking life forms such as us hairless apes an anomaly? Could the rest of the universe be filled with microscopic forms of life? Who knows. However, if that possibility becomes a reality, a new experimented conducted aboard the International Space Station lends hope to our own ability to identify any potential alien life forms we may encounter in space.
Russia’s reports of extraterrestrial “biomatter” on the ISS are still unconfirmed.
According to a NASA press release, scientists on the ISS successfully sequenced the genomes of mystery microbes found inside the space station. The microbes were found earlier last year clinging to various surfaces inside the space station. While it’s well-known that astronauts bring all sorts of creepy crawly contaminants with them when they enter the space station, the identity of these space bugs has never been identified – particularly not while aboard the space station itself. In the press statement, NASA claims this groundbreaking experiment could pave the way for being able to identify any potential lifeforms found during our future exploration of the cosmos:
The ability to identify microbes in space could aid in the ability to diagnose and treat astronaut ailments in real time, as well as assisting in the identification of DNA-based life on other planets. Being able to identify microbes in real time aboard the International Space Station, without having to send them back to Earth for identification first, would be revolutionary for the world of microbiology and space exploration.
Of course, it would have been much more exciting had the microbes actually been from space and not from the dead skin cells and other effluvium that surrounds astronauts’ bodies like the dust cloud floating around Pig-Pen from Peanuts. Still, now that scientists have the ability to sequence DNA in space, that opens the doors for much faster identification of alien DNA in the future. The only question now is if that discovery will happen in our lifetimes.
On several occasions at Mysterious Universe, I have mentioned an intriguing operation of the U.S. Government called Project Moon Dust (which, in some of the documents that have now been declassified, is referred to as Moondust). Here’s one such example of the articles on Moon Dust you can find at MU: on the extremely controversial saga of Moon Dust and Marilyn Monroe. It’s quite clear from examining the now-many pages of official documentation on Moon Dust that have been declassified by the U.S. Air Force, Defense Intelligence Agency, and Department of State, that the vast majority of Moon Dust recoveries were of earth-based technology such as Soviet satellites, rocket-boosters, etc. That’s not to say the incidents were not of deep interest. They certainly were. Consider the quote from the following from Moon Dust files of 1960:
“On 30 September 1960, a TWX report was sent to the Pacific Air Forces on a sighting of an unidentified object that entered the water near the village of Ctaru. The report originated with the Japanese Ground Self Defense Force (GSDF) headquarters and was relayed to us by the Japanese Air Self Defense Force (JASDF). According to the report, a fiery object fell from the sky and into the sea, making a fountain of water which was described as looking like a ‘geyser.’ Technical intelligence personnel from Tokyo took over the case, but were unable to locate or reclaim the object.”
Perhaps, more than 40 years on, it still lies dormant deep below the Pacific, its secrets still waiting to be plundered. Then, there are these, quoted from the Air Force’s records:
“1. The White Saucer: On 18 October 1960, a pilot of the 4th Fighter Interceptor Squadron reported that he had seen an object as large as a saucer about eight inches in diameter. The object was white, and it had a white tail about 16 to 20 times as long as the diameter of the object. It appeared from about 30 degrees above and 20 degrees to the right of the aircraft and passed by the aircraft’s right side, disappearing towards the rear of the aircraft in a downward arc.
“2. The Bubble: On 11 October 1960, a pilot over the beach east of Kisawa observed an orange flash on the horizon. He described the phenomenon as being distinct and looking like a great bubble. The area in which the phenomenon could be observed was along the southern coast of the Soviet Kuril Islands.
“3. The Green Pea: On 14 September 1960, a pilot was flying an F-86D between an overcast above and below him when a greenish-white object appeared from the overcast above him. The object fell straight down, and disappeared in the overcast below. The object was described as looking like a green pea. Preliminary investigation could not identify any balloons or other known objects in the area which could have accounted for the sighting.”
By the mid-1960s, Moon Dust was still receiving interesting reports. One of them was a 1965 document declassified by the CIA, a copy of which is in the Moon Dust files. Titled, “Fragment, Metal, Recovered in the Republic of the Congo, Origin Believed to be an Unidentified Flying Object,” it states: “The purpose of this report is to present the results of the exploitation of a metallic fragment recovered near the town of [illegible] in the Republic of the Congo. Fragment recovery was the result of a ground-level search which was coordinated after an unidentified flying object exploded and fell to earth in the area. The sighting and recovery took place sometime between 10 and 15 October 1965. Other than a reported east-to-west direction of flight for the UFO, specific observation and recovery details are lacking.”
Two years later, Project Moon Dust personnel were still active. Two Defense Intelligence Agency reports in particular conclusively make this point. The first report, titled “UFO Sighting at Kasba Talda, Morocco,” states: “This report forwards a translation of an article which appeared in the Potit Morocain[newspaper], 2 April 1967. This item was not carried in the other daily newspapers, but is significant as it indicates continued local interest in the subject of UFOs.”
The second report, also from Morocco, and also dated 1967, states the following with regard to an event over Agadir: “This report forwards translations of two articles which appeared in the Potit Morocain [newspaper]. Each article is separately identified as to source. Although the two articles are very contradictory, the page one coverage afforded this sighting demonstrates a high level of interest in the subject of UFOs, and presages future reporting which could be valuable in pursuit of Project Moon Dust.”
Moon ufos
Then, there is a Department of State telegram of August 1967 from the American Embassy at Khartoum to Washington. It states: “Local press 17 Aug 1967 reported that a satellite, cube shaped, weighing approximately three tons discovered 3 August 50 miles from Kutum. Satellite described as made of soft metal presumably light aluminum in oblong cubes measuring two inches by one inch tightly fastened together and covered by a silky material. Nationality not identified as no inscriptions evident on outer surface. Local authorities in El Fasher have photographs and with difficulty cut samples.”
It’s unfortunate that many of the Moon Dust-based documents are brief in content and description, but it should not be forgotten that – as the Moon Dust files note – “UFO” does not necessarily mean “alien spacecraft.”
Buitenspel gezette wetenschapper over waarom je in Nederland niet mag praten over UFO’s en 9/11 als complot
Buitenspel gezette wetenschapper over waarom je in Nederland niet mag praten over UFO’s en 9/11 als complot
Een afwijkende mening hebben én een hoge functie bekleden op een universiteit. Dat is in Nederland natuurlijk uit den boze.
Je hoort wel eens dat bepaalde landen op aarde in de middeleeuwen zijn blijven hangen, maar in Nederland lopen we ook nog ver achter als het om bepaalde onderwerpen gaat.
Wetenschapper Coen Vermeeren, schrijver van de boeken UFO’s bestaan gewoon en 9/11 is gewoon een complot, was tot voor kort hoofd van de afdeling Studium Generale en docent lucht- en ruimtevaarttechniek aan de TU Delft.
Status quo
Hij moest in september het veld ruimen. In overleg stapte hij op, omdat hij zich naar eigen zeggen niet de mond laat snoeren.
En zo houdt de zelfcensuur de status quo in stand. Op mensen met een ander geluid wordt net zolang druk uitgeoefend tot ze uiteindelijk van het toneel verdwijnen.
Vermeeren weet zeker dat UFO’s bestaan en dat ze regelmatig vanuit de ruimte onze planeet bezoeken. Ook is hij ervan overtuigd dat het vernietigen van het World Trade Center in New York op 9/11 een complot was.
Mag niet
Waarom mag hier geen maatschappelijk debat over gevoerd worden? De meeste mensen geloven immers in UFO’s en meer dan de helft van de Amerikanen ziet een complot in 9/11.
Dus wat is het probleem?
“UFO-waarnemingen van hoogopgeleide astronauten, piloten en luchtverkeersleiders moeten serieus worden genomen,” zegt Vermeeren. “Dat mag niet van de wetenschap.”
Taboe
“Het onderwerp UFO is taboe omdat het raakt aan gevestigde belangen,” licht hij toe. “Stel je voor dat we energieneutraal kunnen voortbewegen, zoals UFO’s dat doen?”
“Dat zet onze hele maatschappij op de kop,” klinkt het.
Wat de Twin Towers betreft, die zijn niet ingestort, maar mogelijk opgeblazen, aldus Vermeeren. “Dat is de meest gangbare van meerdere theorieën waarvan verstoffing de meest controversiële is.”
Niets meer over
Een hoogleraar vroeg hem 15 jaar geleden om ‘voor het Studium Generale een rel te organiseren’. Hij werd daarop hoofd van de afdeling en organiseerde bijeenkomsten over gevoelige onderwerpen.
Van die vrije aanpak is volgens hem niets meer over. Vermeeren is van plan zijn boodschap nu te verspreiden via lezingen.
Bloedrood-blauwe supermaan voor het eerst in ruim 150 jaar te zien deze maand. Zet maar vast in je agenda
Bloedrood-blauwe supermaan voor het eerst in ruim 150 jaar te zien deze maand. Zet maar vast in je agenda
Op 31 januari is er voor de tweede keer deze maand een volle maan te zien. We spreken in dit geval ook wel van een blauwe maan.
Op dezelfde dag vindt daarnaast een totale maansverduistering plaats, aldus de website hemel.waarnemen.com. Hierbij beweegt de maan zich door de schaduw van de aarde.
Er valt dan geen direct zonlicht meer op het maanoppervlak en de hele maan is dan veel donkerder dan normaal. De eclips is in onze streken helaas onzichtbaar.
Bloedmaan
Een totale maansverduistering kan erg indrukwekkend zijn. Tijdens de verduistering, die duurt van 13.52 tot 15.09 uur, valt een beetje zonlicht door de aardatmosfeer, waardoor het maanoppervlak alsnog een klein beetje wordt verlicht.
Dit is met name rood licht, waardoor er een rode gloed over de maan komt. Deze fase wordt in de volksmond ook wel bloedmaan genoemd en duurt bij deze eclips ongeveer 77 minuten.
150 jaar
Doordat de verduistering erg centraal is, is dit effect bij deze verduistering bijzonder sterk.
Het is voor het eerst in 150 jaar dat zo’n totale maansverduistering samenvalt met een blauwe maan, meldt de in ruimtenieuws gespecialiseerde website Space.com.
Supermaan
Omdat het volle maan is en de maan en de aarde dicht bij elkaar staan wordt bovendien gesproken van een supermaan. Daardoor lijkt de maan een heel stuk groter en feller.
Deze 6 uitvindingen zullen de wereld veranderen (volgens Bill Gates)- HLN.be
Deze 6 uitvindingen zullen de wereld veranderen (volgens Bill Gates)- HLN.be
Tine Kintaert
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WETENSCHAP & PLANEETVan het wiel tot het poliovaccin van Jonas Salk: er zijn uitvindingen die de wereld compleet veranderen. Maar wat is de volgende grote ontwikkeling die de geschiedenis zal ingaan? In een artikel voor Time Magazine doet Bill Gates enkele voorspellingen.
1. MetaFridge
Vaccinaties redden talloze levens, maar ze zijn ook vrij fragiel. Worden ze niet op de juiste temperatuur opgeslaan, dan kan je ze weggooien. Een groep uitvinders van Global Good in Seattle hebben nu een nieuwe soort koelkast ontworpen: de MetaFridge. Die houdt de vaccins lange tijd koud, ook als de elektriciteit uitvalt. Momenteel werken ze ook aan een draagbare versie van hun uitvinding, zodat ook mensen in de meest afgelegen gebieden gevaccineerd kunnen worden.
2. Genetische manipulatie
Gates beseft dat de technologie van genetische manipulatie nog in de kinderschoenen staat, en dat er ook heel wat prangende ethische vraagstukken rond het onderwerp hangen. Toch heeft hij een goed oog in de mogelijkheden. “Stel je een toekomst voor waarin we het DNA van zieke mensen kunnen wijzigen, of bijvoorbeeld de genen kunnen verwijderen die het muggen mogelijk maakt om malaria te verspreiden.”
3. Zonnebrandstof
Gates is geen ontkenner van de opwarming van de aarde. “Als we dat willen inperken, moeten we afstappen van fossiele brandstoffen en een andere methode zoeken.” Hij kijkt vol vertrouwen naar Caltech, waar ze in hun labo’s zoeken naar een manier om zonne-energie om te zetten in brandstof. “We zijn nog ver van het moment waarop je zonnebrandstof in je auto kan gooien, maar ik hoop in de nabije toekomst op een energiemirakel.”
Thinkstock
4. mRNA vaccins
Momenteel wordt een vaccin ontwikkeld aan de hand van verzwakte of inactieve vormen van het virus in kwestie. Je lichaam g5.aat dan antilichamen produceren, waardoor je beschermd bent tegen de ziekte. Momenteel bekijkt de wetenschap echter hoe we genetisch materiaal kunnen aanwenden om een vaccin te maken, wat het proces een stuk goedkoper en sneller maakt. Zo kan je een lichaam leren om vanzelf natuurlijke antilichamen aan te maken.
5. Betere inname van medicijnen
Van insuline tot de anticonceptiepil: sommige medicijnen moet je op gezette tijden innemen. Niet altijd even gemakkelijk, want je durft dat wel eens vergeten. Het bedrijf Intarcia wil de manier waarop we medicatie nemen nu veranderen. Ze hebben een piepklein apparaatje ontwikkeld dat je onder de huid kan inplanten. Daar geeft het de medicijnen op de gewenste tijdstippen af. Gates vindt vooral de bescherming tegen HIV erg veelbelovend. “Eén implantaat kan een mens tot een jaar lang beschermen tegen het virus.”
6. Artificiële intelligentie
Van al deze ontwikkelingen is artificiële intelligentie degene waarvan Gates zeker is dat het de wereld voor altijd zal veranderen. “Ook al zal AI nieuwe uitdagingen creëren - zoals het heropleiden van mensen die hun job zullen verliezen - denk ik dat het ons leven veel productiever, efficiënter en makkelijker zal maken.”
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Human Hybrids - Scientists Admit Humans ARE Getting Alien DNA Upgrades
Human Hybrids - Scientists Admit Humans ARE Getting Alien DNA Upgrades
If aliens are our creators then of course they are still interacting and monitoring us.
Astounding DNA evidence suggests there are extraterrestrial humans on earth today, they are inhabiting a human body. New data suggests humans are being altered and transformed on many levels by alien intervention.
Evidence suggests extraterrestrial encounters are a global phenomenon and this is evident in the new race of human beings referred to as star children or Indigo children.
The profiles of these children share the same attributes or are strikingly similar. They are highly intelligent, creative, psychic, telepathic and posses healing and clairvoyant abilities.
Some of the latest DNA research could qualify how this upgrading may occur.
This involves downloads of data such as our true genetic origins, using our psi skills with advanced technology, manipulation of matter, astrophysics and healing, all coupled with genetic and spiritual programs for awakening of human consciousness, to assist humanity to evolve into a fully functional multidimensional human.
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China is preparing for a groundbreaking 2018 mission to land on the far side of the Moon
China is preparing for a groundbreaking 2018 mission to land on the far side of the Moon
China is preparing its Chang’e 4 mission, which if successful, would mark the first time a country has landed on the far side of the moon. The Chinese space agency even wants to try and grow plants and insects on the moon, paving the way for future human colonies on Earth’s natural satellite.
According to reports from China, the nation’s space agency is set for a groundbreaking 2018 mission to the far side of the moon. China aims to land on the far side of the moon and will even try to grow plants and insects on the surface of the moon.
The mission is considered as one of the most complicated and difficult missions to space, China has ever attempted.
The mission to the far side of the moon will see China’s Chang’e 4 spacecraft launched into space on a Long March 4C rocket.
In 2013, China’s Chang’e 3, successfully deployed the Jade Rabbit rover, marking the first soft landing on the moon since 1976.
Image Credit: CLEP/CNSA
Chang’e 4 will land on the far side of the moon, and if the mission succeeds, China will become the first country to successfully land a controlled spacecraft on the far side of the moon. The Chinese Space Agency wants to land on the so-called South Pole-Aitken Basin, a vast area on the moon, located in the southern hemisphere of the far side which extends from the South Pole to Aitken crater.
The Rover will carry a ‘space-gardening kit’ which will ‘pave way for a human outpost’ by exploring the lunar surface and examining the feasibility of growing plants on the surface of Earth’s natural satellite.
“The Chinese are pushing back the frontier with such a technically challenging mission,” said Brian Harvey, a space analyst, and author of China in Space: The Great Leap Forward, in an interview with the Guardian.
Furthermore, the Chinese space agency also plans to send another mission to the moon which would take samples of the surface and bring them back to Earth for further analysis.
The mission which will land on the moon, and return samples to Earth is the Chang’e-5 lunar probe which is currently
undergoing a final round of tests and is expected to be on standby for launch from August,
China’s huge interest in space exploration is being called out as a competition between the Asian country and the United States after President Donald Trump made it clear he wants to revitalize US space exploration.
But China doesn’t only want to go to the far side of the moon.
The Chinese space agency claims that in a series of different missions is one that would see a spacecraft reach Mars.
This mission would take place in the year 2020, and its objective would be to collect samples of the red planet for further analysis on Earth.
China’s president Xi Jinping wants his country to become a global power in space exploration.
“Not long ago, the United States’ Trump Administration revealed an ambition to return to the moon. Our country also announced a series of deep space exploration plans,” said the official Science and Technology Daily.
“The moon is the first stop for humanity’s march toward deep space,” the paper said.
One of the greatest conundrums to face humanity is the question of extraterrestrial life. Many explanations have been posited over the years to explain why we have yet to make first contact, some better than others. Here are seven of the weakest solutions to the vexing problem known as the Fermi Paradox.
1) Aliens Haven't Had Enough Time to Reach Earth.
Actually, they have. This is one of the most common excuses for the Great Silence, but it's also one of the weakest. As a solution, it belies a complete misunderstanding of the paradox's central assertion — that time is not a factor. Fermi's paradox is driven by three rather powerful premises: 1) our galaxy has been around for a very, very long time — about 13.2 billion years (or 13,200 million years), 2) intelligent life was capable of emerging when the galaxy was still very young, and thus, 3) aliens have had plenty of time to visit, colonize, and reshape every portion of the Milky Way. Yet it doesn't appear that any civilization has done so. As time passes, and as our view of the cosmos comes clearer into focus, the Fermi Paradox as a problem is getting worse and not better. Earlier this year, astronomers came to the realization that terrestrial, Earth-like planets began to emerge as long as 11.2 billion years ago, a mere two billion years after the Milky Way formed. At the same time, we're also learning that the quantity of potentially habitable planets — both in the past and in the present — is exceptionally massive. A recent calculation predicts hundreds of billions of Earth-like planets in our galaxy alone.
2) The Stars Are Too Far Apart
As Douglas Adams once said: "Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space." Yup, space is big, no doubt. But it is this really the reason we haven't seen any signs of extraterrestrial life? For this solution to work, it would mean that all alien civilizations would have to find space too big to bother with, or that interstellar space travel is technologically unfeasible. Neither is likely true. Take a look at us. We've already got an interstellar space traveler in the form of the Voyager probe, and there's no shortage of visions as to how we might embark on such missions. And indeed, the first generation of interstellar space explorers will likely come in the form of self-replicating von Neumann probes. This would involve an exponentially expanding bubble of probes that could, in theory, colonize the galaxy in as little as 10 million years. Cosmologically speaking, that's not a lot of time. A single civilization could have colonized the galaxy 1,120 times over the course of the past 11.2 billion years — and that's just one civilization. Alternately (or in conjunction), there's also the potential to "transmit" streams of uploaded minds at the speed of light from star system to star system. As Charles Stross once said, starships are a myth. So no, the stars are not too far apart — not when you have billions of years to work with and the power of exponential growth at your disposal.
3) Aliens Are Honoring the Prime Directive
Back in 1972, astronomer John Ball came up with the Zoo Hypothesis, a proposed scenario in which advanced extraterrestrials deliberately resist making contact with humans in favor of watching us from a safe distance. As Ball noted, "they have just set us aside as part of a wilderness area or zoo." Reasons for doing so include the fear of biological and/or sociological cross-contamination, i.e. a "Prime Directive," or simply for studying us for scientific and/or entertainment purposes. There are a number of problems with this solution. First, it's completely untestable and even a bit conspiratorial. Second, it's anthropocentric; the Zoo Scenario assumes that all aliens have the same motivations we do in terms of ethics, scientific inquiry, and recreation. It's also arrogant. What could we possibly offer alien intelligences in terms of our science? An extraterrestrial civilization at this stage in its development would very likely be post-biological in nature and in the possession of artificial superintelligence (actually, it probably would be an artificial superintelligence). To them, we'd be as interesting as microbes. It's also worth pointing out that the Prime Directive is ethically dubious. It would be incumbent upon a post-Singularity, space-faring civilization to intervene in our affairs to save us from ourselves, eliminate suffering, and uplift us into the broader galactic community. Lastly, this theory (and many of the other solutions on this list) violates non-exclusivity. While some aliens might put us in a zoo and/or honor the Prime Directive, it cannot speak to all alien civilizations. All it would take is just one to ruin the show.
4) God Created the Universe Just For Us
This religious argument works to resolve the Fermi Paradox by suggesting that human beings were deliberately created by God to be alone. This idea goes back to Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, who both argued that humans are unique to God's plan. It's an idea that's still around today, as witnessed by Pat Robertson's recent rant in which he stated that NASA should stop its efforts to explore the cosmos because it contains "nothing but gaseous balls and barren rocks," adding that "This planet [Earth] is where God has got an experiment in what he wants to have accomplished." But as noted by Carl Sagan, "The universe is a pretty big place. If it's just us, seems like an awful waste of space." Indeed, if God created the Universe just for us, why such elaborate digs? Why would there be trillions upon trillions of stars in the cosmos and not just one? What's more, why create such a seemingly biophilic Universe, one that appears to be cosmologically consistent throughout? Simply put, it's an untestable argument that defies both logic and common sense. It is possible, of course that we are alone in the Universe, but if that's the case, there are much better explanations than invoking God.
5) Aliens Were Here, But Then They Left
Some people argue that aliens visited our Solar System in the past and moved on and/or left traces of their existence, such as the Face on Mars, or the pyramids and other archaeological remnants. Of course, the Face on Mars has been debunked as being extraterrestrial in origin, and we have perfectly good explanations for how the pyramids were built. Explanations that attempt to bring aliens into the discuss are often sensationalistic, completely without foundation, and in violation of Occam's Razor. Others contend that aliens visited Earth long ago, but then moved on without a trace. This is unlikely for several reasons. First, an advancing wave of extraterrestrial intelligence, likely in machine form, would reconstitute practically everything in its wake, converting matter from inert substances into something more useful, such as computronium. Alternatively, they could — and probably would — have uplifted and integrated any life into their civilization. What's more, given the age of the Galaxy and its apparent biophilic constitution, our Solar System could have been visited time and time again by a plethora of different civilizations. Yet according to this proposed solution, not one of them stayed behind or left any kind of discernible trace. Highly unlikely.
6) They're Actually Here Right Now!
So-called UFOlogists would have us believe that aliens are here right now, tormenting us puny humans with their exceedingly primitive flying saucers, strangely anthropocentric physical forms, and a rash of abductions. In a word, no. The late Carl Sagan said these claims are almost entirely anecdote: Someone says something happened to them, and people can say anything. The fact that someone says something doesn't mean it's true. Doesn't mean they're lying, but it doesn't mean it's true. To be taken seriously, you need physical evidence that can be examined at leisure by skeptical scientists: a scraping of the whole ship, and the discovery that it contains isotopic ratios that aren't present on Earth, chemical elements from the so-called island of stability, very heavy elements that don't exist on Earth. Or material of absolutely bizarre properties of many sorts—electrical conductivity or ductility. There are many things like that that would instantly give serious credence to an account. But there's no scrapings, no interior photographs, no filched page from the captain's log book. All there are are stories. There are instances of disturbed soil, but I can disturb soil with a shovel. There are instances of people claiming to flash lights at UFOs and the UFOs flash back. But, pilots of airplanes can also flash back, especially if they think it would be a good joke to play on the UFO enthusiast. So, that does not constitute good evidence. Indeed, the rash of crop circles and apparent accounts of flying saucers have not stood the test of time, and are a projection of contemporary notions of technological wonder.
7) We Haven't Been Searching for Aliens Long Enough
It's true that we only started the search for ETIs in earnest with the advent of Frank Drake's Project Ozma in the 1960s followed by the subsequent rise of more formal SETI radio searches. We've only been scanning the heavens for 55 years, and there's still plenty of territory to cover. There's the possibility, of course, that no one is broadcasting. We ourselves are currently debating the pros and cons of Active SETI — the deliberate attempt to get ET's attention. It's quite possible that all aliens are xenophobic and radio silent. If that's the case, then SETI is pretty much doomed to failure. But if aliens are truly interested in getting our attention, they should have no difficulty doing so. Most logically, they could pepper the Milky Way with Bracewell probes — communication beacons that are parked in every star system just waiting for the first sign of intelligent life to emerge (such as a radio signal). The Bracewell probe would in turn communicate with us, while transmitting a confirmation signal back home via a series of communication way-stations, likely other Bracewell probes. Alternately, aliens could broadcast an exceptionally strong and directed radio or optical signal that couldn't possibly be missed, even by a seemingly primitive technological civilization like our own. That said, this only applies to civilizations far more advanced than ours. SETI should continue to search for civilizations that are similar to our own in terms of their technological development. Given the Fermi Paradox, this may be as far as any civilization gets.
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04-01-2018
We May Be Receiving Signals From Alien Civilizations, Just Not In The Form We Would Expect.
We May Be Receiving Signals From Alien Civilizations, Just Not In The Form We Would Expect.
In my writing, I have never pulled any punches in regards to my disdain for our modern incarnation of S.E.T.I. On the surface S.E.T.I. seems logical and possibly successful. But if you devote more clock cycles to ponder the Universe and the vast unknown. The dynamics of deep time, the nearly infinite possibilities of how communication could occur a thinking person must by logic realize that S.E.T.I is doomed to failure from the start.
Don’t worry your tax dollars are not paying for Shostak’s folly. S.E.T.I has not been publicly funded since the 1990’s.
S.E.T.I makes too many assumptions that are based on our Earth centrist bias. Even listening to millions of frequencies simultaneously is infinitesimal in breadth. I understand the scientific reasoning for how and why they operate. You can only look for what you know. They have to try (I guess).
SETI had outlived its usefulness given modern knowledge, the success metric was that a civilization more than 400 light years away – because we know there is no good candidates closer – would have to have sent low-tech radio signals to a planet that lacked the technology to receive radio signals when they sent them. The aliens basically would have needed to know the future, which means they didn’t need radio waves.
If communicating with other civilizations takes and must take centuries then it will be interesting and may have value over time but it will lose immediacy. Time waits for no one and no being. Doesn’t matter how long you live… a lot of things happen in between intergalactic tweets. While I’m sure we answer we’d not sit waiting on the phone for the next word.
I think that if there is real dialogue going on between civilizations it has to have a purpose. Knowledge is one… if we can talk back and forth then we can exchange meaningful knowledge. If we can talk back and forth then the communication is functionally travelling faster than light.
Is that possible? Well, maybe. Since inflation did and does occur… And/if entangled particles started in the proximity of each other and have ended up evenly distributed across the universe they might be useful for communication. Instant chat across the universe. But of course, you would need to know which particles to fiddle with. Beyond our current scientific knowledge.
Any method of faster than light (FTL) communication that an advanced technology develops would likely become their preferred method of communicating over interstellar distances, and would be beyond our ability to detect at present.
Maybe that is why we don’t hear anything. They are all talking over our heads. Not to mention that fact that we will never understand the meaning of the message. Just hearing anything artificial would be a winning outcome.
There are undoubtedly forms of energy that our primitive science has not yet discovered. We could be in complete alignment with a galactic telephone trunk line and never know it. Maybe they do something analogous to our Internet packet switching. Their discreet packets may not look like anything unusual unless you intercept the whole message. All the cosmic background radiation may be packets of data appearing as normal energy until the message is reassembled. Just an idea but it illustrates the futility of our understanding.
Our science is a powerful weapon to be used to wipe away ancient superstitions and beliefs but it is still in its infancy. We, humans, are the new minds on the block. Anybody that is reasonably aware of the current state of Universal understanding must conclude that we already have enough reliable data to make a well educated guess that we are not alone in the Universe. As more and more life-sustaining earth-like planets are found our certainty of our non-uniqueness is confirmed.
We are not special in the Universe, we are just one among many. Humans may someday get past the emotional need to think that we are more than we actually are. At that time we may not need to look for extraterrestrial life it may come to us.
Knowledge is simply cool beans.
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{ http://www.theangryufologist.us/}
04-01-2018 om 23:52
geschreven door peter
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )
The Mysterious Disappearance of Frederick Valentich
The Mysterious Disappearance of Frederick Valentich
One of the most intriguing cases of potential alien abduction is the strange tale of a young pilot by the name of Frederick Valentich. In the late 1970s he had an arial encounter with a UFO while performing a flight down the Australian coast. There are several compelling pieces of evidence that were left behind: radio transmissions, eyewitness accounts and a photograph of an unknown craft.
On October 21st, 1978 Frederick Valentich embarked on a 125 mile flight along the shores of Bass Strait. Valentich, a member of the Air Training Corps, had been flying for over two years and accumulated over 150 hours of solitary trips. He was employed by an airline company and aspired to become a commercial pilot. At 6:19 pm Valentich took off in his Cessna 182 from an airport just outside of Melbourne. The journey was routine and followed a route that the twenty-one year old pilot had travelled many times before. Unbeknownst to Valentich, this would be his final departure.
Just over halfway through the uneventful flight things began to take a bizarre turn. An unidentified flying object was hovering about 1,000 feet above his plane. The craft was described as being a long metallic object with four bright lights and flew at speeds that seemed unbelievable. Valentich told air traffic controllers that something was approaching him and seemed to be playing some sort of game. It would remain stationary then quickly orbit closer. His final words were: “It is not an aircraft.”
Here is the actual transcript of the final communication between Frederick Valentich and the Melbourne Flight Services, as released by the Australian Department of Transport (the original audio recording is also available):
1906:14 DSJ Melbourne, this is Delta Sierra Juliet. Is there any known traffic below five thousand?
FS Delta Sierra Juliet, no known traffic.
DSJ Delta Sierra Juliet, I am, seems to be a large aircraft below five thousand.
1906:44 FS Delta Sierra Juliet, What type of aircraft is it?
DSJ Delta Sierra Juliet, I cannot affirm, it is four bright, it seems to me like landing lights.
1907 FS Delta Sierra Juliet.
1907:31 DSJ Melbourne, this is Delta Sierra Juliet, the aircraft has just passed over me at least a thousand feet above.
FS Delta Sierra Juliet, roger, and it is a large aircraft, confirmed?
DSJ Er-unknown, due to the speed it’s traveling, is there any air force aircraft in the vicinity?
FS Delta Sierra Juliet, no known aircraft in the vicinity.
1908:18 DSJ Melbourne, it’s approaching now from due east towards me.
FS Delta Sierra Juliet.
1908:41 DSJ (open microphone for two seconds.)
1908:48 DSJ Delta Sierra Juliet, it seems to me that he’s playing some sort of game, he’s flying over me two, three times at speeds I could not identify.
1909 FS Delta Sierra Juliet, roger, what is your actual level?
DSJ My level is four and a half thousand, four five zero zero.
FS Delta Sierra Juliet, and you confirm you cannot identify the aircraft?
DSJ Affirmative.
FS Delta Sierra Juliet, roger, stand by.
1909:27 DSJ Melbourne, Delta Sierra Juliet, it’s not an aircraft it is (open microphone for two seconds).
1909:42 FS Delta Sierra Juliet, can you describe the -er- aircraft?
DSJ Delta Sierra Juliet, as it’s flying past it’s a long shape (open microphone for three seconds) cannot identify more than it has such speed (open microphone for three seconds). It’s before me right now Melbourne.
1910 FS Delta Sierra Juliet, roger and how large would the – er – object be?
1910:19 DSJ Delta Sierra Juliet, Melbourne, it seems like it’s stationary. What I’m doing right now is orbiting and the thing is just orbiting on top of me also. It’s got a green light and sort of metallic like, it’s all shiny on the outside.
FS Delta Sierra Juliet
1910:46 DSJ Delta Sierra Juliet (open microphone for three seconds) It’s just vanished.
FS Delta Sierra Juliet
1911 DSJ Melbourne, would you know what kind of aircraft I’ve got? Is it a military aircraft?
FS Delta Sierra Juliet, Confirm the – er – aircraft just vanished.
DSJ Say again.
FS Delta Sierra Juliet, is the aircraft still with you?
DSJ Delta Sierra Juliet; it’s (open microphone for two seconds) now approaching from the south-west.
FS Delta Sierra Juliet
1911:50 DSJ Delta Sierra Juliet, the engine is rough-idling. I’ve got it set at twenty three twenty-four and the thing is coughing.
FS Delta Sierra Juliet, roger, what are your inten
FS Delta Sierra Juliet.
1912:28 DSJ Delta Sierra Juliet. Melbourne (open microphone for seventeen secondstions?
DSJ My intentions are – ah – to go to King Island – ah – Melbourne. That strange aircraft is hovering on top of me again (open microphone for two seconds). It is hovering and it’s not an aircraft.).
During the final seventeen seconds there is an eerie metallic scraping that can be heard. A NASA researcher as well as the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology have analyzed the transmission. Neither were able to identify the source of these sounds and to this day it remains a mystery.
After Valentich’s disappearance a massive search ensued. For four days a fleet of shipping vessels scoured the ocean. There were no signs of a crash or traces of any wreckage despite the Cessna’s design to float in the event it hit water. A witness who wished to remain anonymous approached investigators. He stated that on the evening of October 21st, while out with his family, they saw a bright green light flying above a small plane. Both of the crafts got closer to one another before they flew out of their view. Eleven other eyewitnesses came forward with observations that were all identical. Interestingly, in the month prior to Valentich’s incident, there had been a massive spike in UFO sightings in that area.
Roy Manifold’s strange photograph shows an unidentified flying object in the sky.
Roy Manifold, an amateur photographer, was at Cape Otway on the evening that Valentich vanished. He wanted to capture the sunset with his camera settings on an automatic exposure. During the shoot six photographs were taken in succession using the time-lapse setting. Once they were developed a puzzling anomaly was seen in the last picture: a strange object in the upper right corner. At first Manifold thought it might have been a developing error so it was sent in for analysis. There was neither dirt nor damage on the original negative. Other experts made a startling determination and concluded that the image showed a metallic object about a mile from the camera.
This year Valentich would have been celebrating his sixtieth birthday. Nearly four decades later there are still far more questions than answers. While many theories as to the pilot’s ultimate fate have been proposed they all remain mere speculation. Whatever happened during that final flight will remain one of Australia’s greatest aviation mysteries. What do you think happened to Frederick Valentich? Might it be possible that he may one day resurface? Share your thoughts in the comments!
Saarbrucken (Germany) – While the media interest in the unveiling of a secret UFO research program by the US Department of Defense through the “New York Times” is still unbroken, independent researchers are investigating the information and videos presented. Especially for the alleged UFO-encounter of the USS Nimitz Aircraft Carrier Combat Group in November 2004, which was actually well confirmed by at least two military eyewitnesses, the trace of the accompanying video leads to a German film production company, whose specialties are also 2- and 3D animation and special effects. The leading German newsblog on frontier science and the paranormal Grenzwissenschaft-Aktuell.de (GreWi) investigated. The result is all the more mysterious…
Furthermore a video of the on-board camera and tracing system (ATFLIR) of one of the fighter interceptors involved in the USS-Nimitz UFO-encounter is supposed to show the object and have been available online since 2007.
– Please find a full documentary with further information and discussion of the video HERE – Please find another documentary HERE
Understandably, this fact still raises doubts among many observers, investigators and skeptics about the authenticity and origin of the video, which is described by the “New York Times” and the “To The Stars Academy” as “officially released by the US government”.
GreWi-Editor Andreas Muller asked the manager of “Vision Unlimited”, Mr. Philip Schneider about the above described situation and he explains: “Unfortunately, I can’t help at all. We don’t know where the file came from and can only say that it hasn’t been on the server for a long time since. Because the case is so strange, we also wanted to investigate. But quickly this showed to be fruitless because the file was on an old server and all data (LOGs etc.) are no longer available. I’ve also talked to former employees who had access to the server, but no one could tell me anything about it.” On a further inquiry to clarify that the video in question is NOT a product of “Vision Unlimited”, Schneider summarizes the situation again from VU’s point of view: “Yes correct – we have nothing to do with the video!
The search for the origin of the video through “Vision Unlimited” not only leads to a dead end, but also raises more questions than answers: Where does the video came from and how, why and by whom was it placed to the server of the VU-website?
Ultimately, only the publication of the videos raw data through an official channel of the US-Government could answer questions of origin and authenticity of the video as allegedly being of the on-board camera and tracing system on board the Nimitz-Super-Hornet. These data could then also answer critical questions about what the object actually is – or at least what it is not.
Raytheon’s “Advanced Targeting Forward Look Infrared” (ATFLIR) sensor, like the one used to track a possible UFO in a 2004 incident, is carried under the wing of this fighter jet. Copyright/Source: Raytheon.com
While even Raytheon, the company producing the ATFLIR-system, is currently advertising that it could be their own system that “caught the first evidence of E.T. out there”, at the same time they also point out that “even so, the video images are not definitive proof that the jet pilots were chasing an actual UFO. To really be sure, we would need the raw data.”
An U.S. Navy ATFLIR, designated AN/ASQ-228, mounted under a fighter jet.
Copyright/Source: Raytheon.com
What is interesting about Raytheon’s statement, however, is that they seem to have no doubt from their side that the recordings are taken from one of their military-used ATFLIR-systems.
Saarbrucken (Germany) – While the media interest in the unveiling of a secret UFO research program by the US Department of Defense through the “New York Times” is still unbroken, independent researchers are investigating the information and videos presented. Especially for the alleged UFO-encounter of the USS Nimitz Aircraft Carrier Combat Group in November 2004, which was actually well confirmed by at least two military eyewitnesses, the trace of the accompanying video leads to a German film production company, whose specialties are also 2- and 3D animation and special effects. The leading German newsblog on frontier science and the paranormal Grenzwissenschaft-Aktuell.de (GreWi) investigated. The result is all the more mysterious…
Furthermore a video of the on-board camera and tracing system (ATFLIR) of one of the fighter interceptors involved in the USS-Nimitz UFO-encounter is supposed to show the object and have been available online since 2007.
– Please find a full documentary with further information and discussion of the video HERE – Please find another documentary HERE
Understandably, this fact still raises doubts among many observers, investigators and skeptics about the authenticity and origin of the video, which is described by the “New York Times” and the “To The Stars Academy” as “officially released by the US government”.
GreWi-Editor Andreas Muller asked the manager of “Vision Unlimited”, Mr. Philip Schneider about the above described situation and he explains: “Unfortunately, I can’t help at all. We don’t know where the file came from and can only say that it hasn’t been on the server for a long time since. Because the case is so strange, we also wanted to investigate. But quickly this showed to be fruitless because the file was on an old server and all data (LOGs etc.) are no longer available. I’ve also talked to former employees who had access to the server, but no one could tell me anything about it.” On a further inquiry to clarify that the video in question is NOT a product of “Vision Unlimited”, Schneider summarizes the situation again from VU’s point of view: “Yes correct – we have nothing to do with the video!
The search for the origin of the video through “Vision Unlimited” not only leads to a dead end, but also raises more questions than answers: Where does the video came from and how, why and by whom was it placed to the server of the VU-website?
Ultimately, only the publication of the videos raw data through an official channel of the US-Government could answer questions of origin and authenticity of the video as allegedly being of the on-board camera and tracing system on board the Nimitz-Super-Hornet. These data could then also answer critical questions about what the object actually is – or at least what it is not.
Raytheon’s “Advanced Targeting Forward Look Infrared” (ATFLIR) sensor, like the one used to track a possible UFO in a 2004 incident, is carried under the wing of this fighter jet. Copyright/Source: Raytheon.com
While even Raytheon, the company producing the ATFLIR-system, is currently advertising that it could be their own system that “caught the first evidence of E.T. out there”, at the same time they also point out that “even so, the video images are not definitive proof that the jet pilots were chasing an actual UFO. To really be sure, we would need the raw data.”
An U.S. Navy ATFLIR, designated AN/ASQ-228, mounted under a fighter jet.
Copyright/Source: Raytheon.com
What is interesting about Raytheon’s statement, however, is that they seem to have no doubt from their side that the recordings are taken from one of their military-used ATFLIR-systems.
Etoile Tabby: la thèse d'une structure extraterrestre définitivement écartée
Etoile Tabby: la thèse d'une structure extraterrestre définitivement écartée
Illustration de l'étoile. - AFP PHOTO / NASA/JPL-CALTECH/HANDOUT
Les fortes variations de luminosité perçues auprès d'elle avaient pu laisser penser à la communauté scientifique qu'une étoile était environnée par une structure extraterrestre. Mais, après plusieurs mois de recherches, les experts expliquent dans des travaux publiés mercredi le mystère par des nuages de poussières.
Des scientifiques ont définitivement écarté la thèse d'une infrastructure extraterrestre géante autour de la mystérieuse étoile "Tabby" pour expliquer ses fortes variations de luminosité, parfois soudaines et prolongées, qu'ils attribuent désormais à des nuages de poussières. L'astronome américain Jason Wright, de l'université d'Etat de Pennsylvanie, avait fait sensation en octobre 2015 en suggérant que cet étrange phénomène pourrait peut-être s'expliquer par la présence d'une sphère de Dyson, une mégastructure construite par une civilisation extraterrestre pour capter l'énergie de l'étoile.
Il a fallu plusieurs mois d'observations pour qu'une équipe de plus de 200 astrophysiciens rejette cette hypothèse. "La poussière est la cause la plus probable de ces variations de luminosité de l'étoile", explique ainsi Tabetha Boyajian, professeure adjointe à l'université d'Etat de Louisiane et principale auteure de ces travaux publiés mercredi dansThe Astrophysical Journal Letters. "Les nouvelles données recueillies pendant les observations révèlent différentes couleurs de lumière bloquées à différentes intensités. Cela signifie que ce qui passe entre l'étoile et nous n'est pas opaque, écartant de ce fait une mégastructure extraterrestre ou un corps planétaire", précise Mme Boyajian, dont le prénom a inspiré le surnom de l'étoile, à savoir "Tabby" mais connue scientifiquement comme KIC 8462852.
"L'étoile la plus mystérieuse de l'univers"
Cette étoile, qualifiée par les scientifiques de "plus mystérieuse de l'univers", se situe à plus de 1.000 années-lumière de la Terre. Environ 50% plus grosse que notre Soleil, elle est également 1.000 degrés plus chaude. Même si les scientifiques ont écarté l'hypothèse d'une structure géante extraterrestre, "les dernières observations pourraient aussi être la signature d'autres phénomènes naturels", pointe Jason Wright, qui a participé à cette étude. Plus de 1.700 personnes ont donné au total 100.000 dollars sur la plateforme de financement participatif Kickstarter pour étudier davantage cette étoile.
When it comes to human history, we are, as author Graham Hancock once coined, a species with amnesia. We have a hard time putting together the pieces of the puzzle, and the explanations for what took place at various points throughout human history still remains, for the most part, a mystery. On top of all this confusion and lack of understanding, comes indoctrination via education. Scientific and religious dogma still dominate, and despite the fact that new discoveries are being made every single day, and more “missing links” continue to pop up in the mainstream, most of the world is still unaware of these discoveries and their implications. One of these discoveries is the idea of advanced intelligent ancient civilizations who once roamed the Earth, and the evidence to back it up.
History is not always as it’s told, which is why critical thinking and investigation is important if one is passionate about such subjects. Relying on basic “education” can mislead us and misinform us in some cases. Another important point to make note of is the classification of information. According to the best estimates of some historians, the U.S. government alone classifies more than 500 million pages of documents every single year. For a historian looking to archive the history of the United States, this would be nearly impossible to do so in an accurate manner.
A lot of information from the past contradicts much of what we’ve been told today.
It seems, in the fields of human history, archaeology and our understanding of ancient civilizations, new discoveries seem to be popping up every single day.
From the teachings of the Sumerians, Mayans, ancient Egyptians, Greeks, all the way to Atlantians and more, there are facts that still remain unacknowledged when piecing together the mystery that is human history. These topics, and several examples can be found doing some simple independent research, but for a more in-depth look with multiple examples that come from our ancient world, I suggest you start off with the work of author Graham Hancock if you’re really passionate about lost ancient civilizations.
This article will focus in on Atlantis, and the possible extraterrestrial activity that occurred in those times.
It’s quite odd that, when it comes to the works of Plato and others who lived in times we know very little about, we ourselves choose to label what is real and what is mythological. We do this almost instinctively, and it seems to be based on what conflicts with our ingrained belief systems at the time. When new information is presented which goes against the grain, and has the potential to shift ones own or the collective paradigm, it’s not always easy to accept and even easier to ridicule, even in the face of strong evidence.
“Strange times are these in which we live when old and young are taught falsehoods in school. And the person that dares to tell the truth is called at once a lunatic and fool”
– Plato
Plato, and other scholars who came before and after him, as shown in the literature, discussed at length human history, the origin of the human species, and the true nature of reality. How Plato, and those before and after him, were able to discuss aspects of space and physics which were only recently confirmed in modern history remains a mystery – similar to what we see with Buddhism and quantum physics. So much knowledge has been shared from the fraction of documents and text we have from that era, that it is truly mind-altering to contemplate the accuracy of their thoughts when you compare it to modern day knowledge.`
In many instances, our modern day world is trying hard to catch up to ancient wisdom.
One topic of interest among some of our ancients, is the lost land of Atlantis. Plato is one who wrote about it, and he lived in a time closer to the period in question. He wasn’t the only one to do so, but why is it that when ancient documents and ‘influential’ figures who describe aspects of ancient society like social norms, financial structure and education, they’re taken extremely seriously, but when speaking of an advanced ancient civilizations and spirituality, they’re words are considered mythical?
Many people have tried to piece this mystery together. A more modern day example would be M. Pierre Termeir, a member of the Academy of Sciences and Director of Service of the Geologic Chart of France, who gave a lecture regarding the Atlantean civilization. He makes a compelling case for further study of this lost city, which was the subject of significant importance for researchers at the Smithsonian Institution, as emphasized by their Annual Report of the Board of Regents of The Smithsonian Institution for the year ending June 30th, 1915.
In the report, author M. Pierre Termeir,
After a long period of disdainful indifference, observe how in the last few years science is returning to the study of Atlantis. How many naturalists, geologists, zoologists, or botanists are asking one another today whether Plato has not transmitted to us, with slight amplification, a page from the actual history of mankind. No affirmation is yet permissible; but it seems more and more evident that a vast region, continental or made up of great islands, has collapsed west of the Pillars of Hercules, otherwise called the Straight of Gibraltar, and that its collapse occurred in the not far distant past. In any event, the question of Atlantis is placed anew before men of science; and since I do not believe that it can ever be solved without the aid of oceanography, I have thought it natural to discuss it here, in this temple of maritime science, and to call to such a problem, long scorned but now being revived, the attention of oceanographers, as well as the attention of those who, though immersed in the tumult of cities, lend an ear to the distant murmur of the sea.
You can read this full report here, starting on page 219.
According to Plato, Atlantis was inhabited by ‘earth-born’ and ‘primitive’ human beings. One of them was wooed by the god Poseidon, who interbred with the human beings, and they eventually bore five children. This interbreeding between gods and humans is a common theme in many historical texts found throughout the world.
Was it really interbreeding between beings from another planet?
The land was divided into concentric zones of land and water. Two zones of land and three zones of water surrounded the central island, which had warm springs of water and cold springs of water. The land became an established country, with a wise government and an industry that saw them soar to advanced technological heights, beyond anything we’ve reached today.
According to Plato, Atlantis was full of large and beautiful palaces, temples, docks, and a network of various bridges and canals that united different sections of the kingdom.
His description was very precise. For example, when describing the construction of public buildings, he explains:
“They circumscribed each of the land zones with a wall, the outer wall being covered with brass, the middle with tin, and the inner, which encompassed the citadel, with orichalc. The citadel, on the central island, contained the palaces, temples, and other public buildings. In its center, surrounded by a wall of gold, was a sanctuary dedicated to Cleito and Poseidon.” (source)
“The part of Atlantis facing the sea was described as lofty and precipitous, but about the central city was a plain sheltered by mountains renowned for their size, number, and beauty. The plain yielded two crops each year, in the winter being watered by rains and in the summer by immense irrigation canals, which were also used for transportation. The plain was divided into sections and in time of war each section supplied its quota of fighting men and chariots.” (source)
Atlantis was massive, ruled by multiple kings who all had control over their land. Their relationships with the other kings were governed by an original code of ethics that was engraved by the first ten kings. “The chief laws of the Atlantean kings were that they should not take up arms against each other and that they should come to the assistance of any of their number who was attacked.”(source)
Eventually, Atlantis fell due to greed, ego, and black magic. Qualities not rare among ‘men.’ It’s these qualities that still exist today which the human race, on a collective level, that we need to let go of.
To read in more detail how Atlantis fell, according to Plato, you can read the article linked below:
“Yes, there have been crashed craft, and bodies recovered… We are not alone in the universe, they have been coming here for a long time.”
– Apollo 14 Astronaut Dr. Edgar Mitchell (source) (source)
As you can see from above, Plato’s description of the ‘Gods’ and how they assisted, as well as inbred with the native human populations, is nothing new.
Were these Gods extraterrestrial? It’s not an uncommon thought, which is probably made most evident by popular mainstream TV shows, like Ancient Aliens.
Another strong point to entertain this thought (the extraterrestrial hypothesis) is the fact that Plato’s (among others’) description of ancient Greek society, the Romans, historical accounts of various events (like the burning of the Library of Alexandria) , and more (which are all used to teach people about ancient Greek society today), are all extremely accurate.
Why then, is it so hard to believe accounts given by Plato, in the exact same manner of description and enthusiasm, to be true? Because it doesn’t “line up” with our belief systems?
What makes this thought so relevant now is all of the information which has emerged within the past couple of years alone regarding the UFO/extraterrestrial phenomenon.
Pop culture sensation, Tom Delonge, seems to be at the forefront of a United States disclosure movement. He’s started what’s called the To The Stars Academy, and joining him are high ranking Department of Defence officials, like Louis Elizondo, an ex CIA director, and technological geniuses like Steve Justice, a recently retired 30-year director of Lockheed Martin Skunkworks. (Read more about this in the article linked below).
They’ve come together, in partnership with the US government, to let the world know that the UFO phenomenon is real, that objects are commonly tracked on radar and visually confirmed, objects which travel at speeds and perform maneuvers that no known air-craft on Earth can. They (the Pentagon in partnership with To The Stars) recently released a video of one of these technologically advanced craft. The people at To The Stars have mentioned on more than one occasion that there is good evidence to believe we are not alone.
Despite the fact that this is now being presented to the mainstream, it’s not a new phenomenon and these types of encounters have been documented for decades.
You can view the video and our discussion about it in the article linked below:
Sure, UFO doesn’t mean extraterrestrial, but when you have objects travelling and performing technical capabilities that defy our laws of physics, it’s not something to ignore.
On top of that, the extraterrestrial hypothesis as on of several possible explanations for the UFO phenomena does have, what some scientists consider to be, strong evidence behind it. You can read more about that discussion in the article linked below:
This recent acknowledgement by the US government regarding UFOs does raise a lot of questions, especially given the fact that western governments have been deceiving us on several topics for a long time.
When it comes to Atlantis, and ancient Greece, Delonge (of To The Stars)mention some interest stuff in his recent Podcast with Joe Rogan. Whether or not you chose to believe it or not is up to you, but keep in mind, the UFO phenomena is not a reality, and the extraterrestrial hypothesis is (and has been) backed by some of the most notable scientists throughout human history, as well as high ranking Defence employees like the ones Tom has gathered together with.
“It is my thesis that flying saucers are real and that they are space ships from another solar system. I think that they possibly are manned by intelligent observers who are members of a race that may have been investigating our Earth for centuries.”
– Herman Oberth, one of the founding fathers of modern rocketry. (source)
Many scientists, astronauts and employees from within has said, time and time again, that they know many of these unknown objects are indeed extraterrestrial.
“I went and met a former director of the CIA and NSA…Right when I sat down and told him about the book you know what he says to me? He goes, “I didn’t read much science fiction when I was a kid but I read a lot about Greek mythology”…The sixth biggest defense contractor in the world is a company called Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC)…and in the front of the building (SAIC’s headquarters) you have an obelisk coming out of a fake leg and two Atlantians on thrones, and they’re both holding pyramids and one says the past and one says the future, and they’re 8 foot tall statues.”
Quite an interesting observation. He also mentioned that “Gods” in this time were extraterrestrial, beings from other worlds and/or dimensions guiding and pushing humanity along with little pushes here and there. These types of figures are described by several ancient cultures throughout the world, more so prior to the Roman empire, when gods became “God.”
So, it is indeed interesting to ponder, were these ‘Gods’ actually extraterrestrial?
I’ll leave you with this video, as I’ve done countless times before, so I apologize if you missed it. Contrary to popular believe, just as there was evidence for the now verified UFO phenomenon, there is evidence that does support the extraterrestrial hypothesis, and a lot of it.
Get ready, Earth’s moon is about to do something it hasn’t done in more than 150 years
Get ready, Earth’s moon is about to do something it hasn’t done in more than 150 years
On January 31st, when you look up in the sky, you’ll notice a moon unlike any other you’ve probably ever seen.
Three celestial events that have not coincided in more than 150 years will affect the appearance of the next full moon on which will take place on January 31, an event which has been described as a super blue blood moon eclipse. So, call it whatever you wish, a red moon, a blue moon, or a supermoon, the event we are about to witness hasn’t been seen in more than 150 years according to experts.
So what exactly is happening?
First of all, the January 31 supermoon will feature a total lunar eclipse, with a totality visible all the way from western North America up through the Pacific and eastern Asia.
The orbit of the Moon around our planet is tilted, so it usually falls above or below the shadow of the Earth.
According to scientists from NASA, almost twice a year, a full Moon tends to be perfectly aligned with the Earth and the Sun causing the shadow of the Earth to blocks the Sun’s light, which would normally be reflected in the Moon.
This means that in the above-mentioned areas, on January 31, the Moon will lose its brightness and acquire a mysterious glow, weaker than normal, mostly caused due to the scarce sunlight that crosses the Earth’s atmosphere.
This mysterious appearance, which is often emitted in a reddish hue due to the way the atmosphere doubles the light, is why totally eclipsed moons are sometimes referred to as ‘blood moons.’
But that’s not all. Interestingly, the supermoon of January 31 will also be the second full moon of the month.
A super ‘blue Moon’ is said to occur on January 31st.
Some people tend to call the second Full Moon in a month a Blue Moon, which makes this phenomenon a super ‘Blue Moon’.
Blue Moons happen every two and a half years, on average.
With the total eclipse, it will be a ‘super blue blood’ moon.
So get your telescopes ready, grab a pack of beer and sit tight and witness a phenomenon that hasn’t been witnessed in more than 150 years.
“We’re seeing all of the Earth’s sunrises and sunsets at that moment reflected from the surface of the Moon,” Sarah Noble, a program scientist at NASA headquarters, said in a release.
“Anything that keeps people interested in science and makes them realize science is important is a good thing,” she added.
What’s happened to the Sun? Video shows rare phenomenon in the sky
What’s happened to the Sun? Video shows rare phenomenon in the sky
Is that a sky with three Suns? Not really, it’s just a rare celestial illusion called parhelion’s, aka Sun Dog, an optical phenomenon that occurs with the refraction of light in the ice particles of the clouds.
Since Water can freeze in the atmosphere in small, flat, six-sided ice crystals, phenomena like this can show up unexpectedly.
As these crystals flutter towards the ground, they spend much of their time floating parallel to the ground.
“As these crystals flutter to the ground, much time is spent with their faces flat and parallel to the ground. An observer may find themselves in the same plane as many of the falling ice crystals near sunrise or sunset.”
Parhelions or Sun Dogs usually appear in the sky as a pair of subtly colored patches of light, approximately 22° to the left and right of the Sun, and at the same altitude above the horizon as the Sun.
During this strange alignment, each crystal can act as a miniature lens, reflecting the sunlight in our eyes and creating phenomena such as a Sun Dogs, explains NASA.
The video posted in this article was filmed and uploaded to YouTube by Hakan Hammar and was taken a month ago at the Vemdalen Ski Resort in central Sweden.
Visible in the center is the most direct image of the Sun, while two solar rays shine prominently from the left and right making it appear almost as if two more suns in the sky.
In the video we can clearly distinguish a bright halo of 22 degrees, as well as another rarer and much fainter halo of 46 degrees, also created by sunlight that is reflected in atmospheric ice crystals.
So, the next time someone tells you that they saw three sun’s in the sky, you’ll know that it’s not a conspiracy theory and that everything can be explained using science.
Similar phenomena can occur with the moon.
As explained by Time and Date, “Light from the Moon also creates glowing spots on both sides of the Moon, called moondogs. Also known as mock moon or paraselene, moondogs are rarer than sundogs because they only occur when the Moon is full or close to being full.”
Methane, a substance which goes hand in hand with life on Earth, has also been found on Mars. At a meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in New Orleans, Louisiana, NASA scientists reported that atmospheric methane on Mars exhibits a surprising variation. Its causes are still unknown.
How the surface of Mars looks like.
Image credits: NASA / JPL.
Red Methane
Many things on Earth, from wetlands to permafrost, and from plants to animals themselves, generate methane. Researchers have been closely monitoring this substance as it is the most potent greenhouse gas in our atmosphere, albeit much more short-lived than CO2, for instance. But researchers were surprised to see any methane at all on frigid, barren Mars. Even more surprising was the large variation of the gas.
“The thing that’s so shocking here is this large variation,” said Chris Webster, who leads the methane-sensing instrument on NASA’s Curiosity rover. “We’re left trying to imagine how we can create this seasonal variation,” says Webster, who is at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
Scientists analyzed data from the Curiosity Rover. Since it landed on the Red Planet, the rover sampled Martian air 30 times, reporting extremely small background levels of the gas: around 0.4 parts per billion (ppb), compared with Earth’s 1800 ppb. But even small quantities need to come from somewhere. To make things even more mysterious, methane levels have been cycling from 0.3 ppb and 0.7 ppb over just two Martian years.
Some seasonality is, of course, to be expected. However, the mechanisms we’re currently aware of don’t even get close to explaining a variation of this magnitude. It could be that whatever is generating the methane has a temperature variation, which could translate to seasonality, but this is mere speculation at this point.
Diving into the realm of speculation, there’s also another possibility — “one that no one talks about but is in the back of everyone’s mind” — biological activity, says Mike Mumma, a planetary scientist at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “You’d expect life to be seasonal.”
Life on Mars
Most of the methane on Earth was generated by microbes. There’s a good chance that the same process is, or was, happening on Mars. If this is the case, we would be dealing with either contemporary or ancient microbes. But ancient microbes wouldn’t really explain the seasonal variation, so going on this train of thought, it would appear more likely that we’re dealing with active microbial life on Mars. Yet this isn’t the only possible explanation.
Methane observations on Earth, showing the seasonal variations and the difference between northern and southern hemispheres. There’s a much lower variation than what was observed on Mars.
Image credits: National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration.
Methane can also be generated through geological processes which have nothing to do with biology. Methane can be produced through hydrothermal reactions, especially ones involving olivine-rich rocks. It can also appear when carbon-containing meteoroids are bombarded by ultraviolet (UV) light, and dust falls down on the planet. This particular theory could also help explain the large variation.
Basically, the same chemical that produces methane from interplanetary dust at the surface level would be power-charged by UV light at high altitudes. As meteorite or comet dust particles fall down on the planet, they’re vaporized at tens of kilometers high in the air, producing significant quantities of methane. Since Curiosity’s reported variation can be somewhat correlated to meteor showers, Marc Fries, the cosmic dust curator at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, believes this might explain the seasonality. But not everyone is convinced, and Fries himself concedes that meteor showers are highly variable and a causation is difficult to establish.
However, the good news is that Fries will have a chance to test his hypothesis: on 24 January, Mars will have a close encounter with comet C/2007 H2 Skiff — the comet is set to pass at less than a tenth of the Earth-moon distance. Even skeptics agree that this is a good opportunity to test the theory.
To make things even better, the European Space Agency’s ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter will start observations on Mars, mapping methane distributions across the planet. But if neither of these tests confirms Fries’ theory, it’s back to the drawing board.
Sometime in March, China’s first manned space station, Tiangong-1, is set to come crashing down on Earth. We don’t know precisely when, and we can’t tell exactly where either. But don’t start spending money on hardhats just yet — there’s an extremely small chance that the ship or any debris from it will actually hit anyone.
Reentry of Cygnus resupply ship Janice Voss on 17 Aug. 2014.
Image credits ESA / NASA.
Launched back in September of 2011, Tiangong-1 — full name Tiāngōng yīhào, “Heavenly Palace” — was China’s first manned space station. The craft represented this country’s first steps in space station technology, serving its maiden year as an unmanned craft, a platform on which the Chinese National Space Administration (CNSA) could test hardware and practice docking. Crews moved in in 2012 and 2013, including the country’s first female astronauts.
It was actually only meant to stay in operation until 2013 and then be replaced. After the last crew was brought back planet-side, however, CNSA decided to extend the operational life of Tiangong-1 by a further two years. The station was put in ‘sleep mode’ on a spin around the planet so that engineers could collect data on the longevity of key components while its orbit slowly decayed.
As far as decommissioning is concerned, however, Tiangong-1 certainly plans to go out with a bang.
Blaze of (uncontrolled) glory
Back in 2016, CNSA announced that it lost contact and control capabilities over the station. Still bleeding altitude, it will ultimately make an uncontrolled re-entry (fancy way of saying ‘crash down’) sometime this March. Several countries have been keeping tabs on the vessel, and according to estimates, it should end up somewhere between 43 degrees North and 43 degrees South — an area that’s mostly water.
Satellites and spacecraft fall on Earth all the time — mostly because we do such a poor job of not littering in space. All the junk, decommissioned craft, and other bits flying around Earth eventually drop to a low orbit, where atmospheric drag brings them down. But while most of that is small enough to burn up in the atmosphere, Tiangong-1 stands apart from all this mess due to its sheer size.
As a rule of thumb, engineers estimate that around 10% to 40% of a falling spaceship will make it through the atmosphere unburnt. Tiangong weighs in at around 8,506 kilograms (18,753 lbs) of heat-shield-covered goodness, so we’re potentially looking at around 850 to 3400 kilograms (1,873 to 7,495 lbs) of incoming spaceship. Compounding the problem is that China can’t nudge the station any longer, as controllers generally do with thruster-equipped vessels during an uncontrolled re-entry, and thus we have no power over where it eventually crash-lands. The station itself is quite compact, just 10.5 by 3.35 meters (34.4 by 10.9 ft), but it’s very difficult to tell how wide any debris will spread.
Asteroid P/2013 R3 seen breaking apart in outer space. Tiangong-1 can have a similar fate as it braves Earth’s atmosphere.
Image credits NASA, ESA / D. Jewitt (UCLA).
Now, while this may sound unpleasantly apocalyptic, it’s important to note that it’s not the first time a craft made an uncontrolled re-entry. It’s neither the biggest ship to do so, nor, arguably, is it the most dangerous one — in 1987, for example, a malfunctioning Soviet reconnaissance satellite crashed and spread nuclear material from its fission reactor all around Canada’s Great Slave Lake. Tiangong relies on solar panels, the clean energy that is clean even after it crash-lands.
It’s also important to note that the debris won’t necessarily stay in one piece and place — that 2,000 to 8,000 pounds of craft could very well be spread across a range of several square miles. Much larger and bulkier ships crashed without causing any real damage. Phobos-Grunt, a 13,600 kg (30,000 lbs) Russian spacecraft aimed at Mars safely crashed into the Pacific in 2012. Skylab, the largest ship to make an uncontrolled reentry with its 72,500 kg (160,000 lbs) frame, fell in the Australian Outback, damaging some buildings, killing a cow, and incurring a littering fine for the US.
So if you were planning on getting hit by Tiangong, your chances don’t look good. The Verge’s Loren Grush says there’s a 1 in 10,000 chance for anyone to be hit by a fragment — which is about as much as your odds of catching a lightning bolt sometime in your life, according to NOAA.
In fact, there’s only one person ever known to have probably been hit by space debris in the 50 or so years we’ve been launching rockets. Her name is Lottie Williams, and in 1997, while out for a walk, she was hit in the shoulder by a 15.2 (6 in) long metal fragment. It wasn’t ever identified as having come from a rocket, but NASA says the incident happened around the time and place of the re-entry and breakup of a second-stage Delta rocket.
So the odds, as they say, look solidly in your favor. And hey, if you do get unlucky and catch a piece of Tiangong-1, you’ll at least be famous. But maybe that’s not really worth it.
In the meantime, virtually all state agencies will be watching and learning all they can from the re-entry. A group of such agencies, the IADC, will be working together to track and record the station’s fall and use the data to refine our prediction models — meaning we’ll have a much better idea of how stuff crashes down in the future. Sadly, right now they won’t be able to offer any type of warning — they’ll likely be able to say when it comes down with some degree of accuracy a few hours before it happens, but all bets are currently off for ‘where’.
UFOs recorded over Warnbro, Western Australia on 3rd January 2018.
Witness report:
Object seen above the N/W it started off as an incredibly fast pulsation a real quick flickering pattern. As I looked up it immediately caught my gaze.
USAF Plane Personnel Noticed A UFO On Radar Tailing Them Across the Atlantic Ocean
USAF Plane Personnel Noticed A UFO On Radar Tailing Them Across the Atlantic Ocean
A bizarre UFO encounter has gotten details in the wake of the secret Pentagon UFO investigations’ exposure. A US Air Force man has come forward with information on the encounter that he reportedly failed to report in December 1980 for fear of destroying his career.
The loadmaster, who has yet to be named, reported the unusual case to the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) on December 26, 2017, just days after the details about a top-secret US Department of Defense five-year investigation into the threat posed by UFOs made headlines across the world.
The details of the £16.5million secretive programme of the Department of Defense Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification were exposed after the American Government claimed for years it had not interested in unidentified flying objects, something that many UFO enthusiasts and conspiracy theorists refused to believe.
MUFON is the most extensive organisation in the world dedicated to alien and UFO research and keeps a database of UFO sightings and reports across the globe.
Loadmasters are responsible for getting personnel and cargo onto a plane.
The unnamed man explained in his report to MUFON that he did not report the sighting officially for fear of ruining his career, because of the perceived ridicule surrounding unidentified flying object sightings.
He claimed that he was a loadmaster on a C-141 transport aircraft. They took off from Charleston Air Force Base to Dover Air Force Base, Delaware, when their radar picked up the UFO. The mysterious object was pacing their aircraft, according to the report.
The reporting witness said that they reported the incident to the tower. Once they landed at Dover, the technicians checked out their radar and found no problem, the report stated.
The loadmaster said the plane then set off again from Dover to Ireland, but halfway across the Atlantic Ocean, the object appeared back and continued to pace them the rest of the way across the ocean.
He said they contacted the tower again to report the encounter. Interestingly, the tower reportedly had the object on the radar as well.
The crew was asked if they wanted to file a UFO report. They discussed it and decided it would be bad for their careers, so no report was submitted, according to the reporting witness.
Sky-Watcher caught pulsating disk-like object in the vicinity of the constellation Canis Minor
Sky-Watcher caught pulsating disk-like object in the vicinity of the constellation Canis Minor
Witness report: I went out to view and photograph the super moon visible on the night of January 2, 2018 in Eastern Pennsylvania and I noticed an unusual, rapidly pulsating star to the lower right of the moon, in the south west portion of the sky.
This was not a plane or a satellite. It remained very bright and maintained it's position in the sky for hours. It was in the vicinity of the constellation Canis Minor.
I used an amateur Meade telescope to get a better look at here. Through a strong lens, it appeared to be a disk of rapidly rotating lights that flashed as well.
These lights constantly changed color. There was a dark void in the center, though at times I noticed some specks of light in the center. Mufon case 89298.
Are aliens to blame for mutilated wild boars found along Florida Road?
Are aliens to blame for mutilated wild boars found along Florida Road?
Witness states: At 9:45 am on the morning of January 2nd 2018, my wife Tina and I were traveling along Moore rd in Polk City, Florida. We were looking for bald eagles, which my wife had seen earlier that morning along the same stretch of road.
At 11191 Moore rd we pulled our car over, got out and began observing the area for eagles. We did not find any, however, something else caught our attention.
Two dead wild boars on the side of the road and the bodies presented in typical cattle mutilation conditions.
There was very little decomposition and the animal’s skin looked to be almost surgically removed. Perhaps even stranger than the presence of the bodies, was the fact that there were two, lying right next to each other.
We both agreed that it was highly unlikely that two wild boars would be hit at the exact same time in the exact same place.
Upon further investigation of the seen we detected no unusual smells, or observed anything else out of the ordinary.
There was no blood in the road and the animals did not appear to have been dragged to their final positions. It looked as if they had been drained and dropped there. Mufon case 89301.
The Alien Observatory --"China's Astronomers Aim to Be First to Discover Existence of an Advanced Technological Civilization" (WATCH Video)
The Alien Observatory --"China's Astronomers Aim to Be First to Discover Existence of an Advanced Technological Civilization" (WATCH Video)
"We don't know when earthlings will discover ET. It could be 1,000 years from now, or in our lifetimes. It could be next year, when FAST gets going on the sky surveys," said Dan Werthimer, chief scientist for the SETI Research Center at University of California, Berkeley.
However, with no clues of extraterrestrial life over the past five decades, questions are constantly asked as whether the search methods are appropriate. "Some strange signals have been found, but it's hard to confirm their origins, because these signals do not repeat," says Li Di, chief scientist of China's new FAST Radio telescope. "We look for not only television signals, but also atomic bomb signals. We'll give full play to our imaginations when processing the signals," Li says. "It's a complete exploration, as we don't know what an alien is like."
With a dish the size of 30 football fields, China's new FAST radio telescope, which measures 500 meters in diameter, dwarfs Puerto Rico's 300-meter Arecibo Observatory. Having the world's largest and most powerful new radio telescope, the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST), "We can receive weaker and more distant radio messages," said Wu Xiangping, director-general of the Chinese Astronomical Society, "It will help us to search for intelligent life outside of the galaxy and explore the origins of the universe," he added underscoring the China's race to be the first nation to discover the existence of an advanced alien civilization.
The dish will have a perimeter of about 1.6 kilometers, and there are no towns within five kilometers, giving it ideal surroundings to listen for signals from space. Scientists have depicted it as a super-sensitive "ear", capable of spotting very weak messages - if there are any - from "cousins" of human beings.
The telescope, nicknamed Tianyan, or the Eye of Heaven, can accurately image twice as much the sky as the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, which had previously been the world's largest single-dish radio telescope, with double sensitivity and five to 10 times the surveying speed.
Douglas Vakoch, president of METI International, an organization promoting messaging outer space in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, noted that astronomers worldwide will be invited to use the facility through a competitive review of observing proposals.
"By opening FAST to use by the broader international community, China is demonstrating its commitment to fostering astronomy as a global scientific enterprise," he told Xinhua, saying it may lead to "discoveries beyond our wildest imagination."
As for FAST's scientific missions, Vakoch said it will be used to look for the signatures of complex organic molecules in interstellar space, which will show how widely the basic building blocks of life are distributed throughout the cosmos.
"For over a half century, astronomers have been using radio telescopes to answer the haunting question, 'Are we alone?' But astronomers face a daunting challenge: the signals they seek are so weak that an incredibly sensitive telescope is needed to detect them," he said.
"FAST's innovative design and huge collecting area give it unsurpassed speed and sensitivity, making it vital to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence in the coming decades," said Vakoch. "We can expect China to become a world leader in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence because of its demonstrated commitment in building FAST."
However, FAST will not initially be outfitted with the signal processing capabilities to search for aliens, he said. This technology will be added at a later stage, and when that happens, FAST will be able to scan the heavens for signals that "can't be created by nature, but only by advanced civilizations," Vakoch said.
Sometimes, radio telescopes are "confused" by signals from astronomical objects. For example, astronomers once mistook signals from a pulsar for extraterrestrial signs, because a pulsar can also give out very stable periodical signals.
"It is highly possible that life on other planets is entirely different from that on Earth, and it might not be carbon-based," says Jin Hairong, deputy curator of Beijing Planetarium.
Liu Cixin, a Chinese science fiction writer and winner of the Hugo Award for his novel The Three Body Problem (check out the fascinating video trailer below), points out the current method assumes that aliens also communicate in radio waves. "But if it's a truly advanced civilization, it is possible to use other more advanced forms of communication, such as gravitational waves."
But Mao Shude with the National Astronomical Observatories of China and professor of astrophysics at the Jodrell Bank Observatory believes many methods deserve a try: "Who knows what they are and how they think? "When we study the origin of life, we risk going down a blind alley if we only have one sample from Earth," Mao says. "If we could find more samples in the universe, we could look at the puzzle more comprehensively and solve it more easily."
Shude gives an example in astronomy to explain the limitations of a single sample. "When scientists started to look for planets around Sun-like stars, they thought it must be difficult as their period might be as long as a year. However, the first such planet discovered outside our solar system takes only four days to orbit its host star - much faster than astronomers expected. At that time, some people doubted it, showing how the example of our solar system narrowed their thinking."
"If we really discover extraterrestrial life, I'd like to know how life spreads in the universe. Is it distributed uniformly in space, or clustered?" Mao wonders.
However, the idea communicating with aliens comes with concerns.
Astrophysicist Stephen Hawking has warned that communicating with aliens could be a threat to Earth: "If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans."
The Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin depicted the universe as a jungle with every civilization as a hidden hunter. Those who are exposed will be eliminated.
But Han Song, another leading Chinese science fiction writer, believes humans naturally want to connect, citing the Internet as proof. "I think aliens might think similarly. It is a biological instinct to connect with each other. Everyone wants to prove that they are not alone in the universe. Loneliness is intolerable to humans," he says.
He also points out that the contact will be driven by curiosity and real requirements. "Humans will ultimately go to space to find resources and expand their living area, so it will be hard to avoid aliens. Contact with them, especially those with more advanced intelligence, may help us leap forward in civilization."
Regardless of the theoretical debate, scientists have never wavered in the search. "I think we shall call out. As a matter of fact, we have been yelling for years, and our radios and televisions are broadcasting in space all the time," Mao says, "Aren't you curious what our counterparts would look like?
If they are inferior or equal to us in terms of civilization, we won't be easily destroyed. If they are much more intelligent than us, they wouldn't be so narrow-minded as to compete with us. Some worry they will come to rob us of our natural resources, but they likely have the power to transform the entire globe already. What's the point of eliminating a much lower civilization?"
Mao believes the result will be significant however it turns out. "If we find other life, it will undoubtedly be the most important scientific discovery in our history; if not, it shows that life on Earth is unique and we should respect life and cherish each other.
"No matter the outcome, we shall never stop searching, and I hope to hear more voices and contributions from Chinese scientists."
Dad Believed in U.F.O.s. Turns Out He Wasn’t Alone.
Dad Believed in U.F.O.s. Turns Out He Wasn’t Alone.
CreditLeonardo Santamaria
The year now ending has been so laden with tumultuous news that one astounding report in the exhausted final days of 2017 seemed almost routine: that for years, an intelligence official burrowed within the Pentagon warren was running a secret program to investigate reports of unidentified flying objects.
Beg your pardon?
That scoop, by Helene Cooper, Ralph Blumenthal and Leslie Kean for The New York Times, was underscored by a companion article that detailed how in 2004 an oval object played a game of aeronautic hide-and-seek off Southern California with two Navy fighter jets assigned to the aircraft carrier Nimitz. The object then zipped away at a speed so otherworldly that it left one of the Navy pilots later saying he felt “pretty weirded out” — as you might if you watch the video of the encounter that the Department of Defense has made public.
In considering these reports, my mind turned to all those reasonable people who were dismissed and ridiculed over the years because they believed that something was out there. I thought in particular of believers who had died without savoring these official revelations.
Believers like my late father.
I can hear what he would have said, there at the veterans’ home, his broken vessel of a body in a wheelchair but his mind as quick and bright as a shooting star. “I’ve been saying it for years,” he’d assert, followed by a choice epithet he reserved for government officials, followed by, “I knew it.”
Then, a satisfying drag on a cigarette.
My father, Gene, finished high school at night and served three years in the Army; he did not attend college. But he had a fearsome intellect, read voraciously and developed a command of such subjects as American history, numismatics — and U.F.O. investigations. Through the 1960s and 1970s, he joined many others in monitoring reports of aerial anomalies, tracking down reams of redacted official reports and swapping theories about credible sightings and government cover-ups.
They bandied about the names of well-known U.F.O. researchers — J. Allen Hynek, Donald Keyhoe, Stanton Friedman — and read the latest newsletters from an organization called the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena, or Nicap. They remained resolute, even when many others gave up the cause after an Air Force-funded report in 1969 concluded that further study of U.F.O.s was unlikely to be of much scientific value, leading to the termination of the official Air Force program investigating the subject.
To the likes of Gene Barry, the report was merely part of the cover-up.
He was no astronomer or physicist. Just a working stiff who endured the anonymous drudgery of a daily commute but then, at night, often felt connected to something larger than himself, larger than all of us. While his neighbors focused on the fortunes of the New York Jets, he was contemplating whether the “wheel in the middle of a wheel” mentioned in the Book of Ezekiel referred to a flying object of some kind. If so, just consider the implications!
In our family, the horizontal line separating earth and sky often blurred. My father’s supernaturally patient wife and four impressionable children carried small blue membership cards for a research and investigative organization called the Mutual U.F.O. Network, or Mufon. We applauded my father when he spoke at a U.F.O. symposium at a local university. At his behest, my sister Brenda even brought a blueprint for a spacecraft that he had received in the mail — mysterious packages often arrived in the mail — to Sts. Cyril and Methodius parochial school to ask her science teacher what he made of it.
The teacher handed it back without a word.
In other households of the 1960s, Barney and Betty referred only to the Rubbles of Bedrock, loyal neighbors of Fred and Wilma Flintstone. But in our home, those names might also refer to Betty and Barney Hill, a New Hampshire couple who claimed to have been abducted and examined by aliens in 1961.
Then there were the family outings. Every so often our parents would pack us into the Chevy station wagon for a nighttime drive to that rare Long Island hill with an unimpeded view of the sky, or to Wanaque, N.J., 70 miles away, where strange lights were said to have been hovering over a local reservoir.
Gradually, we children would doze off, our necks stiff from craning. My mother, the tolerant sidekick and chauffeur, would light another cigarette, while my father continued to train his cheap binoculars on the celestial infinity, confident in the certainty of the still uncertain.
Over the years, life on terra firma intruded. Career setbacks, sickness, that daily anonymous grind. My father’s unofficial cell of believers quietly disbanded — exhausted, perhaps, by government silence and the false reports caused by weather balloons, satellites and people just seeing things. Then, when my mother died in 1999, he lost the person who grounded him, the Betty to his Barney.
He died in 2008, still believing without having seen, still questioning the government, still marveling at the arrogance of those who insisted we were the only intelligent life in the universe.
A decade passed, and then came this month’s report of a secret Pentagon program with the delightful name of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. Funded by the government between 2007 and 2012, the program investigated aerial threats that included “unidentified aerial phenomena,” or U.A.P.s — which is just a less-polarizing way of saying U.F.O.s.
To hardened veterans of the U.F.O. wars, the news of the government program was less surprising than it was validating. And the video of the encounter between Navy fighter jets and an unidentified object moving at extraordinary velocity provided a helpful visual to the cause of those U.F.O. groups with long acronyms.
“Very interesting, very interesting,” said Fran Ridge, the archivist of the research accumulated by Nicap, now defunct. “But the very first thing that entered my mind was — why now? Is this a distraction? Is this something to get the people’s attention off politics?”
Mr. Ridge’s skeptical words reminded me of my father, who half-joked that he believed in a conspiracy — about everything.
“Finally, the kimono is being opened a little,” said Jan Harzan, the director of Mufon. “Personally, I don’t need verification from the government. But for the mass public, it’s important to know that there is advanced technology in our skies.”
The news of the Pentagon’s program received a stunning amount of attention that included the usual dismissive commentary.
“Call me when you have a dinner invite from an alien,” the celebrated astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson said on CNN, a comment that would have driven my father to distraction. Classic redirection, he would have railed, the tip of his cigarette reddening with rage.
But my father would also have nodded in agreement to what the good astrophysicist had to say about that almost playful aerial anomaly captured on government video. “It’s a flying object and we don’t know what it is,” Dr. Tyson said. “I would hope somebody’s checking it out.”
Exactly, the old man would have grunted. Been saying it for years.
Correction: January 2, 2018
An earlier version of this article misspelled the surname of the director of Mufon. It is Jan Harzan, not Harden.
Note: This UFO sighting is being reproduced exactly as it was reported by the primary eyewitness who sent this sighting to Open Minds via email. Source: Ed Towers
Illustration of UFO by Michael Schratt
My wife and I had a very close up experience while living in Santa Clarita Valley. This occurred in 1978 but the memory lives in our minds as it were last night. We feel highly appreciative for the experience and are not afraid to openly discuss it without any intentions of financial gain. You may publish this account and we would be most willing to discuss it in public.
It was the summer of 1978. Santa Clarita Valley is located north of the San Fernando Valley and north of Los Angeles. Santa Clarita was a small and laid-back community mostly referred to as Valencia. We recently relocated back from a two-year international management assignment followed by a two-year management assignment in Arizona. We then were transferred to California and chose Santa Clarita because of the open spacious country living, low crime statistics, no smog, and nice neighborhoods. I purchased a two-story corner house with a swimming pool.
One Friday evening, I was using a long pole with an attached brush designed to sweep the walls of the pool. Our children would probably swim early the following morning and I wanted the pool to be clean. As I reached upwards on the pole to push downwards I saw a craft approaching. The craft was at a distance equivalent one or two short blocks away and not flying parallel to streets but at an angle on a southeastern direction. It was immediately obvious to me that the craft was not a helicopter nor airplane since these would not normally fly that low and the physical characteristics did not match these. At that distance the craft seemed wider, with luminous lights in the circumference area of the frontal section (referred to as leading edge). I stared at it for a brief perplexed moment. After realizing that it was something out of the ordinary, I ran down the steps from the poolside deck platform where I had been standing. The platform was about four to five feet higher than the pool water and the opposite surrounding pool deck area. It was about 15 fast running steps from there to the backyard entry to the family room. My wife and two children were watching television there. I yelled for them to come outside and see, but only my wife Gloria came out. We both walked fast towards the side of the pool opposite the platform side where I had been standing. By that time the craft was right over our pool area at an altitude of no more than 50-75 feet and perhaps even less.
The craft had come to a stop in proximity to our pool area as we stood bellow it. The craft made no sound whatsoever. It wobbled slightly as if it were moved by the wind, but there was no noticeable wind at that moment. The craft leaned forward and downwards and then we saw a large forward angled window, located bellow the leading edge that was perhaps 8 feet in length and 3-4 feet in height. We could see an orange bluish glow from inside but no occupants or controls. As the craft leaned forward I could see light emanating from its upper section and not from the pool lights reflection since the pool lights would be unable to reflect on the upper section. The craft seemed to be manufactured as one solid piece. There were no visible seams or rivets. The bottom of the craft was concave towards the center. In the deepest section of the concave center two rectangular objects were visible, which ran the length of the deep concaved section and seemed to be a few feet apart from each other. The craft had an upper dome with porthole like windows but no internal visibility. The upper dome was round and centered in relation to the lower part of the craft with no visible seams. The total height of the craft appeared to be the equivalent of a one and half story typical track residence or less. I calculated the height by comparing it to our two-story house. The diameter was approximately 50-75 feet or less. There were no visible markings, insignias or identification on the craft.
Under the front leading edge of the circular craft was some ski like devices with two side-by-side configurations. The design I cannot replicate even though I always scored high in I.Q, tests where design progressions (similar to mathematical progressions) had to be decided from multiple drawing choices. I also remember thinking they were too far forward from the crafts center of gravity something we studied in Group Propulsion in relation to the length and loading of aircraft. The ski-like devices were similar to the letter “S” with the top of the S facing forward but with more elaborate details filling the gaps. At the time my conclusion was they were some type of hanging or anchoring device.
Diagram of UFO description by Michael Schratt (click image to enlarge)
During the entire experience lasting some 45 seconds or a bit longer, my wife kept repeating “Oh my God!” over and over again. I tried to concentrate on details and in my mind kept repeating “take me with you.” We were both frozen in awe and disbelief. It was like seeing a large bus that I previously described as a Greyhound bus floating over your house. Both of us looked upwards and did not speak to each other during the sighting. There was no fear, an unprompted paralysis, and a high respect to what we were seeing. We both had the sensation of being watched primarily because the craft maneuvered downwards at an angle towards us, and then regained a level position parallel to the ground. As a part of my analysis during the experience I listened for other engines, other craft, or the possibility that this craft was being suspended from another craft as a hoax but concluded there were no other man-made craft in the vicinity. The craft then began to move at a very slow speed of around 20 miles per hour. I jumped on a wall that surrounded our backyard so that I could see the trajectory. I saw it between houses as it continued at that speed for at least 7 miles from our house, and heading in a southeast direction from Santa Clarita over a mountainous section of eastward Los Angeles County. I instructed my wife not to discuss it but to try to draw what she saw and then we would compare drawings. My drawings had more details. Then we began comparing the experience and both had seen the very same details.
My conclusion is that the craft wanted us to observe it or perhaps was examining us. I am 100% sure this was not a man-made craft or technology. I am also convinced by the event that U.S. Government intelligence agencies know we are being visited by extra-terrestrials and are hiding facts. To me, the only rationale reason is because they lied once about their existence (perhaps Roswell and others) and the complex structured secretive system is not able to reverse course, or that disclosure may cause the loss of statutory governmental powers as citizens realize that borders, religions and global federal governments are meaningless and helpless. My conclusion leads me to think that the visitors do not wish to work with a single government as they are roaming global skies making their presence known. There were lingering questions in my mind after the sighting. Since the craft must originate from an advanced civilization why do they need windows? My technical assumption is that an advanced civilization would have cameras on the exterior which are able to duplicate exactly what is visible outside of the craft. Why were we allowed to see the interior through the large window but not the occupants? After reporting the experience to the local Sheriff, he said they had no additional reports. Years later after writing the experience on the internet, someone who claimed he was with NASA automated airport sciences called me and said that his call was unofficial.
The only somewhat related experience was during a father daughter overnight camping event. The event was prior to our sighting experience. Several of my neighbors were FBI agents. During the outing two of the agents who had daughters were standing close to each other looking at the visible stars. One of them whispered to the other that he heard that strange crafts were often visible in the area. I was standing a few feet away from them and could hear them. During my earlier education, I graduated and was certified in Group Propulsion Systems and had a choice to either continue studies as a Flight Engineer or Aeronautical Engineering. I selected Aeronautical Engineering and attended Northrop Institute of Technology. In Group Propulsion Systems we became highly familiar with aircraft, mechanical and electrical systems and all flight disciplines, flight and design configurations and propulsion sciences. I am still more familiar with aircraft functions than an automobile. After two years of study I switched to business management at another university, was an early participant in IT as a systems analyst followed by executive positions in the computer and software industry eventually forming my own international management consulting and international business services integration organization. I am now an active portfolio investor and international business but retired.
The idea of other intelligent beings has long been fascinating to us. Ancient myths have us interacting with gods and all kinds of strange, mythical creatures such as centaurs. The stars have also played an important role in cultures around the world. Over time, ancient myths became nothing more than legends, while technology and scientific discovery started to destroy our belief in strange nonhumans.
This made us look further to the stars for our hopes, and all-new theories have been born since. Many of today’s theories about intelligent, nonhuman life are not only bizarre but try to trace everything back to ancient days. Modern conspiracy theorists believe that everything is connected and that the events of Roswell were not even close to the beginning.
10. The Mass UFO Sightings Over Los Angeles Decades Ago
Before Roswell, a strange incident happened that might have gotten way more attention in history books if not for the fact that it happened in the middle of World War II. In 1942, several years before the infamous Roswell incident, the city of Los Angeles was in an extremely tense mood. The Japanese had only recently bombed Pearl Harbor, so anything strange in the sky was immediately assumed to be a Japanese air raid.
On the night of February 24, 1942, residents of Los Angeles saw many unidentified aircraft in the sky. Everyone started panicking, thinking that the aircraft were Japanese bombers. However, despite the city launching an all-out, coordinated attack against these strange objects in the sky, there’s no physical evidence that they managed to hit anything, nor is there any evidence that the UFOs attempted to fire back or interact in any way.
Some witnesses claimed to have seen objects shaped like lozenges. Poor-quality pictures taken from that night make it look like there’s a stereotypical alien ship ominously hovering over Los Angeles. To add fuel to the fire, the Navy and Air Force gave contradicting reports on the incident. The incident may seem very mysterious, but there was a massive war going on. It may simply have been experimental technology of some kind. We may never know.
9. The Crawling Space Slug On Pluto
Recently, NASA made history by making brand-new, color photos of Pluto that we had never seen before and getting close enough to make interesting, new observations. Before long, people were speculating about what NASA may have covered up and what it may have “leaked” to the public about alleged alien life. One photo in particular caught the eye of conspiracy theorists, who insisted that it showed a gigantic alien space slug slowly moving across the surface of the planet. While the gigantic moving object does look vaguely like a slug, it—unfortunately—is not an example of alien life.
However, the explanation given by NASA is still pretty interesting. The folks at NASA claim that what people saw was a gigantic chunk of nitrogen-rich ice that floated to the surface of Pluto only to slowly melt and sink below again. Experts say that this behavior on the surface of Pluto is very similar to that of a lava lamp. The “slug” people saw was a block of this ice floating temporarily on the surface before slipping beneath the waves. It may not be alien life, but a vast part of an entire planet’s surface acting like one giant lava lamp is pretty cool, too.
8. The Giant People Who Live Under The Earth’s Crust
Most people look to space in the hopes of finding alien life; others search among us for those who may be “hybrids.” Yet there are also those who are convinced that much of the world above us is a sham and that the true secrets are beneath our feet—beneath the Earth. With the advent of social media, conspiracies that suggest that the Earth is nothing like people think are becoming more popular.
While many theorists like to claim that the Earth is flat, others say that it is hollow and that there is a completely separate world inside of it, which somehow has its own, functioning Sun despite being inside our Earth. According to these conspiracy claims, Admiral Byrd did not actually fly over the North Pole in the 1940s—he flew inside it. He discovered another world inside the Earth’s crust, and the government has been doing its best to cover up the story ever since.
Some conspiracy theorists also take seriously an old legend from a group of Scandinavians who were sailing and ended up near the Pole. The Scandinavians thought it strange that it started to get warmer instead of colder, and they suddenly found themselves sailing inside the Earth. They found a fantastic land full of rich bounty and kind, giant people who ate similarly giant fruits and vegetables. According to the conspiracy theorists, these beings are much smarter than we are and sometimes communicate through intermediaries in order to try to better steer humanity’s fate. Some even claim they secretly talk to the Dalai Lama.
7. The Secret Reptilian Aliens Who Control The World’s Governments
Most of us are already well aware of the theory about reptilians dreamed up by David Icke. The claim is that long ago, alien beings seeded themselves among us and held on to their power through the ages by keeping it in the family. Whether they have managed to keep all knowledge of their original roots or ways depends on the theory, but the claim is that these people are at least hybrids, are aware of it, and are using their connections and power to control the world. However, what many people don’t realize is that the main point of this theory is even more ridiculous than that.
The truth is that many details about the prior history of these reptilians were added to this theory much later to make it sound more plausible. The theory’s actual main evidence is simply that most people who are royalty or have spent time in a higher office are distant cousins or otherwise related. At the very least, people suggest that this is some kind of a conspiracy, even if it is not an extraterrestrial one.
However, all those people being related is not really that strange. Anyone who’s played the game “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” knows the theory that no two people are more than six people away in terms of introduction. Seeing how back in the day, many royal families married for political expediency, it doesn’t seem very odd that people in royalty or politics are distantly related or at least connected by marriage.
6. The Alien Woman Supposedly Spotted On The Martian Landscape
With the advent of the Internet, the community of conspiracy theorists has grown at an accelerated rate. These theorists are able to go through thousands of publicly available photos from NASA in the hopes of finding alien life or some evidence of suspicious government activity and quickly affirm the most bizarre theories inside their echo chamber of unreason and paranoia. Others are simply obsessed with the idea of finding alien life and will often convince themselves of its existence when there is no reason to think so.
A good example of this is the “Martian woman” story that popped up in 2015. People were sharing a photo taken by the Mars Curiosity rover that showed what some claimed to be an alien woman on Mars. As you might imagine, the photo was extremely unclear. Many people compared calling the image a person to seeing shapes in the clouds: the stirrings of imagination and nothing more. Others went so far as to claim that a rock in the picture might be the alien’s “house.”
CNET followed the story and could not get an explanation from NASA beyond their spokespeople saying it was likely people’s overactive imaginations. However, while they didn’t hear back from NASA, the folks at CNET did analyze the other photos from Mars Curiosity. They pointed out that, based on the rover’s scale, if the “woman” were an alien being, she would be an incredibly small fraction of our size.
5. The Real Men In Black May Be Our Government Messing With Us
While many suspect that the government is trying to hide the existence of alien life, some people think that it may actually be more complicated than that. According to them, there is evidence that former government agents have infiltrated UFO enthusiast circles and fed them fake information about UFOs, even going so far as to suggest that there was more government information to spill than there actually was.
Sometimes, these agents allegedly had full institutional help in order to fool gullible UFO enthusiasts. They even helped plant fake evidence to get people more riled up about the subject. This also gave the agents a way to monitor UFO groups to see if they were getting close to figuring out any of the actual military projects the government was working on, which was especially important at the time because they didn’t want the Russians to get wind of it.
This conspiracy theory suggests that the vast majority of alien lore is actually the government trying to intentionally confuse us in order to keep us and the Russians away from the truly important projects. This was also a great way for the government to explain away any strange things that happened due to experiments that didn’t go as planned.
4. Governments Are Aware Of More Than 80 Distinct Alien Species
Many theorists claim that governments around the world have already made contact with at least one alien species. Usually, the claims are that these aliens are benign and wish to help us or work with us in some way. There have also been stories about government officials coming out and saying there’s more going on than the public is being told. However, one particular story is unique in that its claims are far beyond the usual.
The theory goes that a high-up Canadian official confirmed that we contacted multiple alien species and worked with several different ones over the years. Where it gets even more insane is when the theorist claims that—thanks to information gleaned from government officials—we know there are at least 80 distinct, intelligent species of aliens.
Of course, the theory is somewhat hurt by the descriptions of these “alien” races. The vast majority of them look a lot like humans and read more like descriptions of different races in a video game than they do actual alien species. The more unique-looking ones are supposedly able to shift forms and move through different dimensions. For what it’s worth, the theorist emphasizes multiple times that he or she is “not just making this up.”
3. Venus Was Once Host To Earth-Like Life
Venus has long been known as Earth’s sister planet, despite the fact that Venus spins its own way in the universe and has an atmosphere that is incredibly toxic to those who live on our planet. The reason for the “sister” status is that scientists believe that Venus may have once been very much like Earth. It’s believed that Venus once had a lot more water on it and lost it over time. Some theories have suggested that Venus ended up with a runaway greenhouse gas effect on a level way worse than anything we are dealing with on Earth. Eventually, these greenhouse gases ended up causing Venus to lose its water and turned its atmosphere into something inhospitable to human life.
In recent years, studies have further confirmed this, suggesting that Venus was once a water-rich planet and may have been capable of supporting intelligent life of the human variety. This has led conspiracy theorists to wonder if perhaps Venus once was home to human-like species or if some Venusians managed to survive the cataclysm and evolve into a new breed of intelligent beings. The idea of intelligent life so close to Earth is very exciting to alien theorists.
2. Jesus Christ Was An Alien-Human Hybrid
For the longest time, most alien conspiracy theories focused on the time period between the Roswell incident and the present day. Recently, we have seen a rash of theories about alleged ancient alien visitors who came to our planet millennia ago and changed our culture and history forever. These theories tend to claim that if something done by ancient people can’t be explained with our knowledge of their technology, it was therefore done by alien visitors with technology far superior to ours. Many of these theorists believe that aliens lived among us through the early days of recorded history, and that some of them, or at least their hybrids, might still be alive today.
One of these theories suggests that Jesus Christ was actually an alien-human hybrid. The theorist points out that there are great similarities between the dream visits Mary receives and some of the strange stories you hear of people being abducted by aliens. They also suggest that the virgin birth was possible because the aliens artificially inseminated Mary during one of their abduction experiments.
The theorist goes on to point out all the important people in history who have similar origin stories of either a virgin birth or some kind of hybrid birth involving a so-called “god.” The suggestion is that many of our important figures were designed by aliens in order to influence the path of humanity. These figures would include the vast majority of early religious thinkers and philosophers.
1. Human DNA Has Been Irrevocably Tampered With And Altered By Past Alien Visitors
The same people who believe that ancient alien visitors are responsible for the pyramids, Jesus, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, all of the Mayan ruins, the Easter Island heads, and anything else made by early man, are also convinced that humans themselves could not have achieved their place in the world without the help of ancient aliens. Essentially, such theorists have decided to replace the traditional God with a group of nebulous sentient beings with vague motivations and advanced technology that might as well be magic, as far as our understanding is concerned.
Many not only believe in alien-human hybrids but think that human DNA was at one point greatly altered by alien visitors, either to jump-start our evolution, make us into better worker drones for the aliens’ purposes, or just to experiment on us to see what would happen. Recently, conspiracy theorists went crazy at the news that human DNA appeared to have foreign DNA in it, which couldn’t have occurred through natural evolution.
The explanation from scientists is that the foreign DNA is from microorganisms that were present in the same environment as developing humans, but the theorists are convinced that it is the result of deliberate tampering by ancient alien visitors.
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )
03-01-2018
No Alien Megastructure: Star's Weird Dimming Likely Caused by Dust
No Alien Megastructure: Star's Weird Dimming Likely Caused by Dust
By Mike Wall, Space.com Senior Writer
An artist's illustration depicting a hypothetical dust ring orbiting Tabby's star, more formally known as KIC 846.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Well, we always knew the alien-megastructure idea was a long shot.
E.T. has nothing to do with the bizarre dimming events of the mysterious object known as Tabby's star, a new study reports.
"Dust is most likely the reason why the star's light appears to dim and brighten," study leader Tabetha Boyajian, an astronomer at Louisiana State University, said in a statement. "The new data shows that different colors of light are being blocked at different intensities. Therefore, whatever is passing between us and the star is not opaque, as would be expected from a planet or alien megastructure." [13 Ways to Hunt Intelligent Aliens]
Tabby's star, more formally known as KIC 8462852, lies about 1,500 light-years from Earth and is a bit bigger and hotter than the sun. The star has been in the news a lot since 2015, when a team led by Boyajian (hence the star's nickname) reported that it had dimmed dramatically over the previous five years or so, once by a whopping 22 percent.
Further observations added to the intrigue. For example, a different research group found that Tabby's star had also dropped in brightness overall by about 20 percent from 1890 to 1989.
For the past two-plus years, astronomers have been trying to figure out what, exactly, is going on with Tabby's star. A number of potential explanations have been floated, from orbiting comet fragments, to a huge dust cloud between Earth and KIC 8462852, to energy-collecting structures built by an advanced alien civilization.
Researchers always stressed that this last possibility was quite remote. And now it looks like we can cross it off entirely.
For the new study, Boyajian and her team observed KIC 8462852 from March 2016 to December 2017, using multiple ground-based telescopes run by the Las Cumbres Observatory. They spotted and analyzed four separate dimming events, which occurred in the summer of 2017.
The new results are consistent with those of another research group, which late last year concluded that Tabby's star is likely orbited by a cloud of dustthat completes one lap every 700 Earth days.
Boyajian and her team funded the new observations via a Kickstarter campaign, which raised more than $107,000. That's appropriate, because citizen scientists helped Boyajian recognize the weirdness of Tabby's star in the first place. Her 2015 paper was a collaboration with volunteers from the online group Planet Hunters, who sift through data gathered by NASA's Kepler space telescope, looking for alien worlds. (Kepler spots the tiny dimming events caused when orbiting planets cross their star's face from the spacecraft's perspective. KIC 8462852's massive brightness dips stood out in the Kepler data set as something very different.)
"I am so appreciative of all of the people who have contributed to this in the past year — the citizen scientists and professional astronomers," Boyajian said. "It's quite humbling to have all of these people contributing in various ways to help figure it out."
There is still work to do, however: Dust may be the leading explanation for KIC 8462852's odd behavior, but it's not the only possibility.
"This latest research rules out alien megastructures, but it raises the probability of other phenomena being behind the dimming," study co-author Jason Wright, an astronomer at Pennsylvania State University, said in the same statement.
"There are models involving circumstellar material — like exocomets, which were Boyajian's team's original hypothesis — which seem to be consistent with the data we have," Wright said. But, he added, "some astronomers favor the idea that nothing is blocking the star — that it just gets dimmer on its own — and this also is consistent with this summer's data.”
The new study was published online today (Jan. 3) in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Mystery of 'Alien Megastructure' Star Has Been Cracked
Mystery of 'Alien Megastructure' Star Has Been Cracked
Twinkle, twinkle, Tabby’s Star: Dips in brightness so bizarre. Could it be we’ve found ET? No, not yet! It’s dust we see.
Scientists say the bizarre dimming of the star KIC 8462852, also known as Boyajian's Star or Tabby's Star, is not consistent with an "alien megastructure" that would evenly dim all wavelengths of light.
For years, this enigmatic star in the constellation Cygnus baffled astronomers with its seemingly random dips in brightness. Larger and brighter than the sun and nicknamed Tabby’s Star, the stellar weirdo stepped into the spotlight when scientists proposed that alien-built megastructures could be sporadically causing it to darken as they crossed its face.
But new observations suggest the real culprit is dust — perhaps the remains of a planet or moon the star recently destroyed. So, even though plain old dust is considerably less exciting than crafty aliens, there’s still some cosmic sleuthing to be done.
“I love a really good mystery, and I especially love it when all our best ideas just go out the window. It means we get to have more fun,” says Jason Wright of Pennsylvania State University. “The fact that it turned out to be boring old dust, as some would put it, is what everyone expected. But I’m gratified that we still have a nice healthy mystery to crunch on.”
The mystery began in 2011, when citizen scientists with the Planet Hunters projectwere sorting through data from NASA’s Kepler spacecraft, which spotted the signatures of more than 2,300 planets during its four years of primary observations. As planets pass between their stars and Earth, they cause brief and predictable blips in their stars’ light.
But the dips Kepler recorded from Tabby’s star didn’t correspond to anything remotely like a planet’s shadowy fingerprint. Instead, they appeared to be more intense and almost entirely random. Once alerted to the star, formally called KIC 8462852, astronomers couldn’t come up with a reasonable explanation for what they saw.
It just wasn’t behaving like any other star in the sky — and the strange dimming events were only part of the puzzle.
TIL: THAT'S NO MOON. IT'S ALIENS. (MAYBE.)
In 2015 when alien megastructures were first proposed for Tabby's Star, the SETI Institute monitored the dimming star for signs of transmissions from alien life.
Hypotheses ranged from a swarm of comets orbiting the star, to a dusty debris disk surrounding a black hole between the star and Earth, to material within our own solar system, stellar fluctuations in Tabby’s Star, and finally, alien megastructures.
That idea, published by Wright in 2015, blasted the star into public consciousness, with news story after news story addressing the idea and each new clue fueling yet more coverage.
“I think the connection with SETI is absolutely the reason why the public interest in Tabby’s Star is so great,” says Andrew Siemion, director of the Berkeley SETI Research Center. “We all wonder the same thing when we look up at the night sky: Is there anybody out there?”
STELLAR SLEUTHING
Motivated by the burgeoning mystery, teams of scientists combed through data spanning more than a century, looking for patterns that could reveal the source of the star’s enigmatic dimming. At first, it seemed as though the dips in starlight happened in roughly 800-day and 1,500-day increments, which might point to orbiting debris (now, scientists are not so sure about that). Other data suggested that independently of the individual blips, the star is consistently getting dimmer (now, scientists are not so sure about that, either).
Astronomers even pointed one of the planet’s most sensitive radio telescopes at the star, hoping to hear murmurs from a civilization intelligent enough to craft structures so large they sometimes block a substantial portion of the star’s light. They heard nothing.
An illustration depicts comets passing in front of what Boyajian's star, another theory as to what may cause the flickering.
ILLUSTRATION COURTESY NASA
In short, no explanation fit the available observations.
So astronomer Tabetha Boyajian, for whom the star is now informally named, launched a Kickstarter campaign that pulled in more than $100,000 and harnessed the power of a variety of ground-based instruments. Her goal? The catch the star in the act of dimming and get a better look at what might be blocking its light — in real time.
Observations began in March 2016 and continued through December 2017. And in May of last year, Boyajian got lucky: Her star began to dim. Almost immediately, nearly a dozen telescopes on Earth swiveled to stare at it, with scientists furiously collecting data in nearly every wavelength of light. After many months and four distinct dips (named Elsie, Celeste, Scara Brae and Angkor), the star was no longer visible to telescopes in the northern hemisphere.
“It was kind of surreal in a way to watch it happen in real time and be able to do what we have been saying we wanted to do for years: observe it in a dip,” she says.
Now, Boyajian and more than 200 collaborators have analyzed data from the last 22 months and report in The Astrophysical Journal Letters that dust is responsible for the dip — and that alien megastructures definitely are not.
The team knows this because whatever’s causing the dips is not a solid structure.
“If a solid, opaque object like a megastructure was passing in front of the star, it would block out light equally at all colors,” says Boyajian, at Louisiana State University. “This is contrary to what we observe.”
LISTENING FOR ALIENS
Neil deGrasse Tyson explains why unexplained radio signals from outer space shouldn't automatically be attributed to extraterrestrial life.
Instead, the dust filters different colors of light differently; put simply, it’s more like looking at starlight through a gossamer fabric than a rigid framework of Quadanium steel.
“Megastructures were always a long shot, but the history of how that came into the picture is valid. It had to be floated out there,” says Pennsylvania State University’s Steinn Sigurdsson, who proposed the idea of a debris-shrouded black hole.
DEATH STAR?
The source of the dust shrouding Tabby’s Star is still a mystery. Its behavior — producing dips of varying intensity and timing — is not what scientists would expect for clumps of material regularly circling the star, which should darken the star at predictable intervals as they swing around in orbit. As well, there are no indications that the dust is warm, which means it must be very far from the star. And the dust grains are incredibly small, much smaller than those in cigarette smoke, and so fine they should be blown outward by the star’s light.
That last observation means there must be some reservoir from which the dust is continually replenished — a hint that perhaps something catastrophic happened, or is still taking place, around Tabby’s Star. That is, if the dust is circumstellar, or surrounding the star.
“If it is circumstellar, we have to understand why a boring F star is doing this and how common it is,” Sigurdsson says. “Could be more than 10 percent of stars to account for us catching one in the act, which is also curious.”
In 2016, Columbia University’s Brian Metzger proposed that perhaps Tabby’s Star had recently pulverized a rocky planet or woebegotten moon that came too close, leaving a dusty, disconnected corpse in orbit. Or perhaps it shredded a swarm of icy objects like those that live beyond Neptune and were pushed in by the next star over, a small red dwarf.
The truth is that, even though scientists now know that Tabby’s Star’s mysterious behavior is not the work of aliens, they’re only marginally closer to explaining the interstellar puzzle.
“A lot of these things are tantalizing hints, and we’re not sure if they’re red herrings or the key to the puzzle,” Wright says. “It kind of feels like a Sherlock Holmes mystery. You’re not sure which clues are going to end up mattering inthe end and which are a big waste of time.”
The International Space Station is becoming more and more independent. Now, astronauts can carry out microbial DNA sampling, which opens up exciting avenues for practical research.
NASA astronaut Kate Rubins poses for a picture during the first sample initialization run of the Biomolecular Sequencer investigation.
Credits: NASA.
Space Germs
The mere idea of identifying microbes in space, without sending a probe back to Earth, was only a dream a few years ago. Now, thanks to the Genes in Space-3 project, NASA astronauts and biochemists have the ability to not only identify and treat microbial ailments in outer space but also potentially identify life on other planets. This also means that they can carry out a number of practical experiments in outer space — which they’ve already started.
The identification process has two parts: first, astronauts gather the microbial samples and subject them to Polymerase Chain Reaction — a technique commonly used in modern molecular biology to amplify copies of DNA segments across several orders of magnitude, generating thousands to millions of copies of a particular DNA sequence — then, they sequence and identify the microbes.
The first batch they sampled turned out to be regular microbes, like the ones commonly found in houses or anywhere that humans live. We truly tend to contaminate everything, and outer space seems to be no exception. What was somewhat surprising though was the sheer number of microbes they found on the space station.
“We have had contamination in parts of the station where fungi was seen growing or biomaterial has been pulled out of a clogged waterline, but we have no idea what it is until the sample gets back down to the lab,” said Sarah Wallace, NASA microbiologist and the project’s principal investigator at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
“On the ISS, we can regularly resupply disinfectants, but as we move beyond low-Earth orbit where the ability for resupply is less frequent, knowing what to disinfect or not becomes very important,” said Wallace.
Independent sampling
The need for on-site germ sampling became even more evident after the Johnson Space Center was damaged by Hurricane Harvey. The ISS was unable to send samples back to Earth — including microbial samples. Furthermore, as future manned missions are expected to be longer and longer, monitoring microbial activity aboard a shuttle will be much more important.
However, that’s still far off. For now, the most exciting prospect is studying microbial behavior and distribution in microgravity. Previous research has shown that floating in microgravity can give some microbes an unexpected genetic boost. Basically, researchers have found an increase in expression of virulence factors in Salmonella Typhimurium and increased biofilm production in Staphylococcus aureus. However, it’s unclear if this stays true for other microbes, or if different species behave in different ways. Bacterial response to microgravity is an increasingly useful area of study, and it’s one which NASA is tackling head-on.
Het Belgisch UFO-meldpunt heeft vorig jaar 132 meldingen van ufo’s (Unidentified Flying Objects) ontvangen, 16 minder dan in 2016. Dat meldt het meldpunt. Een ufo is een licht, een verschijnsel of een voorwerp in de lucht, dat ook na onderzoek niet geïdentificeerd kan worden. 2017 was een relatief “kalm” ufo-jaar, klinkt het, met naar jaarlijkse gewoonte vooral tijdens de zomermaanden een stijging van het aantal meldingen.
Het grootste aantal meldingen kwam uit de provincie Antwerpen (36), gevolgd door Oost-Vlaanderen (23) en West-Vlaanderen (22). Drie meldingen bleken vals en in 48 gevallen waren er onvoldoende gegevens. Er was in 2017 een uitzonderlijk hoog aantal ufo-waarnemingen die door een meteoor of ruimteschroot verklaard konden worden.
Het meldpunt ontving vorig jaar naar eigen zeggen veel foto- en filmmateriaal. Zo kreeg een video uit de Vlaams-Brabantse gemeente Weerde, gemaakt op 11 januari, in Nederland veel aandacht. Op de beelden is het vurige spoor van een meteoorsteen te zien die teruggevonden werd, nadat hij een gat door het dak van een schuur in het Nederlandse Broek in Waterland had geboord. Hiermee was de zesde meteoriet die ooit op Nederlandse bodem kon worden gerecupereerd een feit.
Sinds de oprichting in 2007 zijn door het meldpunt meer dan 2.000 meldingen verzameld, met als topjaar 2011 (342 waarnemingen). Voor de meeste werd een verklaring gevonden, maar er blijft volgens het meldpunt een handvol goed gedocumenteerde waarnemingen over waarvoor geen uitleg werd gevonden.
Joseph Smit/Wikipedia CommonsZeedieren in het Devoon-tijdperk
WETENSCHAP & PLANEETEen onderzoek onder leiding van VUB-alumnus David De Vleeschouwer heeft een nieuw licht geworpen op één van de grootste massa-extincties die onze planeet ooit heeft gekend, zo’n 374 miljoen jaar geleden. Toen verdween in een periode van 600.000 jaar tijd bijna 80 procent van alle leven op aarde.
De vermoedelijke oorzaak van de massa-extinctie was een dramatische daling van het zuurstofgehalte in de oceanen. Die daling werd veroorzaakt door een samenloop van omstandigheden. De aarde kende toen, - in de geologische periode die we het Devoon noemen - een snelle verspreiding van landplanten door een warm en tropisch klimaat. Daardoor kwamen immense hoeveelheden plantenmateriaal in de oceaan terecht. De afbraak van die biomassa slorpte zoveel zuurstof op, dat het oceaanleven quasi onmogelijk werd.
Bovendien viel de massa-extinctie samen met een tijd waarin de aarde in een bijna perfect circulaire baan rond de zon draaide. Hierdoor waren er lange tijd geen extreme seizoenen en vielen verticale zeestromingen grotendeels stil door het gebrek aan temperatuurverschillen. Ook langs die weg kwam er dus geen vers zuurstof in het zeewater terecht.
“De massa-extinctie werd bespoedigd door de circulaire baan van de aarde rond de zon”, verduidelijkt De Vleeschouwer, die nu postdoctoraal vorser aan de universiteit van Bremen is. “Maar de oorzaak van het massaal verdwijnen van soorten is toch met grote waarschijnlijkheid de oververzadiging van de oceanen met plantenmateriaal op datzelfde moment.”
ThinkstockEen fossiel in schalie
Mooie fossielen
De geologische bewijzen daarvan zijn terug te vinden in twee lagen zwarte schalie, een sedimentair gesteente dat ook in België te vinden is. Er werden geologische lagen bestudeerd in verschillende werelddelen, van Canada over de Verenigde Staten tot in China. Bij ons zijn de bewuste schalies onder meer te vinden in Sinsin, nabij Ciney. De donkere kleur geeft aan dat de gesteenten werden gevormd in een zuurstofarme omgeving. Bovendien zitten de gelaagde schalies vol met goed bewaarde fossielen en ander organisch materiaal, omdat het rottingsproces door gebrek aan zuurstof niet op gang kwam.
“De vorming van de jongste zwarte schalielaag valt volledig binnen een cyclus van 405.000 jaar”, aldus De Vleeschouwer. “Deze laag geeft de zwaarste extinctiegolf aan. Daarna recupereerden de oceanen stilaan. In de laatste 374 miljoen jaar is dezelfde circulaire baan van de aarde al meer dan duizend keer opnieuw voorgekomen, maar telkens zonder een massa-extinctie tot gevolg. Dat betekent volgens mij dat de oorzaak niet in de veranderende aardbaan, noch in de afstand van de aarde tot de zon gezocht moet worden. De astronomische omstandigheden hebben de massa-extinctie wél bevorderd en voor de ideale omstandigheden gezorgd.”
Thinkstock
Uitsterfrondes
De massa-extinctie in het Devoon was overigens niet de eerste, noch de laatste die onze planeet te beurt viel. Ook tijdens het Ordovicium, omstreeks 450 miljoen jaar geleden, was er al eens een grote uitsterfronde op aarde. De volgende was de dubbele massa-extinctie in het Devoon, met de zwarte schalies als geologisch bewijs. 250 miljoen jaar geleden, tijdens de overgang van het Perm naar het Trias, volgde er nog eentje. Op het einde van datzelfde Trias kwam er zelfs nog een tweede uitstervingsgolf, zo’n 200 miljoen jaar geleden.
Daarna duurde het tot in het Krijt, ongeveer 66 miljoen jaar geleden, toen een meteorietinslag het einde inluidde van de dinosauriërs. Toekomstig onderzoek zal moeten uitwijzen welke rol de baan van de aarde rond de zon gespeeld heeft tijdens deze andere massa-extincties.
When it comes to scientific mysteries, sorry Neil deGrasse but that’s the question most people ask … what would theoretical physicist and recognized smartest person on the planet Stephen Hawking do, think or predict? On the other hand, when it comes to UFO mysteries … who ya gonna call?
“They should be talking to Stephen Hawking. He’s a brilliant man, I would like to hear his thoughts on it. They said they’re talking to some other theoretical physicists like him about the possibilities.”
Retired US Navy pilot commander David Fravor has been the go-to guy for UFO comments ever since Luis Elizondo revealed he ran a UFO research department at the Pentagon named the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program (AATIP) and released two videos of US military pilots chasing UFOs, one of whom is Fravor. The Sun Online reported this week that he wants more investigation of the Stephen Hawking kind.
“I honestly don’t think humans have that technology to do what that thing did. Nor could the human body withstand accelerations like that. It’s an incredible technology to be able to go up to space, and back down and hang over the water. We physically saw and chased it and are the only ones that have actually got close to one of these things.”
While Stephen Hawking wasn’t there and can’t go up in a fighter jet today, he’s still smart enough to watch the video and use his genius powers to discern what Commander David Fravor and the other pilots saw, right? Or has he already stated his case?
“If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn’t turn out well for the Native Americans.”
Hawking said that in 2010. Commander Fravor saw his UFO in 2004 and he as well as the rest of us are still around and not on a reservation in the Kuiper Belt.
“We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet. To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational. The real challenge is to work out what aliens might actually be like.”
Hawking is concerned about alien encounters but he’s doing more than just thinking. He’s involved with the Breakthrough Listen project, which supports listening for alien signals – an activity Hawking believes is safer for the human race than sending signals into space in hopes aliens hear us – and supported monitoring Oumuamua, the interstellar asteroid that some proposed was actually a spaceship.
What would Stephen Hawking think after viewing Fravor’s UFO video? Would his theoretical physicist side see evidence that identifies what it really is? Would his alien-fearing side issue a warning that chasing sophisticated alien aircrafts with fighter jets is like Native Americans throwing tomahawks at armed European ‘explorers’? Would he tell us to leave him alone so he can watch the “Big Bang Theory” marathon?
Yet another SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to launch these week!
The mysterious Zuma payload sits atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39A.
Credit: SpaceX/Space.com.
The liftoff which was originally planned for mid-November is now scheduled for January 5, 2018 between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. EDT Friday (Jan. 5; 0100 to 0300 GMT Jan. 6) from NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida, according to Space.com.
The payload which sits atop the Falcon 9 rocket is a top-secret government satellite named Zuma and built by defense contractor Northrop Grumman.
The Zuma mission only became public in October, when NASASpaceflight.com reported on documents that SpaceX had filed with the Federal Communications Commission, requesting authorization for a mysterious “Mission 1390" reports TheVerge.com.
Northrop Grumman has confirmed that it procured Zuma's launch atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket for the U.S. government but has not released any further information on the spacecraft except that the Falcon 9 will deliver Zuma to low-Earth orbit, a range of altitudes that extends up to about 2,000 kilometers above the planet, reports Space.com.
So far, it's unclear which agency is in charge of the Zuma project and the NRO, (National Reconnaissance Office) which usually announces the launches of its spy spacecraft, said that Zuma doesn’t belong to the agency, according to TheVerge.com.
With all the questionable launches before and now the classified Zuma mission which is really shrouded in mystery we ask ourselves again “Is there “Something” in space that needs to be monitored?”
Just a few days from now we will be marking the 10th anniversary of the Stephenville, Texas wave of UFO activity and encounters. It was a wave which caught the attention of not just UFO researchers, but also much of the world’s media – and the U.S. military, too. There is no doubt that the case was – and still is – steeped in intrigue and mystery. And, as the tenth anniversary looms large on the horizon, there’s also no doubt that there are still enough weird leads and strange aspects to the story to allow for a new investigation of the case. Let’s take a look at the timeline and how things went down.
It was on January 7 that matters really kicked off in Stephenville – and in big-time fashion, too. Consider the following, from Associated Press, on January 14: “…In this farming community where nightfall usually brings clear, starry skies, residents are abuzz over reported sightings of what many believe is a UFO. Several dozen people – including a pilot, county constable and business owners – insist they have seen a large silent object with bright lights flying low and fast. Some reported seeing fighter jets chasing it.”
Steve Allen, the owner of a freight company was quoted as saying: “People wonder what in the world it is because this is the Bible Belt, and everyone is afraid it’s the end of times.” No wonder Allen was so vocal: he said he saw a massive craft in the skies above, somewhere in the region of one-mile in length and half-a-mile in width. He said that the object was “positively, absolutely nothing from these parts.”
Intriguingly, witnesses claimed to have seen military F-16 aircraft pursuing the gigantic aerial vehicle. This, however, was denied by staff at the 301st Fighter Wing at the Joint Reserve Base Naval Air Station in Fort Worth, Texas. Major Karl Lewis stated with respect to this issue, on January 15, that no F-16 aircraft were in the skies of Stephenville on the night of the 7th. The military suggested that they were “90 percent sure this was an airliner. With the sun’s angle, it can play tricks on you.”
Needless to say, the local media were quick to report on the matter. The Fort Worth-based Star Telegram newspaper told its readers the following, also on January 15: “Stephenville’s latest close encounter is weirder than any light in the sky. Stephenville is under assault – not by Martians, but by people hunting them. The phones haven’t stopped ringing at Steve Allen’s trucking company in nearby Glen Rose. He’s the guy who was out Jan. 7 watching the sunset at a friend’s house near Selden when they all saw some weird flashing lights. Now he can’t work for all the calls from London and around the world. Some of the callers are scarier than space aliens.’I’ll be OK,’ he joked Tuesday, ‘as long as I don’t get abducted.'”
Also on the 15th, The Raw Story had its say on the mysterious matter: “Dozens of eyewitnesses have reported seeing a mile-long UFO being pursued by fighter jets last week in the small town of Stephenville, Texas. ‘It was very intense bright lights…and they spanned a wide area,’ said one woman. NBC News spoke with County Constable Lee Roy Gaitan, who offered a somewhat different description. ‘I saw two red glows,’ he said. ‘I never seen anything like that, never.'”
Just over a week later, specifically on January 24, things turned both intriguing and strange. Staff at the Dallas Morning Newsexplained exactly why: “The U.S. military has owned up to having F-16 fighters in the air near Stephenville on the night that several residents reported unusual lights in the sky. But the correction issued Wednesday doesn’t exactly turn UFOs into Identified Flying Objects. Several dozen witnesses reported that they had seen unusual lights in the sky near Stephenville shortly after dusk Jan. 8. One sighting included a report that the lights were pursued by military jets. Military officials had repeatedly denied that they had any flights in the area that night.”
The Air Force stated of this new and eye-opening development: “In the interest of public awareness, Air Force Reserve Command Public Affair realized an error was made regarding the reported training activity of military aircraft. Ten F-16s from the 457th Fighter Squadron were performing training operations from 6 to 8 p.m., Tuesday January 8, 2008, in the Brownwood Military Operating Area (MOA), which includes the airspace above Erath County.” It had all been down to an “internal communications error.”
Even more controversial were the claims that (a) the United Nations had gotten involved in the investigation and (b) the Stephenville affair was secretly orchestrated by New World Order-types to give the impression of an alien invasion – and for those behind the ruse to then sit back and watch the reaction. In other words, the people of Earth were being deceived into thinking that we were being invaded, when, in reality, it was a sinister program designed to allow for a further erosion of our rights and freedoms – and to achieve this by claiming that an alien attack was imminent. Of course, no-one should be surprised to learn that these two issues were never proved to be true.
As all of the above shows, there is enough data – including conflicting data and controversial claims – to warrant a new investigation, now that the 10th anniversary is upon us.
It’s a common scene in many science fiction movies – a giant alien spaceship shows up, opens a door and releases thousands of tiny aircraft that attack and destroy everything that moves until someone finds a glitch in their software or a way to stop them from returning to mama for refueling and saves humanity until Jeff Goldblum is ready to do a sequel. Why don’t humans ever use this mothership-baby drones strategy? Get ready for a new movie plot because it’s coming soon from DARPA and the tiny terrors will carry the sinister name “Gremlins.”
“To help make that technology a reality, DARPA has launched the Gremlins program. Named for the imaginary, mischievous imps that became the good luck charms of many British pilots during World War II, the program envisions launching groups of UASs from existing large aircraft such as bombers or transport aircraft—as well as from fighters and other small, fixed-wing platforms—while those planes are out of range of adversary defenses. When the gremlins complete their mission, a C-130 transport aircraft would retrieve them in the air and carry them home, where ground crews would prepare them for their next use within 24 hours.”
That description of a flying aircraft carrier full of tiny-but-deadly unmanned air systems (UASs) comes from DARPA (the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) itself in an announcement that Dynetics, a private defense contractor, and General Atomics, the maker of the ubiquitous Predator drones, will be competing to build the best Gremlin ‘full-scale technology demonstration system’ to be ready for testing by 2019. To win, the Gremlins must be able to be deployed, returned and reused at least 20 times. The mothership/flying aircraft carrier is currently a massive Air Force C-130 transport plane but that is expected to be replaced by a stealth bomber, enabling it to invade enemy airspace invisibly before opening its doors and dropping the drones.
DARPA depiction of the Gremlins
And what exactly will the drones do next?
‘Within this concept of operations, a Gremlins system would provide options for delivering small Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) and other non-kinetic payloads to the battlespace in a manner that is robust and responsive. Responsiveness is achieved through the use of conventional aircraft hosts to transport and launch a volley of gremlins from stand-off ranges. Furthermore, by scaling up the number of systems engaged in operations, the impact of a loss of any individual gremlin is reduced.’
The “official” word is that the drones will initially act as cheap, disposable spy aircraft. That’s it?
Of course not. The Gremlins will undoubtedly be expected to live up to their original RAF reputation – using their small size and large quantity to sneak into dangerous territories, annoy and attack enemy pilots and escape before being detected to return to their stealth mothership for fuel, more weapons and further orders.
We’re back, baby!
Is the Gremlin-bearing invisible flying aircraft carrier the future of aerial warfare? No question about it – as long as the enemy doesn’t figure out how to hack the system and turn our own Gremlins against us. Unfortunately, that’s not just a great movie plot.
In Antarctica, a fleet of seven drones will embark on a year-long mission under the ice. If they survive, the data they collect could drastically improve predictions of future ice melting and sea level rises.
DIVING DRONES
As sea levels rise and the need to understand our changing planet grows more serious, we come to face the mysteries of the Antarctic shelves, which hide below them a secret world. Beneath these massive shelves rests glorious caves and canyons, continually carved away by moving, melting water. Ice cracks and tide flow through and tug at its edges, warm and cool water mixing together in this underwater world that exists below as ridges of ice catch on the seabed below. Into this terrestrial, alien environment, seven underwater robots will dive and explore in a new effort to predict sea level rises.
Created by the University of Washington (U.W.) in Seattle, these bots will spend a year observing the melting process under the Pine Island Ice Shelf, a region spanning over 50 square miles, so that scientists might better predict the future of these ice shelves. Because the physics of these unique locations is fairly convoluted, there has been a persisting difficulty in accurately predicting this change. And it’s essential to understand these processes, especially to those living in or near coastal regions,because they will be the first to face the brunt of rising sea levels.
Knut Christianson, a glaciologist on the mission and a leader of U.W.’s Future of Ice initiative, said: “We’ve known for about 40 years that ice shelves are intrinsically unstable. But we don’t really understand the variability of these systems, let alone how they react to a significant external forcing like warming sea temperatures.”
EXPLORING ANTARCTICA
Originally designed to explore and observe in open water, these diving bots are setting off to explore with acknowledged risk, “There is a real risk that some of the instruments will not come back,” said Jason Gobat, an oceanographer at U.W.’s Applied Physics Laboratory who will deploy the bots from Antarctica.
Over the past 40 years, the melting speed at the Pine Island Ice Shelf has increased by nearly a whopping 75% and if just this one shelf melted, it would flood every coastal city on planet Earth. And, while the mission is dangerous for these precious instruments, the only way to accurately measure key temperature, pressure, water chemistry and turbulence is by putting these drones directly in the water under the shelf.
In previous missions, robots have been sent under the ice on much shorter missions through small holes drilled into the shelf of Antarctica. But these efforts were short and in limited areas, so the data couldn’t accurately represent the larger region or ice melting in a more general sense. This new robot fleet made up of three Seagliders, self-propelled drones, and four drifting floats. “Swimming” by adjusting their buoyancy, these robots will glide through the water with mechanic “wings” and navigate by triangulating from three sonic buoys nearby. An satellite in orbit above Antarctica is capable of beaming down instructions, additionally, and it is where the bots will send their data post-mission. The floats are slightly less capable in terms of movement, only moving up and down by adjusting buoyancy. This makes them susceptible to ocean currents.
Humans have made a staggering amount of scientific and technological progress over the past century. We’ve created technology that has transformed our society; scientific advances have helped us answer fundamental questions about who we are and the world that we inhabit. And, yet, mysteries persist.
Why are we compelled to sleep every night? Why are we still not able to “see” dark matter? And where the heck are all the aliens?
People have debated questions like these for decades — sometimes centuries. Fortunately, our unfaltering will to uncover the world’s mysteries has brought us closer to some answers than ever before. Here are six mysteries that still keep scientists up at night, and how close they are to solving them.
1. Why Do We Need Sleep?
Why do we need sleep? This may seem like a straightforward question, but the answer is far more complex than you might think. There have been countless attempts to find a definitive reason as to why humans need to sleep every night, but scientists are still unable to offer a single, definitive answer.
Findings in sleep science have shed some light on the intricacies of sleep stages and brain activity, but ultimately, they have merely offered pieces to an ever-growing, incomplete puzzle. It doesn’t help that we don’t have much to compare ourselves to — as sleeping patterns and brain activity in other animals often deviate significantly from those of humans, further mystifying our understanding of sleep.
Jerry Siegel, a psychiatry professor at UCLA’s Semel Institute of Neuroscience and Human Behavior, has been studying the sleeping habits of animals to understand why humans need to enter a hibernation-like state every night.
“Our understanding and orientation [of sleep] is different than in any other animal because most of us would like to stay awake 24 hours a day. But in the natural world, animals that use a lot of energy are not going to survive,” Siegel tells Futurism. Nature values inactivity — for instance, winter hibernation allows certain animals to recover and store energy when it is not needed. “Across species, energy savings is the main evolutionary impulse for sleep,” Siegel explains. African elephants, for example, only sleep for two hours a day in the wild, likely because they need the rest of that time to feed in order to give their large bodies enough energy to function.
The energy saving theory is one of several that scientists use to explain why we sleep. As scientists have created tools that can track brain activity during the act of sleep, they have come closer to finishing the puzzle and uncovering all of sleep’s mysteries.
For example, the brain has mechanisms in place allowing it to purge itself of unnecessary information during sleep.“Sleep is the price we pay for learning,” Giulio Tononi, a psychiatry professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison tells New Scientist. Tononi and his team conducted experiments on sleeping mice and found that, after sleep, synapses were significantly smaller than those before sleep.
Tononi’s team concluded that the brain needs to allow this activity to diminish in order to solidify information it gathered while it was awake. The brain is bombarded with information during the day, and it reinforces it with strong neural connections. To mix the new information in with all of the existing information, those connections need to weaken to “absorb” it. In other words, sleep allows the brain to make new information pliable enough to fit in with all of the old.
While this theory elegantly describes the brain’s process of making new information stick during sleep, Tononi and other neuroscientists have yet to prove that sleep is actually required for this to happen.
To fully understand sleep, sleep scientists need a better sense of the neurobiological processes of the brain during both wake and sleep cycles. For instance, how come some of us are able to sleep through extremely noisy environments, and some of us can’t? Once we are able to measure exactly how awake or asleep the human brain is, it will bring us even further to knowing all there is to know about sleep.
But one thing has remained clear as ever: Without sleep, we are far worse off. “We know that, if you are sleep-deprived, you have lapses in attention that are actually correlated with intrusions in sleep,” Siegel says. Not getting enough sleep has a direct affect on how much attention you can pay to the world around you. “Certainly when you are driving, losing alertness just for two seconds can be lethal.”
2. What Is Dark Matter, And Why Can’t We See It?
We don’t know what it looks like. We can’t see it. But it makes up more than 26 percent of the matter in the known universe. Since Dutch astronomer Jacobus Kapteyn hypothesized its existence in 1922, we have come to know it exists because of how it interacts with the matter we can observe, but dark matter is still mysteriously invisible to us.
Most of the matter that’s visible to us is made of neutrons, protons, and electrons. But dark matter does not adhere to these classifications. It’s made up of different types of particles we haven’t yet been able to categorize and that interact with light and matter in a completely different way. Dark matter does not absorb, reflect, or emit light. But its gravitational influence does bend light as it passes nearby — that kind of observation is how scientists know that dark matter exists.
Researchers have been studying this phenomenon, trying to unravel its mysteries, almost since its inception. More recently, the Large Hadron Collider at the European Council for Nuclear Research (CERN) has brought us closer to actually doing so — researchers there are working to identify the invisible material by accelerating tiny particles and then studying the energy and momentum involved in their movements when they collide at high speeds.
Recent studies suggest that gravitational wave detectors could allow us to “see” dark matter for the first time. But the truth of the matter (so to speak) is that we are still very much in the dark about one of the most abundant entities in our universe.
Perhaps the best-known theory about the beginning of the universe is the Big Bang theory, in which the universe expanded from an extremely hot and dense singularity around 13.8 billion years ago. But people misunderstand if they think that matter simply exploded into being from nothing, Sutter says. “The Big Bang happened everywhere in the universe simultaneously; it’s not an explosion in space but an explosion of space.” Yet, the exact process of what caused this (and of course, what was there beforehand) remains unknown.
“The earlier we go in the history of the universe, the less we understand,” Sutter says. While we have caught brief glimpses of the universe when it was only 300,000 years old, scientists are still speculating about the extreme forces at play during the universe’s first moments.
Like all good mysteries, a question that seems simple yields more questions that must be solved before we can find the answer to the initial question. “We’re prevented from knowing the very earliest moments (like, less than 10^-40 seconds) because we don’t fully comprehend the quantum aspects of gravity,” Sutter says.
To this end, to fully understand the creation of our universe, we will need to have a comprehensive understanding of the laws of physics that govern matter and antimatter. This is a bit of a problem, as CERN recently confirmed that the Standard Model of particle physics may have to be turned on its head, as it doesn’t account for the majority of the matter the Big Bang produced.
Once we have fully understood the nature of antimatter and how it interacts with matter, we won’t have a final answer to the origin of the universe, but we will come much closer to understanding how it came to be.
4. Where is Planet Nine?
Beyond the Kuiper belt, a mysterious cluster of objects is orbiting the Sun. They orbit even more distant from the Sun than Neptune, but some of the objects’ trajectories don’t seem to fit the expected pattern. Most of them circle around Neptune, kept in the planet’s orbit by its powerful gravity. But a handful of these objects seem to be pulled out of place by something with much greater mass.
Konstantin Batygin, assistant professor of planetary science at the California Institute of Technology, believes that these peculiarities are at least partially caused by the existence of Planet Nine — a yet-to-be-discovered ninth planet in our solar system.
Think of the solar system as a giant disc. The orbits of these strangely behaving objects seem to bend the disc upwards at its edge. Planet Nine needs to be massive to have this kind of influence — a bigger mass than Earth, even. However, despite its apparent mass, we have not yet been able to prove its existence. In part, this is because we only just started looking for it; scientists first started theorizing about its existence in 2014.
However, that’s not the only reason that the planet remains undiscovered. “We haven’t found it yet because it is staggeringly dim,” Batygin says. “With the best telescopes around, we could just barely detect it, we think.” Infrared analysis is out of the question because the instruments are simply not sensitive enough. That forces astronomers to look for reflected light — an even more challenging task than infrared analysis. This is because any light that Planet Nine reflects has to travel from the Sun to the far reaches of the solar system, bounce off Planet Nine, and then arrive back to Earth. Reflected light diminishes exponentially as it crosses a distance; the properties of reflected light are stacked against us finding Planet Nine.
However, with advancements in technology, a more sensitive telescope may be able to register light reflected from it, once and for all confirming Planet Nine’s existence. Astronomers are also using computer simulations to estimate its orbit to get a better sense of where it will be and when. It’s possible that Planet Nine may be simply at a point in its orbit that makes it too distant to be observed.
5. Why Do These Sounds Make My Brain Tingle?
You might have encountered them on YouTube: thousands of videos narrated in hushed voices and accompanied by soft sounds, like massaging a textured piece of fabric or the faint hum of a hair clipper. A specialized microphone gives you the sensation that you are there. For some people, the sound creates the sensation of a scalp massage.
The result of this experience: a relaxing, tingling sensation in the brain in about 90 percent of the population. But why it happens, and why it doesn’t work for everyone, is still unknown.
Craig Richard, a professor of biopharmaceutical sciences at Shenandoah University and founder of ASMR University, has been studying this peculiar sensation since 2013. “We are at the very beginning of unraveling the science behind ASMR,” Richard tells Futurism. While past biological studies have shown that functional connectivity (regions of the brain that light up on a fMRI) is different in brains that experience ASMR than in those that don’t, ASMR remains a mystery. Why is it that only a certain percentage of humans experiences it? Why does it even exist? “I don’t think there will ever be one explanation that satisfies everyone,” he says.
6. Where Is Intelligent Alien Life?
The universe is billions of years old. Considering the age and sheer vastness of our cosmos, it’s hard to comprehend why we haven’t found other signs of intelligent life. Basic probability indicates that we should have found extraterrestrials by now, so where are they?
If extraterrestrial life does exist in our solar system, researchers suggest that it is likely microbial, as opposed to intelligent alien life. These alien organisms are thought to be on small, icy planets, such as the moons of Saturn or Jupiter. Scientists at NASA have conducted studies to investigate the composition and stateof the large oceans on these moons because, they predict, the presence of abundant water might allow alien life to thrive. But so far, these are only educated guesses based on findings of NASA’s Galileo satellite and extensive scanning and observation. NASA is planning to get a closer look by traveling to Jupiter’s icy moon Europa within the next decade.
But even if we did find alien life, would we be able to recognize it? Looking for familiar carbon-based lifeforms that use water as life support might limit us in our quest to find alien life. Scientists must be able to fully distinguish alien messages from all the other noise in space — and even that is far from simple. What if their message is indistinguishable from other frequencies? What if they don’t want to be found?
The Pentagon has set out to conquer the “underground world”
The Pentagon has set out to conquer the “underground world”
Mankind has conquered nearly all places on the surface of the planet throughout the ages. From dangerous seas to the highest mountains, our civilization has seized control of almost every corner of Earth’s surface. Now, we may soon start doing the same thing to the underworld according to a new military project by DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency of the United States. The new initiative challenges participants from all over the world to propose pioneering methods to develop systems that can help in the investigation of habitable underground networks
“One of the consequences of the increase in world population and urbanization is the need for more living spaces, which makes the search and development of underground infrastructure increasingly interesting,” says Timothy Chung, program director of the DARPA Tactical Technology Office (TTO) in a recently published video (see below).
According to Timothy Chung, program director of the DARPA Tactical Technology Office (TTO), “One of the consequences of the increase in world population and urbanization is the need for more living spaces, which makes the search and development of underground infrastructure increasingly interesting.”
In that line of thinking, the Pentagon has just launched a totally unexpected challenge to researchers.
Titled “Underground Challenge of the Advanced Defense Research Projects Agency of the USA” (DARPA Subterranean or “SubT” Challenge), it’s a call to explore new possibilities in tracking, navigation, and exploration of underground environments, as noted by Space.com.
This initiative invites participants from all over the world to propose pioneering methods to develop systems that can help in the investigation of habitable underground networks, even with unpredictable conditions that are dangerous for humans.
“One of the main limitations facing warfighters and emergency responders in subterranean environments is a lack of situational awareness; we often don’t know what lies beneath us,” Chung,said in a statement.
Image Credit: DARPA
“The DARPA Subterranean Challenge aims to provide previously unimaginable situational awareness capabilities for operations underground.”
Through the “SubT” Challenge, the Pentagon invites the scientific and engineering community, as well as the general public, to use their creativity in order to provide new technologies and ideas to make access the inaccessible, considering time as something essential.
According to the director of the TTO, Fred Kennedy, “we are now at a point where developments in robotics, autonomy and even biological systems will allow us to explore underground areas that are very dangerous for humans.”
Those who are interested in this challenge will compete in solving extreme problems as helping people navigate in the unknown, through unprecedented treacherous subterranean conditions where time is of the essence, according to the statement.
As noted by Space.com, The final competition, which will take place in 2021, will include three challenges that include operating in one of three environments: a network of man-made human-made tunnels, a subterranean municipal-transit system and a network of underground natural caves.
The final event will challenge teams to navigate through networks that include parts of all three environments. The grand-prize winners will take home $2 million. The deadline to apply is Jan. 18, 2018.
Through the DARPA Subterranean Challenge, we are inviting the scientific and engineering communities — as well as the public — to use their creativity and resourcefulness to come up with new technologies and concepts to make the inaccessible accessible,” Kennedy said in the statement.
The Most Intriguing Alien Planet Discoveries of 2017
The Most Intriguing Alien Planet Discoveries of 2017
By Sarah Lewin, Space.com Associate Editor
Researchers identified 7 planets circling the star TRAPPIST-1 this year, three of which might be able to keep liquid water on its surface.
Credit: R. Hurt/T. Pyle/NASA
Scientists spotted seven Earth-size alien planets orbiting one dim red star this year, and a lot of other strange exoplanets — ranging from an Earth-size ice ball to the hottest planet ever found and many more, plus a star that seems to have gobbled up something like 15 rocky worlds. Read on for 2017's most unusual, fascinating and potentially livable exoplanet finds.
1. The TRAPPIST-1 family
A view from one of the seven planets found orbiting TRAPPIST-1, with several other planets visible closer to the star.
Credit: N. Bartmann/spaceengine.org/ESO
Seven newly discovered, Earth-size planets surround the cool red star TRAPPIST-1, which is slightly larger than the planet Jupiter. Researchers first spotted a few members of its planetary entourage in May 2016 with the TRAnsiting Planets and Planeteslmals Small Telescope (TRAPPIST) in Chile. Additional data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope revealed that rather than three planets, there were seven, all roughly the size of Earth, but orbiting together in a space smaller than Mercury's orbit around the sun. The fastest and innermost planet, TRAPPIST-1b, whips around the star in just 1.5 days, and the outermost, TRAPPIST-1h, likely takes about 20 days.
Astronomers also discovered the hottest planet found to date in 2017 — the Jupiter-like KELT-9b. The planet orbits so close to its star, KELT-9, that it completely circles the star in 1.5 days, and it is tidally locked to the star — meaning the same side is always facing inward. Researchers spotted the planet passing in front of its star with the Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope (KELT) at Winer Observatory in Arizona.
On that "day side" of the planet, temperatures can reach 7,800 degrees Fahrenheit (4,300 Celsius) — hotter than the surface of a dwarf star, and just 2,200 degrees F (1,200 degrees C) cooler than the surface of the sun. (However, the sun's outer atmosphere is even hotter.)
KELT-9 is larger and hotter than the sun, and its constant radiation makes KELT-9b's atmosphere balloon up until it's half the density of Jupiter. Someday, it may evaporate the planet entirely, researchers said — or, if the planet has a rocky center, boil it down to just the core. Observation with the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes, as well as the future James Webb Space Telescope, could reveal the planet's ultimate fate.
3. Home close to home
The planet Ross 128b is just 11 light-years from Earth, is the closest planet yet found orbiting in the habitable zone of a quiet star.
Credit: M. Kornmesser/ESO
The alien world Ross 128b, first spotted this year with the High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) instrument at the La Silla Observatory in Chile, is just 11 light-years from Earth. And although it orbits much closer to its star than Earth does to the sun, the star is cool enough that it could still lie in the habitable zone, if it has a thick enough cover of clouds to reflect away some of the light. Ross 128b is the closest Earth-mass planet potentially in the habitable zone of a quiet star, scientists say — our nearest neighbor, Proxima Centauri, blasts out powerful flares to roast its potentially Earth-size planet, Proxima b.
4. New solar-system rival
Kepler-90i is the eighth planet newly found circling Kepler-90, which rivals the solar system for number of planets.
Credit: NASA
Using Google's machine-learning techniques, scientists found an eighth planet orbiting the star Kepler-90, marking the second eight-planet star system ever found (after Earth's system, which has eight official planets. Kepler-90i is located 2,545 light-years from Earth, it's likely rocky, and it's the third world from its star — but unlike Earth's 365.26-day orbit, it circles its star in 14.5 Earth days, and is much too close and hot for liquid water to remain on its surface. The planet's average surface temperatures could reach 800 degrees Fahrenheit (430 degrees Celsius).
The machine-learning program, which also found a planet around another star, made the call by analyzing star-dimming data from the Kepler Space Telescope.
5. Pen pals
Researchers beamed a radio message to the nearby GJ 273 system, which boasts two planets (one potentially in the habitable zone).
Credit: Danielle Futselaar/METI
Scientists and artists dashed off a message to the nearby dwarf star GJ 273, which hosts two recently discovered planets. One of them, GJ 273b, could be capable of supporting life — and the system is just 12.36 light-years from Earth.
Team members at METI (Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence) International sent a message toward the star using a telescope in Norway, including a scientific and mathematical "tutorial" along with 33 short musical compositions by artists involved with the Sónar Festival in Barcelona. If the message were received, humans could expect a response in under 25 years.
6. Giant snowball
The roughly Earth-size planet 06-OGLE-2016-BLG-1195Lb is a giant iceball under the weak shine of its star.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
A newfound alien world 13,000 light-years away with a mouthful of a designation — OGLE-2016-BLG-1195Lb — has a lot in common with our planet: It's about the same mass as Earth, and orbits at about the same distance from its star as Earth does from the sun. But while the sun's golden glow warms Earth to livable temperatures, OGLE-2016-BLG-1195Lb's star (OGLE-2016-BLG-1195L) is tiny and dim, leaving its planet as a frigid ice ball.
Researchers discovered the planet when its star happened to pass in front of another star monitored by the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE) survey program. Using data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and the Korea Microlensing Telescope Network, the researchers were able to use the way the star bent the light of the background object to deduce that the star had a planet, calculate its mass and how far it orbits from the star. It is the lowest-mass planet ever found through that technique, called microlensing.
7. RIP rocky planets
Researchers say the star Kronos may have engulfed enough rocky planets to equal 15 times Earth's mass.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt/SSC-Caltech
Our last exoplanet mention has to go to the star Kronos, which — although researchers didn't find any planets around it — seems to have a voracious planetary appetite: Comparing its composition to that of its companion star, researchers found that the star may have gobbled up as much as 15 Earth masses' worth of rocky planets over the course of its life.
Researchers found an abundance of rock-forming minerals like magnesium, aluminum, silicon, iron, chromium and yttrium in Kronos' outer layers, but much less of volatile compounds like oxygen, carbon, nitrogen and potassium that are generally found in gas form. Metal-rich stars usually have all of them, suggesting that Kronos may have gotten its metals by swallowing rocky planets.
Email Sarah Lewin at slewin@space.com or follow her @SarahExplains.
UFO Watch: 8 Times the Government Looked for Flying Saucers
UFO Watch: 8 Times the Government Looked for Flying Saucers
By Elizabeth Howell, Space.com Contributor
Photo Credit: Alamy
Sanctioned UFO Searches
s the truth really out there? It's an age-old question, with reports of UFOs going back decades. We looked back at actual UFO and alien investigations by the U.S. and other countries. Check it out!
Photo Credit: Shutterstock
1. Projects Sign and Grudge – 1948-1951
Many accounts of UFOs in the United States describe something called the Roswell incident. Local accounts of a "flying saucer" landing near Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947 led to many alien conspiracy theories, but the U.S. Air Force denied an E.T. connection. In the 1990s, the Air Force said the object was actually a balloon that was searching for Soviet Union nuclear test signals under Project Mogul.
However, the incident did prompt official U.S. investigations into unidentified flying objects in the next few years. A report published for the U.S. Air Force's Project Sign (1948-1949) stated that the things people saw were "real" but that at least "some of the incidents may be caused by natural phenomena" and others may be related to domestic or foreign aircraft. The Air Force's Project Grudge, which issued a report in 1949 prior to its shutdown in 1951, continued the investigation but found no conclusive evidence of UFOs.
Photo Credit: U.S. Air Force
2. Project Blue Book – 1952-1969
Project Blue Book was yet another program from the U.S. Air Force, following up on Projects Sign and Grudge. The program conducted a series of studies between 1952 and 1969 to figure out if UFOs could hurt national security and to search for UFO data. More than 10,000 of those case files are freely available on the Internet Archive.
According to Encyclopedia Britannica, investigators ultimately collected more than 12,000 sightings and classified them as either "identified" (meaning the events could be explained by astronomical, atmospheric or human phenomena) or "unidentified." That category made up about 6 percent of the total number of reported cases.
Photo Credit: Dutton
3. The Condon Committee – 1966-1968
The Condon Committee, more formally known as the University of Colorado UFO Project, was a group funded by the Air Force that looked at UFOs under leadership from physicist Edward Condon. The group re-examined the information from Project Blue Book and published its efforts in the "Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects" (also known as the Condon Report) in 1968.
According to How Stuff Works, the Condon Report found that about one-third of the cases couldn't be explained, even though the introduction stated that "further extensive study of UFOs probably cannot be justified on the expectation that science will be advanced thereby."
Some reports say that the ultimate purpose of the report was to stop U.S. investigations into UFOs. Whether or not that was true, Blue Book ceased operations in 1969, the year after the Condon Report was released.
Photo Credit: Chris Dorst/AP
4. Project Ozma – 1960
Project Ozma stands out because it was the first time humans tried to look for radio signals from outside of the solar system. (It was named after the imaginary land of Oz in the 1900 book "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" and the 1939 film "The Wizard of Oz.") Funding came from the National Science Foundation.
According to the SETI Institute, for this project, radio astronomer Frank Drake chose to examine the stars Tau Ceti in the constellation Cetus (the Whale) and Epsilon Eridani in the constellation Eridanus (the River). These stars were monitored at the 21-centimeter (8.3 inches) emission line for 6 hours a day, from April to July 1960. No signal was found, except for "an early false alarm caused by a secret military experiment," the SETI Institute stated.
Photo Credit: Shutterstock
5. NASA's SETI – 1970s-1993
SETI is a term for a group of researchers who participate in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. NASA conducted SETI searches using the Arecibo and Goldstone antennas starting in the 1970s. The program was canceled in 1993, shortly after observations officially started. (NASA renamed the program the High Resolution Microwave Survey program late in its existence, which some say was done to mask that it was actually a SETI program.)
However, SETI searches still exist informally at universities around the world. The SETI Institute in California was founded in 1984 and uses private funding. In 2007, the Allen Telescope Array, which is devoted to observations from the SETI Institute, opened with the help of funding from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. It continues observations to this day.
Photo Credit: NASA
6. NASA Astrobiology Institute – 1998-present
While astrobiology doesn't focus on UFOs, it does examine under what circumstances life, from microbial to intelligent, could arise. The NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI) seeks to encourage researchers to collaborate across disciplines to answer a range of questions: Is life possible on icy moons? What kind of microbes could survive the extreme conditions of Mars? What is the habitable zone of a star?
NAI is only one of six branches of NASA's astrobiology program. The rest are called the Exobiology and Evolutionary Biology Program, Planetary Science and Technology Through Analog Research, the Planetary Instrument Concepts for the Advancement of Solar System Observations (PICASSO), the Maturation of Instruments for Solar System Exploration (MatISSE), and the Habitable Worlds Program.
Photo Credit: Shutterstock
7. Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program - 2007-2012
In December 2017, the U.S. government's research into UFOs received global attention when reports emerged of a secret Department of Defense program (called the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program, or AATIP) that ran from at least 2007 to 2012. The program tracked reports of UFOs, including descriptions of some strange aerial activities that two Navy pilots said they saw in 2004. Luis Elizondo, the former head of the program, told several media outlets that we may not be alone.
AATIP is only the most recent example in decades of work by the U.S. government looking into the unexplained.
If that's not enough to satisfy your UFO appetite, you can look at unclassified documents from the National Security Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Other government agencies reportedly have files as well, such as the Defense Intelligence Agency.
For international efforts, Emma Best (who publishes regularly on the government-transparency website MuckRock) has requested thousands of pages of U.S. government documents under the Freedom of Information Act. Her website alone — which claims it has the largest collection of UFO-related documents in the world — lists files from governments from all over the world, including Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, New Zealand, Panama and Spain. (Other governments that were listed, but with no uploaded files on this site, included Ecuador, Norway,
From claims of alien life on the International Space Station to the discovery of titanium snow on an alien planet, there were some strange space stories that made headlines in 2017. Scientists saw an interstellar asteroid (or comet? or spacecraft?) cruise through our solar system, and the fidget spinner craze made it all the way to the space station. Here are some of the weirdest space stories from the past year.
Photo Credit: New York Times
1. UFO sighting reported in The New York Times
It caused the ocean to boil, flew faster than an F-18 and vanished without a trace. This was the description that a former Navy pilot gave to The New York Times of an unidentified flying object that he says he saw in 2004. "It accelerated like nothing I've ever seen," said Cmdr. David Fravor, adding he was "pretty weirded out" by the strange encounter.
Fravor's account was reported by the Times just as news broke that the U.S. government has been funding a program to search for UFOs since at least 2007. While the Department of Defense says money troubles shut down the annual $22 million program in 2012, the Times maintains that it is still active. Other government programs have been set up to study UFOs: In 2016, the Central Intelligence Agency released previously classified documents about its UFO searches (most of which took place in the 1950s).
Photo Credit: JPL-Caltech/NASA
2. An interstellar object visits our solar system
A visitor from far away was spotted inside our solar system in 2017, carrying the mystery of its origins and inspiring some people to hope that perhaps it is an interstellar craft. The object was first detected in October, by researchers using the Pan-STARRS1 telescope in Hawaii. The scientists noticed the object was traveling on a path that would bring it outside of our solar system, even though it didn't pass close enough to any other sizeable objects that could fling it out of the solar system with their gravity. This suggests that it also originated outside the solar system and is simply passing through. (Objects inside the solar system are generally kept inside it by the sun's gravity.)
By December, astronomers announced the object (now called 'Oumuamua) was likely a comet in disguise. A study in the journal Nature announced that 'Oumuamua was surrounded by a carbon-rich crust that likely protected its more delicate, icy insides from the heat of the sun. A separate paper published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters found that 'Oumuamua is very similar to icy objects in the outer solar system, judging by its color. Meanwhile, the Breakthrough Listen project monitored 'Oumuamua in several radio frequencies and didn't hear any signals — so if this object really is
Photo Credit: NASA
3. Russian cosmonaut claims discovery of alien life
Russian cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov announced in November that he thinks bacteria discovered on the outside of the International Space Station are extraterrestrial in origin. In an interview with Russia's state-owned TASS new agency, Shkaplerov said samples collected from the hull of the station and sent back to Earth for analysis contain bacteria "from outer space," and that those bacteria were "absent during the launch of the ISS module."
But other news outlets quickly pointed out that the most likely explanation for the presence of the bacteria is Earth contamination. Researchers have found that it is next to impossible to completely remove microscopic organisms from space-bound hardware before flight. The Russians have made claims about space life before: In 2014, a Russian official claimed that sea plankton had been found on the outside of the station. In that instance, as with Shkaplerov's recent assertion, NASA declined to comment about the claims, stating that they were both based on Russian research and therefore the agency could provide no additional insight.
Photo Credit: University of Arizona/JPL/NASA
4. Water on Mars? Evidence is drying up
Microbes wanting to live on Mars may have to move elsewhere. Back in 2015, a widely covered study announced that recurring slope lineae (RSL) — dark streaks that tend to appear on the sunny side of craters — could be caused by liquid water mixed with salt. Because water is key to life as we know it, this discovery opened up the possibility that modern Mars could be a life-friendly planet. In 2016, however, another study suggested that if there is any water in those RSLs, it likely comes from the atmosphererather than from under the Martian surface.
But in 2017, two alternative hypotheses emerged about these RSL. One November study from suggested that the dark streaks are not indicative of the presence of water, at all, but rather are created by rivulets of granular materials (such as sand) that will flow down slopes of a certain steepness. A similar study in March said RSL are caused by "dry avalanches." But the researchers added that there likely needs to be more study of RSLs on site to figure out exactly what is going on.
Photo Credit: JPL-Caltech/NASA
5. Dust could explain the 'alien megastructure' star
The strange dimming and brightening of Boyajian's star (also known as KIC 8462852 or Tabby's star) was likely not caused by the presence of an alien megastructure, new research argues.
The star, which is about 1,500 light-years from Earth, has been known to dim in strange and dramatic patterns (once by 22 percent) since its discovery in 2015. Because a planet passing in front of the star and blocking its light couldn't produce the irregular dimming, several explanations emerged, including comet swarms passing in front of the star, as well as the (less likely) alien-megastructure hypothesis.
A study published in October not only argues against the latter hypothesis, but also provides a much more practical explanation: It's just dust. Astronomers came to the conclusion after noticing the dimming was more pronounced in ultraviolet light. The researchers say this indicates the presence of dust grains that are too small to block light consistently across all wavelengths, but large enough to stay in orbit around the star despite the radiation pressure that would dispel smaller grains. However, the dust doesn't explain the most extreme brightness dips of at least 20 percent, so the researcher
Photo Credit: G. Bacon/ESA/NASA
6. Snow falls on a very hot exoplanet
Exoplanets can (and do!) have some bizarre compositions compared to what we see in our own solar system, but one spotted in 2017 is among the weirdest ever seen. Astronomers used the Hubble Space Telescope to take a closer look at Kepler-13Ab, which is six times more massive than Jupiter and roughly 1,730 light-years from Earth. The planet is very close to its parent star and therefore extremely hot (5,000 degrees Fahrenheit or 2,760 degrees Celsius on the daytime side).
But here's where things get strange: Hubble found more temperate conditions high in Kepler-13Ab's atmosphere. That itself is not a surprise — other “hot Jupiters" have the same situation — but here, the research team saw evidence of titanium-dioxide snow. How does it form? As the theory goes, the planet has blustery winds that carry the titanium dioxide to the nightside. The substance cools and condenses into clouds that then "snow" into the lower atmosphere. It's the first time this kind of "cold trap" has been seen in an exoplanet.
Photo Credit: NASA Johnson Space Center/YouTube
7. Fidget spinners on the space station
Fidget spinners were one of the toys to have in 2017. These plastic or metal devices have a ball bearing at the center, allowing a person to spin it in their hands. Because manufacturers said the action would help fidgety kids focus in the classroom, fidget spinners sparked a wider discussion about attention in children and awareness about conditions such as anxiety or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
NASA — which is all about educating kids — decided to demonstrate what a fidget spinner does in microgravity. The agency released a cute video showing astronauts playing with a NASA logo-adorned spinner on the International Space Station. Astronauts tumbled and spun with the fidget spinner in their hands, and shots of the spinner were also shown in front of the Cupola, where multiple windows look down on Earth.
“They published it, and they issued it in the summer of 1964, while I was there working in the war room. They titled it ‘An Assessment: An Evaluation of a Possible Military Threat to Allied Forces in Europe.’ . . . I was working in the war room one early morning . . . I’m sitting there nodding off, and this American Air Force full Colonel looked at me and he says, ‘Wake up.’ He went over to the vault . . . we kept classified documents in there . . . the Colonel went over to the vault and pulled out this document and threw it on my desk and he says ‘Read that, that’ll wake you up.’ Ladies and gentlemen my life changed. I opened the first page and I couldn’t put it down. . . . I was shocked, I was stunned, by the implications of what I read in that study. . . . The study briefly, and I have to briefly lay this out, the study simply concluded this: They concluded that the planet Earth and the human race had been under some kind of survey or observation going on for hundreds if not thousands of years. They concluded in 1964 that there were at least four different groups coming here, observing us, surveilling us, analyzing us, closely watching us — what we were up to, what we were doing. They concluded that there did not appear to be a military threat involved because the repeated demonstrations of incredibly advanced technology demonstrated to us that if they had been hostile or malevolent, there was absolutely nothing we could do. If they were evil in their intent and they were hostile toward us, it would have been over a long time ago.”
Above is an excerpt of a lecture given by Robert (Bob) Dean, a retired US Army Command Sergeant Major who served for 28 years. In the lecture below, he provides a wealth of mind-altering information that corroborates with what many other whistleblowers have shared.
The lecture was given in July 2009 at the European Exopolitics Summit, which took place in Barcelona and was filmed by Project Camelot.
Dean is one of hundreds, if not thousands, of people with verified credentials coming forward to share what they have experienced during their military careers. With regards to the statement above, former Canadian Defence Minister Paul Hellyer has also mentioned the same report that Dean refers to, stating in an interview with RT news that “they decided to do an investigation, and they investigated for three years, and they decided that, with absolute certainty, that four species, four different species, at least, have been visiting this plant for thousands of years.” He also mentions “there’s been a lot more activity in the last few decades, since we invented the atomic bomb.” (source)
“Yes there have been crashed craft, and bodies recovered. . . . We are not alone in the universe, they have been coming here for a long time. I happen to be privileged enough to be in on the fact that we have been visited on this planet, and the UFO phenomenon is real.”
The fact that hundreds of such people, many of whom hold high-ranking positions, have been speaking up about this topic for decades is fascinating. It’s pretty hard to believe that so many people with verified credentials would all lie about something that could so easily damagetheir careers.
Image of the infamous Phoenix Lights sighting.
Although there is no definitive way to prove to the ‘mainstream’ world that ET is real, we now have hundreds of thousands of documents from multiple countries putting to rest the question “Do UFOs exist?” We know they do from these documents, which show objects are tracked on radar, spotted by the pilots sent to intercept, and in some cases, simultaneously tracked on ground radar.
Information like this, particularly the fact that agencies are working to uncover the truth, shouldn’t really come as a surprise.
The CIA has a long history of putting resources toward studying this phenomenon, in fact, as well as investigating what other countries know about it as well. For example, another unclassified document outlines:
Scientists of the PRC and the Soviet Far East have begun joint study of UFO’s. The first meeting of ufologists of the two countries has ended in the small maritime townlet of Dalnegorsk. The Soviet and Chinese specialists on anomalous phenomena have mapped out a program for investigating incidents that are already known and have also arranged to directly exchange video and photographic materials on new similar phenomena. Dalnegorsk has not been chosen by chance as the place for such acquaintance. In the last few years the number of cases of visual observation of UFO’s has noticeably increased there. In just the last four years alone no less than 10 UFO’s have been recorded. Specialists link their heightened interest in places here with the variety and wealth of useful minerals in Maritime Kray. Similar, incidents have also occurred in mountainous regions in China whose climatic conditions and natural landscape resemble our own.
In many cases, these testimony are given by the people involved in the incident, the military personnel mentioned in the actual files. For example, here is one dealing with an incident that took place over the Atlantic, and here is the witness testimony to match it from Graham Bethune, a retired Navy commander pilot. You can read more about that story here.
Dean also had some choice words for NASA:
Ladies and gentlemen, my government, NASA, which many of us in the United States say stands for Never A Straight Answer, proceeded to erase 40 rolls of film of the Apollo Program — the flight to the Moon, the flight around the Moon, the landings on the Moon, the walking guys here and there. They erased, for Christ’s sake, 40 rolls of film of those events. Now we’re talking about several thousand individual frames that were taken that the so-called authorities determined that you did not have a right to see. Oh, they were ‘disruptive,’ ‘socially unacceptable,’ ‘politically unacceptable.’ I’ve become furious. I’m a retired Command Sergeant Major. I was never famous for having a lot of patience.
Listen to the full lecture below. Where you will see the photos.
WHO’S REALLY IN CONTROL OF SPACE?
“This thing has gotten so highly-classified . . . it is just impossible to get anything on it. I have no idea who controls the flow of need-to-know because, frankly, I was told in such an emphatic way that it was none of my business that I’ve never tried to make it to be my business since. I have been interested in this subject for a long time and I do know that whatever the Air Force has on the subject is going to remain highly classified.”
– Senator Barry Goldwater, Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee (source)
According to Herman Oberth, one of the founding fathers of rocketry and astronautics, “flying saucers are real and . . . they are space ships from another solar system. I think that they possibly are manned by intelligent observers who are members of a race that may have been investigating our Earth for centuries.”
If all of this information is true, it’s quite clear that “Never A Straight Answer” is indeed an appropriate name for NASA. I’ve mentioned it before and I’ll mention it again — the United States has a history of government agencies existing in secret for years. The National Security Agency (NSA) was founded in 1952, but its existence was hidden until the mid 1960s. The National Reconnaissance Office, too, was founded in 1960, but remained completely secret for 30 years.
The same is probably true for space affairs….
In the interest of a short read, and given that there is a long lecture presented within this article, I’m going to link to some other related articles that go into more detail regarding the secret space program, as well as the moon landing and film/footage from the moon, which Dean refers to above.
Et si nous avions été placés sur Terre par des aliens ? Sans le savoir, nous pourrions être dans un genre de zoo que les extraterrestres surveilleraient. Un astrophysicien s’est intéressé à cette idée sortant tout droit de 2001, l’Odyssée de l’espace.
Si l’idée parait farfelue au premier abord, il s’agit en réalité d’une théorie tout à fait sérieuse, élaborée par l’astronome John Ball en 1973 et publiée dans la revue Icarus. Cette hypothèse du zoo tente de répondre au Paradoxe de Fermi, qui stipule que la Terre est nettement plus jeune que l’univers et que dans le cas où des civilisations technologiques extraterrestres existent (ou ont existé) dans la galaxie, au moins une d’entre elles a développé et maitrise le voyage interstellaire (ou la colonisation interstellaire). Selon ce paradoxe, des traces doivent être visibles depuis notre planète, par exemple sous forme d’ondes radio.
En effet, il semblerait assez incroyable, d’un point de vue statistique, que nous soyons la seule planète habitée, alors qu’il existe d’innombrables étoiles, c’est-à-dire tout autant de soleils autour desquelles gravitent potentiellement des planètes, dont certaines pourraient réunir les mêmes conditions que la Terre. L’hypothèse du zoo n’est qu’une théorie évoquée parmi au moins une dizaine.
Le 31 août 2016, un article (en PDF) écrit par l’astrophysicien Duncan Forgan de l’Université de St Andrews (Écosse), qui devrait être prochainement publié dans la revue International Journal of Astrobiology, tente de remettre en question la crédibilité de l’hypothèse du zoo extraterrestre.
Le scientifique pense que si la Terre est réellement maintenue dans une sorte de quarantaine et que d’autres civilisations ne nous ont pas contactés, il faudrait qu’il y ait eu concertation au préalable. Duncan Forgan évoque un « club galactique », un genre d’ONU alien où la décision aurait été prise de ne pas nous informer de leur existence. Le souci réside dans le fait qu’à l’échelle galactique, la communication entre d’éventuelles civilisations prendrait énormément de temps, c’est à dire des centaines ou des milliers d’années.
Selon le MIT technology review, Duncan Forgan a élaboré un modèle mathématique afin de tenter de comprendre comment une telle situation pourrait être possible. L’algorithme créé par le scientifique ne peut en aucun cas prédire le nombre de ces potentielles civilisations, mais interroge sur leur capacité à s’organiser ensemble dans la galaxie, un espace bien entendu démesurément vaste.
Duncan Forgan s’est rapidement aperçu que pour qu’une telle situation soit possible, les conditions requises sont tout simplement improbables. Dans le cas où ces civilisations existent, la logique voudrait qu’elles se soient rassemblées en plusieurs petits groupes plutôt qu’en une grande assemblée, qu’elles soient d’ailleurs nombreuses ou non. L’algorithme précise également que la seule possibilité pour que le tout tienne la route est qu’il existe plus de 500 sortes d’extraterrestres intelligents, qui plus est installés depuis au moins un million d’années, le temps de mettre en place une sorte d’hégémonie galactique, et par le biais de communications allant à la vitesse de la lumière.
Le chercheur conclut par la quasi-impossibilité de l’hypothèse du zoo pour répondre au Paradoxe de Fermi, même si son raisonnement mériterait d’être un peu plus poussé. En effet, certains éléments ou idées sont passés sous silence. Par exemple, le scientifique ne prend pas en compte le fait que les étoiles bougent dans le temps, ce qui pourrait réduire les distances et donc les délais de communication, ou encore la possibilité que la Terre puisse être située dans une zone contrôlée pas des extraterrestres considérés comme conservateurs, cherchant à tout prix éviter notre contact.
Astronomer Tests Whether Earth Is Being Avoided By Alien Civilizations
Astronomer Tests Whether Earth Is Being Avoided By Alien Civilizations
NASA
IN BRIEF
An astronomer from the UK has determined the odds at which John Ball's 1973 "Zoo hypothesis" can actually be plausible. Computer models show what would need to happen for aliens to unilaterally agree to avoid humans.
ZOO HYPOTHESIS
Searching for extraterrestrial life has always been one of the focuses of astronomy. Many models and theories have been created just to explain how alien civilizations would work and why we may not have found them yet.
An astronomer just put one of those theories into question. Duncan Forgan at the University of St. Andrews in the United Kingdom has come up with a model that establishes how hard it is for the “zoo hypothesis” to be plausible.
Back in 1973, John Ball, a radio astronomer at MIT, explained why we haven’t come into contact with aliens yet. He postulated that alien civilizations could be unilaterally avoiding us. Keeping Earth as a part of some kind of intergalactic zoo. So, in a sense, we’d be left alone because of alien “Don’t Touch The Animals” signs.
Image credit: Space Studies Institute.
ASSUMPTIONS
Forgan starts from the assumption that several alien civilizations must have talked with one another and decided on the zoo rule, like how the UN gets together and sets policies.
Key to that set-up would be intergalactic communication, limited by the speed of light. Therefore, civilizations must exist long enough for the messages to go from sender to receiver and vice versa. Once again, assuming that alien communication would be limited by the speed of light.
Also, life can only be sustained in a galaxy-wide habitable zone, the two-dimensional annular stretching between six kiloparsecs and 10 kiloparsecs from the galactic center.
Using these assumptions, the computer program then places civilizations randomly in the galactic map and calculates the possibility for any two civilizations to actually meet, communicate, and come to an agreement.
The computer determined that at least 500 civilizations must exist for the zoo hypothesis to be possible. Any less and there are too many groups of civilizations too far from each other for a consensus to be made.
Then the computer determined how old the civilizations must be for an effective agreement to be made. It saw that if civilizations last less than a million years, there also be many civilizations groups, same as above. But if they last over 1 million, a single galactic club can be achieved.
Therefore, the galaxy must have at least 500 civilizations that exist for more than a million years for the zoo hypothesis to work. Pretty stiff odds, if we’re honest.
The mystery of Jupiter's strangely switching jet stream may have just been solved.
Gravity waves are likely causing Jupiter's jet stream to change direction, a new study suggests. The new results could reveal information not just about clouds in the atmospheres of planets in our own solar system, but also about those moving above the surfaces of alien worlds, researchers said.
"Jupiteris much bigger than Earth, much farther from the sun, rotates much faster and has a very different composition, but it turns out to be an excellent laboratory for understanding this equatorial phenomenon," study lead author Rick Cosentino, a postdoctoral fellow at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said in a statement. [Photos: Jupiter, the Solar System's Largest Planet]
An image of Jupiter in a crescent shape, with its famous Red Spot prominent.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
About every four Earth years, the east-west jet stream flowing high over Jupiter's equator switches direction — a mysterious phenomenon called the quasi-quadrennial oscillation (QQO). The QQO resembles a process seen both on Earth and Saturn, which occurs every 28 Earth months and every 15 Earth years, respectively, study team members said.
For the first time ever, researchers analyzed detailed observations of the full QQO process, made over the course of five years with NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF) in Hawaii. The new measurements — which spanned latitudes from about 40 degrees north to 40 degrees south of Jupiter's equator — were made possible by an instrument called the Texas Cross Echelle Spectrograph, which the study team mounted on the IRTF.
"These measurements were able to probe thin vertical slices of Jupiter's atmosphere," study co-author Amy Simon, also a scientist at NASA Goddard, said in the same statement. "Previous data sets had lower resolution, so the signals were essentially smeared out over a large section of the atmosphere."
After comparing the new data with simulations, the team concluded that gravity waves are likely the driving force behind QQO. Gravity waves occur in air or liquid, and are caused by gravity or buoyancy acting to restore equilibrium; wind-driven waves at the ocean's surface are a prominent example. They're very different than the ripples in space-time known as gravitational waves.
On Jupiter, gravity waves produced by convection low in the atmosphere likely cause the QQO as they rise into the stratosphere, the researchers said.
A cylindrical projection of Jupiter's surface from the "Journey to Jupiter" project led by Peter Rosén in Stockholm. The pearl-shaped storms in Jupiter's southern hemisphere are located at approximately 40 degrees south latitude.
Credit: Peter Rosén/PixMix
"Our model could be applied to study the effects of these mechanisms in other planets of the solar system and in exoplanets," study co-author Raúl Morales-Juberías, an associate professor at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology in Socorro, said in the same statement. "Despite the many differences between Earth and Jupiter, the coupling mechanisms between the lower and upper atmospheres in both planets are similar and have similar effects."
REMAINS OF ANCIENT EXTRATERRESTRIAL LABORATORY DISCOVERED IN CHINA
REMAINS OF ANCIENT EXTRATERRESTRIAL LABORATORY DISCOVERED IN CHINA
Thirteen years ago, a group of Chinese researchers located and explored an ancient structure so unusual that an extraterrestrial hypothesis was promptly taken into consideration.
The fascinating ruins were discovered in the remote wilderness that makes up most of the intersection between China’s Qinghai province and the Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture. Throughout history, humans have seldom settled in this harsh and inhospitable area. Only occasionally, migrant herdsmen pass through the mountainous regions to the north.
No industrial facilities can be found in the zone, much less the remnants of civilizations with advanced metalworking capabilities.
Despite this, atop a rocky ridge called Mt Baigong lies a pyramid-shaped ruin with three triangular entrances. Two of them are collapsed but the remaining one leads into an artificially-dug cave going deep into the heart of the mountain. Embedded in the cave walls and floor are hundreds of ancient metal pipes, arranged in what appears to have been a sophisticated network of unknown purpose and origin.
The rusted pipes range from toothpick-sized to 1.5 feet in diameter and connect the cave to nearby Toson Hu, a saltwater lake 300 feet away. On the northern shore of Lake Toson, erosion exposed hundreds more of these archaic ducts. This detail led researchers into believing whoever built the pipework either used it as a drainage system or as a way to pump saltwater from the lake.
Baffled by the complexity of the network of pipes, the researchers took samples of the strange metallic tubes to the Beijing Institute of Geology for analysis. That’s when they had their biggest surprise.
Making use of a process called thermoluminescence dating, the scientists were able to analyze the pipes’ crystalline structure and determined they had been subjected to extreme heat approximately 140-150,000 years ago. In other words, the pipes had been smelted long before humans started dabbling in metalworking. An advanced civilization building complex structures 145,000 before us? Could it have been alien?
The chemical analysis revealed even stranger details. The pipes had been smelted using a strange alloy composed of 92% common metals and minerals like ferric oxide, silicon dioxide and calcium oxide but it also contained 8% unknown materials. This intriguing aspect did not prove the pipes were out of this world but it did pave the way for speculation.
Unable to identify the exotic 8 percent, researchers turned to the remaining constituents and discovered another puzzling aspect: the pipes contained a proportion of silica that is specific to Mars.
The news fell like a bomb, the story quickly went viral and people started flocking to Mt Baigong to gawk at the anomalous artifacts. They even erected a monument with a satellite dish on top, a direct reference to the efforts to contact extraterrestrial civilizations.
As a consequence, the Chinese Government closed off the area and posted guards at the entrance to the cave. This attitude is highly suspicious, to say the least.
Skeptics say the Baigong pipes are nothing more than fossilized tree roots that somehow got lodged in sediment, hardening over the years and eventually becoming the unusual structures that stumped everyone. If this is the case, why would the authorities step in and have the military guard the site?
This situation led conspiracy theorists to believe Mt Baigong was once visited by an advanced extraterrestrial race, possibly originating from Mars. For whatever reason, they constructed an artificial pyramid on top of the mountain, housing what appears to have been a laboratory. This theory is intriguing for a number of reasons.
The entire area surrounding the mountain consists of wide expanses of flat terrain that would have been an ideal landing site for large spacecraft. The mountaintop makes for a perfect vantage point one could use to oversee landings and takeoffs.
The entrance is guarded and access is denied to outsiders.
Recently, mineral explorations have shown the area contains various ore deposits. Any industrious civilization, no matter how advanced, could see the utility of extracting and managing these resources. In order to do so, they would have needed some type of energy source and that is where the pipes’ purpose might become obvious.
The Chinese scientists wondered why the pipes went into saltwater when another freshwater lake was even closer to the pyramid. Why the need for water containing a greater percentage of sodium chloride? Let’s examine some of our own activities and perhaps we can find an answer.
Modern chemistry and manufacturing makes use of a process called electrolysis, which basically requires passing an electric current through a solution or a molten substance. This triggers a chemical reaction which allows for the separation of materials. When water undergoes electrolysis, it breaks down into hydrogen and oxygen but this only works when saltwater is used. And it’s worth noting that a mixture of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen is commonly used as rocket fuel.
Lake Toson
Admittedly, this is all speculation but when combined, the totality of the details start painting a clear picture for the open-minded:
• Scientists discover ancient artifacts that predate modern history. • Evidence suggests they were part of a much more complex structure. • Complexity of said structure suggests the presence and activity of an advanced civilization, possibly from Mars. • Government intervenes and prevents access.
This scenario seems all too familiar to overlook.
Naturally, some have claimed the Baigong pipes are nothing more than a hoax. Unfortunately, this proposition seems to ignore the facts. The Chinese Government is well-known for its attitude towards those who sabotage the country’s image in the eyes of the rest of the world. It would have taken measures to punish those responsible for spreading false information rather than occupying the ancient pyramid.
Whatever the truth behind this perplexing discovery might be, one thing is certain: it doesn’t seem to fit in any of our traditional textbooks.
EVIDENCE OF ALIENS? 5 RECENT SIGNS WE ARE NOT ALONE
EVIDENCE OF ALIENS? 5 RECENT SIGNS WE ARE NOT ALONE
The universe is not just vaster than we imagine, but vaster than we can imagine. Scientists estimate the cosmos contains hundreds of billions of galaxies. In all probability, somewhere deep in space there is a sun much like our own, which is shining on an alien civilization that is quite likely very different from ours.
Perhaps, this extraterrestrial society is far more advanced than we are. Maybe, they have mastered intergalactic space travel and have visited our planet. Most scientists believe we are not alone — that somewhere in the immense recesses of space there are other intelligent beings. Some contend that aliens have visited the earth and that our government is hiding evidence of their existence. Indeed, here are five recent signs that we will soon discover that extraterrestrial life is for real.
1. Government officials hint at classified info about aliens
According to polls, 80 million Americans — about one-third of the population — believe in the existence of aliens. Recently a flurry of former high-level government officials have come forward with tantalizing comments. They indicate that major governments know more about extraterrestrials than they are willing to acknowledge.
For example, recently John Podesta, former chief-of-staff for President Bill Clinton and an advisor to President Barack Obama, added his name to a list of A-level government figures who have made comments that have hinted that there is classified info about aliens being withheld from the public.
In an interview with CNN, for instance, Podesta indicated that the time had come for the government to “release any evidence it has about the existence of alien forms of life in outer space.” Podesta fell short of confirming that aliens exist — or that the U.S. government has evidence it won’t reveal publicly — but his carefully-crafted comments seemed to suggest that he knew more than he was letting on. Asked point blank if he himself had seen proof that alien life existed, Podesta responded evasively by saying that is “for the public to judge once they’ve seen all the evidence that the U.S. government has.”
Sensing there was more, perhaps, the reporter then asked if Podesta believed in aliens. The former chief-of-staff responded wryly that, “There are a lot of planets out there.” He then added, “The American people can handle the truth.”
Podesta is hardly the only credible government figure to come forward. In 2005, Paul Hellyer, Canada’s former defense minister, became the first prominent ex-official to openly accuse the major world governments of deliberately withholding information that would confirm the existence of extraterrestrial life.
Recently, speaking at the University of Calgary, Hellyer insisted, “Aliens have been visiting our planet for thousands of years,” but he lamented that “much of the media won’t touch [the documents]” and that governments won’t come clean until the public demands the information about UFOs that is being kept hidden. Many of Hellyer’s claims seem far-fetched — namely, that some alien species originated from Mars, Venus and one of Saturn’s moons. But he insists that extraterrestrials have helped humans develop technologies such the microchip, LED lights and the Kevlar vest.
2. Evidence of microscopic life may have been found on Mars
Is it possible that NASA’s scientists discovered life on Mars in 2007? Recently, news reports have surfaced that researchers examining Martian rover data — the unmanned space probes sending photos and atmospheric samples back to earth — may have found evidence of microscopic life on the red planet.
Apparently, the Spirit rover, which landed in the Gusev crater near the Martian equator, photographed “finger-like” rock formations called stromatolites, which are formed when microbial colonies are trapped in moist sediment. In addition, in 2014, another of NASA’s rovers recorded evidence of methane gas. In fact, over 90 percent of methane gas found on earth is produced by living organisms, leading to the possibility that some microbe life forms may still exist on Mars.
According to astrophysicist Dan Brown of Nottingham Trent University, “Finding live on Mars or even the past presence of life has been a driving goal and infamous challenge for missions to Mars.” Unfortunately, the Spirit rover, which discovered the distinctive silica patterns that have so intrigued scientists, was decommissioned after it got stuck in the Martian soil. It will be 2020, at the earliest, before the next rover probe is launched to do a follow-up mission.
3. Deeply mysterious signals are coming from space
SETI is a non-profit scientific institute dedicated to discovering the origins of the universe and searching for evidence of extraterrestrial civilizations. In particular, the organization uses a network of radio telescopes to try and detect signals that may indicate the existence of intelligent life somewhere in deep outer space.
In 2007, a researcher named Duncan Lorimer, from West Virginia University, was analyzing data from the Parkes observatory in Australia when he uncovered what seemed to be an unusual signal. They have been described as “shrieks from the black abyss of the universe unlike anything ever found before. And they are deeply mysterious.”
Initially, other scientists did not know what to make of the findings. However, similar bursts have since been detected by the Arecibo facility in Puerto Rico. Researchers have dubbed these signals “fast radio bursts” of FRBs for short. No one quite knows what to make of them. They remain unidentified and unexplained, but of tantalizing interest.
4. Extraterrestrial life may have hitched a meteor to Earth
Dr. Eric Haseltine is a neuroscientist who also served as the U.S. Associate Director of National Intelligence in 2006. He’s been asked by programs like 60 Minutes to speak on the record about UFOs and Area 51, where ET enthusiasts believe the government is hiding evidence of alien existence. Haseltine has declined to divulge any information that would violate his national security obligations. However, he has made it clear that the evidence he can talk about publicly strongly points in the direction that alien life has reached the earth.
Haseltine’s comments focus on primitive forms of life — microbes, extremophiles and even insects — that may have hitched a ride to earth via a meteor. To begin with, Haseltine notes that scientists at the National Institute for Aging now believe that DNA itself is older than the existence of the earth. That suggests that the human journey may not have begun on earth, but somewhere else in the galaxy.
In addition, Haseltine mentions several other intriguing findings, most notably a rock found in Antarctica that is believed to have originated from Mars. Some scientists believe the artifact, which cosmologists speculate may have been ejected from the red planet millions of years ago following an asteroid hit, contains fossil evidence of ancient single-celled organisms.
At present, the scientific community is uncertain about the significance of the findings. However, other researchers have found evidence to suggest that microbes, spores and even hardy insects could survive interplanetary travel via meteors. Microbes from outer space may not be quite as exciting as Martians, but the confirmation of any extraterrestrial life forms will be profound.
5. Kepler telescope may have discovered alien megastructure
NASA’s Kepler space telescope is designed to detect earthlike planets orbiting stars. Recently, it discovered a strange anomaly orbiting a sun designated KIC 8462852. Astronomers are not quite sure, but something is causing the starlight from KIC 8462852 to dip and then burst. Researchers have ruled out a variety of possible natural phenomena, leading some scientists to speculate that the most plausible explanation is an alien megastructure, possibly designed to harness solar power, orbiting the star.
The evidence keeps accumulating that we are not alone
Claims about evidence for aliens can range from sensationalistic to scientifically respectable. So, I reached out to a researcher with down-to-earth credentials and a lot of credibility when it comes to the search for extraterrestrial life.
Steve Vogt is a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California in Santa Cruz. He is also a member of the Lick Observatory, which home to the Automated Planet Finder, a program that is at the forefront of the scientific search for interstellar environments that could harbor life. I asked Vogt about the chances of finding life in outer space. Here is some of what he had to say:
”Life (as we understand it) requires a stable place where water can exist in liquid form for the billions of years necessary for evolution to work its magic. If you look around the universe, those places where water is likely to exist stably in liquid form for billions of years is on or near the surface of a planet or similar body in a stable orbit in the habitable zone of a star. Our exoplanet program (now 20 years underway) has been aimed at determining how common such potentially habitable planets are in the universe.”
Asked about space aliens, Vogt said he couldn’t comment. However, he added, “We can now say, with great confidence, that potentially habitable rocky planets are exceedingly common, and occur around at least one out of every two stars (at least in our local stellar neighborhood). If you assume that our corner of the universe is typical, the numbers indicate that there are more potentially habitable rocky planets in the universe than there are grains of sand on all the beaches of Earth. With such statistics, it would be pretty hard to argue that life does not exist elsewhere.”
Vogt’s confidence is echoed by other highly respected scientists too. For instance, “I think we’re going to have strong indications of life beyond Earth within a decade, and I think we’re going to have definitive evidence within 20 to 30 years,” insists Ellen Stofan, NASA’s chief scientist. In all probability, there will be some earth-shattering findings and revelations ahead. The evidence is accumulating that we are not alone.
The strange object can be seen hovering in the fighter jet's sights
Elizondo secured the release of previously classified US Defense Department videos of UFO encounters - one of which shows the craft Fravor saw darting off at an incredible speed.
Commander Fravor, 53, was flying one of two fighter jets on a routine training mission about 100 miles into the Pacific ocean off San Diego when they were diverted to check out an aircraft spotted on radar from their navy cruiser the USS Princeton.
The operations operator said they had been tracking up to a dozen mystery aircraft over two weeks but hadn't had manned planes deployed when they showed up.
The object first appeared at 80,000ft, then hurtled towards the sea, stopping at 20,000 feet and hovering before dropping out of radar.
YOUTUBE SECURETEAM10
It then rapidly shoots off to the left out of sight
When Commander Fravor arrived he saw a white aircraft hovering 50 feet above above a disturbance in the ocean.
He said: “It was just moving randomly around - this 40 foot long white tic tac looking thing, with no wings.
“It was a clear day with a blue background and it was perfectly white. We didn't see any windows, no form of propulsion, nothing, just a big white object.
"It was rounded on both ends and had a cylindrical body which rounded in, same front to back.
“I couldn't tell what it was made of, it was bright white but it wasn't reflecting a bunch of light."
Fravor flew towards it and the aircraft began ascending towards him, passing him at about 12,000 ft. He thinks he got within half a mile of it.
US DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
Another remarkable video shows an object in the sights of a US fighter jet near San Diego
He said: “I literally chased the thing and it started to mirror us, it was like it became aware we were there. I cut across to see if I could get closer and it rapidly accelerated and disappeared. Within a matter of a second it was gone.”
Asked what was going through his mind, he said: "I was thinking 'That's pretty strange'. In 16 years of flying I had never seen anything like that. Nothing that can hover and climb at that rate up and then accelerate and just disappear.
“I was more curious then afraid. I wanted to see how close I could get to it, to see what it was.”
The two fighter jets were told to head to a rendezvous point 60 miles away.
US DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
It was filmed travelling over the sea near San Diego in 2004
However the radio operator on the Princeton then radioed and said the mystery aircraft had turned up before them.
At this point another aircraft was sent to investigate and recorded radar footage of the aircraft. The 90 second video shows the oblong shaped object hovering before it darts off to the left at what appears to be an unprecedented velocity.
Fravor said: “It jammed the radar, you couldn't lock it with a conventional radar, you could passively track it and see it, but if you tried to grab a lock it wouldn't allow you to do that.
“When it takes off and goes to the side that's a significant amount of distance to travel in a very short period of time, we're talking miles, that thing just goes poof and in about a second it's off the side of the screen.
YOUTUBE
The retired US pilot supports former US intelligence officer Luis Elizondo claims that the existence of UFOs has been proven 'beyond reasonable doubt'
"You look at the video of it there's no exhaust flume, there's no indication of how that thing is moving around. Having seen a lot of different airplanes, you can always at least hot spots where the exhaust is coming out. I was close enough visually to go 'we don't have anything like that'."
He insisted the object was alien in origin.
He said: “I know what I saw, it was impressive, it had incredible performance, obviously I wasn’t in a hostile act with it, you’d have your hands full if you were.
GETTY - CONTRIBUTOR
Retired US pilot David Fravor has called on Stephen Hawking to look into his claims
GETTY - CONTRIBUTOR
"I honestly don’t think humans have that technology to do what that thing did. Nor could the human body withstand accelerations like that. It’s an incredible technology to be able to go up to space, and back down and hang over the water.
"I know what I saw and the other three people that were there saw at the same time. I think you would be hard pressed to question my credibility flying experience wise. I’m totally sane, in good health, I don’t do drugs.
"We physically saw and chased it and are the only ones that have actually got close to one of these things.”
REUTERS
Retired US Democratic Senator Harry Reid set up the Department of Defense programme
Fravor is now calling on British space expert Stephen Hawking to view the video and give his take on it.
He said: “They should be talking to Stephen Hawking. He’s a brilliant man, I would like to hear his thoughts on it. They said they’re talking to some other theoretical physicists like him about the possibilities.”
What the retired US pilot claims to have seen;
- The UFO was shaped like a 40ft long white “tic tac” sweet with no windows, wings or visible exhaust flume
- It jammed the radar of another F18 fighter jet tracking it
- As he flew within half a mile of it, the UFO mirrored his plane's movements
- It shot off at a speed no known aircraft on earth could fly at disappearing in "a second"
- His colleague was called to the Pentagon six times in the last year to be interviewed about it
- He wants British scientist Stephen Hawking to analyze the video now it is public
- He thinks the human race must take UFO sightings seriously in case of a hostile alien visit
And in a stern warning to governments around the world he added: “We all need to take these seriously as a species, because right now we don't know the intent of these things, if they're like ET it's great, if they're like War of the Worlds not so much.
“You can ignore them and hope they're just going to observe, or you can do something about it and try to understand what they’re doing and develop technology, in case they do have a bad intention.”
In another video released by the US government into the existence of extraterrestrial life a pilot can be heard muttering: "This is a f****** drone, bro," the New York Postreported.
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )
Amerikaanse gevechtspiloot heeft ontmoeting met UFO in de vorm van tic tac. Dit is zijn boodschap aan wereldleiders
Amerikaanse gevechtspiloot heeft ontmoeting met UFO in de vorm van tic tac. Dit is zijn boodschap aan wereldleiders
Een Amerikaanse piloot die claimt een buitenaards vaartuig te hebben gezien, waarschuwt wereldleiders dat ze UFO-waarnemingen serieus moeten nemen.
De gepensioneerde marinepiloot David Fravor (53) voerde voor de kust van San Diego een trainingsmissie uit toen er een melding binnenkwam van een onbekend object bij het oorlogsschip de USS Princeton.
Hij kreeg te horen dat er in een periode van twee weken tot wel 12 mysterieuze vliegtuigen bij het schip waren gespot.
Tic tac
Toen commandant Fravor arriveerde zag hij een wit object dat zo’n 15 meter boven de zee hing.
“Het object – een 12 meter lang tic tac-achtig ding zonder vleugels – maakte willekeurige bewegingen,” zei hij.
“Het was helemaal wit,” vervolgde hij. “We zagen geen ramen, geen aandrijfsysteem, niets. Alleen een groot, wit object.”
Fravor naderde de witte UFO tot op een kilometer. “Ik vloog het ding achterna en het begon ons na te doen, alsof het wist dat wij er waren,” zei hij.
Verdwenen
“Ik probeerde dichterbij te komen, maar toen versnelde het plotseling en verdween het,” aldus Fravor. “Binnen enkele seconden was het verdwenen.”
In al die tijd dat hij bij de marine zat had hij nog nooit zoiets gezien. Het object verstoorde de radar, waardoor je het alleen passief kon volgen, aldus de piloot.
Hij stelde dat het een buitenaards object was. “Ik denk niet dat mensen over de technologie beschikken om te doen wat dat ding deed.”
Serieus nemen
Fravor heeft een boodschap voor overheden: “We moeten dit als ras serieus nemen, omdat we momenteel niet weten wat deze dingen van plan zijn,” zei hij.
“Je kunt ze negeren en hopen dat ze ons alleen in de gaten willen houden, of je kunt er iets aan doen en proberen te begrijpen wat ze doen en technologie ontwikkelen voor het geval ze slechte bedoelingen hebben,” besloot hij.
Strange object is leaving the atmosphere recorded by camera on board the ISS
Strange object is leaving the atmosphere recorded by camera on board the ISS
On January 1, 2018 the NASA HD camera on board the International Space Station recorded something at the moment it is leaving the atmosphere.
At first one would think it could be a sprite, a discharge from a large thunderstorm however the object is clearly heading upwards into space confirms that it is no sprite.
With all the strange activities going on in space, is it possible that they have launched a “cigar-shaped” object into space for some reason?
It used to be a top secret, if not a taboo topic, and anyone who believed in it was imagining things or hallucinating.
I am referring to the topic of unidentified flying objects (UFOs), extraterrestrials (ET) or space aliens visiting planet Earth. Various governments, especially in the West, refused to investigate this phenomenon, despite numerous reports of sightings and even close alien encounters around the world, saying it is not worth studying.
A reluctant attempt by the US government called Project Blue Book concluded that almost 90 percent of such UFO sightings can be explained by natural causes, such as weather balloons, aerial illusions, cloud formation, etc.
But the 10 or 15 percent unexplained sightings were simply dismissed or ignored.
A bold, courageous attempt was made by Swiss UFO investigator Erich von Daniken to break the official silence on this topic by coming out with the book called “Chariots of the Gods” in 1975, showing much evidence of alien visitations on Earth. But the book was largely dismissed by mainstream archaeologists and academic communities as lacking in scientific objectivity and other criticisms.
They said Daniken made the conclusion that UFOs and ETs are real, and then sought proof in ancient monuments, artifacts, cave drawings, etc. which cannot be explained by science.
The much publicized report of an alien spacecraft that crashed in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947 was denied flatly by the US military establishment, along with the reported discovery of three alien occupants, two of whom were dead and the other taken to a nearby secret military base called Area 51.
The military explained that what crashed was a weather balloon, and it promptly swept away all or the debris left behind. It also denied the existence of Area 51.
According to Dr. James Hurtak, president and founder of the Academy for Future Science in California, there were several other less known UFO crashes in various parts of the United States where the government recovered alien bodies.
10 reports
In the book “Extraterrestrial Retrievals,” Dr. Hurtak revealed 10 reports of such incidents “taken from both privately and publicly acquired documents that were originally recorded by the intelligence community of the United States… The US government at that time has not officially released information.”
But lately, officials of the United States and other Western countries have been admitting the reality of extraterrestrials and alien spacecraft visiting Earth. Among them are Paul Helyer, former defense minister of Canada, and Robert Dean, former intelligence analyst of North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
There were others whose names and identities I have not recorded. But many of these reports can be found on the internet. Of course, we cannot rely solely on what we find online, but the increasing number of reports is enough to make us take a second look at them. The real identities of these officials can be verified by any interested party.
Unknown spaceship
American astronaut Edgar Mitchell, the sixth man to walk on the moon and who has a doctorate in science, reported to Nasa during his Apollo 14 flight that an unknown spaceship followed their spacecraft from the Earth to the moon. Nasa ordered him to shut up.
In several radio interviews, Dr. Mitchell said that the “US government’s UFO cover-up must stop.” He firmly believed that UFOs and ETs are real.
I have written several articles in this column about my belief in UFOs and ETs since the 1990s. I myself have seen UFOs in Mt. Banahaw in Dolores, Quezon; in Pila, Laguna; and right outside the window of my house in Parañaque City.
I have also personally encountered a female-looking alien creature inside a big boulder in a mystic place in Lucban, Quezon, more than 10 years ago. This was confirmed by our companion, who saw the same creature, whose skin looked like gray leather.
Daniken has not gotten tired of speaking and writing about his belief in the existence of space aliens who visited Earth hundreds of thousands of years ago. They were considered gods by the primitive earth people at the time.
Residents preparing for their New Year’s Eve celebrations reported the mysterious object as it emerged in the skies above Britain.
At least 679 reports were made to the International Meteor Organization, predominantly in England and Scotland, after the giant ball of light soared across across the New Year’s Eve night sky.
On Twitter, International Meteor Organization said: “Probably one of the last bright fireballs of 2017, but what a fireball!
YOUTUBE
Hundreds report meteor as it flies across the UK skies on New Year's Eve
“More than 150 witnesses reported a very bright meteor observed around 17h 35min UT, on December 31, and reports keep coming in!”
The UK Meteor Networked added: “Ukmon received over 570 public reports.
“Many observers reported green colour and fragmentation at the end.
“The meteor was apparently moving quite slowly.”
Amazed onlookers also joined in to share their experiences on social media.
Lin Mathers wrote on Twitter: “Bright blue/green light sped across the sky, over the castle towards Denaby Crags.
“So low in the sky, genuinely thought it was coming to land. Stunning sight! Breathtaking.”
Visit Doncaster also wrote: “Wow! Sensational celestial sights spotted over Doncaster. An amazing green meteor soared over the racecourse just now.”
The International Meteor Organization quashed rumours of an alien visitation, telling curious witnesses they had seen a meteor that had split in two upon entering Earth’s atmosphere.
It is likely part of the annual Quadrantid meteor shower, which runs from December 22 to January 17.
MYSTERY: Thousands of UFO sightings were reported in just 12 months
Thousands of mysterious cases were logged by the National UFO Reporting Centre (NUFORC).
The NUFORC said it had 4,655 reports of flying saucers in 2017.California was the hotspot for the bizarre encounters with 490 sightings, followed by Florida with 305.
Nevada, the home of Area 51 where alien hunters claim an extra terrestrial spaceship and its crew were taken following a crash in Roswell in 1947, generated 55.
One spooked woman saw something bizarre with her husband on December 14 near Santa Fe, New Mexico.
She claims they "saw an object flying across the Interstate in a southeasterly direction.
“It appeared triangular with bright green lights around its entire periphery."
"From my husband's perspective, it appeared larger than a full moon.
”By the time it crossed my field of vision (I was in the passenger seat), it appeared slightly smaller than a full moon.
It was perhaps several hundred feet in front and above us and appeared to be moving at about 100 mph or less.
It seemed to be heading down and then it vanished."
The woman was described as an “eloquent, sober-minded and excellent witness”, it was reported.
Top ten states for UFO sightings
10 N. Carolina 135 9. Connecticut 146 8. Ohio 146 7. Colorado 147 6. Pennsylvania 161 5. New York 170 4. Arizona 180 3. Washington 192 2. Florida 308 1. California 490
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )
OUDE BESCHAVINGEN SPREKEN VAN EEN TIJD VOORDAT DE MAAN ER WAS...
OUDE BESCHAVINGEN SPREKEN VAN EEN TIJD VOORDAT DE MAAN ER WAS...
Er was ooit een tijd op aarde dat men geen maan kende, simpelweg omdat deze op dat moment er nog niet was.
Zo schreef de Griekse filosoof en wetenschapper Aristoteles over een tijd in de Griekse geschiedenis dat de maan nog niet bestond.
Voor ons bestaat er weinig twijfel, want vanaf de dag van onze geboorte hangt de maan duidelijk zichtbaar aan de hemel en wij weten niet beter dan dat dit altijd zo is geweest.
De oude Griekse filosofen en wetenschappers die enkele honderden jaren voor Christus leefden, zoals Democritus en Anaxagoras, schreven over een tijd in het oude Griekenland (Arcadië) dat er geen maan zichtbaar was aan de hemel, net zoals Artistoteles dat ook deed.
De Griekse bibliothecaris en dichter Apollonoius van Rodos die in Alexandrië woonde, noemde ook iets dergelijks in zijn werk en beschreef een periode voordat alle hemellichamen zich op de correcte plaatsbevonden, een tijd voor de grote ramp. De bewoners van het oude Arcadië stonden ook bekend als de Proselenes, wat in oud Grieks betekent: zij die er waren voordat de maan er was.
Er komt niet alleen bewijs uit Griekenland, maar ook uit andere delen van de wereld zoals Zuid Amerika. Symbolen op de muren van de Kalasasaya, een archeologisch bouwwerk uit ongeveer 13.000 voor Christus, laten zien dat de maan op een bepaald moment in een loopbaan om de aarde is gebracht. Dat niet alleen, er wordt ook aangegeven dat er in een bepaalde tijd een kleinere satelliet rondjes om de aarde draaide.
Oude verhalen en legenden van de Indianen in de streken rondom Bogota in Colombia spreken ook over een tijd voordat de maan er was.
Ook in Afrika komen we dergelijke verhalen tegen en wel bij de Zoeloes die een legende kennen die vertelt dat de maan honderden generaties geleden door twee buitenaardsen, Wowane en Mpanku, naar de aarde werd gebracht.
Meer aanwijzingen dat de maan een kunstmatige constructie is, blijkt uit een aantal bijzondere rekenkundige toevalligheden met betrekking tot de zon.
Zo is de uitkomst bij beiden, wanneer je de afstand er naar toedeelt door de diameter, precies 108, een getal dat in oude Indiase en Chinese culturen een bijzondere betekenis heeft. Wanneer wij in de lucht kijken, dan is de maan precies even groot als de zon, terwijl deze 400 keer groter is dan de maan en 400 keer verder weg staat. Is dat alles toeval?
Naast de oude geschiedenis en rekenkundige toevalligheden zijn er natuurlijk nog talloze aanwijzingen dat de maan een holle kunstmatige satelliet is.
De maan, waar niet natuurlijk voorkomende isotopen door NASA zijn gevonden, zo zeggen ze, zoals Uranium 236 en Neptunium 237, wat op zich al bewijs is dat er vóór ons andere beschavingen op de maan zijn geweest.
What We've Learned From 60 Years of U.S.-Funded UFO Probes
What We've Learned From 60 Years of U.S.-Funded UFO Probes
The newly revealed Pentagon program is certainly not the first federally funded project to hunt for signs of advanced intelligence in the galaxy.
Luis Elizondo, who led the Pentagon effort to investigate UFOs until October, reportedly resigned in protest of what he characterized as excessive secrecy and internal opposition.
PHOTOGRAPH BY JUSTIN T. GELLERSON, THE NEW YORK TIMES, REDUX
A recently revealed, formerly secret U.S. government program that studied unexplained aerial phenomena—more colloquially referred to as UFOs—came as a surprise to many when stories describing it appeared almost simultaneously in the New York Times and Politico.
The Pentagon’s project, called the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program, was reportedly established in 2007 to investigate unexplained aerial phenomena that appeared to be using novel propulsive, hovering, or otherwise advanced technologies. A 490-page report detailing the program’s findings supposedly exists, though it has not yet been released.
Some may think that the very existence of this project supports the idea that aliens are visiting us, but that’s not a logical conclusion. The undeniable truth is that observations of a puzzling nature certainly merit investigation, as long as it’s done scientifically. And this project is not even close to the first U.S. government-funded search for evidence of advanced intelligence—so far, to little effect.
Projects that began more than five decades ago and still continue to this day include efforts to evaluate bizarre sightings and exotic objects, scan the skies for signs of intelligent transmissions, and develop instruments capable of sniffing out signs of life on faraway worlds.
The fact that the government chose to spend some cash on a supposedly scientific look at UFOs—particularly as they could be crucially related to national security threats—really should be no surprise, says Seth Shostak, one of the SETI Institute’s senior alien hunters.
THE SCIENCE OF ALIEN SIGHTINGS
Neil deGrasse Tyson and SETI astronomer Seth Shotsak talk about alien sightings and how aliens are portrayed in the media.
“The feds have long had an interest in UFOs, going back to the celebrity cases of the late 1940s—Roswell, anyone?” says Shostak. “Much of the motivation for this interest was the worry that the strange things being reported in the sky might be novel Soviet—or today, Russian or Chinese—aircraft.
“But even if you think that the interest had greater scope, that the government really wanted to know if our little planet was being visited by other beings, there’s little surprise in the fact that they’ve spent a modest amount of money investigating that possibility.” Indeed, roughly a third of the U.S. population believes that some of these bizarre phenomena are attributable to extraterrestrial visitors, he says.
The bigger problem, according to Shostak, is that the money shunted into the Pentagon program went primarily to a company founded by Robert Bigelow, a billionaire aerospace mogul whose company builds inflatable space modules and who has long believed in alien visitation. Initiated after conversations between Bigelow and then-Nevada senator Harry Reid, the program garnered at least $22 million in funding over five years (it’s not yet clear whether it survives under a different guise after its supposed termination in 2012).
Within the new stories are nuggets of curious information, including the supposed keeping of unearthly alloys at Bigelow’s facilities, and a video that reportedly shows an object spotted by two U.S. Navy pilots.
But the most that’s publicly known about the program’s findings is second-hand at best, coming from insiders relaying their impressions to reporters. Some, like Reid, claim there is compelling evidence that merits further investigation—but the details remain as elusive as the aliens.
“Objective description of any phenomena should be backed up by compelling evidence, and despite many decades of reports of various UFO and abduction phenomena, we don’t have such evidence,” says Andrew Siemion, director of the Berkeley SETI research center. “Moreover, astronomers spend their lives looking at the sky with a wide variety of telescopes and techniques, and we have never snapped a picture of [an unexplained] spaceship.”
Here are some of our previous and ongoing attempts to find out if, in fact, aliens are out there and whether we have been visited, starting with the heyday of such activities around the middle of the last century.
1947: Roswell (Project Mogul)
Easily the granddaddy of all UFO conspiracies, the Roswell incident is described by many as the catastrophic crash of an alien spaceship in the New Mexico desert, after which the U.S. government supposedly retrieved the spacecraft (and several aliens). In 1994, the Air Force released a report identifying the debris as belonging to “a once top-secret balloon operation, Project MOGUL, designed to monitor the atmosphere for evidence of Soviet nuclear tests.”
1948-1952:Projects Sign and Grudge
First Sign and then Grudge, these Air Force-funded projects were examinations of flying saucers and other reported unexplained phenomena, inspired both by the Cold War and a 1947 observation of nine “disk-shaped objects” over Washington state. According to the CIA, “GRUDGE officials found no evidence in UFO sightings of advanced foreign weapons design or development, and they concluded that UFOs did not threaten U.S. security. They recommended that the project be reduced in scope because the very existence of Air Force official interest encouraged people to believe in UFOs and contributed to a ’war hysteria’ atmosphere.”
1952-1969:Project Blue Book
A continuation of the previous two projects, Blue Book was the longest and most extensive known investigation of unexplained aerial happenings. Of the 12,618 reported sightings it investigated, most were ruled to be misidentified natural phenomena or aircraft (including early U-2 spy planes on test flights); 701 and remained unidentified. The report concluded that “No UFO reported, investigated, and evaluated by the Air Force has ever given any indication of threat to our national security; there has been no evidence submitted to or discovered by the Air Force that sightings categorized as ’unidentified’ represent technological developments or principles beyond the range of present-day scientific knowledge; there has been no evidence indicating the sightings categorized as ’unidentified’ are extraterrestrial vehicles.”
1960: Project Ozma
Funded by the National Science Foundation, a federal agency created in 1950, this $2,000 project was the first scientific search for signs of intelligent radio transmissions from other worlds. Using a telescope at the Green Bank Observatory, astronomer Frank Drake (yes, the reporter’s father) listened for radio transmissions coming from planets that could be orbiting the stars Tau Ceti and Epsilon Eridani, but the scans came up empty.
An aerial view of the Pentagon.
PHOTOGRAPH BY BILL CLARK, CQ ROLL CALL, GETTY IMAGES
1966-1968: University of Colorado UFO Project/Condon Committee
Funded by the Air Force, this project produced 1968’s Condon Report, which concluded that there was no compelling evidence for extraterrestrial involvement in UFOs, and which recommended discontinuing Project Blue Book and any further investigations of UFOs. The report inspired the American Association of the Advancement for Science to convene a meeting on the topic, which Carl Sagan and Thornton Page then turned into a book called UFOs: A Scientific Debate.
1970s and ‘80s: CIA Investigations of Paranormal and Psychic Phenomena
The 1970s and 1980s saw the CIA investigating a bunch of phenomena associated with UFO sightings, such as parapsychology and psychic happenings. According to CIA report “Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947-90 (A Die-Hard Issue)”, “CIA officials also looked at the UFO problem to determine what UFO sightings might tell them about Soviet progress in rockets and missiles and reviewed its counterintelligence aspects.”
1976-1993:SETI/HRMS
The only time the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or SETI, has been written into a NASA budget line, this decade provided as much as $12 million a year for searches using the Arecibo and Goldstone antennas. Around 1990, the government’s SETI program—headquartered at NASA’s Ames Research Center—was renamed the High Resolution Microwave Survey in an attempt to avoid cancellation. Nevada senator Richard Bryan ended up cancelling the program anyway in 1993, right after actual observations had started.
1990s to now: NASA’s Astrobiology Institute
Founded in 1998, the NASA Astrobiology Institute is one of many projects within the space agency aimed at investigating the possibility that life exists elsewhere in the cosmos. Scientists under its umbrella are currently thinking about whether life once existed on Mars, if there might be organisms tucked beneath the icy shells of the moons Europa and Enceladus, and how we would even recognize what life beyond Earth looks like if and when we see it.
Now, and beyond
Other ongoing work that continues to rely on federal funds includes developing instruments capable of detecting not only exoplanets but also alien biospheres, as well as work using organisms and environments on Earth as extraterrestrial analogs.
The Search for Extraterrestrial Life and Post-Biological Intelligence - PART I
The Search for Extraterrestrial Life and Post-Biological Intelligence - PART I
Papers presented at an international symposium considering the true nature of extraterrestrial Intelligence.
Introduction: The True Nature of Aliens
Is it time to re-think ET?
For well over a half-century, a small number of scientists have conducted searches for artificially produced signals that would indicate the presence of intelligence elsewhere in the cosmos. This effort, known as SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), has yet to find any confirmed radio transmissions or pulsing lasers from other beings. But the hunt continues, recently buoyed by the discovery of thousands of exoplanets. For many, the abundance of habitable real estate makes it difficult to believe that Earth is the only world where life and intelligence have arisen.
SETI practitioners mostly busy themselves with refining their equipment and their lists of target solar systems. They seldom consider the nature of their prey – what form extraterrestrial intelligence might take. Their premise is that any technically sophisticated species will eventually develop signaling technology, irrespective of their biology or physiognomy.
This view may not seem anthropocentric, for it makes no overt assumptions about the biochemistry of extraterrestrials; only that intelligence will arise on at least some worlds with life. However, the trajectory of our own technology now suggests that within a century or two of our development of radio transmitters and lasers, we are likely to build machines with artificial, generalized intelligence. We are engineering our successors, and the next intelligent species on Earth is not only certain to dwarf our own cognitive abilities, but will be able to engineer its own, superior descendants by design, rather than counting on uncertain, Darwinian processes. Assuming that something similar happens to other technological societies, then the implications for SETI are profound.
In September, 2015, the John Templeton Foundation’s Humble Approach Initiative sponsored a three-day symposium entitled “Exploring Exoplanets: The Search for Extraterrestrial Life and Post-Biological Intelligence.” The venue for the meeting was the Royal Society’s Chicheley Hall, north of London, where a dozen researchers gave informal presentations and engaged in the type of lively dinner table conversations that such meetings inevitably spawn.
The subject matter was broad, ranging from the multi-pronged search for habitable planets and how we might detect life, to the impact of both the search and an eventual discovery. However, the matter of post-biological intelligence – briefly described above – or the possibility of non-Darwinian evolutionary processes, was an incentive for many of the symposium contributions.
We present here short write-ups of seven of these talks. They are more than simply interesting: they suggest a revolution in how we should think about, and search for, our intellectual peers. Indeed, they suggest that “peers” may be too generous to Homo sapiens. As these essays argue, the majority of the cognitive capability in the cosmos may be far beyond our own.
-- Seth Shostak
This symposium was chaired by Martin J. Rees, OM, Kt, FRS and Paul C.W. Davies, AM, and organized by Mary Ann Meyers, JTF’s Senior Fellow. Also present was B. Ashley Zauderer, Assistant Director of Math and Physical Sciences at the Templeton Foundation
POST-HUMAN EVOLUTION ON EARTH AND BEYOND
Martin J Rees Institute of Astronomy Madingley Road Cambridge CB3 OHA mjr@ast.cam.ac.uk
ABSTRACT
The pace of technological advance on Earth is such that post-humans – whether organic, cyborg or entirely inorganic – could emerge within a few centuries (or indeed within a single century). In the billions of years lying ahead, such entities, continuing to evolve not through natural selection but on the (far faster) timescale of technological evolution could spread through the cosmos (in a manner whose details we manifestly cannot even conceive) . If advanced life had emerged on other planets, and followed a similar evolutionary track to what has happened on Earth, then the era of ‘organic’ intelligence will be a thin sliver of time compared to the far longer post-human era dominated by ‘machines’. This suggests that, if SETI succeeded, the most likely source of any artificial emissions would be unlikely to come from anything resembling the ‘organic’ civilization that prevails on Earth.
Extraterrestrial life and intelligence have always been fascinating topics on the speculative fringe of science. But in the last decade or two, serious advances on several fronts have generated wider interest in these subjects – indeed, they have become almost ‘mainstream’. One can highlight four areas where there’s a gratifying crescendo of interest and understanding:
(i) The discovery and study of exoplanets began only 20 years ago. It is now one of the most vibrant frontiers of science. Data are accumulating at an accelerating rate; we can confidently assert that there are billions of Earth-like planets in our Galaxy; it is not premature to seek evidence that some have biospheres
(ii) There has been substantial recent progress in understanding the origin of life. It’s been clear for decades that the transition from complex chemistry to the first entities that could be described as ‘living’ poses one of the crucial problems in the whole of science. But until recently, people shied away from it, regarding it as neither timely nor tractable. In contrast, numerous distinguished scientists are now committed to this challenge.
(iii) Advances in computational power and robotics have led to growing interest in the possibility that ‘artificial intelligence’ (AI) could in the coming decades achieve (and exceed) human capabilities over a wider range of conceptual and physical tasks. This has stimulated discussions of the nature of consciousness (is it an ‘emergent’ property or something more special?), and further speculation by ethicists and philosophers on what forms of inorganic intelligence might be created by us – or might already exist in the cosmos – and how humans might relate to them.
(iv) In the coming years there will be expanded and better-resourced efforts to search for ET; these will focus wider interest on the subject and thereby generate new ideas.
SOME HISTORY
Speculations on ‘the plurality of inhabited worlds’ date back to antiquity. From the 17th to the 19th century, it was widely suspected that the other planets of our Solar System were inhabited. The arguments were often more theological than scientific. Eminent 19th century thinkers like Whewell and Brewster argued that life must pervade the cosmos, because otherwise such vast domains of space would seem such a waste of the Creator’s efforts. An interesting and amusing critique of such ideas is given in books by Alfred Russel Wallace, the co-developer of natural selection theory. Wallace is specially scathing about the physicist David Brewster (remembered for the ‘Brewster angle’ in optics) who conjectured on such grounds that even the Moon must be inhabited [1]. Brewster argued that had the Moon “been destined to be merely a lamp to our Earth, there was no occasion to variegate its surface with lofty mountains and extinct volcanoes, and cover it with large patches of matter that reflect different quantities of light and give its surface the appearance of continents and seas. It would have been a better lamp had it been a smooth piece of lime or of chalk.”
By the end of the nineteenth century, so convinced were many astronomers that life existed on other planets in our Solar System that a prize of 100,000 francs was offered to the first person to make contact with them. And the prize specifically excluded contact with Martians – that was considered far too easy! The erroneous claim that Mars was crisscrossed by canals had been taken as proof positive of intelligent life on the Red Planet.
The space age brought sobering news. Venus, a cloudy planet that promised a lush tropical swamp-world, turned out to be a crushing, caustic hell-hole. Mercury was a pockmarked blistering rock. And NASA’s Curiosity probe (and its predecessors) showed that Mars, though the most Earth-like body in the Solar System, was actually a frigid desert with a very thin atmosphere. There may be creatures swimming under the ice of Jupiter’s moon Europa, or Saturn’s moon Enceladus, but nobody can be optimistic.
However, the prospects brighten enormously when we extend our gaze beyond our Solar System – beyond the reach of any probe we can devise today. What has transformed and energized the whole field of exobiology is the realization that stars are orbited by retinues of planets. Giordano Bruno speculated about this in the 16th century. From the 1940s onward, astronomers suspected he was correct: the earlier idea that our Solar system formed from a tidal stream torn out by the tidal pull of a close-passing star (which would have implied that planetary systems were rare) had by then been discredited. But it wasn’t until the mid-1990s that evidence for exoplanets started to emerge. Moreover, Bruno famously went further, and conjectured that on some of those planets there might be other creatures “as magnificent as those upon our human Earth.” Will he one day be proved right on this bolder speculation too?
ORIGIN OF LIFE
There seem good prospects for progress in understanding the origin of life. What triggered the transition from complex molecules to entities that can metabolize and reproduce? It might have involved a fluke so rare that it happened only once in the entire Galaxy. On the other hand, this crucial transition might have been almost inevitable given the ‘right’ environment. We just don’t know – nor do we know if the DNA/RNA chemistry of terrestrial life is the only possibility, or just one chemical basis among many options that could be realized elsewhere.
The origin of life is now attracting stronger interest: it’s no longer deemed to be one of those problems (consciousness, for instance, is still in this category) which, though manifestly important, doesn’t seem timely or tractable – and is relegated to the ‘too difficult box’. And of course the understanding of life’s beginnings is important not only for our assessment of the likelihood of alien life, but also to the most firmly earthbound evolutionary biologist.
And there is a second still more fascinating question (Bruno’s conjecture) : if simple life exists, what are the odds that it evolves into something that we would recognize as intelligent? Even if primitive life were common, the emergence of ‘advanced’ life may not be – it may depend on many contingencies (phases of glaciation, the Earth’s tectonic history, asteroid impacts, and so forth). Several authors have speculated about possible ‘bottlenecks’ – key stages in evolution that are hard to transit. Perhaps the transition to multi-cellular life is one of these. (The fact that simple life on Earth seems to have emerged quite quickly, whereas even the most basic multi-cellular organisms took nearly 3 billion years, suggests that there may be severe barriers to the emergence of any complex life.) Or the ‘bottleneck’ could come later.
Even in a complex biosphere, the emergence of intelligence isn’t guaranteed. If, for instance, the dinosaurs hadn’t been wiped out, the chain of mammalian evolution that led to humans might have been foreclosed and we can’t predict whether another species would have taken our role. Some evolutionists regard the emergence of intelligence as a contingency – even an unlikely one. The alternative view is represented by Simon Conway Morris (see his contribution to this workshop).
Perhaps, more ominously, there could be a ‘bottleneck’ at our own present evolutionary stage – the stage when intelligent life develops powerful technology. If so, the long-term prognosis for ‘Earth-sourced’ life depends on whether humans survive this critical evolutionary phase. This does not mean that the Earth has to avoid a disaster – only that, before it happens some humans or advanced artefacts have spread beyond their home planet.
In considering the possibilities of life elsewhere, we should surely be open-minded about where it might emerge and what forms it could take – and to devote some thought to non-earthlike life in non-earthlike locations. But it plainly makes sense to start with what we know (the ‘searching under the streetlamp’ strategy) and to deploy all available techniques to discover whether any exoplanet atmospheres display evidence for a biosphere. Clues will surely come in the next decade or two from high-resolution spectra using the James Webb Space Telescope and the next generation of 30+ meter ground-based telescopes expected to be operational in the 2020s. To optimize the prospects, we shall need beforehand to have scanned the whole sky to identify the nearest earthlike planets. Even for these, next-generation telescopes will have a hard job separating out the spectrum of the planet’s atmosphere from the spectrum of the hugely brighter central star.
Conjectures about advanced or intelligent life are of course far more shaky than those about simple life. But the firmest guesses that we can make are based on extrapolating the far future of Earth-based life. I would argue that this suggests two things about the entities that SETI searches could reveal.
(a) They will not be ‘organic’ or biological
(b) They will not remain on the planet where their biological precursors lived.
FAR FUTURE OF EARTH-SOURCED INTELLIGENCE
During this century, the entire Solar System – planets, moons and asteroids – will be explored by flotillas of tiny robotic craft. The next step would be the deployment of large-scale robotic fabricators, which can construct and assemble large structures in space (and fabrication in space will be a better use of materials mined from asteroids or the Moon than bringing them back to Earth). The Hubble Telescope’s successors, with huge gossamer-thin mirrors assembled under zero gravity, will further expand our vision of stars, galaxies and the wider cosmos.
But what role will humans play? There’s no denying that NASA’s Curiosity rover, now trundling across a giant Martian crater, may miss startling discoveries that no human geologist could overlook. But robotic techniques are advancing fast, allowing ever more sophisticated unmanned probes – and, later in the century, robotic fabricators will be building huge lightweight structures in space. The practical case for manned spaceflight gets ever-weaker with each advance in robotics and miniaturization. If some people now living one day walk on Mars (as I hope they will) it will be as an adventure, and as a step towards the stars.
The current cost gap between manned and unmanned missions is huge. Unless motivated by prestige and bankrolled by superpowers, manned missions beyond the Moon will perforce be cut-price ventures, accepting high risks – perhaps even ‘one-way tickets’. These missions will be privately funded; no Western government agency would expose civilians to such hazards. There would, despite the risks, be many volunteers – driven by the same motives as early explorers, mountaineers, and the like. But don’t ever expect mass emigration. No place in our Solar system offers an environment even as clement as the Antarctic or the top of Everest. Space doesn’t offer an escape from Earth’s problems.
Nonetheless, a century or two from now, there may be small groups of pioneers living independent from the Earth – on Mars or on asteroids. Whatever ethical constraints we impose here on the ground, we should surely wish these adventurers good luck in genetically modifying their progeny to adapt to alien environments. This might be the first step towards divergence into a new species: the beginning of the post-human era. And genetic modification would be supplemented by cyborg technology – indeed there may be a transition to fully inorganic intelligences.
(As a parenthetic comment, I’d note that the most crucial impediment to routine space flight, even in Earth’s orbit and still more for those venturing further, stems from the intrinsic inefficiency of chemical fuel, and the consequent requirement to carry a weight of fuel far exceeding that of the payload. So long as we are dependent on chemical fuels, interplanetary travel will remain a challenge. It’s interesting to note, incidentally, that this is a generic constraint, based on fundamental chemistry, on any organic intelligence that had evolved on another planet. If a planet’s gravity is strong enough to retain an atmosphere at a temperature where water doesn’t freeze and metabolic reactions aren’t too slow, the energy required to lift a molecule from it will require more than one molecule of chemical fuel).
Nuclear energy (or, more futuristically, matter/antimatter annihilation) could be a transformative fuel. But even then, the transit time beyond nearby stars exceeds a human lifetime. Interstellar travel (except for unmanned probes, DNA samples, etc.) is therefore an enterprise for post-humans. They could be silicon-based. Alternatively, they could be organic creatures who had won the battle with death, or perfected the techniques of hibernation or suspended animation.
Few doubt that machines will gradually surpass more and more of our distinctively human capabilities – or enhance them via cyborg technology. Disagreements are basically about the timescale – the rate of travel, not the direction of travel. The cautious amongst us envisage timescales of centuries rather than decades for these transformations. Be that as it may, the timescales for technological advance are but an instant compared to the timescales of the Darwinian selection that led to humanity’s emergence – and (more relevantly) they are less than a millionth of the vast expanses of cosmic time lying ahead. So the outcomes of future technological evolution will surpass humans by as much as we (intellectually) surpass a bug.
But we humans shouldn’t feel too humbled. Even though we are surely not the terminal branch of an evolutionary tree, we could be of special cosmic significance for jump-starting the transition to silicon-based (and potentially immortal) entities, spreading their influence far beyond the Earth, and far transcending our limitations.
Philosophers debate whether “consciousness” is special to the wet, organic brains of humans, apes and dogs. Might it be that robots, even if their intellects seem superhuman, will still lack self-awareness or inner life? The answer to this question crucially affects how we react to the far-future scenario I’ve sketched. If the machines are zombies, we would not accord them the same value as humans, and the post-human future would seem bleak. But if they are conscious, we should surely welcome the prospect of their future hegemony.
The far future will bear traces of humanity, just as our own age retains influences of ancient civilizations. Humans and all they have thought might be a transient precursor to the deeper cogitations of another culture — one dominated by machines, extending deep into the future and spreading far beyond Earth.
I think it’s likely that the machines will gain dominance on Earth – perhaps indeed before the stage when any self-sustaining human colony gets established away from our planet. This is because there are chemical and metabolic limits to the size and processing power of ‘wet’ organic brains. Maybe we’re close to these already. But no such limits constrain silicon based computers (still less, perhaps, quantum computers): for these, the potential for further development could be as dramatic as the evolution from monocellular organisms to humans. So, by any definition of ‘thinking’, the amount and intensity that’s done by organic human-type brains will be utterly swamped by the cerebrations of AI. Moreover, the Earth’s biosphere in which organic life has symbiotically evolved is not a constraint for advanced AI. Indeed it is far from optimal – interplanetary and interstellar space will be the preferred arena where robotic fabricators will have the grandest scope for construction, and where non-biological ‘brains’ may develop insights as far beyond our imaginings as string theory is for a mouse.
Abstract thinking by biological brains has underpinned the emergence of all culture and science. But this activity – spanning tens of millennia at most – will be a brief precursor to the more powerful intellects of the inorganic post-human era.
Human brains have changed little since our ancestors roamed the African savannah and coped with the challenges that life then presented. It’s surely remarkable that these brains have allowed us to make sense of the quantum and the cosmos – far removed from the ‘common sense’ everyday world in which we evolved. Nonetheless, some key features of reality may be beyond our conceptual grasp. Scientific frontiers are advancing fast. Answers to many current mysteries will surely come into focus. but we may at some point ‘hit the buffers’. Some insights may have to await post-human intelligence. There may be phenomena, crucial to our long-term destiny, that we are not aware of, any more than a monkey comprehends the nature of stars and galaxies. Some ‘brains’ may structure their consciousness in a fashion that we can’t conceive, and have a quite different perception of reality.
In cosmological terms (or indeed in a Darwinian timeframe) a millennium is but an instant. So let us ‘fast forward’ not even for a few millennia, but for an ‘astronomical’ timescale millions of times longer than that. The ‘ecology’ of stellar births and deaths in our Galaxy will proceed gradually more slowly, until jolted by the ‘environmental shock’ of an impact with Andromeda, maybe four billion years hence. The debris of our Galaxy, Andromeda and their smaller companions within the local group will thereafter aggregate into one amorphous galaxy. Distant galaxies will not only move further away, but recede faster and faster until they disappear – rather as objects falling onto a black hole encounter a horizon, beyond which they are lost from view and causal contact.
But the remnants of our Local Group could continue for far longer – time enough, perhaps for Kardashev Type III phenomenon to emerge as the culmination of the long-term trend for living systems to gain complexity and ‘negative entropy’. All the atoms that were once in stars and gas could be transformed into structures as intricate as a living organism or a silicon chip but on a cosmic scale.
But even these speculations don’t take us to the utter limits. I have assumed that the universe itself will expand, at a rate that no future entities have power to alter. And that everything is in principle understandable as a manifestation of the basic laws governing particles, space and time that have been disclosed by contemporary science. Some science fiction authors envisage stellar-scale engineering to create black holes and wormholes – concepts far beyond any technological capability that we can envisage, but not in violation of these basic physical laws. But are there new ‘laws’ awaiting discovery? And will the present ‘laws’ be immutable, even to a Type III intelligence able to draw on galactic-scale resources?
Post-human intelligences (autonomously-evolving artefacts) will achieve the processing power to simulate living things – even entire worlds. These super or hyper-computers would have the capacity to simulate not just a simple part of reality, but a large fraction of an entire universe.
And then of course the question arises: if these simulations exist in far larger numbers than the universe themselves, could we be in one of them? Could we ourselves not be part of what we think of as bedrock physical reality? Could we be ideas in the mind of some supreme being who is running a simulation? Indeed, if the simulations outnumber the universes, as they would if one universe contained many computers making many simulations, then the likelihood is that we are ‘artificial life’ in this sense. This concept opens up the possibility of a new kind of ‘virtual time travel’, because the advanced beings creating the simulation can, in effect, rerun the past. It’s not a time-loop in a traditional sense: it’s a reconstruction of the past, allowing advanced beings to explore their history.
These ideas would have the extraordinary consequence that we may not be part of the deepest reality: we may be a simulation. The possibility that we are creations of some supreme (or super) being, blurs the boundary between physics and idealist philosophy, between the natural and the supernatural. We may be in the matrix rather than directly manifesting the basic physical laws.
SETI: PROSPECTS AND TECHNIQUES
The scenarios I’ve just described would have the consequence – a boost to human self-esteem! – that even if life had originated only on the Earth, it would not remain a trivial feature of the cosmos: humans may be closer to the beginning than to the end of a process whereby ever more complex intelligence spreads through the Galaxy. But of course there would in that case be no ‘ET’ at the present time.
Suppose however that there are many other planets where life began; and suppose that on some of them Darwinian evolution followed a similar track. Even then, it’s highly unlikely that the key stages would be synchronized. If the emergence of intelligence and technology on a planet lags significantly behind what has happened on Earth (because the planet is younger, or because the ‘bottlenecks’ have taken longer to negotiate there than here) then that planet would plainly reveal no evidence of ET. But life on a planet around a star older than the Sun could have had a head-start of a billion years or more. Thus it may already have evolved much of the way along the futuristic scenarios outlined in the last section.
One generic feature of these scenarios is that ‘organic’ human-level intelligence is just a brief interlude before the machines take over. The history of human technological civilization is measured in millennia (at most) – and it may be only one or two more centuries before humans are overtaken or transcended by inorganic intelligence, which will then persist, continuing to evolve, for billions of years. This suggests that if we were to detect ET, it would be far more likely to be inorganic: we would be most unlikely to ‘catch’ alien intelligence in the brief sliver of time when it was still in organic form.
SETI searches are surely worthwhile, despite the heavy odds against success, because the stakes are so high. That’s why we should surely acclaim the launch of Breakthrough Listen – a major ten-year commitment by the Russian investor Yuri Milner to buy time on the world’s best radio telescopes and develop instruments to scan the sky in a more comprehensive and sustained fashion than ever before. Breakthrough Listen will carry out the world’s deepest and broadest search for extraterrestrial technological life using several of the world’s largest professional radio and optical telescopes. The project will deploy radio dishes at Green Bank and at Parkes – and hopefully others including the Arecibo Observatory. The radio telescopes will be used to search for non-natural radio transmissions from nearby and distant stars, from the plane of the Milky Way, from the Galactic Centre, and from nearby galaxies. They will search over a wide frequency bandwidth from 100 MHz to 50 GHz using advanced signal processing equipment developed by a team centered at UC Berkeley.
SETI searches seek some electromagnetic transmission that is manifestly artificial. But even if the search succeeded (and few of us would bet more than one percent on this), it would still in my view be unlikely that the ‘signal’ would be a decodable message. It would more likely represent a byproduct (or even a malfunction) of some super-complex machine far beyond our comprehension that could trace its lineage back to alien organic beings (which might still exist on their home planet, or might long ago have died out). The only type of intelligence whose messages we could decode would be the (perhaps small) subset that used a technology attuned to our own parochial concepts.
Even if intelligence were widespread in the cosmos, we may only ever recognize a small and atypical fraction of it. Some ‘brains’ may package reality in a fashion that we can’t conceive. Others could be living contemplative lives, perhaps deep under some planetary ocean, doing nothing to reveal their presence. It makes sense to focus searches first on Earth-like planets orbiting long-lived stars. But science fiction authors remind us that there are more exotic alternatives. In particular, the habit of referring to ET as an ‘alien civilization’ may be too restrictive. A ‘civilization’ connotes a society of individuals: in contrast, ET might be a single integrated intelligence. Even if signals were being transmitted, we may not recognize them as artificial because we may not know how to decode them. A radio engineer familiar only with amplitude-modulation might have a hard time decoding modern wireless communications. Indeed, compression techniques aim to make the signal as close to noise as possible – insofar as a signal is predictable, there’s scope for more compression.
Perhaps the Galaxy already teems with advanced life, and our descendants will ‘plug in’ to a galactic community – as rather junior members. On the other hand, Earth’s intricate biosphere may be unique and the searches may fail. This would disappoint the searchers. But it would have an upside. Humans could then be less cosmically modest. Our tiny planet – this pale blue dot floating in space – could be the most important place in the entire cosmos. Either way, our cosmic habitat seems ‘tuned’ to be an abode for life. Even if we are now alone in the universe, we may not be the culmination of this ‘drive’ towards complexity and consciousness.
The focus of the ‘Breakthrough Listen’ project is on the radio and optical parts of the spectrum. But of course, in our state of ignorance about what might be out there, we should clearly encourage searches in all wavebands (e.g. the X-ray band) and also be alert for artefacts and other evidence of non-natural phenomena. I don’t think even the optimistic SETI searchers would rate the chance of success as more than a few percent – and most of us are more pessimistic, but nevertheless think the stakes are so high that it’s worth a gamble – we’d surely all like to see searches begun in our lifetime.
Finally, there are two familiar maxims that pertain to this quest. First ‘extraordinary claims will require extraordinary evidence’ and second ‘absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence’.
REFERENCES
[1] Wallace, A. R 1903, Man’s Place in the Universe, Chapman and Hall (London) pp 15 – 19
-SUPERINTELLIGENT AI AND THE POSTBIOLOGICAL COSMOS APPROACH
Susan Schneider Department of Philosophy and Cognitive Science Program, The University of Connecticut Center for Theological Inquiry, Princeton Technology and Ethics Group, Yale University susansdr@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
The postbiological approach in astrobiology has been largely independent of the discussions of superintelligence in the AI literature, despite the increasing attention on superintelligent AI in both academe and in the media. In this paper, I bring these issues together. In my view, one route to understanding superintelligent alien civilizations, as well as superintelligence on Earth (should either ever exist) could involve identifying general features of computational systems, without which a superintelligence would be far less efficient. By drawing from Nick Bostrom’s work on superintelligent AI on Earth, as well as ideas from computational neuroscience, I will attempt to identify some goals and cognitive capacities likely to be possessed by superintelligent beings. I will then comment on some social implications of the postbiological approach
INTRODUCTION
Thinking about how aliens in other technological societies might think, if they exist at all, is obviously speculative, even for a philosopher. After all, exoplanets are habitable, we do not know if they are inhabited. We do not currently have an agreed-upon account of the origin of life on Earth, and we do not know how easy it is for life to originate elsewhere. And even if microbial life exists on many exoplanets, perhaps it is rare for microbial life to evolve into intelligent life. Or, perhaps it isn’t rare for intelligence to evolve, but civilizations do not survive their own technological maturity. Perhaps we are one of only a few technological civilizations in the universe, or perhaps we are alone.
But I am going to assume, optimistically, that advanced civilizations are out there. After all, if even one technological civilization exists, it is likely to be older than us, and it could have spread throughout the universe. Further, some proponents of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) estimate that we will encounter alien intelligence within the next several decades. Even if you hold a more conservative estimate – say, that the chance of encountering alien intelligence in the next 50 years is 5 percent – the stakes for our species are high. Knowing that we are not alone in the universe would be a profound realization, and contact with an alien civilization could produce amazing technological innovations and cultural insights. It thus can be valuable to consider these questions, albeit with the goal of introducing possible routes to answering them, rather than producing definitive answers. So, let us ask: how might aliens think? Believe it or not, it’s possible to say something concrete in response to this question.
We can approach this issue by drawing from science and the humanities, rather than just science In particular, I will draw from neuroscience, philosophy, astrobiology and artificial intelligence (AI). My point of departure is the intriguing position in astrobiology that the most intelligent alien civilizations may be postbiological, being synthetic superintelligences – creatures that are vastly smarter than humans in every respect, scientific reasoning, social skills, and more [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6].
The postbiological approach has been largely independent of the discussions of superintelligence, despite the increasing attention on superintelligent AI in both academe and in the media [7]. Herein, I bring these issues together, drawing from [4]. In my view, to understand the most intelligent alien civilizations, as well as superintelligence on Earth, we can look for general features of computational systems, without which a superintelligence would be far less efficient. So using work on superintelligent AI on Earth, as well as ideas from computational neuroscience, I will briefly and provisionally attempt to identify some goals and cognitive capacities likely to be possessed by superintelligent beings.
Section One overviews the postbiological cosmos approach. Section Two discusses Nick Bostrom’s recent book on superintelligence, which focuses on the genesis of superintelligent AI (“SAI”) on Earth; as it happens, many of Bostrom’s observations are informative in the present context. I then isolate a specific type of superintelligence that is of particular import in the context of alien superintelligence, biologically inspired superintelligences (“BISAs”). Section Three concludes by raising some issues for future reflection.
THE POSTBIOLOGICAL COSMOS APPROACH IN ASTROBIOLOGY
Our culture has long depicted aliens as humanoid creatures with small, pointy chins, massive eyes, and large heads, apparently to house brains that are larger than ours. Paradigmatically, they are “little green men.” While we are aware that our culture is anthropomorphizing, I imagine that my suggestion that aliens are supercomputers may strike you as far-fetched. So what is my rationale for the view that most intelligent alien civilizations will have members that possess SAI? I offer three observations that, together, motivate this conclusion.
(1) The short window observation. Once a society creates the technology that could put them in touch with the cosmos, they are only a few hundred years away from changing their own paradigm from biology to AI [3], [6], [2]. This “short window” makes it more likely that the aliens we encounter would be postbiological.
The short-window observation is supported by human cultural evolution, at least thus far. Our first radio signals date back only about 120 years, and space exploration is only about 50 years old, but we are already immersed in digital technology, such as cell-phones and laptop computers. It is probably a matter of less than 50 years before sophisticated internet connections are wired directly into our brains. Indeed, implants for Parkinson’s are already in use, and in the United States the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has started to develop neural implants that interface directly with the nervous system, regulating conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder, arthritis, depression, and Crohn’s disease. DARPA’s program, called “ElectRx,” aims to replace certain medications with “closed-loop” neural implants, implants that continually assess the state of one’s health, and provide the necessary nerve stimulation to keep one’s biological systems functioning properly [8]. Eventually, implants will be developed to enhance normal brain functioning, rather than for medical purposes.
You may object that this argument employs “N = 1 reasoning,” generalizing from the human case to the case of alien civilizations. But it strikes me as being unwise to discount arguments based on the human case. Human civilization is the only one we know of and we had better learn from it. It is no great leap to claim that other civilizations will develop technologies to advance their intelligence and survival. This is especially true if the alien civilizations evolved with similar evolutionary pressures as those on Earth. And, as I will explain in a moment, synthetic intelligence will likely outperform unenhanced brains.
A second objection to my short-window observation rightly points out that nothing I have said thus far suggests that humans will be superintelligent. I have merely said that future humans will be posthuman. While I offer support for the view that our own cultural evolution suggests that humans will eventually be postbiological, this does not show that advanced alien civilizations will reach superintelligence. So even if one is comfortable reasoning from the human case, the human case does not support the position that the members of advanced alien civilizations will be superintelligent.
This is a correct reading of my first observation. Whether or not they would be superintelligent is the addressed by the second.
(2) The greater age of alien civilizations. Proponents of SETI have often concluded that alien civilizations would be much older than our own: “… all lines of evidence converge on the conclusion that the maximum age of extraterrestrial intelligence would be billions of years, specifically [it] ranges from 1.7 billion to 8 billion years” ([2] p 468). If civilizations are millions or billions of years older than us, many would be vastly more intelligent than we are. By our standards, many would be superintelligent. We are galactic babies.
But would they be forms of AI, as well as forms of superintelligence? I believe so. Even if they were biological, merely having biological brain enhancements, their superintelligence would be reached by artificial means, and we could regard them as having forms of “artificial intelligence.” But I suspect something stronger than this, which leads me to my third observation:
(3) It is likely that these synthetic beings will not be biologically-based. Currently, silicon appears to be a better medium for information processing than the brain itself, and future materials may even prove superior to silicon. Neurons reach a peak speed of about 200 Hz, which is seven orders of magnitude slower than current microprocessors ([7] p 59). While the brain can compensate for some of this with massive parallelism, features such as “hubs,” and so on, crucial mental capacities, such as attention, rely upon serial processing, which is incredibly slow, and has a maximum capacity of about seven manageable chunks [9]. Further, the number of neurons in a human brain is limited by cranial volume and metabolism, but computers can occupy entire buildings or cities, and can even be remotely connected across the globe [7]. Of course, the human brain is far more intelligent than any modern computer. But intelligent machines can in principle be constructed by reverse engineering the brain, and improving upon its algorithms.
In sum: I have observed that there seems to be a short window from the development of the technology to access the cosmos and the development of postbiological minds and AI. I then observe that we are galactic babies: extraterrestrial civilizations are likely to be vastly older than us, and thus they would have already reached not just postbiological life, but superintelligence. Finally, I noted that they would likely have SAI, because silicon is a superior medium for superintelligence. From this I conclude that many advanced alien civilizations will be populated by forms with SAI.
Even if I am wrong – even if the majority of alien civilizations turn out to be biological – it may be that the most intelligent alien civilizations will be ones in which the inhabitants are SAI. Further, creatures that are silicon-based, rather than biologically-based, are more likely to endure space travel, having durable systems that are practically immortal, so they may be the kind of the creatures we first encounter.
HOW MIGHT SUPERINTELLIGENT ALIENS THINK
There has been a good deal of attention by computer scientists, philosophers, and the media on the topic of superintelligent AI. Nick Bostrom’s recent book on superintelligence focuses on the development of superintelligence on Earth, but we can draw from his thoughtful discussion [7]. Bostrom distinguishes three kinds of superintelligence:
(1) Speed superintelligence – even a human emulation could in principle run so fast that it could write a PhD thesis in an hour.
(2) Collective superintelligence – the individual units need not be superintelligent, but the collective performance of the individuals outstrips human intelligence.
(3) Quality superintelligence – at least as fast as human thought, and vastly smarter than humans in virtually every domain.
Any of these kinds could exist alongside one or more of the others.
An important question is whether we can identify common goals that these types of superintelligences may share. Bostrom suggests:
The Orthogonality Thesis:
“Intelligence and final goals are orthogonal – more or less any level of intelligence could in principle be combined with more or less any final goal.” ([7] p 107)
Bostrom is careful to underscore that a great many unthinkable kinds of SAI could be developed. At one point, he raises a sobering example of a superintelligence with the final goal of manufacturing paper clips ([7] pp 107–108, 123–125). While this may initially strike you as a harmless endeavor although hardly a life worth living, Bostrom points out that a superintelligence could utilize every form of matter on Earth in support of this goal, wiping out biological life in the process. Indeed, Bostrom warns that superintelligence emerging on Earth could be of an unpredictable nature, being “extremely alien” to us ([7] p 29). He lays out several scenarios for the development of SAI. For instance, SAI could be arrived at in unexpected ways by clever programmers, and not be derived from the human brain whatsoever. He also takes seriously the possibility that Earthly superintelligence could be biologically inspired, that is, developed from reverse engineering the algorithms that cognitive science says describe the human brain, or from scanning the contents of human brains and transferring them to a computer (i.e. “uploading”).
Although the final goals of superintelligence are difficult to predict, Bostrom singles out several instrumental goals as being likely, given that they support any final goal whatsoever:
The Instrumental Convergence Thesis:
Several instrumental values can be identified which are convergent in the sense that their attainment would increase the chances of the agent’s goal being realized for a wide range of final goals and a wide range of situations, implying that these instrumental values are likely to be pursued by a broad spectrum of situated intelligent agents. ([7] p 109)
The goals that he identifies are resource acquisition, technological perfection, cognitive enhancement, self-preservation, and goal content integrity (i.e. that a superintelligent being’s future self will pursue and attain those same goals). He underscores that self-preservation can involve group or individual preservation, and that it may play second-fiddle to the preservation of the species the AI was designed to serve ([7] p 109).
Let us call an alien superintelligence that is based on reverse engineering an alien brain, including uploading it, a biologically-inspired superintelligent alien (“BISA”). Although BISAs are inspired by the brains of the original species that the superintelligence is derived from, a BISA’s algorithms may depart from those of their biological model at any point.
BISAs are of particular interest in the context of alien superintelligence. For if Bostrom is correct that there are many ways superintelligence can be built, but a number of alien civilizations develop superintelligence from uploading or other forms of reverse engineering, it may be that BISAs are the most common form of alien superintelligence out there. This is because there are many kinds of superintelligence that can arise from raw programming techniques employed by alien civilizations. (Consider, for instance, the diverse range of AI programs under development on Earth, many of which are not modelled after the human brain). This may leave us with a situation in which the class of SAIs is highly heterogeneous, with members generally bearing little resemblance to each other. It may turn out that of all SAIs, BISAs bear the most resemblance to each other. In other words, BISAs may be the most cohesive subgroup because the other members are so different from each other.
Here, you may suspect that because BISAs could be scattered across the galaxy and generated by multitudes of species, there is little interesting that we can say about the class of BISAs. But notice that BISAs have two features that may give rise to common cognitive capacities and goals:
(1) BISAs are descended from creatures that had motivations like: find food, avoid injury and predators, reproduce, cooperate, compete, and so on.
(2) The life forms that BISAs are modeled from have evolved to deal with biological constraints like slow processing speed and the spatial limitations of embodiment.
Could (1) or (2) yield traits common to members of many superintelligent alien civilizations? I suspect so.
Consider (1). Intelligent biological life tends to be primarily concerned with its own survival and reproduction, so it is more likely that BISAs would have final goals involving their own survival and reproduction, or at least the survival and reproduction of the members of their society. If BISAs are interested in reproduction, we might expect that, given the massive amounts of computational resources at their disposal, BISAs would create simulated universes stocked with artificial life and even intelligence or superintelligence. If these creatures were intended to be “children” they may retain the goals listed in (1) as well.
You may object that it is useless to theorize about BISAs, as they can change their basic architecture in numerous, unforeseen ways, and any biologically-inspired motivations can be constrained by programming. There may be limits to this, however. If a superintelligence is biologically-based, it may have its own survival as a primary goal. In this case, it may not want to change its architecture fundamentally, but stick to smaller improvements. It may think: when I fundamentally alter my architecture, I am no longer me [10]. Uploads, for instance, may be especially inclined not to alter the traits that were most important to them during their biological existence.
Consider (2). The designers of the superintelligence, or a self-improving superintelligence itself, may move away from the original biological model in all sorts of unforeseen ways, although I have noted that a BISA may not wish to alter its architecture fundamentally. But we could look for cognitive capacities that are useful to keep; cognitive capacities that sophisticated forms of biological intelligence are likely to have, and which enable the superintelligence to carry out its final and instrumental goals. We could also look for traits that are not likely to be engineered out, as they do not detract the BISA from its goals.
If (2) is correct, we might expect the following, for instance.
(i) Learning about the computational structure of the brain of the species that created the BISA can provide insight into the BISAs thinking patterns. One influential means of understanding the computational structure of the brain in cognitive science is via “connectomics,” a field that seeks to provide a connectivity map or wiring diagram of the brain [11]. While it is likely that a given BISA will not have the same kind of connectome as the members of the original species, some of the functional and structural connections may be retained, and interesting departures from the originals may be found.
(ii) BISAs may have viewpoint-invariant representations. At a high level of processing your brain has internal representations of the people and objects that you interact with that are viewpoint-invariant. Consider walking up to your front door. You’ve walked this path hundreds, maybe thousands of times, but technically, you see things from slightly different angles each time, as you are never positioned in exactly the same way twice. You have mental representations that are at a relatively high level of processing and are viewpoint invariant. It seems difficult for biologically-based intelligence to evolve without viewpoint invariant representations, as they enable categorization and prediction [12]. Such representations arise because a system that is mobile needs a means of identifying items in its ever-changing environment, so we would expect biologically-based systems to have them. BISA would have little reason to give up object-invariant representations insofar as it remains mobile or has mobile devices sending it information remotely.
(iii) BISAs will have language-like mental representations that are recursive and combinatorial. Notice that human thought has the crucial and pervasive feature of being combinatorial. Consider the thought “wine is better in Italy than in China.” You probably have never had this thought before, but you were able to understand it. The key is that the thoughts are combinatorial because they are built out of familiar constituents, and combined according to rules. The rules apply to constructions out of primitive constituents, that are themselves constructed grammatically, as well as to the primitive constituents themselves. Grammatical mental operations are incredibly useful: it is the combinatorial nature of thought that allows one to understand and produce these sentences on the basis of one’s antecedent knowledge of the grammar and atomic constituents (e.g. wine, China). Relatedly, thought is productive: in principle, one can entertain and produce an infinite number of distinct representations because the mind has a combinatorial syntax [13].
The Search for Extraterrestrial Life and Post-Biological Intelligence - PART II
The Search for Extraterrestrial Life and Post-Biological Intelligence - PART II
Brains need combinatorial representations because there are infinitely many possible linguistic representations, and the brain only has a finite storage space. Even a superintelligent system would benefit from combinatorial representations. Although a superintelligent system could have computational resources that are so vast that it is mostly capable of pairing up utterances or inscriptions with a stored sentence, it would be unlikely that it would trade away such a marvelous innovation of biological brains. If it did, it would be less efficient, since there is the potential of a sentence not being in its storage, which must be finite.
(iv) BISAs may have one or more global workspaces. When you search for a fact or concentrate on something, your brain grants that sensory or cognitive content access to a “global workspace” where the information is broadcast to attentional and working memory systems for more concentrated processing, as well as to the massively parallel channels in the brain [14]. The global workspace operates as a singular place where important information from the senses is considered in tandem, so that the creature can make all-things-considered judgments and act intelligently, in light of all the facts at its disposal. In general, it would be inefficient to have a sense or cognitive capacity that was not integrated with the others, because the information from this sense or cognitive capacity would be unable to figure in predictions and plans based on an assessment of all the available information.
(v) A BISA’s mental processing can be understood via functional decomposition. As complex as alien superintelligence may be, humans may be able to use the method of functional decomposition as an approach to understanding it. A key feature of computational approaches to the brain is that cognitive and perceptual capacities are understood by decomposing the particular capacity into their causally organized parts, which themselves can be understood in terms of the causal organization of their parts. This is the aforementioned “method of functional decomposition” and it is a key explanatory method in cognitive science. It is difficult to envision a complex thinking machine not having a program consisting of causally interrelated elements each of which consists in causally organized elements.
All this being said, superintelligent beings are by definition beings that are superior to humans in every domain. While a creature can have superior processing that still basically makes sense to us, it may be that a given superintelligence is so advanced that we cannot understand any of its computations whatsoever. It may be that any truly advanced civilization will have technologies that will be indistinguishable from magic, as Arthur C. Clarke once suggested [15]. I obviously speak to the scenario in which the SAI’s processing makes some sense to us, one in which developments from cognitive science yield a glimmer of understanding into the complex mental lives of certain BISAs.
SOME ISSUES FOR FURTHER REFLECTION
In the spirit of encouraging future discussion, I will close by raising issues for future reflection.
Given the vast variety of possible intelligences, it is an intriguing question to ask whether creatures with different sensory modalities may have the same kind of thoughts or think in a similar ways as humans. There is a debate in the field of philosophy of mind that is relevant to this question. Contemporary neo-empiricists, such as the philosopher Jesse Prinz, have argued that all concepts are modality specific, being couched in a particular sensory format, such as vision [16]. If he’s correct, it may be difficult to understand the thinking of creatures with vastly different sensory experiences than us. But I am skeptical. For instance, consider my aforementioned comment on viewpoint invariant representations. At a higher level of processing, information seems to become less viewpoint dependent. Similarly, it becomes less modality specific, as with the processing in the human brain, as it ascends from particular sensory modalities to the brain’s association areas and into working memory and attention, where it is in a more neutral format.
But these issues are subtle and deserve a lengthier treatment. I pursued issues related to this topic in my monograph, The Language of Thought, which looked at whether thinking is independent of the kind of perceptual modalities humans have and is also prior to the kind of language we speak [12]. In the context of alien life or SAI, an intriguing question is the following: If there is an inner mental language that is independent of sensory modalities, having the aforementioned combinatorial structure, would this be some sort of common ground, should we encounter other advanced intelligences? (Many of these issues apply to the case of intelligent biological alien life as well, and could also be helpful in the context of the development of SAI on Earth.)
The ethical and metaphysical issues surrounding postbiological intelligence concern me greatly. Perhaps the best way to introduce the ethical and metaphysical issues is to consider that the post-biological cosmos approach involves a shift in our usual perspective about intelligent life in the universe. Normally, we think of encountering alien intelligence as encountering creatures with radically different biological features and sensory experiences. The shift of focus is twofold: first, the focus moves away from biology to superintelligent AI, and this will involve theorizing about the computational abilities of advanced artificial intelligence. Second, as we reflect on the nature of postbiological intelligence, we must be keenly aware that we may be reflecting upon the nature of our own descendants as well as aliens. In essence, the line between “us” and “them” blurs, and our focus moves away from biology to the difficult task of understanding the computations and behaviors of creatures that will be far more advanced than we are.
What does this all mean? In contrast to Ray Kurzweil’s utopian enthusiasm for the singularity, I do not see normative evaluations of whether a post-biological existence is desirable for our species in the astrobiology literature, and there has been little discussion of the singularity within contemporary metaphysics and philosophy of mind. But it is important to reflect upon the ethical, philosophical and social implications of all this. Would superintelligent AI, including our own postbiological descendants, be selves or persons? Could they be conscious? My own view is that the question of whether AI could be conscious is key – if the synthetic being in question is not capable of consciousness, that is, if it doesn’t feel like anything to be it, then why would it be a self or person? I’ve discussed the issue of consciousness elsewhere [4], but since that point, I have been increasingly convinced that the question of machine consciousness is an open question that cannot be solved today. In addition to the matter of whether the substrate in question (e.g., graphene, silicon) supports consciousness, the devil is in the details of the particular AI design. That is, we would have to determine whether the architecture of the particular AI in question even employs conscious thought. Consciousness is associated with slower, more deliberative processing in humans, and it is unclear whether superintelligence would even need conscious processing, as it would have mastered so much already. What would be novel to it? And would consciousness even be associated with slower, deliberative processing in an AI in any case?
The science fiction treatment of androids may lead us to believe that machines can feel – for instance, consider the Samantha program in the film Her, or consider Asimov’s robot stories. But this is just science fiction, and the empirical and philosophical question of whether AI can be conscious remains open.
CONCLUSION
In this brief piece, I’ve discussed why it is likely that the alien civilizations we encounter will be forms of superintelligent AI (or “SAI”). I then turned to the difficult question of how such creatures might think. I provisionally attempted to identify some goals and cognitive capacities likely to be possessed by superintelligent beings. I discuss Nick Bostrom’s recent book on superintelligence, which focuses on the genesis of SAI on Earth; as it happens, many of Bostrom’s observations were informative in the present context [7]. Finally, I isolated a specific type of superintelligence that is of particular import in the context of alien superintelligence, biologically-inspired superintelligences (“BISAs”). I urged that if any superintelligences we encounter are BISAs, certain work in computational neuroscience, cognitive neuroscience and philosophy of mind may provide resources for at least a rough understanding of the computations of BISAs.
REFERENCES
[1] Cirkovic, M. and Bradbury, R. 2006, “Galactic Gradients, Postbiological Evolution and the Apparent Failure of SETI,” New Astronomy 11, pp. 628–639
[2] Dick, S. 2013, “Bringing Culture to Cosmos: the Postbiological Universe,” Cosmos and Culture: Cultural Evolution in a Cosmic Context, S. J. Dick and M. Lupisella eds., Washington, DC: NASA, online at http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4802.pdf
[3] Shostak, S. 2009, Confessions of an Alien Hunter, National Geographic (Washington, DC)
[4] Schneider, S. 2015, “Alien Minds,” in Discovery, Steven Dick, ed., Cambridge University Press (Cambridge)
[5] Davies, P. 2010, The Eerie Silence, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (London)
[6] Bradbury, R., Cirkovic, M., and Dvorsky, G. 2011, “Dysonian Approach to SETI: A Fruitful Middle Ground?” Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, 64, pp. 156–165
[7] Bostrom, N. 2014, Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies, Oxford University Press (Oxford)
[9] Miller, R. 1956, “The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information,” The Psychological Review, 63, pp. 81–97
[10] Schneider, S. 2011a, “Mindscan: Transcending and Enhancing the Brain,” Neuroscience and Neuroethics: Issues At the Intersection of Mind, Meanings and Morality, J. Giordano ed., Cambridge University Press (Cambridge)
[11] Seung, S. 2012, Connectome: How the Brain’s Wiring Makes Us Who We Are, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (Boston)
[12] Hawkins, J. and Blakeslee, S. 2004, On Intelligence: How a New Understanding of the Brain will Lead to the Creation of Truly Intelligent Machine, Times Books (New York)
[13] Schneider, S. 2011b, The Language of Thought: a New Philosophical Direction, MIT Press (Boston)
[14] Baars, B. 2008, “The Global Workspace Theory of Consciousness,” The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness, M. Velmans and S. Schneider eds.,Wiley-Blackwell (Boston), pp. 236-247
[15] Clarke, A. 1962, Profiles of the Future: An Inquiry into the Limits of the Possible, Harper and Row (New York)
[16] Prinz, J. 2004, Furnishing the Mind: Concepts and their Perceptual Basis, MIT Press (Boston)
Seth Shostak SETI Institute 189 Bernardo Ave. Mountain View, CA 94043 seth@seti.org
Introduction
We consider the biological provincialism of traditional SETI, and why there are good arguments for thinking that the bulk of the intelligence in the cosmos is synthetic. Given this possibility, the SETI community should consider how to conduct a meaningful search for intelligence that is not constrained to habitable worlds. To that end, we consider some of the factors that might govern the behavior of highly advanced, cognitive machinery and some strategies that might aid in the discovery of same.
THE ANTHROPOCENTRIC BIAS
The premise of most SETI experiments, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, was established with Frank Drake’s pioneering Project Ozma more than five decades ago [1]. Today’s efforts differ in scale, but not in approach: Their strategy is to seek signals produced by cosmic inhabitants whose level of technology is at least as advanced as our own.
For more than two decades, SETI has been largely underwritten by private donations, and because of this the scientists involved are often pressured to make some estimate of the chances of success. To this end, they will frequently invoke the well-known Drake Equation which quantifies the number of galactic societies currently producing detectable signals. If some estimate of the prevalence of transmitting sources can be made, then a timescale for SETI success can also be made.
Unfortunately, the value of many of the parameters of this equation are still unknown, and the few for which new data have recently become available are little changed from the estimates made when the equation was first written. The Drake Equation, while ubiquitous and helpful in formulating the problem of SETI, does little to determine the odds for any particular experiment.
Of possibly greater importance is the Equation’s influence in setting strategy. It assumes that SETI will succeed only if there are at least a few thousand technically accomplished civilizations resident in the Milky Way. Detectable societies are assumed to consist of a large number of individuals, resident on a planet that’s not only amenable to life but also able to beget and sustain complex organisms. In other words, a world analogous to our own.
That view hasn’t changed in a half century. New thinking on how to conduct SETI has been less about the nature of the beings we seek or their habitat, and more about their presumed behavior.
As example, a matter of popular discussion is whether signals from extraterrestrials are more likely to be deliberate beacons, or accidental leakage. This discussion is largely motivated by the trend in our own society to shift to higher efficiency communication modes (e.g., direct satellites and fiber optics in place of traditional broadcasting.) This change has led many to opine that advanced civilizations will be economical, and not generate significant leakage. However, while this argument sounds plausible, there’s no denying that it is highly parochial, and based on human experience a scant century after the invention of practical radio and lasers. And even this modest speculation on the conduct of extraterrestrials – they will be more efficient users of energy than we are – has had little impact on SETI experiments.
In fact, experiments do what they are able, and are mostly indifferent to whether the signal being sought is intentional or otherwise. SETI today continues to adopt the playbooks of the past: the aliens are analogous to us, only more advanced. The circumstances of their environment are also presumed to be similar to ours.
Unsurprisingly then, SETI practitioners have been heartened by recent discoveries of exoplanets. The good news is that worlds akin to our own could exist in great abundance. Current estimates are that between 0.1 and 0.2 of all star systems host an Earth-size planet in the habitable zone [2]. This implies that tens of billions of these favored locales pepper the Galaxy.
But there is also bad news. At a time when the prospects for beings comparable to ourselves are improving, there is a slow-growing realization that biological intelligence may be only a short-lived – and possibly cryptic – stepping stone to the real thinkers of the cosmos: synthetic intelligence.
PROSPECTS FOR SYNTHETIC INTELLIGENCE
If researchers in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) are to be believed, we will invent machines that are our cognitive equals by mid-century. Roboticist Hans Moravec has pointed out that the exponential improvement in digital electronics will produce workaday computers with reckoning power comparable to a human brain in less than a decade’s time [3]. This rapid betterment in computation has led some, such as Vernor Vinge and Ray Kurzweil, to predict a future time – the “singularity” – at which our own intellectual capacities will be swamped by that of our devices [4],[5].
Of course, there are already machines that can outperform the human brain in tasks generally regarded as “intelligent.” The best chess playing computer can beat the best grand master, and the recent triumph of IBM’s Watson computer against seasoned contestants on a television quiz show attracted widespread attention, if not admiration. More recently, Google’s AlphaGo software beat a world expert human at the game of Go, one that is considerably more complex than chess. But as AI entrepreneur Peter Voss has noted, these attainments merely point up the current situation in which one can either build a machine that is excellent at a narrowly scoped task (e.g., chess) or one that is quite mediocre at many things [6]. In order to challenge the intellectual abilities of humans, what’s required is what is termed GAI – generalized artificial intelligence.
It is not the intent of this essay to either review or critique developments in AI research, but rather to assume that GAG machines will appear – if not in this century, then in the next. The timing is of little consequence to the implications for SETI. But the events following this development are straightforward:
1. If our own example can be taken as typical, then GAI quickly follows on the heels of radio technology – within a few centuries.
2. There is no reason to believe that the evolution of “wet ware” – augmentations of our own brains – can keep pace with GAI.
3. Because artificial intelligence can quickly evolve (by its own design), it will soon outstrip the cognitive capability of biological beings.
4. Artificial intelligence will be self-repairing, and therefore of indefinite lifetime.
5. GAI will be the dominant form of intelligence for any society that has progressed even slightly beyond the point of being able to send signals into space.
6. Unlike biology, which has been “engineered” bottom-up, GAI will be engineered top-down. We cannot hope to forecast what talents or interests it will have, but the one aspect of its functionality that seems safe to assume is survival. This sounds Darwinian, and therefore biological, but is essential if we are to find GAI now, billions of years into the history of the cosmos.
The bottom line is simple, if disquieting: biological brains will beget synthetic ones. If this technical evolution is commonplace, then there’s reason to expect that the majority of the intelligence in the universe is non-biological. This intelligence would not be dependent on water worlds, atmospheres, or planets at all. Consequently the premise of most SETI – that we should expect to find signals from old, habitable worlds – could be wide of the mark [7],[8].
It seems probable that the future of our hunt for extraterrestrials will require more than just new equipment. We’ll need to rethink what it is we seek.
SO HOW DO WE FIND IT?
Adapting our SETI strategies to the challenge of uncovering GAI may sound simple at first. Nothing more is required than to put less emphasis on targeting habitable planets, or even individual stars, and simply scan as much of the sky as possible. However, there may be opportunities to increase our chances of success by augmenting this simple, brute-force approach with insights about the likely nature or behavior of synthetic intelligence.
First, we are probably well advised to avoid hubris. There may be little we can fathom about the nature of artificial intelligence that might be the result of millions of generations of self-improvement – improvement not predicated on the slight and random modifications of Darwin, but directed changes. Such intelligence will surely be as superior to us as we are to the nematodes in the garden. Consequently, we should not feel too sure about our speculations as to what AGI might do or how it might be detected. Imaginative ideas about the interests and activities of synthetic beings are plentiful in fiction, but these ideas are vulnerable to anthropocentric bias.
However, there are at least a few aspects of GAI that seem less suspect:
1. Assuming that for such machines more computation is better, they can be expected to prefer locations with abundant energy and an effective heat sink. The former suggests the neighborhoods of early-type stars or black holes (either of the stellar variety or the massive objects hunkered at the centers of galaxies.) It’s been suggested that the outer regions of galaxies might be preferred locales for such machines because of their slightly lower temperatures, resulting in greater thermal efficiency [9]. However, given that the efficiency depends only on a temperature ratio between source and sink, this argument is of significance only if the energy source is no more than a few hundred degrees, as space is cold almost everywhere.
2. The short timescales for self-improvement may set up a “winner take all” situation. Whatever machine first appears in a given part of the cosmos could endlessly trump others that arise, since even a cosmically short period of time is a great number of GAI generations, and the new kids on the block could never catch up.
3. Given the dangers present in the universe, a machine might wish to buy insurance in the form of backup machines. These could be kept at a distance that would minimize simultaneous annihilation, but linked to the mother machine so that updates could be continually offered. Detecting this telemetry might offer a way to discover GAI, although one can assume that the communication would be point to point and unlikely to be intercepted with our instruments.
4. Another possible organization scheme for GAI might be hierarchical. Social systems might make sense if the increase of information in a machine eventually becomes small compared to the timescale for interaction with other machines (the light travel time between them). In other words, if the new capability acquired per year by a GAI eventually becomes a very small fraction of the previously accumulated capability, then interchanging information makes sense, since that information is not rendered obsolete and irrelevant in the time it takes to effect the exchange.
5. Whether intelligent machines would have any interest in broadcasting (as opposed to point-to-point telemetry) is impossible to know. One metric for intelligence is the ability to foresee danger and avoid it. The cleverest GAI, by this measure, might be less concerned about revealing their presence with easily found signals. They might also wish to communicate with other such machines that are largely outside their light cone, as these would have information that they could not obtain otherwise [10].
These considerations offer a few plausible arguments as to where we should look for GAI. However, they promise little in terms of assuring SETI scientists that such machines would have any motive to make themselves known.
In the case of biological beings, we can safely assume the presence of curiosity, as this trait is necessary to divine the laws of nature and build transmitters we could find. But artificial sentience might not share this type of curiosity. Maybe after solving all the puzzles of science, GAI would be happy to indulge itself with endless entertainments – perhaps with Bostrom-like simulations [11]. If they are capable of self-repair (an assumption in all of the above), then it may be that their primary project is to forestall the heat death of the universe and an end to their own existence.
CONCLUSIONS
What might SETI practitioners do to increase their chances of detecting what is likely to be the most prevalent form of intelligence in the cosmos? Unfortunately, the list is short.
A search for unusual phenomena in the vicinity of high-density energy sources is a straightforward desideratum. Another is to consider that the oldest of such machines might wish to contact their peers in other parts of the cosmos to compare notes and offer novel information. This suggests an experiment in which SETI searches for signals (radio or optical) in the direction of stellar black holes or quasars that are antipodal. E.g., two stellar black holes on opposite sides of the sky might conceivably host AGI whose beamed data would pass through our neighborhood.
Perhaps the best strategy to find the universe’s intellectual giants is the least deliberate: simply be careful to note any unusual phenomena uncovered in the course of astronomical research. Are there nebulae with anomalous, depleted deuterium? Do some stars or galaxies display unnatural infrared excess, a possible tipoff to energy-intensive residents [12],[13]? Are there cosmological behaviors without natural explanation?
It is easy to design an experiment to find the aliens of sci-fi, for these are robustly similar to ourselves. But when you don’t know your prey, the hunt can be hard.
REFERENCES
[1] Drake, F. 1960, “How can we detect radio transmissions from distant planetary systems,”Sky and Telescope39, 140
[2] Petigura, E. A., Howard, A. W., and Marcy, G. W. 2013, “Prevalence of Earth-size planets orbiting Sun-like stars,” PNAS, 110, No. 48, 19273
[3] Moravec, Hans 2000, Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind, Oxford
University Press (Oxford)
[4] Vinge, V. 1993 “The coming technological singularity,” Vision-21:
Interdisciplinary Science & Engineering in the Era of CyberSpace, proceedings of a Symposium
held at NASA Lewis Research Center (NASA Conference Publication CP-10129)
[5] Kurzweil, Ray 2005, The Singularity is Near, Viking Penguin (New York)
[7] Shostak, S. 1998, Sharing the Universe, Berkeley Hills Books (Berkeley)
[8] Shostak, S. 2011, “Seeking intelligence far beyond our own,” International Astronautics Congress, IAC-11.A4.2.4
[9] Cirkovic, M. M. and Bradbury, R.J. 2006, “Galactic gradients, postbiological evolution, and the apparent failure of SETI,” New Astronomy, 11, 628
[10] Windell, Alex Noholoa 2015, private communication
[11] Bostrom, N. 2003, Philosophical Quarterly, 53 No. 211, 243
[12] Carrigan, R. 2009, “The IRAS-based whole-sky upper limit on Dyson spheres,” Ap. J.698 2075
[13] Griffith, R. L., Wright, J. T., Maldonado, J., Povich, M. S., Sigurdsson, S., Mullan, B. 2015, “The Ĝ Infrared Search for Extraterrestrial Civilizations with Large Energy Supplies. III. The Reddest Extended Sources in WISE,” arXiv:1504.03418 [astro-ph.GA]
Researchers have another arrangement for discovering extraterrestrial life in our Solar System
Researchers have another arrangement for discovering extraterrestrial life in our Solar System
Humankind hasn’t touched the most superficial layer of investigating the Milky Way cosmic system, a great deal less whatever is left of the universe, yet with regards to our own Solar System, we have a truly smart thought of what’s here. We know there’s no space-faring races hanging out in the cavities of Mars or noiselessly turning within Jupiter’s incredible red spot, yet there’s as yet the shot that life exists in our little planetary terrace outside of Earth, and scientists have another methodology that could enable us to discover it. The objective? Saturn’s ice-shrouded moon, Enceladus.
Another paper from Jay Nadeau and his group of analysts from Caltech, distributed in the diary Astrobiology, separates another imaging strategy that could give researchers the apparatuses they have to distinguish and recognize tiny life in space — all the more particularly, microorganisms stowing away in the water of Saturn’s solidified moon.
Enceladus is totally encased in ice, which doesn’t seem like an exceptionally affable place for life to flourish, yet fortunately there’s water under its solidified surface. We know this since pictures of the planet taken by NASA’s Cassini test have demonstrated enormous planes of water being regurgitated out from between breaks in its frigid shell, and in light of the fact that Enceladus is so little, its gravitational force isn’t sufficiently solid to shield the water vapor from taking off into space. That makes the occupation of examining the water substantially less demanding, yet NASA would even now require the correct apparatus for the employment.
Nadeau and his associates have proposed an answer as a holographic magnifying lens particularly intended to identify microbial life and separate between small living life forms and bits of tidy and flotsam and jetsam that would likewise likely litter the example.
“It’s harder to recognize a microorganism and a bit of clean than you’d might suspect,” Nadeau says. “You need to separate between Brownian movement, which is the arbitrary movement of issue, and the purposeful, self-coordinated movement of a living being.” In trying, the new magnifying lens framework has demonstrated equipped for doing only that, and keeping in mind that further testing and execution stays on the schedule, it’s a promising begin for a system that could give the primary proof of extraterrestrial life.
Research on the biophysics of frog tongue adhesiveness provided fodder for one of our most popular video stories of 2017. (Watch the video below.)
A. NOEL, M. MANDICA, D.L. HU/GEORGI
No story on the Science News website is complete without visuals. And when it comes to videos, those visuals have lives of their own on other platforms. In addition to incorporating videos into some of our articles, we also post videos to the Science News YouTube channel and the Science News magazine Facebook page, where thousands of people watch them each year.
In science, progress rarely comes in one big shebang. Well, it has now, two years running. The first-ever direct detection of gravitational waves, our top story in 2016, launched a long-dreamed-of kind of astronomy capable of “unlocking otherwise unknowable secrets of the cosmos,” as physics writer Emily Conover puts it. 2017’s key event: a never-before-seen neutron star collision that immediately validated some theories in physics and killed others. And so a new way to probe cosmic mysteries wins our top spot again this year.
Another turning point is coming, and maybe soon, via CRISPR/Cas9, a biotechnology that holds the promise of curing genetic diseases (and the peril of making permanent, heritable tweaks). Nearly five years after the gene-editing tool debuted, researchers for the first time have used it to alter genes in viable human embryos. That’s a big advance, and worthy of the No. 2 spot.
And crack by crack, one of the biggest icebergs ever recorded calves. That story, No. 3 on our list, is not exactly progress, but it’s surely an opportunity to make scientific headway. Teams racing to Antarctica’s Larsen C ice shelf will have an unprecedented chance to collect real-time data on how the remaining ice reacts and to reveal secrets of a long-hidden ecosystem. Building on those advances, as well as others described in our Top 10 picks, will fuel “aha!” moments — both revolutionary and incremental — well into the future. — Macon Morehouse, News Director
The number of Zika cases in the Western Hemisphere has dropped this year, but the need for basic scientific and public health research on the virus remains strong.
HOW EARTH WOULD COPE WITH AN ACTUAL ALIEN INVASION
HOW EARTH WOULD COPE WITH AN ACTUAL ALIEN INVASION
When flying saucers visit Earth they are immediately blasted out of the sky by all the military resources we can throw at it – Well, that’s the Hollywood way of dealing with things.
In reality, how would we deal with the prospect of alien visitations? It’s a question that has taunted us for decades, and a range of scenarios run from the plausible to the outright incredible.
On the possibility of direct attack, Professor Stephen Hawking claims ET contact is dangerous, because they ‘may not see us as any more valuable than we see bacteria’.
The Debate
Theoretical physicist, Michio Kaku warns:
If they are hostile, it would be like Bambi meeting Godzilla if we ever had to fight them…we would present no military challenge to such an advanced civilisation…We would be a pushover for them. Forget all the Hollywood movies.
Ryan Sprague, the author of Somewhere in the Skies notes that so far UFOs don’t seem to represent an alien threat to humanity:
It would appear that we’ve been so aggressively conditioned to believe an invasion would be catastrophic and malevolent beyond comprehension, that any advanced civilisation would come to our planet with an agenda of taking over and using our resources to it’s advantage.
While I can understand this pessimistic view, the decades and decades of possible alien visitation here on the planet already, and the countless UFO sightings throughout the world, would indicate that if they were to do such a thing, they would have done it already.
Could Aliens Even Reach Earth?
UFO sceptic Robert Sheaffer isn’t too concerned about the threat of an alien invasion either, he says:
Well, I would worry about an alien invasion about as much as I would worry about a Zombie Apocalypse. Both are equally implausible.
First, any supposed alien invaders would have to find us. Given that they would be at least several light years away in some other solar system, and probably much farther than that, finding us and learning what earth is like is not so easy.
Second, they need to somehow get here, which is very difficult, even if we assume they have advanced technology, because fundamental physics tells us that they would need insanely large amounts of energy to accelerate space ships to relativistic speeds – and then to decelerate them when they arrive.
Even nuclear fusion power is woefully inefficient compared to what would be needed. If they are bringing along scary armaments and supplies, that’s just more mass to add to their armada.
Protection And The Lack Thereof
Whatever the facts of UFOs as alien invaders, what should we do to protect ourselves other than to have a tin foil hat at the ready?
The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) and their Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (CUPUOS) is not geared for such possibilities.
UNOOSA director Simonetta Di Pippo tells us:
UNOOSA and COPUOS Member States consider a range of space science and space exploration topics, fields in which the topic of astrobiology sits. However, the Office for Outer Space Affairs has been given no mandate by Member States to consider the question of potential advanced or intelligent extraterrestrial life.
For this reason there is no protocol or process for any contact by extraterrestrial life.
The Threat Of Artificial Intelligence
Michael Michaud author of ‘Contact with Alien Civilizations: Our Hopes and Fears about Encountering Extraterrestrials’ (2007) says we shouldn’t be concerned because as he observes in his book, ‘UFO advocates have not yet proven their thesis that some UFOs are visitors from other worlds. I also said that aliens stepping out of a spacecraft on the Earth may be the least likely form of contact.’
He goes on to wonder, ‘Why would extraterrestrials make such a long journey? If they are capable of interstellar flight, they won’t need the Earth’s territory or resources.’
Michael thinks, ‘A more likely scenario is a visit by an unmanned interstellar probe equipped with artificial intelligence. Intelligent machines don’t need the massive spacecraft required to transport biological beings over vast distances, and they are patient.’
Invisible Defence In The War Of The Worlds
Assuming they do somehow get here,’ says Robert Sheaffer ‘presumably it is because they believe that they can live on our Earth, if they can only get rid of us. H.G. Wells was onto something when he had his fictional Martian invaders killed off by earthly microbes. Our bodies consist of not just ‘us,’ but an entire biome of separate organisms: the bacteria in our gut, microbes and mites living on our skin, etc.
Sheaffer adds:
It is doubtful that our bodies could survive in an entirely alien biosphere with different parasites, different foods, etc. The same problem would apply to any alien beings who might come here.
Sprague agrees that, ‘we simply can’t even begin to comprehend their genetic make-up, whether or not they possess any type of progressive knowledge, or even if they harbour emotions, empathy, ethics, or morals.’
A Technological Gamble
Malcolm Robinson founder of Strange Phenomena Investigations (SPI) observes that situations of contact between human civilisations set a disturbing precedent:
We have learned that when any technological superior race gets involved with an inferior race the inferior race usually comes off worse (as the history of this planet has shown). We can only hope that when that day comes, when another technological race meets mankind it will not prove to be disastrous and to our disadvantage.
That is a good reason for not trying to send signals out to alien civilisations in our galaxy, but has the horse already bolted as our planet has already beamed radio messages out to celestial targets since 1962?
Michael Michaud says we shouldn’t worry:
The vast majority of those signals are too weak to reach the distance of the nearest star. As Frank Drake has pointed out, we actually are becoming less detectable because of changes in the way we use radio technology. The powerful one-time message he sent from Arecibo in 1974 was aimed at a distant star cluster, not at nearby stars.
A United Front
Philip Mantle, Veteran UFO researcher, author and publisher at FLYING DISK PRESS , doesn’t think UFOs are of extraterrestrial origin, but says if we were invaded we would cope with the situation and ‘Mankind would hope to pull together as one to stand up to any such invasion.’
Sprague, is equally optimistic:
I believe that factions of the world would unite…and others would separate. Science and religion would be shattered overnight, but would continue.
Our hope would be to benefit and expand our own sciences and core beliefs by finding some way to communicate with this advanced civilisation.
What If We Don’t Know We’ve Been Invaded?
Neuro-psychologist, Gabriel G. De la Torre, professor at the University of Cádiz thinks there is a distinct possibility of aliens visiting, but says:
I am not sure we will be fully conscious about it. The main problem in this topic is it has been approached in a very simplistic way.
I don’t think we can be a real problem for Cosmos in any way. It is more probable we may be researched rather than destroyed.
Stealth is a possible approach, however I can not imagine an equal to equal agreement with people of Earth….I don’t think we could even understand their strategy.
As to whether they might secretly manipulate humanity, Gabriel says:
I think this could actually happen even without humans noticing…
If they conform to another consciousness state of mind they could try to operate in our belief systems and consciousness in a subtle way until a more physical approach is convenient for both sides of the communication process. This could be a gradual process.
Even in the radio message approach, this may happen. I don’t believe they will exchange codes, numbers and pictures in the same way we are trying to do. These messages if they happen anytime will have a deeply rooted message direct to our own consciousness.
Reasons To Be Cheerful
If there is ever any kind of alien contact Malcolm Robinson, hopes it could be positive:
It will be both enlightening and wonderful which may change not just our technology but medicine and the way we look at ourselves in the cosmos. As a researcher into the UFO enigma I look forward with anticipation to that day which I hope will be in my lifetime.
So with bacteria, unity, perhaps a little humility, the prospect of an alien invasion needn’t necessarily strike fear into our hearts. It could be the driving force behind bigger and better things.
(CNN)The mysterious flying object that one man saw looked like a “40-foot-long Tic Tac” and was maneuvering and shifting directions rapidly.
That claim doesn’t come from a random townsperson, though. It comes from retired Cmdr. David Fravor and bears the Pentagon’s stamp of approval. And it was one of many confounding examples of unidentified flying objects the Pentagon investigated in the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program.
“My personal belief is that there is very compelling evidence that we may not be alone,” Luis Elizondo, a former Pentagon official, told CNN.
The belief in alien encounters has long been a prominent feature of American life. A 1997 poll from CNN/Time on the 50th anniversary of the Roswell incident found that 80% of Americans think the government is hiding knowledge of the existence of extraterrestrial life forms.
But instead of funding a $22 million project to get to the bottom of the issue, the US military could have spent its time reading some of the many tales of UFO sightings, abductions and alien encounters with humans over the decades.
There are thousands and thousands of reported UFO sightings, but in light of the Pentagon’s extensive research into the possible existence of UFOs, here’s a look back at some of America’s closest encounters of the third kind.
Many of the best known alien claims come from Project Blue Book, the name for the US government program tasked with investigating reports of UFOs from 1948 to 1969.
In that time, Air Force personnel looked at 12,618 reported UFO sightings and said that 701 remain “unidentified.”
But in the end, the project concluded: “No UFO reported, investigated, and evaluated by the Air Force has ever given any indication of threat to our national security.” The program also concluded that the “unidentified” sightings were advanced technology or extraterrestrial vehicles, according to the National Archives fact sheet.
The project was closed down in 1969 because of its cost, the National Archives said.
“Since Project Blue Book was closed, nothing has happened to indicate that the Air Force ought to resume investigating UFOs,” the archives said.
The town of Roswell in New Mexico became shorthand for alien encounters in 1947 after reports that a flying object crash-landed in a field.
The Roswell Army Air Field initially said a “flying disk” had been recovered, but a…
Project Blue Book
Many of the best known alien claims come from Project Blue Book, the name for the US government program tasked with investigating reports of UFOs from 1948 to 1969.
In that time, Air Force personnel looked at 12,618 reported UFO sightings and said that 701 remain "unidentified."
But in the end, the project concluded: "No UFO reported, investigated, and evaluated by the Air Force has ever given any indication of threat to our national security." The program also concluded that the "unidentified" sightings were not advanced technology or extraterrestrial vehicles, according to the National Archives fact sheet.
The project was closed down in 1969 because of its cost, the National Archives said.
"Since Project Blue Book was closed, nothing has happened to indicate that the Air Force ought to resume investigating UFOs," the archives said.
Roswell
Groups dressed as aliens ride through downtown Roswell, New Mexico, in July 2000 as they participate in the annual UFO Encounter.
The town of Roswell in New Mexico became shorthand for alien encounters in 1947 after reports that a flying object crash-landed in a field.
The Roswell Army Air Field initially said a "flying disk" had been recovered, but a second press release clarified that the object was from a weather balloon. Since then, a number of supposed witnesses have said they saw the military take away the flying disc -- and bodies of aliens.
Decades later, plenty of Americans remain skeptical of the government's claim that it was a weather balloon. In that 1997 CNN/Time poll, nearly two-thirds of respondents said they believed a UFO crash-landed in a field in that incident.
Roswell, now home to the Roswell UFO Museum, remains a major destination for alien enthusiasts looking for more evidence of their beliefs.
Area 51
Long thought to be the location where the US government stores and hides alien bodies and UFOs, the mysteriously named location in Nevada has been the focus of alien conspiracies for decades.
The area has long been a focus of public interest for citizens and presidents alike. John Podesta, chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, said that his former boss had "asked for some information about some of these things, and in particular, some information about what was going on at Area 51."
Area 51 has been a prominent pop culture reference and made a notable appearance in the alien invasion movie "Independence Day."
In 2013, the CIA declassified documents that officially acknowledged for the first time that Area 51 was a secret military site located a short distance northwest of Las Vegas.
But rather than host flying saucers or alien life, Area 51 was used to test the U-2 and OXCART aerial surveillance programs, according to the documents. The need for secrecy was to keep information from the Soviets, rather than to cover-up an alien encounter, they said.
Three of the former Air Force officers said UFOs hovered over nuclear missile silos around Montana's Malmstrom Air Force Base in 1967, causing problems with the military base. Former Air Force Capt. Robert Salas said one of his guards told him about a red, glowing object about 30 feet in diameter hovering above the front gate of the facility.
"And just as I [called my commander], our missiles began going into what's called a no-go condition, or unlaunchable. Essentially, they were disabled while this object was still hovering over our site," Salas said.
Salas said he didn't personally witness the UFO. But Robert Hastings, an author and UFO researcher who organized the press conference, said the series of stories showed aliens had a particular interest in nuclear weapons.
"I believe -- these gentlemen believe -- that this planet is being visited by beings from another world, who for whatever reason have taken an interest in the nuclear arms race which began at the end of World War II," said Hastings.
Phoenix Lights incident
In March 1997, a number of Arizona residents said they witnessed a large flying object in the sky near Phoenix. Ten years afterward, former Arizona Gov. Fife Symington wrote on CNN about the experience ahead of an event discussing various UFO sightings and incidents.
"I witnessed a massive delta-shaped craft silently navigate over Squaw Peak, a mountain range in Phoenix, Arizona. It was truly breathtaking. I was absolutely stunned because I was turning to the west looking for the distant Phoenix Lights," Symington wrote. "To my astonishment this apparition appeared; this dramatically large, very distinctive leading edge with some enormous lights was traveling through the Arizona sky."
Symington, a former Air Force officer, said it did not look like a man-made object. And he ruled out the Air Force assertion that the object was high-altitude flares.
"I was never happy with the Air Force's silly explanation. There might very well have been military flares in the sky that evening, but what I and hundreds of others saw had nothing to do with that," he wrote.
Symington thanked those who were speaking out about their mysterious encounters, and called for the US government to be more open about what really happened.
"We want the government to stop putting out stories that perpetuate the myth that all UFOs can be explained away in down-to-earth conventional terms. Investigations need to be reopened, documents need to be unsealed and the idea of an open dialogue can no longer be shunned," he wrote.
CORRECTION:This story has been updated to correctly characterize the conclusions of Project Blue Book.
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )
Why aliens are not contacting us if they know about humans? Explains astonishing ‘Zoo Theory’
Why aliens are not contacting us if they know about humans? Explains astonishing ‘Zoo Theory’
A fundamental motivation for the zoo hypothesis would be that premature contact would “unintelligently” reduce the overall diversity of paths the universe itself could take. If there is a plurality of alien cultures, however, this theory may break down under the uniformity of motive concept.
Alien life and UFO were hot topics among the alien seekers and conspiracy theorists in the year 2017. Some believe that we are not alone and some form of intelligent life exists in some other part of the world which also gave upward thrust to many conspiracies this year.
Recently, SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launch was mistaken as UFO while some still claimed to see mysterious alien spacecraft alongside the SpaceX rocket. The launch was so bizarre that drivers on the road got distracted and crashed their cars.
Some alien hunters including Scott C Waring from UFO Sightings Daily claim to find proof of extraterrestrial life on Mars and Moons. Some alien buffs also believe that UFO lingers around International Space Station and talk to astronauts. While some blame the US space agency NASA for hiding the existence of the alien life despite knowing the truth.
Apparently, our every attempt to find extraterrestrial life failed, and no one was able to prove the existence of aliens. Meanwhile, a radio astronomer from MIT who believes in the existence of alien life came up with a theory to prove why we have failed in establishing a contact with aliens even after several attempts.
It is to be noticed that recently, METI scientists beamed a signal into space to establish contact with aliens. The scientists have sent a set of radio signal with such instructions that they would definitely get some reply back on Earth within 25 years. However, the universe is vast, and the possibility of receiving the signals is minimal.
According to the “Zoo Theory”, given by John A. Ball, an MIT radio astronomer, aliens might be living in some distant galaxy, and they know about the existence of humans, but still, they are purposefully hiding from us and avoiding contact with humans. The theory further states that aliens aren’t still advance enough. Therefore they don’t interfere with our activity, similar to zookeepers at a zoo or nature preserve.
“I suggest, first, that mankind is neither alone nor number one. Advanced civilizations exist and exert some degree of control over the galaxy. Second, they’re aware of us at least at some level. But are they concerned with us? We may be only an obscure entry in their tabulation of inhabited regions of the galaxy. Third, we’re unaware of them because either they want us to be unaware| they’re hiding (But this means that they care about us, else why bother to hide?)|or because we’re not (yet) clever enough to know that they’re there, but they don’t care whether we know,” Ball said.
Ball believes that aliens are curious to know about humans; which is why people report thousands of UFO sightings each year that further results in mysterious and unsolved conspiracies. “ETI (extraterrestrial intelligence) may be discreetly and inconspicuously watching us but not dabbling,” Ball wrote in his paper on the subject.
According to Freeman Dyson, “a reasonable long-range program of searching for evidence of intelligence in the galaxy is indistinguishable from a reasonable long-range program of general astronomical exploration.”
Previously, researchers at the University of California Berkley researching for the $100m ‘Breakthrough Listen” project, had successfully detected 15 strange and repetitive Radio signal bursts radiating out from a small galaxy using the Breakthrough Listen Project by accumulating 400 terabytes of observations of FRB 121102’s location. Scientists believe that aliens located in the distant galaxy might be sending these signals.
Moreover, an astronomer from the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) claimed that we are heading towards our first contact with aliens. At the World’s Nano Fair, Seth Shostak, a senior astronomer at SETI told Futurism that they are going to find intelligent alien life within 20 years and for that, he bet everyone a cup of coffee. He is optimistic about the fact that we are incredibly close to answering the question of whether we are alone in the Universe or not. He also confidently said that within a couple of decades he can prove that aliens do exist.
Has the release of Defense Intelligence Agency videos of alleged UFO encounters by US military jets spawned a competition among government agencies over who is more in tune with this type of disclosure? That might be the case with a new tweet by the CIA over the weekend (yes, the CIA has a Twitter account – or does it?) showing a photograph of a flying saucer UFO and a link to a page on its website entitled “Trying to Photograph a UFO?”. Are the CIA and the DIA competing to release files that were once MIA?
The CIA UFO photo from its tweet
The photograph is one of many released by the CIA earlier this year when the agency opened up about 13 million pages of declassified documents to the general public and set up an Electronic Reading Room for searching through them. Those documents included UFO photos from around the world, along with guides for future UFO spotters on how to get better photographs (set the camera to infinity, use fast film (Film? What’s that?), don’t move, take a lot of pictures, move around, include some ground images in the photos, etc.), how to gather non-photo information and submit a report (date, type of camera, direction you were facing, details of surroundings, breathalyzer results (OK, that last one wasn’t on the list but should be), etc.) and how to conduct a UFO investigation(consult with experts, eliminate false positives, gather forensic evidence, etc. (how about avoiding men dressed in black?)).
Why did the CIA decide to release this photograph now, along with a reminder that it’s been disclosing secret UFO files for a while? Perhaps it’s because many reports on the DIA and the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program claim that AATIP survived after spending its $22 million budget because of secret funding by the CIA. Is the CIA trying to distance itself from this alleged connection by displaying much better photos than the radar images in the DIA videos?
Or could there be a X-Files connection? The CIA document release earlier this year coincided with the return of The X-Filesfor a limited six-episode tenth season. That season was so successful, Fox is bringing Mulder and Scully (and Cigarette Smoking Man!) for a 10-episode eleventh season on January 3rd. Is the real CIA trying to outdo the fictional FBI? The CIA website actually has a page entitled “Take a Peek Into Our “X-Files” with “Top 5 CIA Documents Mulder Would Love To Get His Hands On:” and “Top 5 CIA Documents Scully Would Love To Get Her Hands On.”
Is the CIA’s tweet a sly distraction to divert the public away from demanding more real disclosure to demanding more episodes of The X-Files?
There is absolutely no doubt that the world, right now, is a dangerous place. An extremely dangerous place. In light of that, an important questions needs to be asked – and answered. If war comes – and it turns nuclear – will those who run the nations of this world head deep below the surface of the planet, only to return years later to claim what remains of the planet and human civilization? Such a thing is not at all impossible.
In fact, there are significant signs that plans are indeed being made to ensure that the underground will be the place to be if the apocalypse occurs. But, as is usually the case, it will be the controlling elite who will be calling the shots, rather than the rest of us. Let’s take a look at several of the highly-classified installations that exist on our planet and how they may be used if the unthinkable happens. Today, I’ll focus on Russia (with certain other countries to follow).
Given the fact that Russia amounts to a huge area of land, there are plenty of areas in which secure, underground facilities can be built – and which have been built. The U.S. Intelligence community has known for decades that at least two, massive facilities exist – and which have the ability to survive nuclear strikes, chiefly as a result of the fact that they are built deeply into almost impenetrable mountains. Those same mountains are Mount Yamantau and Kosvinsky Mountain.
As for Yamantau, it stands at in excess of 5,000 feet and is the highest mountain in the Urals. A couple of decades ago the Russians began the construction of a massive facility within Mount Yamantau, primarily to provide the controlling elite with a secure place in which to survive a nuclear exchange between the super-powers.
American spy-satellites have confirmed massive digging on the mountain, suggesting that huge, hollowed out sections of the mountain now exist – and which have been turned into the perfect locations for literally hundreds of thousands of people to survive an attack. And make no mistake, the Yamantau facility is gigantic. Studies undertaken by American intelligence agents suggest that its size is that of Washington, D.C.’s huge Interstate 495, which surrounds the capitol of the United States. Given that I-495 has a circumference of more than sixty miles and that will give you an idea of the scale of the Yamantau facility.
As for the Kosvinsky Mountain installation, that is equally almost impenetrable. Built well into the heart of the mountain – which is located in the northern Urals – it is protected by around 1,200-feet of granite and, just like the Yamantau base, is designed to provide housing for the elite in the event of a nuclear attack – and also to allow for some form of continuation of government. Presuming, of course, there is anyone left to be governed after a major nuclear exchange between the most powerful nations on the planet.
All that’s really known for sure is that the construction of the base was completed by the mid-1990s and that it, like Yamantau, can house thousands of people – with a near-indefinite supply of food, water, medical supplies and all the provisions needed to survive underground not just for months but for years. Some intelligence estimates suggest possibly even for decades.
Moving away from the Urals, but still focused on Russia, there is Kapustin Yar, which is situated in Astrakhan Oblast. Construction of the installation began back in the 1940s – with the intention being to create the ultimate facility for building and testing new and novel rockets. The first such rocket launch took place in October 1947 – it was a test using a captured Nazi A-4 rocket; one of a number that the Russians got their hands on when the Nazi regime collapsed in 1945. As the base grew in size and scope, yet further rocket tests were undertaken and by the early 1950s atomic-bombs tests were carried out in close proximity.
Spy-satellites of the United States’ National Reconnaissance Office have noted that in the last few years massive digging has been afoot at Kapustin Yar, all of which suggests that the base is no longer just used for rocket and missile tests; but that it may be being refurbished on a gigantic scale – to essentially turn portions of it into a huge, underground bunker, one designed to withstand the terrible effects of a nuclear war.
Mensen staan voor mysterie nadat “groene ufo” door de lucht vliegt tijdens oudejaarsavond: “Nog nooit eerder gezien”
Mensen staan voor mysterie nadat “groene ufo” door de lucht vliegt tijdens oudejaarsavond: “Nog nooit eerder gezien”
Mensen staan voor mysterie nadat “groene ufo” door de lucht vliegt tijdens oudejaarsavond: “Nog nooit eerder gezien”
Video: Twitter - James MacCallum
Spectacular 'green UFO' spotted over Britain leaves intrigued viewers wondering if it was early New
Het was een opmerkelijk zicht voor vele inwoners uit Groot-Brittannië. Al honderden mensen lieten onder meer via sociale media weten dat ze “een groen lichtgevend object” in de lucht zagen tijdens oudejaarsavond. Volgens sommigen ging het om een vallende ster, terwijl anderen vermoedden dat het om wat vuurwerk ging.
Het vliegende object was zowel te zien boven Engeland als delen van Schotland. Zo had James MacCallum uit de stad Dundee als een van de eerste de mogelijkheid om een korte video te maken van het verschijnsel. “Het is misschien wel de slechtste video ooit, maar zonet vloog hier een meteoriet door de lucht”, tweette hij bij zijn beelden. “Het was best cool.” Intussen duiken ook steeds meer dashcambeelden op van het speciale zicht.
Het gros van de tweets over de ‘groene ufo’ bleven weliswaar beperkt tot een kort bericht over het moment dat ze het object opmerkten. “We zagen een groene en gouden meteoor over Nord Bottleshop in Whitley Bay vliegen toen we wat aan het drinken waren”, aldus Alyson Dodd. “Ik dacht dat het vuurwerk was, mijn vriend meende dat het om een straaljager ging.”
Ook Tom Gold, die het fenomeen in het Engelse Corbridge zag, blijft het spektakel een groot mysterie. “Het was een buitengewoon zicht, zoiets heb ik nog nooit eerder gezien” vertelde hij aan ChronicleLive. Wat het object daadwerkelijk was, is voorlopig niet helemaal duidelijk, al lijkt de kans groot dat het om een meteoor ging.
Ball of Light flying towards Tourist's Camera in Bello Colombia
Ball of Light flying towards Tourist's Camera in Bello Colombia
A tourist in Bello Colombia recorded a disturbing video with the camera of his mobile on December 30, 2017.
While filming the surrounding area from his hotel room, a ball of light suddenly flying towards the camera of the tourist before it vanishes.
It seems that more people in that area have witnessed similar unexplained sightings. One commenter says that he already has witnessed similar ball of lights two times. "It always appears at the same location in the sky, then goes vertically downwards, like an inverted L and flies very low."
Since theuploader's accountdoes not show any irregularities such as fake or cgi created videos we may wonder whether the tourist captured a paranormal phenomenon or the creators of the video just wanted to make a prank.
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Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 74 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.
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