Citizen scientists discover a new form of the Northern Lights

31-01-2020 om 23:49 geschreven door peter

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SHIP THAT MYSTERIOUSLY VANISHED IN BERMUDA TRIANGLE ALMOST A CENTURY AGO DISCOVERED

BY ARISTOS GEORGIOU

The wreckage of a ship that mysteriously went missing in the Bermuda Triangle almost 100 years ago has been discovered off the coast of Florida, a team of researchers has said.

The SS Cotopaxi—an American merchant steamer—left Charleston, South Carolina on November 29, 1925, loaded with coal. But the vessel vanished without a trace before arriving at its final destination, Havana, Cuba.

The fate of the Cotopaxi and the 32 people on board has long puzzled experts, and the ship's disappearance has become one of the famous stories associated with the legend of the Triangle—a notorious region of the western North Atlantic Ocean where several ships and aircraft are said to have gone missing in strange circumstances.

"The Cotopaxi was on a routine voyage," marine biologist and underwater explorer Michael Barnette told Newsweek. "She was employed in the coal trade and so this was just another trip at the end of November of 1925. We know that on that voyage something happened because she delivered a mayday message early December saying she's in distress.

"And then that was it. They never found any wreckage. They never found any lifeboats, bodies or anything. The vessel just disappeared after that point. So we've been trying to determine what happened."

The story of the disappearance of the Cotopaxi has had a colorful past. Film director Steven Spielberg included the vessel in his sci-fi classic Close Encounters of the Third Kind, in which it was discovered in the Gobi Desert, having apparently been placed there by extraterrestrials. In 2015, a news report said the ship had reappeared near a restricted military zone off the coast of Cuba. Various versions of this story emerged in the years that followed. All have been dismissed as hoaxes, however.

Now, after almost a century of uncertainty and speculation, a more realistic explanation has emerged. Barnette and colleagues say they have located the wreck around 35 miles off the coast of St. Augustine, on Florida's northeast coast.

The discovery is revealed in an episode of Shipwreck Secrets, a new Science Channel series that starts next month.

"I've always been fascinated by history," Barnette, who has discovered the wrecks of numerous lost ships over the course of his career, said. "I'm a marine biologist by profession. But maritime history is my real passion. I like going out and trying to identify wrecks because every one has a fascinating story. I'm just a very curious guy."

The search for the wreck began thousands of miles away from the Bermuda Triangle in London, England. Barnette contacted British historian Guy Walters and asked him to dig through the archives of Lloyd's of London, which contains insurance documents related to the ship's fateful voyage.

During his search, Walters managed to uncover evidence that the Cotopaxi had sent out a distress signal on December 1, 1925—a key piece of information that historians had not previously known about.

"A lot of times, it's more important to spend more time in the archives researching than it is on the water, because that's when you will make the discoveries in all these articles for insurance or things of that nature," he told Newsweek.

According to the documents he uncovered, the distress signals were picked up in Jacksonville, Florida, placing the ship in the vicinity of the so-called Bear Wreck—located off the coast of St. Augustine—which has baffled experts for decades.

The waters off the coast of St. Augustine—a thriving port in colonial times—are filled with 16th and 17th century shipwrecks. The Bear Wreck, however, stands out from these in a number of ways. Firstly, it appears to be from the late 19th or early 20th century, and is located much further off the coast than most of the other older shipwrecks. The ship's real name and the reason it sank have long remained a mystery.

Michael Barnette, Bear Wreck

Michael Barnette diving the Bear Wreck.

DISCOVERY COMMUNICATIONS, LLC

With the evidence uncovered by Walters, Barnette and his dive partner Joe Citelli decided to conduct a series of dives at the Bear Wreck in order to look for an artifact that could link it to the Cotopaxi. Specifically, they wanted to find an object with the vessel's name on it—something commonly found on the bell of ships.

However, such discoveries are rare and despite the use of a remotely operated underwater vehicle, the divers did not find what they were looking for, in part, because the wreck is covered in large quantities of sand.

Barnette got in touch with Al Perkins, a diver who has been exploring the Bear Wreck for more than three decades, collecting numerous objects from it in the process. One of the items in his collection seemed to provide a clue to the wreck's origins.

The object was a valve that had been manufactured by a company based around 12 miles from where the Cotopaxi was built—in Ecorse, Michigan. But was this a coincidence or a piece of evidence linking the Bear Wreck to the Cotopaxi?

Barnette reached out to Chuck Meide and Brendan Burke from the St. Augustine Lighthouse & Maritime Museum—two experts on the shipwrecks in the waters surrounding the city.

Under the guidance of Meide and Burke, Barnette conducted more dives to collect measurements of the Bear Wreck. These were then compared with the original plans of the Cotopaxi. The team discovered that numerous features—including the length of the vessel and dimensions of the boilers—matched the measurements they had taken.

Finally, Barnette received a crucial piece of information from Walters, who had been carrying out research at the National Archives of New York. There, the historian found documents from a legal case that the families of some of the missing crewmen had brought against the Cotopaxi's operator—the Clinchfield Navigation company. They argued the ship was unseaworthy and unsuited to rough ocean conditions.

In the documents, the president of the company countered that this was not the case and the only reason the ship sunk was because she had been caught in a large storm off the Florida coast—one that is attested in historical weather records on the day that the Cotopaxi sent out distress signals.

In his testimony the president reported the last known coordinates of the Cotopaxi, which were dated to November 30, 1925. Barnette plotted these coordinates on a map, placing the ship 22 miles north of the Bear Wreck on this date, on what would appear to be the vessel's expected course if it was traveling its regular route from Charleston to Havana.

For the team, this was the final piece of the puzzle linking the Cotopaxi to the Bear Wreck. Given that a storm would strike the area the next day—and the evidence from the legal documents indicating that the vessel was not seaworthy—the researchers also appeared to have uncovered a possible explanation for the ship's sinking.

The team believes these final coordinates, coupled with a distress signal being sent from the ship the next day, and historic records showing a storm had hit the area, are further evidence to show the Bear Wreck the site of the sunken Cotopaxi.

"We approach all these shipwrecks kind of like a cold case murder case, right? You know, you have the body there. You try and gain whatever information you can. There's a whole bunch of tools that we use to try to identify these wrecks," Barnette said.

He described the moment of realization that the Bear Wreck is probably the final resting place of the Cotopaxi as like a "jolt of electricity."

underwater autonomous vehicle

A remotely operated underwater vehicle which the team used to explore the Bear Wreck.

DISCOVERY COMMUNICATIONS, LLC

"A lot of times it is very emotional because first you are excited that your theory is correct. There's also an emotional rollercoaster because you realize, 'wait a second, this is a grave site which marks the final resting spot spot of the crew members that went down with the vessel.' So there's a responsibility to try and reach out to the families so we can help give closure to them," he said.

"Myself and other wreck divers around the world, when we identify these wrecks, sometimes we're writing the final chapter in the story or sometimes we're actually rewriting history," he said. "What people assume actually happened sometimes is not the case."

Barnette adds that paranormal explanations for the disappearances of ships and aircraft in the Bermuda Triangle—which have frequently been debunked by experts—often distract from what's really important.

"Each one of these shipwreck stories is their own saga, and a lot of times you kind of hit on the Bermuda Triangle. But the Bermuda Triangle is not the story, it's the drama that unfolds on these individual shipwrecks, and aircraft."

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

31-01-2020 om 23:20 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:MYSTERIES ( Fr, Nl, E)

Space-time is swirling around a dead star, proving Einstein right again

By Charles Q. Cho

Space-time is indeed churned by massive rotating bodies, as scientists had thought.

Artist’s illustration of Lense-Thirring frame-dragging resulting from a rotating white dwarf in the PSR J1141-6545 binary star system.

(Image: © Mark Myers, ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery (OzGrav))

The way the fabric of space and time swirls in a cosmic whirlpool around a dead star has confirmed yet another prediction from Einstein's theory of general relativity, a new study finds.

That prediction is a phenomenon known as frame dragging, or the Lense-Thirring effect. It states that space-time will churn around a massive, rotating body. For example, imagine Earth were submerged in honey. As the planet rotated, the honey around it would swirl — and the same holds true with space-time.

Satellite experiments have detected frame dragging in the gravitational field of rotating Earth, but the effect is extraordinarily small and, therefore, has been challenging to measure. Objects with greater masses and more powerful gravitational fields, such as white dwarfs and neutron stars, offer better chances to see this phenomenon.

Related: Albert Einstein: Biography, theories and quotes

Scientists focused on PSR J1141-6545, a young pulsar about 1.27 times the mass of the sun. The pulsar is located 10,000 to 25,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Musca (the fly), which is near the famous Southern Cross constellation.

A pulsar is a fast-spinning neutron star that emits radio waves along its magnetic poles. (Neutron stars are corpses of stars that died in catastrophic explosions known as supernovas; the gravity of these remnants is powerful enough to crush protons together with electrons to form neutrons.)

PSR J1141-6545 circles a white dwarf with a mass about the same as the sun's. White dwarfs are the superdense Earth-size cores of dead stars that are left behind after average-size stars have exhausted their fuel and shed their outer layers. Our sun will end up as a white dwarf one day, as will more than 90% of all stars in our galaxy.

The pulsar orbits the white dwarf in a tight, fast orbit less than 5 hours long, hurtling through space at about 620,000 mph (1 million km/h), with a maximum separation between the stars barely larger than the size of our sun, study lead author Vivek Venkatraman Krishnan, an astrophysicist at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Germany, told Space.com.

The researchers measured when pulses from the pulsar arrived at Earth to an accuracy within 100 microseconds over a period of nearly 20 years, using the Parkes and UTMOST radio telescopes in Australia. This allowed them to detect a long-term drift in the way the pulsar and white dwarf orbit each other.

After eliminating other possible causes of this drift, the scientists concluded that it was the result of frame dragging: The way the rapidly spinning white dwarf pulls on space-time has caused the pulsar's orbit to change its orientation slowly over time. Based on the level of frame dragging, the researchers calculated that the white dwarf whirls on its axis about 30 times an hour.

Previous research suggested that the white dwarf formed before the pulsar in this binary system. One prediction of such theoretical models is that, before the pulsar-forming supernova occurred, the progenitor of the pulsar shed nearly 20,000 Earth masses' worth of matter onto the white dwarf over the course of about 16,000 years, boosting its rate of spin.

"Systems like PSR J1141-6545, where the pulsar is younger than the white dwarf, are quite rare," Venkatraman Krishnan said. The new study "confirms a long-standing hypothesis of how this binary system came to be, something that was proposed over two decades ago."

The researchers noted that they used frame dragging to yield insight into the rotating star that caused it. In the future, they said, they can use a similar method to analyze binary neutron stars to learn more about their internal composition, "which, even after more than 50 years of observing them, we do not yet have a handle on," Venkatraman Krishnan said. "The density of matter inside a neutron star far exceeds what can be achieved in a lab, so there is a wealth of new physics to be learnt by using this technique to double neutron-star systems."

The scientists detailed their findings online today (Jan. 30) in the journal Science.

Follow Charles Q. Choi on Twitter @cqchoi. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

31-01-2020 om 22:50 geschreven door peter

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Telescoop maakt meest gedetailleerde foto’s van de zon ooit - HLN.be

Bron: AD.nl

ADR

WETENSCHAP & PLANEET Wetenschappers hebben de meest gedetailleerde beelden van de zon ooit gemaakt. Ze komen van een gloednieuwe Inouye-zonnetelescoop op Hawaï en laten zien hoe de zon uit een soort poffende maïskorrels bestaat.

Stukje Frankrijk

Maar wat zien we eigenlijk?

De borrelende ‘gouden’ celachtige structuren zijn opstijgende delen plasma van ongeveer 6.000 graden Celsius warm. Eén zo’n ‘blokje’ i ongeveer zo groot als Frankrijk en stijgt op naar de oppervlakte, ontploft als het ware en laat zijn hitte los, om vervolgens weer ‘afgekoeld’ de zon in te verdwijnen en plaats te maken voor ander opstijgend plasma.

“Eerst leek het erop alsof we naar een helder punt keken, naar één enkele structuur. Maar nu zien we die uiteenvallen in veel kleinere structuren”, legt Rimmele uit.

EPA

IJsbad

De zonnetelescoop staat op de top van de drie kilometer hoge Haleakala-vulkaan op Hawaï en de spiegel heeft een doorsnee van vier meter, de grootste ter wereld. Omdat deze spiegel extreem heet kan worden, staat de telescoop in een ijszwembad zodat het apparaat niet oververhit kan raken. Er is voor twaalf kilometer aan waterleidingen aangelegd om het ijsbad aan te vullen.

Met de nieuwe beelden kunnen wetenschappers beter onderzoek doen naar de natuur- en scheikundige functies van de zon en daarmee het ruimteweer beter voorspellen. En dat is niet alles, zegt Rimmele: “Met de nieuwe instrumenten die de komende zes maanden in gebruik genomen gaan worden, kunnen we de magnetische velden rond het zonoppervlak meten.”

via REUTERS

31-01-2020 om 22:17 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:HLN.be - Het Laatste Nieuws ( NL)

Glowing green 'dunes' in the sky mesmerized skygazers. They turned out to be a new kind of aurora.

By Yasemin Saplakoglu - Staff Writer

This new aurora, discovered by citizen scientists and dubbed "the dunes" extends out horizontally in waves. Scientists hypothesize that they are visible representations of underlying gravity waves.

(Image: © Kari Saari)

When mysterious glowing stripes of green lit up Finnish skies in 2018, it didn't go unnoticed by avid aurora chasers. The pattern of light was unfamiliar and strangely perfect, reaching out toward the horizon like a set of celestial sand dunes.

Sure enough, the light show dubbed by the citizen scientists as "the dunes" turned out to be a new type of aurora. This aurora is formed by the dramatic dance of gravity waves and oxygen atoms, according to new findings published today (Jan. 29) in the journal AGU Advances.

The path to discovery began years ago when a group of aurora enthusiasts emailed Minna Palmroth, a professor of computational space physics at the University of Helsinki, asking her to join their Facebook group. The goal? Have Palmroth explain the physics behind the auroras they were photographing.

Related: Aurora Photos: Northern Lights Dazzle in Night-Sky Images

Palmroth was happy to do so. After a while, she realized her answers were becoming repetitive — so she went on to publish an aurora guidebook. But in October 2018, the aurora chasers came back to her with images of a puzzling aurora.

"Then I realized that oh no ... I haven't seen these before," Palmroth told Live Science. Upon first look, these stripes looked to be the result of gravity waves, or density disturbances in the upper atmosphere. The upper atmosphere is streaked with many different gravity waves that run in different directions and are of different frequencies and sizes. But that explanation didn't seem possible, because the waves were so evenly spread.

So Palmroth and her team organized a campaign for the evening of Oct. 7, gathering scientists and citizens throughout Finland to photograph the dunes. By analyzing these photographs, the team began to understand the physics behind the phenomenon.

This isn't the first time aurora chasers have identified a new celestial phenomenon; citizen scientists also discovered the sky glow affectionately dubbed STEVE in 2018.

"Collaborations with citizen scientists are getting increasingly important because they can become 'mobile sensors' that chase interesting aurora easily and catch new features that scientists didn't notice before," said Toshi Nishimura, a research associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Boston University's Center for Space Physics, who was not part of the study.

The dunes (marked by the magenta circles) as seen from two different locations in Finland (Ruovesi and Laitila) on Oct. 7. (Image credit: AGU Advances/Palmroth et. al.)

Invisible gravity waves

Auroras result when the sun hurls charged particles toward our planet. Those particles travel along the magnetic field lines at our planet's poles and slam into the atoms and molecules in our atmosphere, causing those molecules to emit light. These stunning light shows can come in many different shapes and colors; oxygen glows in green and red while nitrogen glows in blue and purple, according to NASA. Astronomers also use the shape of auroras to learn what's happening in the upper atmosphere where they form.

While most auroras extend vertically, the dunes extend out toward the equator horizontally in undulating waves. No one had observed such a wave-like structure in an aurora before, Palmroth said.

The scientists theorize that the dunes are lighting up a type of rare atmospheric gravity wave called mesospheric bores. These mesospheric bores occur when a gravity wave that's rising up in the atmosphere becomes bent and sandwiched between two relatively colder layers of the atmosphere — the inversion layer, 49.7 miles (80 kilometers) high, and the mesopause, 62 miles (100 km) high.

In this channel, the waves propagate horizontally and over long distances without subsiding, creating alternating folds that are either enriched with oxygen or depleted of oxygen. When the electrons from the sun stream in, the folds with higher oxygen levels light up more than the places lacking in oxygen, creating the characteristic stripes.

Rarely, a gravity wave rising up in the atmosphere can be sandwiched between the mesopause and an inversion layer, causing it to propagate horizontally and travel long distances without subsiding.

(Image credit: Jani Närhi)

"This is a very interesting observation," said Steven Miller, the deputy director of the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere at Colorado State University, who was not a part of the study. "My first reaction when seeing the pictures were that those might be atmospheric gravity waves that are being 'highlighted' by the auroral activity — it appears that this is the hypothesis of the authors as well."

Mesospheric bores can account for the patterns seen in the dunes, but "I surmise that [these] 'dunes' are in fact a subset of a much more widespread region of atmospheric gravity waves that happen to be highlighted by the aurora," Miller told Live Science.

By using stars in the photos as reference points, the team was able to calculate the altitude of the dunes to be around 62 miles (100 km) high, which is typical of auroras. But this poorly studied region of the atmosphere is too high to measure with radars and balloons, and too low to send spacecraft without them burning up. So it's sometimes called the "ignorosphere," Palmroth said.

"This is the first time these gravity waves are observed," Palmroth said. "In general the bores are rather a rare phenomenon." But observing the dunes could reveal more about the bores, Palmroth said.

For instance, scientists found that the dunes occur at the same time and in the same region where electromagnetic energy from space transfers to the upper atmosphere, which Palmroth suspects could be connected to the creation of the inversion layer mesospheric bores. "We want to see whether this is really true," she said.

Originally published on Live Science

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

31-01-2020 om 21:13 geschreven door peter

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Amateur Astronomers Discover New Type Of Aurora Borealis

This new aurora, discovered by citizen scientists and dubbed "the dunes" extends out horizontally in waves. Scientists hypothesize that they are visible representations of underlying gravity waves.

(Image: © Kari Saari)

Amateur Astronomers Discover New Type Of Aurora Borealis

Amateur astronomers have found a new type of aurora borealis that looks like sand dunes and has been appropriately nicknamed “the dunes”. This new type of aurora is the result of gravity waves and oxygen atoms dancing in the night sky.

Interestingly, it was by pure chance that this new type of light show was discovered. When Minna Palmroth, who is a professor of computational space physics at the University of Helsinki, asked the public to send her pictures of the Northern Lights for an aurora guidebook, she was surprised to find that one of the photos taken in Finland didn’t match any previous known types of auroras.

“Then I realized that oh no … I haven’t seen these before,” Palmroth told Live Science in reference to the photo which captured the stripes that were spread so evenly. The majority of auroras extend upwards, but “the dunes” stretched out horizontally in smooth waves which had never been observed before.

“This is the first time these gravity waves are observed,” she said, adding, “In general the bores are rather a rare phenomenon.” The team was able to calculate that “the dunes” were approximately 62 miles up in the sky.

Aurora Borealis

Scientists believe that “the dunes” illuminate a gravity wave that’s called mesospheric bores that are quite rare. When a gravity wave ends up being bent and caught between two cooler layers of atmosphere – the inversion layer (49.7 miles up) and the mesopause (62 miles up) – that’s when mesospheric bores happen.

The stripes in the aurora occur when the sun’s electrons stream into the waves and the folds that contain higher levels of oxygen which show brighter colors than those with little oxygen which ultimately causes the stripe patterns. The researchers’ study was published in the journal AGU Advances and can be read in full here.

“This is a very interesting observation,” Steven Miller, who is the deputy director of the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere at Colorado State University, told Live Science, adding, “My first reaction when seeing the pictures were that those might be atmospheric gravity waves that are being ‘highlighted’ by the auroral activity — it appears that this is the hypothesis of the authors as well.” He went on to say, “I surmise that [these] ‘dunes’ are in fact a subset of a much more widespread region of atmospheric gravity waves that happen to be highlighted by the aurora.”

Pictures of “the dunes” can be seen here.

STEVE (Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement)

As exciting as this is, this isn’t the first time in recent years that a new type of light show has been discovered in the night sky. A “sky glow” named “STEVE” (Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement) was discovered and it was a non-aurora mysterious type of phenomenon. An aurora borealis typically shines green, blue or reddish colors, but STEVE is a slim beam of purplish-white light which extends up to 600 miles in the sky.

31-01-2020 om 20:56 geschreven door peter

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Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard Face UFO Questions in New Hampshire

New Hampshire is a mandatory stop on all presidential campaigns … in fact, multiple visits are generally required before the state’ early and influential primary (held on February 11 this year). However, some candidates stumping in the “Live Free or Die” state have been opting to ‘sneak out and live’ when it comes to answering tough questions about UFO, X-files and full disclosure by an intrepid reporter for The Conway Daily Sun, which has been holding informal question-and-answer sessions for all presidential campaign visitors. Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg, Andrew Yang and some of the lesser-known candidates have already given a variety of answers. The latest were Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard. Let’s see if their UFO views can influence your vote.

“I have not. To be very honest with you. It’s not something that I’ve been spending a lot of time on.”

Tulsi Gabbard

That’s Tulsi Gabbard’s entire answer to Daymond Steer’s question about whether she’s given any thoughts to the recent revelations about UFO encounters in 2004 with US military jets (a New Hampshire resident was one of the pilots) from the USS Nimitz. (Watch the entire interview here. Question is around 42:30.) That brief response was surprising, given Gabbard’s openness in the rest of her interview, her own personal experience as a veteran still serving and her current membership on many congressional defense committees. Gabbard served in the Hawaii Army National Guard and had a 12-month deployment in Iraq in 2004. After being commissioned as a second lieutenant, she served in Kuwait in 2008 and 2009. Gabbard is now a major in the Hawaii Army National Guard.
More interesting is the list of congressional committees Gabbard serves on. At the top are the
Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities and Subcommittee on Readiness – both would seem to be places where Gabbard might have heard about military encounters with UFOs, whether they be alien or foreign military crafts. She is also the founder and co-chair of the Diversifying Technology Caucus, co-chair of the Range and Testing Center Caucus and a member of the Missile Defense Caucus. While it’s true that she’s also a member of dozens of other caucuses, as an active member of the military it would seem obvious that she’d have an interest in and exposure to military UFO encounters. Perhaps she does … and doesn’t want to or can’t talk about them. Would that change if she’s elected?

Bernie Sanders

Another candidate who was a little more loquacious was Bernie Sanders. While he exclaimed “Let’s not jump the gun here!” when asked if he’d be interested if UFOs were using green technology, Sanders admitted that “my wife would never forgive me” if he didn’t look into UFOs if elected. (Watch the entire interview here. Question is around 42:00) He also we should look into unexplained encounters like the Nimitiz incident” if they’re true.” Sanders had fun with the question but gave a serious answer.
Who’s next on New Hampshire’s UFO hotseat? They haven’t yet heard from Joe Biden or Elizabeth Warren. Whoever the Democratic nominee might be, will President Trump answer the same question? He’s already said “Not particularly” when asked if he believes in UFOs. Would he be able to avoid answering if asked again by Daymond Steer?

Have you made up your mind yet?

31-01-2020 om 20:32 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:UFOs , UAPs , USOS

New York Now Requires a Permit to Look for UFOs, Meteors and Stars

If you’re someone who watches for UFOs (and who isn’t these days), you may want to avoid doing it in the state of New York. The Empire State isn’t prone to abductions (at least, not of the alien kind) but it is prone to requiring permits for everything (ask any New York street vendor) and now it’s requiring permits for spotting UFOs. Before you ask … we are NOT making this up!

STARGAZING PERMIT
Requirements:
Fee of $35.00, $60-Out of State – Vehicle Registration and Driver’s License Required
Permit allows after sunset parking for stargazing only, valid January 1 – December 31 at:
Hither Hills – Except July & August
Jones Beach – West End 2 and Field 6
Montauk Point – Upper Parking Lot
Robert Moses – Field 2
Gov. Alfred E. Smith/Sunken Meadow – Field 1 & Field 3
Wildwood – Main Parking Lot
Sold at: Babylon Headquarters-Permit Office (beginning January 2nd), Jones Beach, Montauk Downs,
Robert Moses, Governor Alfred E. Smith/Sunken Meadow and Wildwood
Stargazing Permits are only sold January 1 – March 31 and the Tuesday after Labor Day –
December 31.

Obviously, you don’t want to tell the park ranger you don’t need a permit because you’re UFO spotting, not stargazing. Both involve looking up at the night sky, which seems to be the logical issue here. The permit from the Park, Recreation and Historic Preservation Department is obviously designed to cut down on night traffic in some popular parks on Long Island, although it’s not for ‘driving’ but for ‘stargazing’, so it affects those who walk, Uber or take public transportation too. It also doesn’t say of the permit is for one vehicle or one person. Oh, and before you ask … yes, these are public parks paid for with your (if you’re a New Yorker) tax dollars.

You have the right to remain silent …

There are so many questions, it’s hard to pick a place to start. Why charge out-of-staters extra? Do stargazers and UFO spotters from New Jersey litter more than New Yorkers? Why does it require a driver’s license? That seems to be discriminatory against those without licenses for whatever reason. What do those license go towards? Will the park use them to remove curbs, logs, boulders and other obstructions so stargazers and UFO watchers don’t trip while not looking where they’re walking? Some cities are doing this for walking cellphone users … why not make THEM get a permit first? They definitely outnumber stargazers and UFO watchers. How soon before this gets applied to other New York parks? Public streets? Rooftops of government housing?

There’s more. How will a park ranger decide if a person who face is turned towards the night sky is looking at stars or bats or UFOs or something else? Isn’t this unfair to the person on the bottom of a couple having traditional missionary sex on the grass? Will displaying the permit allow them to have traditional missionary sex without being bothered if one (or if they’re kinky, both) are facing skyward?

Crowd surfer or illegal UFO spotter?

Is this fair? Is this American? Is this extortion? Is this New York gouging its citizens and tourists again?

Neil deGrasse Tyson
@neiltyson
No. Back in the day, you didn’t need permission to look up at the sky

This is not a left or right issue – the permit fees will be collected no matter who is in office. If you live in New York, contact Governor Cuomo’s office and voice your concerns. If you plan to visit New York, be careful where you look up. If you get stopped, tell the ranger you have a stiff neck. If he asks for a doctor’s note … welcome to New York. You’re screwed.

The skies are free. Looking for stars, UFOs or whatever you seek in the heavens is a right. Keep your heads up!

31-01-2020 om 20:15 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:UFOs , UAPs , USOS

More on Roswell, Russia and “Project Blue Book”

My previous article was focused on the latest episode of History Channel’s Project Blue Book. That same episode was on the subject of Roswell. It mentioned a story – near the end of the show – told in Annie Jacobsen’s 2011 book, Area 51. In her book, Jacobsen tells of how she was able to speak with an elderly man who would have been in the right place and at the right time to know what really happened at Roswell in July 1947. According to Jacobsen’s source/whistle-blower (who was outed by UFO researcher Tony Bragalia as an elderly man named Alfred O’Donnell) what came down outside of Roswell, New Mexico in July 1947 was not a UFO from another world. Nor was it a weather-balloon or a Mogul balloon. And, apparently, there was not even a single crash-test dummy anywhere in sight. O’Donnell made the controversial claim that the craft and its crew originated in the Soviet Union.

O’Donnell said that Joseph Stalin – the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1952 and Premier from 1941 to 1953 – was the driving force behind what was, supposedly, a diabolical, manipulative plot designed to make the U.S. government and the people of the United States think that an alien invasion was underway. The purpose: to plunge America into a state of overwhelming terror. And how did the Soviets supposedly try and achieve this? By (A) having Josef Mengele (one of the most vile, evil, deranged figures who ever lived) surgically alter a number of children, to make them appear alien-like; and (B) using the aircraft designs of a pair of brothers in the world of aviation (Reimar and Walter Horten), and have them create a strange-looking aircraft. The plot, then, was to try and make the U.S. government believe that aliens had come to Earth – and, in the process, causing terror and hysteria in the United States. The story continues that the whole thing collapsed when the “alien spacecraft” fell to earth outside of Roswell, and was promptly and secretly retrieved by the U.S. military. The outcome: the Russians’ plot collapsed and what happened at Roswell was quickly hidden.

There are significant reasons to believe that the story O’Donnell told was not true. Without doubt, one of the most important official documents in the saga of the story told to Annie Jacobsen by Alfred O’Donnell is a certain December 1947 document. It addresses U.S. Intelligence’s deep interest in the Horten brothers – as well as the U.S. Government’s determination to confirm or deny that the brothers had created a flying saucer-style craft. The document is so important (and lengthy!) that I have presented it below, in full. The author of the document was Lieutenant Colonel Harry H. Pretty, and the title of the document was Horten Brothers (Flying Saucers). Prepared by the HQ Berlin Command, Office of Military Government for Germany (US), it was sent to the Deputy Director of Intelligence, European Command, Frankfurt, U.S. Army. And it reads as follows:

‘The Horten brothers, Reimar and Walter, are residing in Goettingen at present. However, both of them are traveling a great deal throughout the Bi-Zone. Walter at present is travelling in Bavaria in search of a suitable place of employment. It is believed that he may have contacted USAFE Headquarters in Wiesbaden for possible evacuation to the United States under ‘Paper Clip.’ Reimar is presently studying advanced mathematics at the university of Bonn, and is about to obtain his doctor’s degree. It is believed that when his studies are completed he intends to accept a teaching position at the Institute for Technology (Technische Hochschule) in Braunshweig sometime in February or March 1948.

“Both brothers are exceedingly peculiar and can be easily classified as eccentric and individualistic. Especially is this so of Reimar. He is the one who developed the theory of the flying wing and subsequently of all the models and aircrafts built by the brothers. Walter, on the other hand is the engineer who tried to put into practice the several somewhat fantastic ideas of his brother. The clash of personalities resulted in a continuous quarrel and friction between the two brothers. Reimar was always developing new ideas which would increase the speed of the aircraft or improve its maneuverability; Walter on the other hand was tearing down the fantastic ideas of his brother by practical calculations and considerations.

Horten IX engineering drawing

“The two men worked together up to and including the ‘Horten VIII’ a flying wing intended to be a fighter plane powered with two Hirt engines (HM-60-R) with a performance of approximately 650 horsepower each. After the ‘Horten VIII’ was finished, one of the usual and frequent quarrels separated the two brothers temporarily. Walter went to work alone on the ‘Horten IX,’ which is a fighter plane of the flying wing design, with practically no changes from the model VIII except for the engines. Walter substituted the Hirt engines with BMW Jets of the type TL-004. The plane was made completely of plywood and was furnished with a Messerschmitt ME-109 landing gear.

“The model of this aircraft (Horten IX) was tested extensively in the supersonic wind tunnel (Mach No. 1.0) of the aero-dynamic testing institute (Aerodynamische Versuchsanstalt), located in Goettingen. The tests were conducted in the late summer of 1944 under the personal supervision of Professor Betz, chief of the institute. Betz at that time was approximately sixty years old and next to Prandtel (then seventy-eight years old), was considered to be the best man on aerodynamics in Germany. Betz’s attitude toward the flying wing is very conservative to say the least. Basically he is against the design of any flying wing. According to the official reports about the tests, air disturbances were created on the wing tips, resulting in air vacuums, which in turn would prevent the steering mechanism from functioning properly. This seems logical as, of course, neither the ailerons nor the rudders could properly accomplish their function in a partial vacuum created by air disturbances and whirls.

“In spite of that, two Horten IX’s were built and tried out by a test pilot, Eugen (now living in Goettingen) at Rechlin in the fall of 1944. One of the two planes, piloted by another test pilot, developed trouble with one of the jet engines while the pilot was trying to ascertain the maximum rate of climb. The right jet stopped suddenly, causing the aircraft to go into an immediate spin and subsequent crash in which the pilot was killed. Eugen, however, was more fortunate in putting the other ship through all the necessary paces without the least trouble. He maintains that the maximum speed attained was around 950 km per hour, and that there were no steering difficulties whatsoever, and that the danger of both head and tail spins was no greater that any other conventional aircraft.

“After extensive tests, the Horten IX was accepted by the German Air Force as represented by Goering, who ordered immediate mass production. The first order went to Gothaer Waggon Fabrik, located in Gotha (Thuringia) in January 1945. Goering requested that ten planes be built immediately and that the entire factory was to concentrate and be converted to the production of the Horten IX. The firm in question received all the plans and designs of the ship. In spite of this explicit order, production of the Horten IX was never started. The technical manager of the firm, Berthold, immediately upon receipt of the plans, submitted a number of suggestions to improve the aircraft. It is believed that his intention was to eliminate the Horten brothers as inventors and to modify the ship to such an extent that it would be more his brain child than anybody else’s. Numerous letters were exchanged from High Command of the German Air Force and Dr. Berthold, which finally were interrupted by the armistice in May 1945. When US troops occupied the town of Gotha, the designs of the Horten IX were kept in hiding and not handed over to American Military authorities. The original designs in possession of the Horten brothers were hidden in a salt mine in Salzdettfurt, but the model tested by Eugen was destroyed in April 1945. The original designs were recovered from Salzdettfurt by British authorities in the summer of 1945.

The Horten IX

(Wikipedia)

“The Horten brothers, together with Dr. Betz, Eugen and Dr. Stueper (the test pilot of the aerodynamic institute in Goettingen), were invited to go to England in the late summer of 1945 where they remained for approximately ninety days. They were interrogated and questioned about their ideas and were given several problems to work on. However Reimar was very unwilling to cooperate to any extent whatsoever, unless an immediate contract was offered to him and his brother. Walter, on the other hand, not being a theoretician, was unable to comply and Reimar was sufficiently stubborn not to move a finger. Upon their return to Goettingen Walter remained in contact with British authorities and was actually paid a salary by the British between October 1945 and April 1946, as the British contemplated but never did offer him employment. Walter subsequently had a final argument with his brother and the two decided to part. Reimar then went to the university of Bonn to obtain his degree, and Walter organized an engineering office in Goettingen which served as a cover firm to keep him out of trouble with the labor authorities. Walter married Fraulein von der Groeben, an extremely intelligent woman, former chief secretary to Air Force General Udet.

“In the spring of 1947 Walter Horten heard about the flying wing design in the United states by Northrop and decided to write Northrop for employment. He was answered in the summer of 1947 by a letter in which Northrop pointed out that he, himself, could not do anything to get him over to the States, but that he would welcome it very much if he could come to the United States and take up employment with the firm. He recommended that Walter should get in touch with USAFE Headquarters in Wiesbaden in order to obtain necessary clearance.

“As can be seen from the above, most of the Hortens’ work took place in Western Germany. According to our source, neither of the brothers ever had any contact with any representative of the Soviet Air Force or any other foreign power. In spite of the fact that Reimar is rather disgusted with the British for not offering him a contract, it is believed very unlikely that he has approached the Soviet authorities in order to sell out to them. The only possible link between the Horten brothers and the Soviet authorities is the fact that a complete set of plans and designs were hidden at the Gothaer Waggon Fabrik and the knowledge of this is known by Dr. Berthold and a number of other engineers. It is possible and likely that either Berthold or any of the others having knowledge of the Horten IX would have sold out to the Soviet authorities for one of a number of reasons. However, this will be checked upon in the future, and it is hoped that contact with the Gothaer Waggon Fabrik can be established.

“As far as the ‘flying saucer’ is concerned, a number of people were contacted in order to verify whether or not any such design at any time was contemplated or existed in the files of any German air research institute. The people contacted included the following: Walter Horten.
Fraulein von der Groeben, former Secretary to Air Force General Udet Guenter. Heinrich, former office for research of the High Command of the Air Force in Berlin. Professor Betz, former chief of Aerodynamic Institute in Goettingen. Eugen, former test pilot.

“All the above mentioned people contacted independently and at different times are very insistent on the fact that to their knowledge and belief no such design ever existed nor was projected by any of the German air research institutions. While they agree that such a design would be highly practical and desirable, they do not know anything about its possible realization now or in the past.”

Unloading a captured Horten IX

( Wikipedia)

That’s where we end with the text of the document. It is valuable on two counts: it’s clear that certain elements of U.S. Intelligence and the military were interested in, and concerned by, the possibility that the Horten brothers had developed some kind of radical, flying saucer-type aircraft. But, as the document also shows, no such evidence was ever found. Of course, those who buy into the Stalin-Mengele angle would likely say that the truth of the Roswell affair was buried so deeply that not even the team that went searching for the answers, and which appear in Lieutenant Pretty’s report, had access to such highly-classified data. The fact is, though, that none of the available data or documentation at all confirmed the Horten brothers succeeded in creating and flying a craft that most people would describe as a UFO. It was all rumor.

When it comes to the story as told to Annie Jacobsen by Alfred O’Donnell, there are two, main possibilities: the story of the Russian/Nazi saucers, the terribly-altered children, and the plan to destabilize the United States by creating a faked alien intrusion, is either (A) true or (B) disinformation. Personally, I find the scenario of surgically-altered children remotely flown to the United States, and all the way from Russia, to be far more unlikely than the idea that aliens crashed. And, also with regard to my skepticism, there are the two most important questions of all. The first goes like this: if the Russians had indeed got their hands on a Horten-built – or a Horten-inspired – aircraft that could perform all kinds of aerial feats, and out-perform anything that the United States was flying at the time, then why on earth would they allow such a technologically-advanced craft to fall into the hands of the U.S. military? That angle makes no sense at all. It would be akin to the United States, in the Second World War, handing over the secrets of the atomic bomb to Adolf Hitler. When those poor children exited the craft and stood before shocked government officials – which was surely a major part of the Soviet plan – U.S. authorities would have grabbed the craft immediately. And the Russians must have known that the American military would do exactly that.

That latter point leads into the second and final question: if the Soviets were so intent on having the U.S. Government believe that the object which came down at Roswell was extraterrestrial, what the hell would have prompted them to have on display, inside the craft, what Jacobsen described as “Russian writing,” and as “letters from the Cyrillic alphabet?” Such an instant giveaway would have completely and quickly ruined Stalin’s plans to deceive America. Unless, of course, you believe that aliens speak and write in Russian, which is an even more bullshit scenario. Over the years, Ufology has been infiltrated by Nazi-loving scum. It would not surprise me at all if O’Donnell may have been deceived by just such a figure;, someone in Ufology looking to fly the flag of those pathetic, scum-fucks known as the “master race.”

31-01-2020 om 20:08 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:UFOs , UAPs , USOS

Triangle UFO video – Schenectady, NY – 30-Jan-2020

Amazing 2020 UFO sighting of a triangular-shaped formation in the night sky above Schenectady, New York. Date: 30th January 2020.

Witness report:

I was outside letting my dogs out when I spotted a boomerang flying towards me, what grabbed my attention was the one green light blinking on a wing and a red one blinking next to it on the same side, it flew over my head, I did not have my phone on me but my wife did, as we got video, the red and green light stopped, and it banked west and slowly dissapeard, I’ve never seen a stealth bomber, it could of been one.

31-01-2020 om 19:41 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

Humans will be happy if aliens invade Earth, scientists find

The work represents some of the first detailed research on how humans would react to meeting aliens

Andrew Griffin @_andrew_griffin

Meagan Shrewsbury and Kim Galyen dress as aliens during the solar eclipse

( Reuters )

Humans will actually be very happy to meet aliens, according to new research.

Hollywood might have led us to expect that an alien invasion would be greeted with tanks and guns. But some of the first serious research into how people would feel about meeting extraterrestrials shows that we would be far more positive than you might think.

"If we came face to face with life outside of Earth, we would actually be pretty upbeat about it," said Arizona State University Assistant Professor of Psychology Michael Varnum. "So far, there's been a lot of speculation about how we might respond to this kind of news, but until now, almost no systematic empirical research."

To explore how people might react, scientists had them read news reports about a number of potential alien discoveries. They then found out how they were feeling after doing so – exploring whether they seemed excited or fearful – using a special software programme that could analyse people's language.

Their reactions were very positive, the researchers found. Subjects said they would be excited even if the life was primitive or happening elsewhere – as any encounter with extraterrestrials is likely to actually be

Further work had people describe how they thought microbial life would be found on another planet, and how they would react. Again, the software found that people were more positive about that news than negative.

Another study divided into people two groups, and had them read stories about the potential discovery of alien life or the possible creation of synthetic human life in a lab. It found they were very excited to read about the alien life – far more excited than they would be about the creation of life on Earth.

And additional research looked at one of the most famous pieces of news about the potential of alien life in recent weeks. Scientists had people read about the suggestion that a a rock flying past Earth – known as Oumuamua – could in fact be an alien spacecraft, in news that sounded like something out of science fiction.

It found that people were very excited about that possibility, despite the fact it could mean aliens were headed towards Earth.

Professor Varnum said that taken together the studies seemed to suggest "if we find out we're not alone, we'll take the news rather well".

{ https://www.independent.co.uk/ }

31-01-2020 om 00:48 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )

30-01-2020

What are these strange lights floating above a Mexican volcano? UFO hunters say they could be aliens monitoring the Earth

The lights were spotted above the Popocatepetl volcano in Mexico
Alien hunters say ET may be monitoring the Earth's geothermal activity
UFOs may be composed of plasma that glows at night and appears metallic
These UFOs cast EM fields that some scientists say trigger hallucinations

By ELLIE ZOLFAGHARIFARD FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

Volcanoes have been a favourite site for alien hunters over the years.

Now a strange series of lights above the Popocatepetl volcano in Mexico have got conspiracy theorists excited once again.

The sightings, they say, suggest aliens are studying Earth's geothermal activity so that they can understand how it works.

Scroll down for video

Volcanoes have been a favourite site for alien hunters over the years. Now a strange series of lights (pictured) above the Popocatepetl volcano in Mexico has got conspiracy theorists excited once again. The sightings, they say, suggest aliens are studying Earth's geothermal activity to understand how it works

Unusual circular orbs and a long cigar-shaped anomaly were spotted on the cameras of Webcams Mexico above the Popocatepetl volcano, according to a report in The Express.

The lights appeared at the same time as the 18,000ft volcano released four explosions which released gas vapour.

Webcams Mexico recently uploaded the video which has become popular on social media and UFO forums.

Sceptics claim the bright lights are probably volcanic material being ejected from the volcano or an atmospheric phenomenon.

In a more radical theory, some scientists say the material from which these UFOs are formed could trigger hallucinations, which may explain the bizarre first hand accounts of alien sightings.

Unusual circular orbs a long cigar-shaped anomaly were spotted on the cameras of Webcams Mexico above the Popocatepetl volcano. The lights appeared at the same time as the 18,000ft volcano released 4 explosions. Acigar-UFO is seen in this image horizontally over the same volcano in February this year

'There is a combination of geophysical and geopsychological factors at work that can produce UFOs,' Nigel Watson, author of 'UFOs of the First World War', told DailyMail.com.

'In this case it might be that the proximity of fault lines volcanic activity on a fault line in the Earth's crust has helped produce a UFO composed of plasma that glows at night and appears metallic or black in daylight.

'These type of UFOs cast out electromagnetic (EM) fields that can initiate poltergeist-like events (such as objects being thrown about) and they can even react to witnesses as if acting in an intelligent or playful manner.'

Michael Persinger, a cognitive neuroscience researcher, has experimented with the possibility that UFO EM fields can trigger hallucinations or trance states in people who get to near to them.

This would explain the many stories of 'alien' abductions and other strange encounters that are experienced after a witness has seen a light in the sky, added Watson.

'There is a combination of geophysical and geopsychological factors at work that can produce UFOs,' Nigel Watson, author of 'UFOs of the First World War', told DailyMail.com. 'In this case it might be that the proximity of fault lines volcanic activity on a fault line in the Earth's crust'

Michael Persinger, a cognitive neuroscience researcher, has experimented with the possibility that UFO EM fields can trigger hallucinations or trance states in people who get to near to them. Pictured are orbs in the foreground with the volcano behind

Popocatépetl is an active volcano, located in the states of Puebla, Mexico, and Morelos, in Central Mexico

'The UFO probably isn't an intergalactic starship, but could well be a rare atmospheric phenomenon captured on film,' he said.

UFO hunter Paul Seaburn told The Express: 'Sightings of UFOs around volcanic eruptions and earthquakes is a common occurrence.

'Why do we see so many UFOs near volcanoes, earthquakes and nuclear power plants? Are we being watched? Controlled? Cared for? Warned?'

This isn't the first time alien hunters believe they have seen ET visiting volcanoes in Mexico.

In January, a UFO that resembled a flying horse was spotted close to one of Mexico's most active volcanoes.

The dark object appeared to have two legs and was seen hovering into view out of nowhere as volcano Colima, 300 miles west of Mexico City, spewed out smoke.

Captured on webcam after Colima erupted, the enigmatic 'equine' vanished moments later.

Witness Loyola Quintanilla Rosas, 24, said: 'When I first saw it, I thought it looked like a horse.

ET WILL 'CONQUER AND COLONISE' HUMANITY, WARNS STEPHEN HAWKING

Professor Stephen Hawking claims that if AI doesn't conquer humanity, an advanced alien civilisation may do so instead.

Professor Stephen Hawking has previously said artificial intelligence could control humans in 100 years.

in his latest dire warning, the physicist claims that if AI doesn't conquer humanity, an advanced alien civilisation may do so instead.

'If aliens visit us, the outcome could be much like when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans,' Professor Hawking said in a recent interview.

'Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets they can reach,' Hawking told El Pais.

Hawking is currently heading up a major search for intelligent alien life using two of the world's most powerful telescopes.

The telescopes will scour one million of the closest stars to Earth for faint signals thrown out into space by intelligent life beyond our own world.

'To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational,' said Hawking. 'The real challenge is to work out what aliens might actually be like.'

It had a very large body and seemed to be an animal. It had a thin top, a bulging middle and two extremities at the bottom.

'But the legs weren't moving so it clearly wasn't a modern-day Pegasus.'

In 2012, a 'cigar-shaped' object was filmed flying inside Popocatepetl volcano in central Mexico by a television camera crew.

And last November, a 'blurry, white object' was caught on camera flying around the same volcano.

Alien enthusiast Eufrasio Gonzales Carrasco, 35, said: 'There has been a fair bit of activity around these volcanoes and this latest sighting just adds to the mystery.

'There must be something about volcanoes that draws extra-terrestrials to them. Perhaps they are collecting samples from our planet to take back home.'

This mysterious white light was spotted spotted hovering near Chile's erupting Calbuco volcano in April. Tens of thousands of people speculated on what the UFO could be, suggesting everything from police or emergence services helicopters, to a kind of optical illusion or even an alien craft

The dark horse-shaped object seen earlier this year appeared to have two legs and was seen coming into view out of nowhere before quickly disappearing

Read more:

30-01-2020 om 23:50 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:UFOs , UAPs , USOS

Webcam Picks Up UFO over Erupting Popocatepetl Volcano in Mexico

“We all know that it (the volcano) is an alien headquarters, they only “close” the door to scare us so that nobody goes there.”

There are two things you can count on with Mexico’s Popocatepetl volcano – it will erupt frequently and there will be UFOs in video footage of the eruption. The latest incident of both occurred January 27th when the government webcams which keep Popocatepetl under constant surveillance captured the latest eruption and a mysterious UFO streaking across the sky at the same moment. (Watch the video here.) This is where you’re allowed to join the above Twitter commenter and shriek: “Aliens!” Was it?

Let’s get the facts straight first. The video shows just part (15 seconds) of the eruption which began at 23:18 (11:18 pm) local time on January 27. As of this writing, Mexico’s National Center for Disaster Prevention (Cenapred) reported there were “78 exhalations, 563 minutes of tremor, a moderate explosion, a minor explosion and a volcanotectonic earthquake” in the 24 hours following the eruption. After it was posted on the Twitter feed of Webcams de Mexico, which provides the round-the-clock video feeds, it spread across the Internet, where the UFO streaking across the viewing area was picked up by many sites.

Popocatepetl on a quiet day

Popocatepetl is Mexico’s second-highest peak (5,426 meters or 17,802 ft) and one of its most active volcanoes, with over 15 major eruptions since 1519 (when the Spanish arrived) and many more since it first erupted over 2000,000 years ago. With its high and mighty recent activities and close proximity to Mexico City, it’s no wonder the government has it under close webcam watch for signs of potential eruptions.

And aliens. The webcams see everything going on in the sky above Popocatepetl and have recorded plenty of unidentified objects flying past it or hovering over it. There were a number of sightings during a recent active period in 2017 and speculation then and now on the ‘alien spacecraft’ side tended to see them as proof that aliens or subterrestrials use volcanoes as fuel stations or entry and exit ports to underground facilities. However, this one appears to be passing by as if observing the eruptions – something that many believe is because benevolent aliens are watching out for our safety during disasters.

On the skeptical side, it’s obvious that a lot of bright objects are being spewed by Popocatepetl and the videos are generally dark due to the time of day or dense smoke. They also use time-lapse photography, so unidentified objects appear to be moving faster than they really are.

That’s the case with the latest video. It’s obvious that the stars are moving quickly as well. The elongated shape means it could be a plane or one of those ubiquitous drones – it IS a newsworthy eruption. Or, as some suggest, it could be a meteor or the ISS or a satellite. Since it seems to pass behind the smoke of the Popocatepetl eruption, a bug or bird can probably be eliminated.

So, what is it? The needle is on the skeptical side with this one – probably a plane or satellite. However, if it IS an alien craft, it might be wise to take it as one of those benevolent ones and stay away from Popocatepetl for a while.

Has anyone checked for UFOs over Wuhan, China?

30-01-2020 om 23:25 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

Britain’s Royal Air Force to Release Secret UFO Files for the First Time

De bronafbeelding bekijken

Aaron Kesel, The Mind Unleashed
Waking Times

The age-old question of are we alone in the universe may not be answered any time soon, but the fact that Britain is planning on declassifying its UFO files for the first time puts us one step closer to the truth.

The Royal Air Force (RAF) ran a UFO unit for 50 years that took in public sighting reports but it was shut down in 2009 after it was determined none of the reports offered evidence of a real threat. The records from the unit were then given to the British National Archives where they were classified.

A spokesman for the RAF said that “it had been assessed that it would be better to publish these records, rather than continue sending documents to the National Archives, and so they are looking to put them on to a dedicated gov.uk web page.”

A clearance process for the documents is currently underway before publication, which is expected to take place “sometime within the first quarter of 2020,” according to the Telegraph.

“Given the massive public interest in this subject, I’m pleased that these files will be released and made available online,” said Nick Pope, who used to investigate UFO sightings for the country’s Ministry of Defense (MoD).

In June 2013, the MoD previously reported it was releasing the final UFO files in the UK’s possession. However, we now know that’s not true thanks to a Freedom of Information Request by PA News.

In response to the FOI, the RAF described the files it held as “comprising entirely of correspondence with members of the public.”

“The MoD has no opinion on the existence or otherwise of extraterrestrial life and does not investigate UFO reports.”

While the attempts to hide the truth about the existence of UFOs is dying down, disclosure is ramping up. As TMU previously reported, U.S. Navy officials have acknowledged that video footage showing UFOs flying is real.

In the video below, Lt. Col Lawrence J. Tacker and Maj Hetor Quintanilla, Jr., speak about unidentified flying objects (UFOs) and Project Blue Book, which relates to the investigation of UFOs in the United States.

Just like RAF, the Blue Book commission determined that UFOs did not pose a security risk and that they were identifiable in 1966 under hearings. However, Dr. J. Allen Hynek who was the lead scientist on the Blue Book commission confessed years later that there was a cover-up.

Project Blue Book wasn’t the only investigation into UFOs—there was also Project Grudge, Project Sign, the Cometa Report, Majestic 12, Robertson Panel and more recently a whistle-blower disclosed that the U.S. claimed to have an Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP). The U.S.’ own interest in UFOs is obviously well documented up to the 21st century.

In fact, the very first former CIA Director Roscoe Hillenkoetter agreed with Hynek in a 1960 New York Times article oddly titled, “AIR FORGE ORDER ON ‘SAUCERS’ CITED; Pamphlet by the Inspector General Called Objects a ‘Serious Business“ that contradicts Project Blue Book’s findings and the CIA’s own comments a few years ago. Hillenkoetter said that the Air Force called UFOs “serious business in secret.”

It’s no wonder that they were called “serious business” because years prior in 1942, the incident known as the Battle Of Los Angeles took place where the U.S. military shot at an unknown disk over California that they later called a weather balloon—just like the infamous Roswell incident in 1947 which was first reported as a saucer, later changed to a balloon filled with crash dummies.

Another high-ranking official Major Donald Keyhoe alleged in an earlier 1958 interview that the Air Force was deliberately dismissing and covering up UFOs, confirming Hillenkoetter and Hynek’s claims made years later. Major Keyhoe also exposes the CIA life that all of the UFO sightings were the agency when he says that “one pilot was killed in 48 chasing one.” He also said that if they don’t exist “why do they rush to these crash sites?” A report also exists stating that the Air Force was ordered to shoot down flying saucers in 1952.

While the RAF is prepared to disclose its UFO files, the U.S. Navy has stated the opposite—that it would be a national security threat to disclose the Nimitz incident and the release would result in “exceptionally grave damage.”

UFOs are frequently seen around missile silos causing nuclear weapon stations to go haywire and even go offline, disabling them since 1948, according to Captain Robert Salas.

The truth is out there and X-Files fans everywhere are itching for disclosure. However, if history is any guide, we are unlikely to get anything of value from the RAF reports on citizen sightings.

By Aaron Kesel | Creative Commons | TheMindUnleashed.com

Source:

https://www.wakingtimes.com/2020/01/29/britains-royal-air-force-to-release-secret-ufo-files-for-the-first-time/

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

30-01-2020 om 22:37 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:UFOs , UAPs , USOS

White Rose Bud Growing In Mars Soil In NASA Photo, UFO Sighting News.

White Rose Bud Growing In Mars Soil In NASA Photo, UFO Sighting News.

Date of discovery: Jan 31, 2020
Location of discovery: Mars, Sol 1448
Source photo:

http://gigapan.com/gigapans/219304

I found loads of ancient artifacts from an intelligent civilization in a Mars photo today, but one thing really caught my attention...this white rose. The white rose is in the lower left side of the photo. This white rose is actually a rose bud...thats a semi closed rose. It has a long stem and a single leaf on its right side. It even appears to have a baby one growing not far from it. I did have to take the photo which nasa put into false color (red/brown) and made it normal again. But this is amazing to me. Proof that a type of life, probably plant based still exists on Mars today, a white rose of hope.

Scott C. Waring

30-01-2020 om 21:57 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:Ruins, strange artifacts on other planets, moons, ed ( Fr, EN, NL )

Alien City 2km Across And Monolith Found On Earths Moon, UFO Sighting News.

Alien City 2km Across And Monolith Found On Earths Moon, UFO Sighting News.

Date of discovery: Jan 31, 2020
Location of discovery: Earths moon
Source photo:

http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/posts/245

Hey everyone, I posted this on my ET DATA Base channel but forgot to put it up on this site so here it goes. I found some structures in this NASA photo from our moon. The photo is very big, 90MB in size so it does give some great detail. The city has what looks like ancient roads or collapsed tunnels leading from it to other buildings further away from it. There was also a monolith similar to the one I found on a moon of Mars. Astronaut Buzz Aldrin give me the heads up on that one so wasn't to hard to find. But this does look the same. I said in the video that the city appears to be .5km across, but on when looking at the photo measurements, I may actually be 2.0km across. That would make that monolith .5 km high. Absolutely proof that intelligent aliens did once living on the surface of our moon.
Scott C. Waring

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

30-01-2020 om 21:51 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:Ruins, strange artifacts on other planets, moons, ed ( Fr, EN, NL )

Cube like UFO flying at high altitude captured by Pilot Viva Air

During a commercial flight over Medellin, Colombia, a pilot of Viva Air noticed a strange object flying towards the plane on which he decided to record it.

The UFO that looks like a cube then passes the aircraft at a safe distance.

What are these objects flying at hypersonic speed and the ability to fly with no obvious wings, tail or exhaust.

30-01-2020 om 21:20 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

U-shaped UFO recorded over Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.

U-shaped UFO recorded over Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.

U-shaped UFO recorded over Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. This happened on 21st December 2020.

Witness report:

Horseshoe object meets contrail anomaly and later disintegrates. Observed large black cube shaped object in sky from highest vantage point in my city. Immediately pulled over and started filming. Object was moving very slowly left towards long contrail type anomaly which didn’t appear to be natural. Was forced to leave the area due to frustrated residents. Crossed the road and continued filming. Object had now morphed into a sideways horseshoe shape and had made contact with the contrail anomaly. A small protrusion stuck out from the dark object into the contrail anomaly which casted a very long shadow. Had to leave to pick up a delivery. Returned approximately 20 minutes later to find a dark horseshoe shaped cloud as if the object had dematerialized. I took pictures of this as well.

30-01-2020 om 20:56 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

FIRST SQUID MRI STUDY SHOWS BRAIN COMPLEXITY SIMILAR TO DOGS

Researchers put a squid in an MRI to study its neural networks. The resulting snapshots are stunning.

With their peculiar movement, deep-sea habitat, and surprisingly huge genomes, squid have fascinated humans for centuries. And now, for the first time, scientists have put the cephalopods in an MRI to get a better look at their brains — revealing that they are much more like another animal beloved to humans than we realized.

That's right: Your calamari has a brain just about as complex as a dog.

Scientists used an MRI machine to get a good look at the brain of a juvenile reef squid. They were able to identify 145 previously unknown pathways and connections, which could help unravel the mystery behind a nifty squid skill — camouflage.

It is a big step toward building a complete guide to the squid brain’s complex neural connections — known as a connectome map — the researchers say.

"This the first time modern technology has been used to explore the brain of this amazing animal,” Chung said in a statement.

Image showing the optic lobe and basal lobe connections in a squid's brain.

Image showing the optic lobe and basal lobe connections in a squid's brain.

Wen-Sung Chung and Justin Marshall

The study, led by researchers Wen-Sung Chung and Justin Marshall from the University of Queensland, was published this month in the journal iScience.

CLEVER CEPHALOPODS

Chung explained that cephalopods — the family group that include squid and octopus — have “famously complex brains, approaching that of a dog and surpassing mice and rats, at least in neuronal number.”

Some cephalopods have more than 500 million neurons — about the same as dogs, which clock in around 530 million. Rats have just 200 million. Humans, meanwhile, are blessed with somewhere around 100 billion neurons — but don't let that go to your head. Millions of neurons don't always add up to the same skillset — like changing your body color at will.

The brain power of squids like Sepioteuthis lessoniana, the species imaged in the study, is one of the reasons they’re able to change color on cue. Ironically, squids are colorblind — so they’re sadly not too adept at observing their bodies change color. But the skill is among the traits that make squid so cool — like their ability to count and solve problems.

Squid head (A), brain and eyes (B), brain image (C), brain sections isolated (D–F), brain volume and percentage of each lobe (G), allometric analysis of the lobe complex (H).

Wen-Sung Chung and Justin Marshall

"We can see that a lot of neural circuits are dedicated to camouflage and visual communication,” Chung said. That gives squid a “unique ability” to hide from predators, hunt, and communicate with one another.

But to do the study at all, researchers first had to get the squid in the MRI machine — something that required them first fixing the (dead) squid and then preserving their tissue for examination.

Once in the machine, the researchers were able to image their brain in detail. They also took samples of the squids' brains and performed different analyses to help trace a comprehensive picture of their neural connections.

W. Chung et al (iScience)

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

From the data, the researchers may be able to get more specific information on some of the squid's characteristics, like figuring out why squid show a certain color at a given time. For instance, a squid might change the color of its body if a predator is nearby, to blend into its surroundings. But if it’s being scoped out from above, the cephalopod may only change its head color.

"Our findings will hopefully provide evidence to help us understand why these fascinating creatures display such diverse behaviour and very different interactions," Chung said.

The new research marks another first for cephalopod studies, following a recent study that decoded the genome of a giant squid. As Inverse reported at the time, the research revealed that the giant squid’s genetic complexity is closing in on that of a human. Giant squid have about 2.7 billion DNA base pairs in their genome, it turns out, while humans have about 3 billion base pairs.

Understanding the brain mechanics behind how squid behave can better allow scientists to make predictions about the history of cephalopods — like when they first evolved to have these adaptations, and what other incredible skills they could be hiding.

Abstract: Using high-resolution diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI) and a suite of old and new staining techniques, the beginnings of a multi-scale connectome map of the squid brain is erected. The first of its kind for a cephalopod, this includes the confirmation of 281 known connections with the addition of 145 previously undescribed pathways. These and other features suggest a suite of functional attributes, including

(1) retinotopic organization through the optic lobes and into other brain areas well beyond that previously recognized,
(2) a level of complexity and sub-division in the basal lobe supporting ideas of convergence with the vertebrate basal ganglia, and
(3) differential lobe-dependent growth rates that mirror complexity and transitions in ontogeny.

30-01-2020 om 18:39 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:Diversen (Eng, NL en Fr)

DINOSAURS LITERALLY WALKED ON FIRE — STUDY

Fossilized footprints reveal dinosaurs thrived in the Karoo Basin, a region in South Africa — despite the fact that it was full of lava.

From what we know about early Earth, dinosaurs put up with some wild circumstances — toxic plants, underwater magma, and that's before the asteroid that ultimately wiped them out. And to thrive in these intense conditions, they evolved some nifty skills — like the ability to walk on fire.

A few dozen fossilized footprints reveal that a group of dinosaurs were still kicking when the Karoo Basin, a region in South Africa, began to fill up with lava some 183 million years ago. The study, led by University of Cape Town geology professor Emese Bordy, was published Wednesday in the journal PLOS ONE.

Before now, researchers had no idea that dinosaurs and therapsids, the creatures from which mammals evolved, had managed to survive the moment when lava began to flood their habitat, turning it into a “land of fire.”

"The fossil tracks tell a story from our deep past on how continental ecosystems could co-exist with truly giant volcanic events that can only be studied from the geological record,” Bordy said in a statement.

The paper’s authors call the flow “one of the most dramatic geological episodes in southern Africa.”

Trackways at the Highlands ichnosite.

E. Bordy et al PLOS ONE (2020)

The discovery came when researchers unearthed 25 dinosaur footprints in a layer of sandstone, sandwiched between lava flows. The prints make up five trackways, and probably belonged to three types of animals:

Synapsids: The ancestors of mammals, a group that includes the fin-backed Dimetrodon.
Bipedal dinosaurs: Likely carnivorous, similar to T.Rex.
Quadrupedal dinosaurs: Small, likely herbivorous, similar to stegosaurus.

In an extra boon, the footprints revealed a new kind of ichnospecies — a kind of fossil mystery puzzle. Ichnofossils are also known as trace fossils — and ichnospecies of plants and animals are only known to science because of those small traces of their existence, even though no actual fossil remains have been found.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given its geologically chaotic history, the Karoo Basin is a popular spot for studying ancient lava floes — not for fossil remains. But lava contains sandstone “interbeds” which can occasionally yield fossils like these ones that provide clues to the animals that once called the area home.

Further research may uncover even more fossils in the Basin, allowing scientists to zoom in on exactly when the cascading lava formed different layers of rock. Scientists may also glean information about how the flora and fauna in the Karoo Basin reacted to major events, like, you know, being completely covered with lava.

Ultimately, the findings could also hold clues to life on a future Earth, the scientists say. While these kinds of catastrophic events don’t have a modern equivalent we need to worry about right now, “they can occur in the future of the Earth," Brody said.

Abstract: The Karoo igneous rocks represent one of the largest continental flood basalt events (by volume) on Earth, and are not normally associated with fossils remains. However, these Pliensbachian–Toarcian lava flows contain sandstone interbeds that are particularly common in the lower part of the volcanic succession and are occasionally fossiliferous. On a sandstone interbed in the northern main Karoo Basin, we discovered twenty-five tridactyl and tetradactyl vertebrate tracks comprising five trackways. The tracks are preserved among desiccation cracks and low-amplitude, asymmetrical ripple marks, implying deposition in low energy, shallow, ephemeral water currents. Based on footprint lengths of 2–14 cm and trackway patterns, the trackmakers were both bipedal and quadrupedal animals of assorted sizes with walking and running gaits. We describe the larger tridactyl tracks as “grallatorid” and attribute them to bipedal theropod dinosaurs, like Coelophysis, a genus common in the Early Jurassic of southern Africa. The smallest tracks are tentatively interpreted as Brasilichnium-like tracks, which are linked to synapsid trackmakers, a common attribution of similar tracks from the Lower to Middle Jurassic record of southern and southwestern Gondwana. The trackway of an intermediate-sized quadruped reveals strong similarities in morphometric parameters to a post-Karoo Zimbabwean trackway from Chewore. These trackways are classified here as a new ichnogenus attributable to small ornithischian dinosaurs as yet without a body fossil record in southern Africa. These tracks not only suggest that dinosaurs and therapsids survived the onset of the Drakensberg volcanism, but also that theropods, ornithischians and synapsids were among the last vertebrates that inhabited the main Karoo Basin some 183 Ma ago. Although these vertebrates survived the first Karoo volcanic eruptions, their rapidly dwindling habitat was turned into a land of fire as it was covered by the outpouring lavas during one of the most dramatic geological episodes in southern Africa.

30-01-2020 om 18:12 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:Diversen (Eng, NL en Fr)

Which Religion Is Friendliest To The Idea Of Aliens?

Daniel Kolitz

Illustration: Benjamin Currie, Gizmodo

In the annals of most world religions, a quick walk-on from an alien would not, at least on the surface, seem particularly strange. Unusual occurrences are kind of key to the whole enterprise. And adherents of both camps—UFO-watchers and the religious—know what it means to believe in the face of long odds. Should a member of the former group decide to link up with the latter, where would they feel most at home? What religion is most amenable to the concept of life on other planets? For this week’s Giz Asks, we reached out to a number of experts in religion to find out.

Diana Walsh Pasulka

Professor, Philosophy and Religion, University of North Carolina Wilmington, and the author of American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, and Technology

Before the question can be answered, it is a good idea to consider the issue of the definition of religion. For most people in the Western tradition, religion is something that follows a set form of patterns. There is a God, there are usually sacred books, and places to go for people. Generally, when it is explained that many non-Western and indigenous cultures do not think of religion in this way, it opens their minds to the fact that they’ve had an idea of religion that is not universal across the planet. In many indigenous spiritualities, for example, extraterrestrials, often called “star people,” exist and are even ancestors of certain tribes on Earth. Even in certain Western indigenous spiritualities, such as pre-Chrisitian Irish, for example, extraterrestrials came from the clouds and provided humans with knowledge about how to live.

Even in the Western traditions—take Catholicism for example—talk of extraterrestrial life has been going on for more than one thousand years. In 1891 Pope Leo XIII established a space observatory (which was there already) to study “unexplained flying objects.” Buddhism also references the existence of other worlds. It is obvious that most religions and spiritualities have considered the existence of beings from other worlds. It is actually not new.

What is new, however, is that there are “UFO religions,” or religions today that incorporate ideas that extraterrestrials are here for various reasons. The Nation of Islam is a classic example of such a religion. Obviously religions like that found by the French man Raël is a UFO religion, as he said he had a direct experience of a flying saucer and his spirituality emerged directly from that experience. So, these religions already incorporate these ideas, as well as many indigenous religions. In my opinion, should extraterrestrials be found to exist, I don’t think most religions or their members will have an issue with it.

Karen Pechilis

Professor, Comparative Religions, Drew University

I think Buddhism is a good candidate for being the religion most friendly to the idea of life existing on other planets, especially if politics can be bracketed out. Buddhism is an ‘open-enrollment’ religion that has a method of conversion (the Triple Gem) it has used for millennia to recruit members widely from across very different populations. In so doing, it has a history of interacting with pre-existing local traditions, rather than oppressing them. Thus, it is open to difference. Also, some Buddhist texts describe various regions, not all of them earthly, in which people live simultaneously but without contact among the regions. Lastly, the universal Buddhist prayer is “may all beings be (unselfishly) happy,” which is directed towards everyone, everywhere.

Douglas Vakoch

President of Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence (METI), a non-profit research organisation that creates and transmits interstellar messages to search for extraterrestrial civilizations

Once we detect ET, everything will change. Religions that have been resistant to the prospect of extraterrestrial life will be forced to take stock and re-evaluate their positions. We’ll no longer ask “Do you believe in the existence of extraterrestrials?” but instead we will wonder, “What does the existence of extraterrestrials mean for your beliefs?”

When religious folk are asked today whether life beyond Earth is consistent with their faith, they’re put in an awkward position. They’re being expected to consider a scientific question through the lens of their religious beliefs. Do their scriptures make explicit reference to the existence of life on planets orbiting other stars? Does silence on this topic imply the absence of aliens, or simply that religious texts aren’t trying to answer scientific questions that were impossible even to ask in an earlier age?

For the world’s oldest religious traditions, many of these questions are nonsensical. Sacred texts written thousands of years ago were based on radically different cosmologies than those reflected in modern-day astronomy. It was inconceivable to ask whether there are inhabited Earths around distant stars, when no one imagined that the stars were anything like our own Sun. Attempting to extract a scientific answer from a religious scripture is doomed to failure.

Admittedly, some traditions will have an easier time than others in absorbing the news that we’re not alone in the universe. Numerous schools of Buddhism and Hinduism posit countless celestial realms, populated by beings more or less spiritually advanced than humans. News of extraterrestrial neighbours would be welcome and easily assimilated.

Within Christianity, two prominent denominations arose recently enough to be informed by nineteenth-century astronomical observations of planets in our own solar system. The founder of the Seventh-day Adventists had visions of extraterrestrials, and the Latter-day Saint scripture The Pearl of Great Price claims the existence of other inhabited worlds than Earth. In these traditions, aliens are assumed to exist, so no adaptation will be needed.

The more interesting question is whether the discovery of life beyond Earth will create an opening for a dialogue with an independently evolved species on another world. If so, which individuals or groups will initiate an enterprise that won’t come to fruition within a human lifetime? Given the distances between stars, an interstellar back-and-forth exchange could take centuries or millennia. Here on Earth, religions have been among the most successful social organisations to operate on such long timescales. Will the knowledge that a distant exoplanet is inhabited be the impetus for the launch of a multigenerational interfaith, interspecies dialogue?

Liz Wilson

Professor, Comparative Religion, Miami University of Ohio

Buddhism, hands down. No other religion offers as vivid a depiction of what life is like on planets far from ours. In Buddhist texts we learn what it feels like, phenomenologically, to be on another planet. We learn what it might be like to live in worlds inhabited by sentient beings, worlds that are imbued with sacred qualities.

Within Mahayana Buddhism, Buddhahood can take many forms. Their philosophers distinguish between the Buddha’s ineffable body—the eternal dharma-kāya (“truth-body”)—and bodies, like ours, that are subject to decay. In between these two bodies are celestial bodies of the Buddha that are associated with outer space, with universes outside our own. These “enjoyment bodies” (saṃbhoga-kāya) are built out of the vows that Buddhas made long before they became Buddhas.

Enjoyment bodies are composed of subtle energy and do not die like ordinary bodies on Earth. The realms where these enjoyment bodies preside are called Buddha fields (Buddha-kṣetra), and they are said to be countless in number. Just as every being is potentially a Buddha, all Buddhas launch themselves as volitional beings who make vows to be of benefit to sentient beings. Those vows take the forms of worlds in outer space where a being can take birth. The Buddha-fields are designed to help even the most foolish and stubborn of sentient beings to see reality as it really is. The best of the many Buddha fields that exist are described as pain-free, calmness-inducing, compassion-making pure paradises.

Pure lands are ideal places to achieve nirvana, since life there is designed to maximise opportunities for insight. For entry-level Buddhist practitioners, the goal is to achieve birth in a pure Buddha field after death. For advanced practitioners, the goal is to make your own. Since each Buddha-field is tailor-made according to the vow that one takes as a Buddha-in-the-making, the trick is to look around at what other Buddhas created with their vows. Before you come up with the blueprint for your own future Buddha field, you should travel around in meditative trace, look at other worlds, and survey the options.

Mahayana Buddhism offers a remarkably rich cosmology. For these Buddhists, life in outer space is an article of faith and a core practice.

Chris Taylor

Professor of Islamic Studies and Director of the Drew University Centre on Religion, Culture & Conflict (CRCC) at Drew University

Most religions historically were pretty focused on this planet, and many conceived it as the centre of the universe—if not literally, at least effectively—so the issue is not something that people spent a lot of time writing about, although I’m sure that individuals wondered about it.

Most religions are complex, so it’s not really possible to ask which one is “most friendly” to an idea like extraterrestrial life. One encounters thinkers in various traditions whose thought may not have specifically addressed this issue, but one suspects that they would have had little trouble accepting the possibility of extraterrestrial life.

In the Islamic tradition, for example, the great twelfth and thirteenth century mystical philosopher Ibn al-‘Arabi would have likely been very comfortable with contemporary theory in physical cosmology that our own universe may well be only one of multiple universes, likely occupying multiple and different dimensions of time and space. Once you can accept something as wild as that, getting your head around extraterrestrial life should be a breeze.

Most traditional religions understood that the actual cosmos is greater than the physical universe that we experience, and the actual cosmos consists of dimensions that transcend the physical. In fact, those dimensions were most often of greater interest to them than our physical cosmos, because ultimate reality, however they understood it, existed ultimately in those other dimensions and necessarily transcended our own physical cosmos, because for them ultimate reality was defined by two qualities that are impossible in the context of our physical cosmos: (1) it must be eternal; and (2) it must be unchanging.

They understood that everything of this cosmos cannot meet either criteria that they understood defines ultimate reality. So for many traditional religions, ultimate reality, however defined, might in some sense be found in this cosmos, but was necessarily not of this cosmos. When you think about that for a moment, it’s far more mind blowing than the possibility of other life in this cosmos.

Thus, traditional religions typically had much greater humility, I suspect, than most 21st century secular people do about what’s ultimately possible—both in this cosmos and beyond it.

Christian Weidemann

Lecturer, Protestant Theology, University of Muenster; recent papers include ‘Did Jesus Die for Klingons, too?’ and ‘Is the Origin of Life a Fluke? Why the Chance Hypothesis Should Not be Dismissed Too Quickly’

Every major religion on Earth could easily accommodate the discovery of (intelligent) alien life, with one exception: Christianity.

Christians maintain that persons who have committed moral wrongs are in desperate need of divine salvation. The good news is that, out of grace, God will save many (according to universalism, all) human sinners. Christians also believe that Jesus Christ plays an essential part in God’s terrestrial work of salvation: Jesus was a divine incarnation whose atonement (suffering, teaching, good example…) will ultimately reconcile many (or all) human sinners to God.

Now imagine the universe is teeming with other intelligent civilizations. What is a Christian believer supposed to say? Claiming that Christ died only for us, while the rest of the universe is screwed, would be incompatible with God’s love. If, however, earthly Jesus died for the whole universe, myriads of extraterrestrial sinners included, we would have to accept a geocentrism even more preposterous than the spatial variant. Neither is there a way out by suggesting that other intelligent species may not have been “fallen.” This proposal amounts to a negative human exceptionalism that is totally unbelievable, given that alien species are subject to the same general evolutionary mechanisms as we are. Natural selection favours “selfish” traits.

What about multiple incarnations? Here another difficulty of traditional Christian doctrine comes into play: Christ has two natures—he is “truly God and truly man.” But how are members of completely different biological species (“truly man” and “truly Klingon,” let’s say) supposed to stand in a relationship of personal identity? Even worse, if the number of sinful species in the universe exceeds a certain threshold, God would be forced to incarnate himself simultaneously. However, no single person who is an embodied being with a finite nature, i.e. a “truly” biological organism, can be more than one such being at the same time. If, on the other hand, the incarnations were not personally identical, many different persons with a divine nature would result—too many even for a Christian. Finally: May extraterrestrial sinners have been reconciled to God by means different from a divine incarnation? Perhaps, but even if the Christian believer concedes alternative means of salvation she is stuck with the highly implausible geocentric claim that the incarnation, i.e. one of the most remarkable events in the history of the cosmos, happens just 2000 years ago on our planet, although myriads of other inhabited planets were also available.

Therefore, I conclude, the traditional Christian believer can’t make theological sense of extraterrestrial intelligent life.

Kelly Eileen Hayes

Associate Professor, Women’s Studies, Indiana University

While it might sound like the plot of a sci-fi novel, the idea that benevolent and highly advanced beings from other planets are secretly facilitating human evolution is common to a number of religions. Members of the Brazilian religion called the Valley of the Dawn (Vale do Amanhecer), for example, claim to be the spiritual descendants of a race of beings from the distant star Capella, sent by God to jumpstart Earth’s evolution. According to Valley teachings, the elaborate pyramids built by various ancient peoples were actually technologically sophisticated structures for maintaining communications with Capella. On the North American continent, a related idea is central to Unarius, whose charismatic leader Ruth Norman, aka the Archangel Uriel, claimed to be in contact with the “Space Brothers”—highly evolved intelligences inhabiting other galaxies. Uriel promised her followers that the Space Brothers will touch down on Earth in their massive starships to usher in a new era of peace and unity, but only when human beings are ready to understand their message. Whether expressed in science fiction or religious mythology, our fascination with the possibility of extraterrestrial beings is a venerable one. Long before we developed the technology to explore the universe outside the Earth’s atmosphere, Enlightenment thinkers like Kant and Swedenborg and organised groups of Spiritists and Theosophists avowed the existence of advanced life forms on other planets. And so the answer to the question of which religion is friendliest to the idea of life existing on other planets is: a great many!

{ https://www.gizmodo.com.au/ }

30-01-2020 om 01:20 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:MYSTERIES ( Fr, Nl, E)

Study says Enceladus’ inner complexity is good for life

Posted by Paul Scott Anderson in SPACE

The interior of Saturn’s moon Enceladus is geochemically complex, making its subsurface ocean quite habitable for possible life, according to a new study from Southwest Research Institute.

Dark, wrinkled surface of a moon with bright geysers on horizon.

The geysers of Enceladus: huge plumes of water vapor erupting through cracks at the south pole of this moon of Saturn. The plumes contain water vapor, ice, salts, methane and both simple and complex organic molecules, the kind of molecules normally found in living systems. The geysers must come from somewhere. Scientists think there’s an ocean below Enceladus’ icy crust. Now a new study shows that the interior of Enceladus is more geochemically complex than once thought, boosting the prospects for life.

Image via NASA’s Cassini spacecraft/ Space Science Institute.

The interior of Enceladus – the ocean moon of Saturn that might support life – is even more complex than previously thought, according to a new study from scientists at the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI). These researchers have developed a new geochemical model of the moon. It’s based on an analysis of material in the moon’s water vapor plumes. The analysis suggests that carbon dioxide is being controlled by chemical reactions on the seafloor of Enceladus’ interior ocean. The findings open up intriguing new possibilities for life in Enceladus’ subsurface watery abyss.

The new peer-reviewed results were published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters on January 22, 2020.

Lead author Christopher Glein of SwRI said in a statement:

By understanding the composition of the plume, we can learn about what the ocean is like, how it got to be this way and whether it provides environments where life as we know it could survive. We came up with a new technique for analyzing the plume composition to estimate the concentration of dissolved CO2 in the ocean. This enabled modeling to probe deeper interior processes.

From the new paper:

Enceladus, an ocean-harboring moon of Saturn, erupts a plume that contains gases and frozen sea spray into space. By understanding the composition of the plume, we can learn about what the ocean is like, how it got to be this way, and whether it provides environments where life as we know it could survive. This study presents a new perspective for analyzing the plume composition to estimate the concentration of dissolved carbon dioxide in the ocean. We find that the derived range based on two different data sets is intriguingly similar to what would be expected from the dissolution and formation of certain mixtures of silicon and carbon-bearing minerals at the seafloor. The deduced combination of minerals may be indicative of a fundamental process that has sequestered a large amount of Enceladus’ initial inventory of carbon dioxide into the rocky core. This inference echoes an emerging vision of a complex interior that hosts geochemically diverse environments. The dynamic interface of such complexity is where energy sources for possible life may arise.

Gray moon with bluish parallel cracks and many craters.

View of Saturn’s moon Enceladus via the Cassini spacecraft. You can see the bluish tiger stripes on the moon’s left side. This image is tilted; the tiger stripes are at the moon’s south pole. Active geysers are erupting from the stripes even as we speak!

Image via NASA/ ESA/ JPL/ SSI/ Cassini Imaging Team/ Carnegie Science.

The researchers were able to come to these conclusions based on continued analysis of spectrometry data sent back by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. The Cassini mission ended in late 2017, and the last close flyby of Enceladus was on October 28, 2015. According to the analysis, the best way to explain the abundant amount of carbon dioxide below the moon’s surface is by geochemical reactions between the rocky core and the water in the ocean.

Cassini had also previously detected silica (SiO2) and molecular hydrogen (H2) in the ocean, by analyzing the composition of geyser-like plumes of water vapor erupting from the icy surface. This water originates in the ocean below, and makes its way to the surface through large cracks at the south pole, called tiger stripes, finally erupting into space as water vapor. According to Glein:

Based on our findings, Enceladus appears to demonstrate a massive carbon sequestration experiment. On Earth, climate scientists are exploring whether a similar process can be utilized to mitigate industrial emissions of CO2. Using two different data sets, we derived CO2 concentration ranges that are intriguingly similar to what would be expected from the dissolution and formation of certain mixtures of silicon- and carbon-bearing minerals at the seafloor.

Distinct sources of observed CO2, silica and H2 imply mineralogically and thermally diverse environments in a heterogeneous rocky core. We suggest that the core is composed of a carbonated upper layer and a serpentinized interior.

Cutaway view of cracked icy sphere with dark core and bright water vapor jets on surface.

Diagram depicting the interior of Saturn’s moon Enceladus, with its rocky core, subsurface ocean and plumes of water vapor.

Image via NASA/ JPL-Caltech/ SwRI.

But this evidence also points to even more complex activity, involving hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor. Cassini had previously found evidence for them, and now this new study adds to that. Both silica and molecular hydrogen are considered to be markers of hydrothermal activity.

Active hydrothermal vents would be an exciting discovery in an alien ocean such as the one on Enceladus. Why? They emit hot fluids rich in minerals and energy into the surrounding colder water. On Earth, they are central to ecosystems where a wide variety of life thrives. Could the same be true for Enceladus? According to Hunter Waite of SwRI and principal investigator of Cassini’s Ion Neutral Mass Spectrometer (INMS):

The dynamic interface of a complex core and seawater could potentially create energy sources that might support life. While we have not found evidence of the presence of microbial life in the ocean of Enceladus, the growing evidence for chemical disequilibrium offers a tantalizing hint that habitable conditions could exist beneath the moon’s icy crust.

Cutaway view of ocean with fumaroles under ice and geysers atop it, and looming Saturn in background. Text annotations.

The Cassini mission found evidence for hydrothermal activity – hydrothermal vents – on the bottom of Enceladus’ ocean. Could they help sustain life as they do on Earth?

Image via NASA/ JPL-Caltech/ SwRI.

The scenario proposed by the researchers is that hydrothermal oxidation of reduced iron deep in the core creates H2, while hydrothermal activity intersecting quartz-bearing carbonated rocks produces silica-rich fluids. Such an environment could be quite habitable by earthly standards. Glein said:

The implications for possible life enabled by a heterogeneous core structure are intriguing. This model could explain how planetary differentiation and alteration processes create chemical (energy) gradients needed by subsurface life.

Cassini had previously found other tantalizing hints about the conditions in Enceladus’ ocean. When the spacecraft analyzed the water vapor from the plumes – that it flew through directly – it found water vapor, ice particles, salts, methane, and a variety of simple and complex organic molecules.

Another recent study by scientists at the Carnegie Institute for Science has also helped explain how the tiger stripes formed, and how they remain active, due to deformation of the ice crust by Saturn’s powerful gravitational pull. Another study from last summer found that Enceladus’ ocean is just the right age to support life.

Smiling man in suit leaning against wall.

Christopher Glein, lead author of the new study.

Image via NASA Astrobiology Institute.

All of these discoveries, and now this new study, are painting a picture of Enceladus as a potentially quite habitable world. But further research and return missions – now on the drawing boards – will be needed to finally answer the question of whether that deep, dark ocean is actually inhabited by any kind of alien lifeforms.

The newest findings don’t prove that there is life on, or rather in, Enceladus, but they do add to the growing evidence that the subsurface ocean is probably quite habitable. Along with Jupiter’s moon Europa, and possibly another moon of Saturn, Titan, Enceladus is looking more and more like one of the best places in the solar system to look for life beyond Earth.

Bottom line: A new study from Southwest Research Institute shows that the interior of Saturn’s ocean moon Enceladus is more geochemically complex that previously thought, making the ocean quite habitable for possible life.
Source: The carbonate geochemistry of Enceladus’ ocean
Via SwRI

30-01-2020 om 01:00 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ASTRONOMIE / RUIMTEVAART

29-01-2020

Scientists drill into Antarctic ‘doomsday glacier’ to see if it will collapse and flood the world

Scientists drill into Antarctic ‘doomsday glacier’ to see if it will collapse and flood the world

Jasper Hamill

A view of the ice front of Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica (Image: David Vaughan)

A view of the ice front of Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica

(Image: David Vaughan)

A team of scientists has dug down into a huge ice sheet known as the ‘doomsday glacier’ for the first time.

The Thwaites Glacier is located in ‘one of the most remote and hostile areas of West Antarctica’.

This huge chunk of frozen water was given its ominous apocalyptic nickname because of the risk it will break apart and dump so much freshwater into the ocean that sea levels rise by 65cm – more than two feet.

If this disaster came to pass, it could render coastal and low-lying cities totally uninhabitable and cause chaos around the planet.

Researchers used hot water to drill to a depth of 700 metres and are now carrying out tests to discover if the glacier will fall apart in the coming decades.

Dr Keith Nicholls, an oceanographer from the British Antarctic Survey, said: ‘We know that warmer ocean waters are eroding many of West Antarctica’s glaciers, but we’re particularly concerned about Thwaites.

‘This new data will provide a new perspective of the processes taking place so we can predict future change with more certainty.’

Instruments including a small robot called Icefin were lowered deep into the borehole.

View of a borehole cut into the glacier (Image: British Antarctic Survey)

View of a borehole cut into the glacier

(Image: British Antarctic Survey)

This exploration machine is now swimming about beneath the ice to examine how it interacts with the ocean and study its melting behaviour.

Dr Paul Cutler, who manages the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration (ITGC) at the US National Science Foundation, said: ‘Thwaites Glacier is extremely remote, with only a handful of people setting foot on it until this year.

‘This has been our first season of land-based fieldwork to get a deeper understanding of this important yet under-studied glacier. It’s amazing to think we’ve only now drilled in this remote region some 200 years after the continent was first sighted.’

Our planet could be teetering on the edge of catastrophe

(Image: Getty)

Humanity is about to reach the climate change ‘point of no return’ and our attempts to save the planet have been ‘utterly inadequate’, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned last year.

Speaking before the start of a two-week international climate conference in Madrid, the UN chief said rising temperatures are already causing chaos around the world and suggested we’re approaching the moment when it’s too late to halt the progress of global warming.

He also said the world has the scientific knowledge and the technical ability to tackle global warming, but ‘what is lacking is political will.’

‘The point of no return is no longer over the horizon,’ Guterres told reporters in the Spanish capital.

‘ It is in sight and hurtling toward us.’

Guterres said there was mounting scientific evidence showing the impact man-made emissions of greenhouse gases are already having on the planet, including record temperatures and melting polar ice.

But he insisted that his message was ‘one of hope, not of despair’.

He added: ‘Our war against nature must stop and we know that that is possible.’

‘What is still lacking is political will,’ he added.

‘Political will to put a price on carbon. Political will to stop subsidies on fossil fuels. Political will to stop building coal power plants from 2020 onwards. Political will to shift taxation from income to carbon. Taxing pollution instead of people.’

Global warming 'threatens the existence of human civilisations' and we need to cut emissions immediately, researchers warned (Picture: Getty)

Global warming ‘threatens the existence of human civilisations’ and we need to cut emissions immediately, researchers warned

(Picture: Getty)

Before the UN leader’s statement, scientists said nine climate change ‘tipping points’ have now been crossed and the ‘cascade of changes’ could spell doom for humanity.

µThey called for the establishment of a ‘state of planetary emergency’ and urged governments to take urgent action to stop the production of greenhouse gases and said global warming risked creating a ‘hothouse Earth’ that ‘could threaten the existence of human civilisations’.

‘A decade ago we identified a suite of potential tipping points in the Earth system, now we see evidence that over half of them have been activated,’ said Professor Tim Lenton, director of the Global Systems Institute at the University of Exeter and lead author of a new paper in the respected journal Nature.

‘The growing threat of rapid, irreversible changes means it is no longer responsible to wait and see. The situation is urgent and we need an emergency response.

‘We might already have crossed the threshold for a cascade of inter-related tipping points.

‘However, the rate at which they progress, and therefore the risk they pose, can be reduced by cutting our emissions.’

Countdown to doomsday:

If these nine natural Melting of Arctic sea ice.
Loss of Greenland ice sheet.
The disappearance of boreal forests.
Thawing of Permafrost.
Loss of Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (currents which carry warm water from the tropics into the North Atlantic)
Death of the Amazon rainforest.
The demise of warm-water corals.
Melting of West Antarctic Ice Sheet.
Loss of parts of East Antarctica.

The collapse of major ice sheets on Greenland, West Antarctica and part of East Antarctica would cause roughly 10 metres of irreversible sea-level rise.

If rainforests, permafrost and boreal forests die off, huge amounts of greenhouse gases will be released into the air and amplify global warming.

We could stave off this disaster by reducing emissions, but this would only ‘allow more time for low-lying populations to move’ to another part of the world.

And once we’ve reached several tipping points, a cataclysmic ‘cascade’ could begin which accelerates climate change to terrifying proportions.

‘If damaging tipping cascades can occur and a global tipping cannot be ruled out, then this is an existential threat to civilization,’ the scientists wrote.

‘No amount of economic cost-benefit analysis is going to help us. We need to change our approach to the climate problem.’

Co-author Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, said: ‘It is not only human pressures on Earth that continue rising to unprecedented levels.

‘It is also that as science advances, we must admit that we have underestimated the risks of unleashing irreversible changes, where the planet self-amplifies global warming.

‘This is what we now start seeing, already at 1°C global warming.

‘Scientifically, this provides strong evidence for declaring a state of planetary emergency, to unleash world action that accelerates the path towards a world that can continue evolving on a stable planet.’

{ https://metro.co.uk/ }

29-01-2020 om 23:27 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:Diversen (Eng, NL en Fr)

NASA spacecraft breaks its own record with another swing by the sun

By Meghan Bartels

An artist's depiction of NASA's Parker Solar Probe at work observing the sun.

(Image: © NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Steve Gribben)

NASA's Parker Solar Probe took one step closer to the sun Wednesday (Jan. 29) when it executed its fourth flyby of our star.

This is the first such maneuver, called a perihelion, that the spacecraft has completed since swinging past Venus in December, a move that shrank the probe's orbit. That so-called gravity assist means Parker Solar Probe broke its own record today for the closest a spacecraft has come to the sun, as the probe will continue to do repeatedly over the course of its seven-year mission.

At about 4:30 a.m. EST (0930 GMT), Parker Solar Probe's trajectory carried the spacecraft within about 11.6 million miles (18.6 million kilometers) of the sun, more than 3 million miles (5 million km) closer than previous flybys. Before Parker Solar Probe's launch, no spacecraft had come within 26.5 million miles (43 million kilometers) of the sun, a record set by the Helios 2 mission in 1976.

Related: Hello, Venus! Parker Solar Probe Makes Second Planetary Flyby.

Parker Solar Probe won't have competition for its records anytime soon. But it will have some company in its work studying our star. The European Space Agency and NASA's joint mission to the sun, dubbed Solar Orbiter, is currently scheduled to launch on Feb. 7.

Augmenting the observations Parker Solar Probe is taking, Solar Orbiter will study the poles of the sun, which are out of view of the NASA probe. Solar Orbiter carries more instruments than Parker Solar Probe does, but the two spacecraft share a few tools, so scientists will be able to easily compare the data the probes gather from different locations around the sun.

Related: NASA's Parker Solar Probe Mission to the Sun in Pictures

In particular, scientists want to better understand why the sun's outer atmosphere is so much hotter than the star's visible surface and how the solar wind material that streams off the sun reaches such high speeds.

If all goes well with the Solar Orbiter launch next month, some of that probe's instruments will be turned on by the time Parker Solar Probe makes its next perihelion, on June 7. Parker Solar Probe is making a series of 24 close flybys of the sun through 2025 in order to help scientists understand how the sun works.

The first three flybys, conducted in 2018 and 2019, already introduced solar scientists to newfound phenomena. In a first batch of scientific papers from the mission, published in December 2019, researchers started pinning down new ideas about the solar wind.

Email Meghan Bartels at mbartels@space.com or follow her @meghanbartels. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

29-01-2020 om 22:45 geschreven door peter

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2 satellites will narrowly avoid colliding at 32,800 mph over Pittsburgh on Wednesday

By Rafi Letzter

A collision would create a debris belt that would endanger spacecraft worldwide.

Two defunct satellites will zip past each other at 32,800 mph (14.7 kilometers per second) in the sky over Pittsburgh on Wednesday evening (Jan. 29). If the two satellites were to collide, the debris could endanger spacecraft around the planet.

It will be a near miss: LeoLabs, the satellite-tracking company that made the prediction, said they should pass between 50 feet and 100 feet apart (15 to 30 meters) at 6:39:35 p.m. local time.

One is called the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS). Launched in 1983, it was the first infrared space telescope and operated for less than a year, according to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The other is called the Gravity Gradient Stabilization Experiment (GGSE-4), and was a U.S. Air Force experiment launched in 1967 to test spacecraft design principles, according to NASA. The two satellites are unlikely to actually slam into each other, said LeoLabs CEO Dan Ceperley. But predictions of the precise movements of fairly small, fast objects over vast distances is a challenge, Ceperley told Live Science. (LeoLabs' business model is selling improvements on those predictions.)

Video: Two Satellites Nearly Collide Over US in New Visualization
Related: How Much Space Junk Hits Earth?

The The Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) orbits the Earth in this illustration.

(Image credit: NASA)

If they did collide, "there would be thousands of pieces of new debris that would stay in orbit for decades. Those new clouds of debris would threaten any satellites operating near the collision altitude and any spacecraft transiting through on its way to other destinations. The new debris [would] spread out and form a debris belt around the Earth," Ceperley said.

LeoLabs uses its own network of ground-based radar to track orbiting objects. Still, Jonathan McDowell, a Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics astronomer who tracks satellites using public data, said the near-miss prediction was plausible.

"I confirm there is a close approach of these two satellites around 2339 UTC Jan 29. How close isn't clear from the data I have, but it's reasonable that LEOLabs data is better," McDowell told Live Science.

(When it's 23:39 UTC it's 6:39 p.m. Eastern time, which is the time zone in Pittsburgh.)

"What's different here is that this isn't debris-on-payload but payload-on-payload," McDowell said. In other words, in this case two satellites, rather than debris and a satellite, are coming close to one another.

It's pretty common for bits of orbital debris to have near misses in orbit, Ceperley said, which usually go untracked. It's more unusual, though, for two full-size satellites to come this close in space. IRAS in particular is the size of a truck, at 11.8 feet by 10.6 feet by 6.7 feet (3.6 by 3.2 by 2.1 m).

"Events like this highlight the need for responsible, timely deorbiting of satellites for space sustainability moving forward. We will continue to monitor this event through the coming days and provide updates as available," LeoLabs said on Twitter.

Correction: This story has been updated to reflect the correct day of the satellites' near-miss. It is Wednesday, Jan. 29.

Originally published on Live Science.

29-01-2020 om 22:27 geschreven door peter

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Alien investigation series 'Project Blue Book' shows more weird encounters in Season 2

By Elizabeth Howell

Michael Malarkey as Captain Michael Quinn (left) and Aidan Gillen as Dr. J. Allen Hynek in The History Channel's "Project Blue Book."

(Image: © Eduardo Araquel/History)

"Project Blue Book," the hit television docudrama about the U.S. military's investigations into aliens more than 50 years ago, is back for Season 2.

The History Channel series runs on Tuesdays at 10 p.m. EST and PST — check your local listings to confirm the time in your viewing area. The next episode is tonight (Jan. 28).

The series shares the same name as the real-life U.S. Air Force investigation into unidentified flying objects (UFOs), which was called Project Blue Book. That investigation launched in 1952 and continued until 1969. Experts examined more than 12,000 UFO sightings (of which more than 700 are still unexplained), according to series creator and executive producer David O'Leary.

Related: Top-Secret UFO Program Revealed in TV's 'Project Blue Book'

"For me, UFOs have been a lifelong obsession," he told Space.com. "I have always been fascinated by the question [of] 'Are we alone in the universe? And I never felt you could honestly answer that question without examining the UFO issue."

O'Leary said through his research on Project Blue Book, he became convinced that there "really is a phenomenon" of UFOs, even though experts often debunk the purported sightings, or say that the existence of UFOs doesn't necessarily mean that aliens are in our airspace.

"Once I learned the chief of scientific consultants for the U.S. Air Force [J. Allen Hynek] and the first director of that program [Edward J. Ruppelt] both became convinced through this program that UFOs are real and represent a true scientific mystery and worthy of true scientific study, something clicked for me. This is unbelievable. So this is a drama series that examines this program through the eyes of these two men."

O'Leary has spent many hours reading the first-hand research from both Blue Book, via the declassified documents in Hynek's book "The UFO Experience" (Regnery, 1972), and from independent UFO historians. The producer also interviewed the last living director of Blue Book — Robert J. Friend, who died in June 2019 at age 99. Friend not only provided details of the investigations, but also discussed matters such as what the project's offices looked like. His testimony helped with the sets on the show, O'Leary said.

Some of the more famous examples of Blue Book investigations include the Roswell incident (in which a purported UFO crashed near Roswell, N.M.) and Area 51, Nev., a top-secret military testing ground that some people say is linked to alien research.

Neal McDonough as General James Harding in The History Channel's "Project Blue Book."

(Image credit: Eduardo Araquel/History)

Season 1 of Project Blue Book ran between January and March 2019, with 10 episodes — each one examining a UFO conspiracy in detail. Some of the stories examined include:

A reported UFO "dogfight" over Fargo, N.D.,, in 1948, which some say was a weather balloon — although O'Leary's research indicated that there was a more ambiguous explanation. "It's a pretty intense and incredible sequence, where the pilot engages with this aircraft that seems to maneuver like nothing he's ever seen before," O'Leary said.
A discussion about "foo fighters," or strange aerial phenomena that Allied aircraft pilots reported during the Second World War . Theories about these sightings range from aerial phenomena to fighter pilot fatigue. That said, Friend was a former foo fighter and O'Leary said that the old pilot genuinely believed that he saw something in the sky.
The "Washington Merry-Go-Round" incident in 1952, when something breached restricted air space in Washington, D.C., two weekends in a row, sparking President Harry Truman's administration to scramble fighter jets, O'Leary said. "We still have no idea what they were.

O'Leary added that the show tries not to show the same kind of UFO sightings in each episode; some have focused on matters such as an "X-Files"-like chase of something in the forest, people who felt that they made telepathic connections with aliens, and a Kentucky family reporting an alien home invasion.

While a Season 3 hasn't been confirmed yet, O'Leary said the show's team would be interested in producing more episodes. "We have a lot of new ideas, and areas to explore," he said, again pointing to the hundreds of unresolved cases under Project Blue Book.

Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace.

Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

29-01-2020 om 22:09 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:UFOs , UAPs , USOS

40,000 Year Old Archaeological Discoveries That Show There Was an Advanced Civilization

40,000 Year Old Archaeological Discoveries That Show There Was an Advanced Civilization

We look to the far-reaching spread of Denisovan DNA and artifacts. Andrew Collins traces the legacy of the Denisovans, through myth History and archeology, across the ancient world, leading to the origins of human civilization. What we find is a civilization more than 40,000 years old, with an advanced intellect and technology, merging with modern humans.

The Denisovans or Denisova hominins are an extinct species or subspecies of archaic human in the genus Homo without an agreed taxonomic name. Pending consensus on its taxonomic status, it has been referred to as Homo denisova, Homo altaiensis, or Homo sapiens denisova.

Other videos - peter2011

29-01-2020 om 21:32 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ARCHEOLOGIE ( E, Nl, Fr )

Twee ‘gepensioneerde’ satellieten dreigen vannacht boven de VS met elkaar in botsing te komen - HLN.be

Bron: Science Alert

ThinkStock

Een botsing zou nog meer ruimtepuin opleveren, en er vliegen naar schatting reeds 129 miljoen stukjes puin rond.

WETENSCHAP Twee oude ‘gepensioneerde’ satellieten dreigen komende nacht frontaal op elkaar te botsen. Dat zal naar schatting gebeuren boven Pittsburgh in de Verenigde Staten, zo’n 900 kilometer boven de aarde. Hoewel wij er niets van zullen merken, waarschuwt de organisatie die ruimtepuin traceert LeoLabs voor de gevolgen.

Het gaat om de Infrarood Astronomische Satelliet (afgekort IRAS) die in 1983 werd gelanceerd en de satelliet genaamd GGSE-4 die sinds 1967 in het luchtruim hangt. Omdat ze al eventjes niet meer in contact met de aarde staan, betekent dat dat ze ook geen manoeuvres meer kunnen uitvoeren.

LeoLabs, de organisatie die ruimtepuin nauwgezet in de gaten houdt, gelooft dat ze elkaar op een afstand van 15 tot 30 meter zullen passeren. En de kans dat ze elkaar raken is 1 op 1.000. Een kleine kans, toch waarschuwt LeoLabs voor de mogelijke gevolgen. Een botsing zou immers nog meer ruimtepuin opleveren, en er vliegen naar schatting reeds 129 miljoen stukjes puin rond.

Vermits er in de ruimte wel duizenden oude satellieten – die niet meer in contact staan met de aarde – rondzweven, is het eigenlijk vreemd dat er niet vaker botsingen gebeuren. LeoLabs waarschuwt dat de kans op zo’n aanvaring vannacht een pak groter is.

LeoLabs, Inc.@LeoLabs_Space

Here is an interactive visualization of this event based on our most recent data. Click "Jump to TCA" to see how close these objects should pass to one another:

https://platform.leolabs.space/visualizations/conjunction?

cdmId=3036886825&type=conjunction&reportId=2001817770 …

https://twitter.com/LeoLabs_Space/status/1221908248305061889 …

LeoLabs, Inc.@LeoLabs_Space

1/ We are monitoring a close approach event involving IRAS (13777), the decommissioned space telescope launched in 1983, and GGSE-4 (2828), an experimental US payload launched in 1967.

(IRAS image credit: NASA)

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29-01-2020 om 19:48 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:HLN.be - Het Laatste Nieuws ( NL)

SpaceX lanceert opnieuw Falcon-draagraket met zestig satellieten voor ‘Starlink’ - HLN.be

AFP

De nuttige lading bestaat uit zestig satellieten voor Starlink.

SpaceX heeft vandaag van op Cape Canaveral in Florida een Falcon-draagraket met zestig van zijn satellieten voor het breedbandinternetnetwerk ‘Starlink’ gelanceerd. De lancering was rechtstreeks op de website van het ruimtevaartbedrijf te volgen.

Op lanceercomplex 40 van Cape Canaveral vertrok met twee dagen vertraging - door ongunstige weeromstandigheden - om 15.09 uur Belgische tijd een Falcon-9 draagraket.

De nuttige lading bestond uit zestig satellieten voor Starlink, de constellatie die SpaceX aan het uitbouwen is voor wereldomvattend breedbandinternet, en waarvoor eerder in drie etappes al 180 kunstmanen zijn gelanceerd. De meegevoerde Starlinks wegen elk zowat 260 kilo en vormden samen de zwaarste nuttige lading ooit meegenomen door een Falcon-9. Het uitzetten van de lading in een cirkelvormige baan, op zowat 290 kilometer hoogte, duurde ongeveer een uur. Dit uitzetten gebeurde deze keer in één keer, in plaats van zoals gangbaar twee per twee.

AFP

De eerste trap van de draagraket keerde veilig terug op droneship ‘Of Course I Still Love You’. Het is de 49ste keer dat SpaceX de eerste trap van een Falcon recupereert, deze eerste trap is trouwens al twee keer eerder gebruikt. Hergebruik drukt de lanceerkosten.

De twee delen van de neuskegel moesten in netten van twee schepen, ‘Ms. Tree’ en ‘Ms Chief’, ploffen. Een van de twee helften is zoals verhoopt in een vangnet geland; het succes was voor Ms.Tee weggelegd. De andere helft van de neuskegel kwam in de Atlantische Oceaan terecht. SpaceX zal proberen het ding te bergen met het oog op hergebruik.

Starlink raakt net als concurrerende netwerken meer en meer omstreden, zeker gezien het feit dat SpaceX op duizenden kunstmanen mikt. Die verhogen de kans op botsingen in de ruimte en er lijkt ook geen plan te zijn om ze na uitdiensttreding weer naar beneden te halen. Bovendien kunnen ze de waarnemingen van astronomen verstoren.

29-01-2020 om 19:36 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:HLN.be - Het Laatste Nieuws ( NL)

Family’s Close Encounter In Columbia Missouri

JUNE 28, 1973 ……..COLUMBIA MISSOURI

The mobile home of James Richards sat on the absolute outskirts of the city of Columbia in the state of Missouri. Not only that, but the home itself was at the end of dead-end footpath around 1000 feet from the nearest main road. All around this quiet and extremely humble abode were “scattered trees” aside from a small front yard. To say that Richards and his 16-year-old daughter, Vanea, as well as Jamie, her 3-year-old son were cut off from the vast majority of the community was an understatement.

Incidentally, the nearest property to Mr. Richards’ mobile home was a small house, lived in by an elderly lady. She was, however, “asleep at the time of the observation”.

On this particular evening, at a little past midnight on 28^th June 1973, Vanea was making her way to the north side of the mobile home, to the fridge so that she could place a baby bottle there. Although there was music filling the home from the record player which was spinning the vinyl disc around and around on its turntable, the open window allowed the sudden noise from outside to be heard easily.

Vanea would later describe the noise as a “thrashing” sound and it appeared to emanate from the trees around the side of the mobile home. The more she listened, now all but blocking out the record player, she could make out what appeared to be the sound of something “moving a large tree” outside.

She would remain where she was for a few more moments, listening intently to the mysterious and unnerving activity taking place outside. Then, as loudly as she could without alerting whoever, or whatever was outside, she would call out to her father.

Two Bright, Silver-White Beams Appear Out Of Nowhere!

Richards could hear his daughter call from the kitchen area of the mobile home as he sat in the living room with Jamie. Because of the hour and the fact that he himself was feeling sluggish and tired, he was rather slow in getting in out of the living room chair and up to the window where Vanea was calling him from.

By the time he had arrived at where his daughter was, she was moving with great pace from the outside screen door to the front door, locking both of them as quickly as she could. He would make his way to the kitchen window, now with a little more urgency than before. His daughter joined him a moment or two later, now satisfied that the doors were as secure as they could be.

As they both stared out into the darkness of the summer’s night, “two beams of light” suddenly became visible. They appeared to be between the trees and the nearby fence. Richards would guess they were approximately 50 feet from the kitchen window they were viewing them from and had a “tapered” look to them, with the wider section at the top.

He would further estimate the beams were around five feet apart, and remained this distance., suggesting they emanated from the same solid source overhead. Furthermore, they had a “bright, silver-white” color to them. However, try as he did, he could see no solid form “above or behind the beams”.

Then, they just disappeared as suddenly as they had appeared. It was then that both Richards and his daughter could see the “bright oval form” in their place.

The Woodland “Lit Up As Bright As Day!”

The father and daughter remained where they were at the kitchen window, both fascinated and alarmed at the scene and scenario unfolding before them.

They would later estimate that the “glowing form” was around 15 feet across and appeared to be only mere feet from the ground. So bright was the object that the pair had difficulty in keeping their sight on it, with Richards even having to look away at one point. Such was the brightness, that other than the silver glow, no other details of the exterior could be seen. Furthermore, because of this brightness, the area immediately outside the mobile home was “lit up bright as day”.

In this artificial daylight, the pair could see the trees moving as if a sudden strong wind had come out of nowhere unleashing its carnage on the area. However, more than that, it appeared that some trees were being manipulated in different ways than others, with Vanea even witnessing one tree being pulled toward the ground.

All the while, however, the only sound that reached them was that which initially caught Vanea’s attention, the strange thrashing noise. No other sounds or noises whatsoever came from the active scene outside, which must have given the scene an even more surreal feel.

Then, the thrashing sound stopped, although the trees continued to move. A moment later, a loud “cracking” sound rang out quickly followed by the bizarre movement of the trees also stopping. Although they didn’t know it at the time, or at least were not certain of it, investigation of the area the following day would show a large, heavy branch had been snapped off at a height of almost 20 feet.

A “Real Bright” Center With Duller, Fuzzy Edges!

Following this burst of activity, a deafening silence would suddenly envelop the mobile home, even seeming to leak into the building itself making the father and daughter feel more than uneasy. It was during these unsettling moments that Richards realized their dogs – who would normally bark at anything that moved outside the house – were completely still and silent. As he went from window to window of the mobile home surveying the area outside, he noticed them almost hiding away from whatever had been taking place only moments ago.

It was then that he went to his bedroom to retrieve his guns. He quickly returned into the kitchen area, the weapons and ammunition in his arms. He would load the guns and then place them on top of the freezer unit and out of the reach of anyone other than he and his daughter.

When he returned to the kitchen window where his daughter remained, watching the scene outside, he could see that the glowing craft remained hovering at a distance of around 50 feet from their home, although the brightness lit up a radius of around double that.

Although they could still make out no real detail of the craft other than it was oval-shaped and a “silver-white or aluminum” color, Richards would recall that the middle of it was “real, real bright” while the edges were decidedly duller. Vanea, similarly, would recall that edges of the object were somewhat “fuzzy”.

The pair remained at the kitchen window, nervous about what might happen next but not wishing to take their eyes from the situation for even a moment. After several more moments, however, Richards made the decision it was time to call for help.

Contact “The Police, The FBI” Or Anyone Who Can Help Me!

Whether by coincidence or not, almost in sympathy with his actions the object suddenly moved and changed its position. It would now take up temporary residence in the sky over a nearby field, approximately 200 feet from the mobile home.

Because there was not more distance between the craft and their location, the pair could now make out a lot more detail than they could previously. For example, the craft was a bright silver-white in the middle while at the edge was a “blue band of light”. Furthermore, an “orange glow extended around the outer edge”.

Richards and his daughter watched the craft return to its original position, describing the movement of it as “smooth and slow”. Shortly after this, he would reach for the phone and dial 113 for directory assistance.

The lady who took the call – identified as “Mrs. AB” would claim that Richards was “very excited and seemed to be frightened” although he was clear in describing the event. He would also request that she contact “the police, the FBI, or anyone who could help him!”

She would manage to calm him somewhat and assure him that she would contact an operator who would call him back. Several moments later, a “Mrs. P” called back and spoke with Richards for several minutes. During this exchange, the lights in the mobile home dimmed several times. This, of course, is a detail that often surfaces in close encounter experiences. Usually, however, these types of encounters occur while people are in their vehicles and experience their car’s cutting out without warning.

On Mrs. P’s instructions, he would hang the phone up, return to the window, and await the return call.

An Obviously Frightened But Sincere Witness!

While this was taking place, Mrs. P would contact Mrs. L, who would in turn attempt to call Richards. However, when she did, she would hear nothing other than a “deadline”. She would try the number five times, even calling Mrs. P back in between to check that the number she had was correct.

During this time, Richards himself began to worry that no one had contacted him back. So much so, that he picked up the receiver. Bizarrely, and adding even more to the strangeness of the situation, after the line appeared dead, he suddenly heard Mrs. M.

He would then relay the evening’s happenings to the operator, stating at this stage that he was decidedly frightened for his children.

For her part, Mrs. M would recall that Richards would repeat his story again and again. He would occasionally pause and shout out to his daughter, asking if the strange object was still outside.

Before long, Richards was transferred to Mrs. S at the Flight Service Station at Columbia Regional Airport.

Mrs. S would ultimately assure Richards that she would contact the police and report the sighting for him. She would also inform him that she had knowledge of another sighting on the 24^th June – only two weeks earlier – we will examine that incident later.

Shortly after the exchange, the pair would hang up.

A moment or two later, the object began to approach the mobile home once again.

A Last Visual Stand-Off!

Richards and Vanea watched the object approach, watching with a rising sense of fear intoxicating each of them. Richards would later describe a “cold feeling” overtaking him and the feeling of something imminent and dire about to take place. He would state that he “just froze” and had no idea what to do.

Even more, the distinct feeling that he, his daughter, and grandson were on their own in their out-of-the-way mobile home wouldn’t leave him. Nor would the insistence that all three of them would not for any reason step outside.

This visual stand-off continued for several minutes (although neither witness was completely sure just how long this was for). Then, the craft went into motion yet again. Once more, it went through the trees with a “smooth, slow motion”, although Richards recalls that during this particular burst of movement, the surrounding trees appeared undisturbed.

The craft once more would stop at a distance of around 200 feet from the Richards’ mobile home. As before, from this distance, the blue-orange glow of the outer edges of the vehicle were visible while the solid silver glow of the center section was now more defined. The object then appeared to fade away, although not into the distance (no trees appeared disturbed, for example) but as though it was literally fading from view. Within several minutes, the object was no longer visible.

NOTE: The above image is real and from a New York trail camera in 9-2-09.

KEN PFEIFER WORLD UFO PHOTOS AND NEWS

HTTP://WWW.WORLDUFOPHOTOS.ORG

HTTP://WWW.KENPFEIFERDISCOVERIES.COM

THANKS TO https://www.ufoinsight.com

Source:

http://worldufophotosandnews.org/?p=25027

29-01-2020 om 19:00 geschreven door peter

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The Lost Civilization of Atlantis: Buried beneath the Ice of Antarctica

Using the dating method of Dr. W.D. Urry. from the Carnegie Institution in Washington D.C., scientists discovered that Antarctica’s rivers, sources of fine-dispersed deposits, were flowing as depicted on The Orontius Finaeus map, about 6,000 years ago. About 4000 years B. C., glacial sediments started to accumulate.

at_the_mountains_of_madness_by_moonxels

In 1949, Admiral Baird’s expedition bore holes into the Ross Sea in three spots, where Orontius Finaeus marked river-beds. In the cuts, fine-grained layers were found, obviously brought to the sea with rivers whose sources were situated in temperate latitudes.

Image Credit

Is it possible that the lost civilization of Atlantis is buried beneath the Ice of Antarctica?

Antarctica and Atlantis are two words commonly used in the same phrase. It’s not a mystery that many people firmly believe that Atlantis did, in fact, exist on Earth, and Antartica might just be the right place where we should search for Atlantis.

But while Plato was the first to write about the lost city-continent of Atlantis, its noteworthy to mention that many Native American legends are reminiscent of what Plato sustained in the distant past, reinforcing suspicion that Atlantis could have existed.

The legends of Native Americans come from different cultures separated by vast distances and isolated from one another. However, all of them tell a similar story of a once fallen civilization that existed in the distant past. In Central America, this ancient culture lived in Aztlan. According to legends, Aztlan was located to the south, on a white island and perished without warning as a result of natural catastrophic events. Many researchers maintain that Aztlan means “place of whiteness.” This is why it has commonly been connected to Atlantis and Antarctica, suggesting that Aztlan might have been the mythical Atlantis, the mythical place located to the south.

Depiction of the departure from Aztlán in the 16th-century Codex Boturini. Image Credit

Depiction of the departure from Aztlán in the 16th-century Codex Boturini.

Image Credit

It is said that after the catastrophic events, the survivors of Atlantis fled to different continents where their ancient civilization ultimately merged with others and disappeared.

Skeptics will rush to discredit any theory linking Atlantis to Antarctica mostly because Antarctica today is a completely inhospitable and frozen environment where civilizations could not flourish. However, in remote antiquity most of Antarctica was hospitable. Proof of that is a number is enigmatic and ancient maps that depict the continent of Antarctica free of Ice. The most famous cartographical chart is without a doubt the famous Piri-Reis map, drawn by an admiral who served in the Navy of the Ancient Ottoman Empire.

Interestingly, the Piri Reis map was based on a number of even older maps which accurately trace the coastline of Antarctica WITHOUT the layer of ice that covers it today. This indicates clearly that whoever had the technology and ability to survey the continent of Antarctica must have done so thousands of years ago before the continent was frozen.

But how can a continent located to the south be free of Ice? Well, it turns out that Antarctica wasn’t always located where it is today. In fact, in the distant past, the continent of Antarctica wasn’t located at the South Pile, but instead somewhere between it and the Equator of our planet. This means that Antarctica was located farther north and experienced a tropical or temperate climate, meaning that it was covered in forests, and inhabited by various ancient life forms. What does this mean? Well… given the little we know about the life on our planet in the distant past, it is likely that people might have lived on this now, icy continent and developed as a society just like people did in Africa, Europe, and Asia.

But how was this even possible? Thanks to a scientific theory called crustal displacement.

According to mainstream scholars, and the theory of continental drift, the crust of our planet is in fact divided into several tectonic plates that literally ‘float’ over a molted inner layer, Over the ages, these plates slowly bump against one another.

However, the theory of crustal displacement which expands the theory of continental drift, approximately every 40,000 years, the entire crust of our planet shifts as a single unit. After each ‘shift’ all the land masses on our planet, including entire continents are relocated to a new position on the planet.

Many researchers believed that this happened the last time around 10,000 B.C. and caused the continent of Antarctica to move from its position near the equator to its current position, on top of the South Pole.

“I still find the idea that Antarctica was once forested absolutely mind-boggling”,

“We take it for granted that Antarctica has alws been a frozen wilderness, but the ice caps only appeared relatively recently in geological history,” told Jane Francis of the University of Leeds.

Today, Antarctica is composed of around ninety-eight percent ice which is over a kilometer thick. So imagine, if in the distant past, ancient people inhabited Antarctica when it was covered with vegetation and forests, all of their “heritage” is now buried under a thick layer of ice. Even though it is uninhabitable today and only scientists venture out to Antarctica, in the distant past it might have been the perfect place for an ancient civilization to develop.

Interestingly, according to reports from Pravda.ru

In 1949, Admiral Baird’s expedition bore holes into the Ross Sea in three spots, where Orontius Finaeus marked river-beds. In the cuts, fine-grained layers were found, obviously brought to the sea with rivers whose sources were situated in temperate latitudes (i.e. free of glaciers).The samples were taken from three different locations. 70 deg. 17′ S 178 deg. 15′ W 2,990 M deep, 69 deg. 12′ S 180 deg. S. at 3,130 M. deep, 68 deg. 26′ S 179 deg. 15’W at 3,292 M. deep. (1)

The fine-grained sediment that was found is the sort that is carried by rivers from ice-free continents. Also during the Byrd expedition of 1935 geologists made a rich discovery of fossils on the sides of Mount Weaver (Lat. 86 deg. 58’S) which included leaf and stem impressions and fossilized wood. In 1952 they identified two species of a tree fern called Glossopteris once common to southern continents (Africa, South America, and Australia.)

Core samples taken from the Ross Sea during the Byrd expedition of 1947-1948 shows glacial marine sediment from the present to 6000 years ago. From 6,000 to 15,000 the sediment is fine-grained suggests an absence of ice from the area. Then there is a zone fine-grained sediment from 30,000 to 40,000 years ago, again suggesting that the area was ice free. From 40,000 to 133,550 years ago there are two zones of coarse and two zones of medium-grained texture. While comparing the three samples, two of them show that the end of the temperate period and the beginning of the most recent glacial period started 6,000 years ago and the third just 1,000 years after that. So Antarctica has had recent period of temperate climate. (Source) (Source)

All of this points to the undeniable fact that sometime between the 4th and 12th millennium B.C, there was an extremely advanced civilization on Earth, with great knowledge of navigation, cartography, and astronomy. Their technological advancements were way ahead of other cultures that would appear after them. This ‘lost’ civilization, most definitely preceded our modern civilization by tens of thousands of years. And many people firmly believe that this civilization could have been Atlantis, and evidence of their existence will be found beneath the thick layers of ice that currently cover the continent of Antarctica.

Check out: The forgotten Diary of Vice Admiral Byrd – The Ultimate evidence the Hollow Earth is real?

(1) http://atlantisonline.smfforfree2.com/index.php?topic=18910.0

{ https://www.ancient-code.com/ }

29-01-2020 om 17:59 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ARCHEOLOGIE ( E, Nl, Fr )

Antarctica Advanced Civilizations Were Located There and in Atlantis

COAST TO COAST AM -

Historian and symbolic cosmologist Tricia McCannon spoke about the evidence for world-wide advanced ancient civilizations in locations including Atlantis and Antarctica. We have discovered a web of thousands of pyramids all over the globe, in what appears to have been an ancient advanced worldwide culture, she cited.

There are ancient cities buried in Antarctica, she continued, as well as remnants of great ‘Inner Earth’ civilizations there, and at the North Pole.

29-01-2020 om 17:16 geschreven door peter

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Jellyfish like UFO caught on camera China Great Wall CCTV

Jfrissina uploaded a video on January 27, 2020 showing a strange jellyfish like UFO hovering over the Great wall of China.

The sighting was recorded on the Great wall of China's CCTV before the sight was closed to the public.

Tourists point to the UFO at the moment it broke through the clouds, then disappeared back into them.

reaction of a person

First, that is not a CCTV feed from the "Great Wall Of China". It has none of the markers that are used to identify it's location, day and time.

Second, you know what all the REAL CCTV cameras at the Great Wall have in common? They point down, not up!

Third, this is not the ratio and refresh rate of a Chinese CCTV camera.

This footage is taken from someone's camera/phone resting on the great wall. What are the odds that someone would walk to the exact center of the frame of a CCTV camera and stop and point at something in the sky? Very, very slim odds.

Finally, notice anything odd about the rest of the people there? Even when the cowboy points UP, only his companion looks UP! People walking in front of him seeing him pointing up.... never look up. How rare do you think that is? How rare do you think it is when people point up at the sky at something that NO ONE ELSE looks up? Incredibly rare. Even the photographer on the right never for a second looks up, or points his camera at what the two are seeing. Because there's nothing to see.

29-01-2020 om 16:48 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

RAF UFO Sighting Files To Be Published Online

raf-ufo

UFO sighting reports recorded by the RAF are to be made available online for the first time. The RAF decided to cease its UFO unit in 2009, after concluding that no received report had ever provided any proof of potential threat in more than 50 years.

Records from the unit were previously passed to the National Archives. Most were initially classified before being declassified after a particular number of years.

However, most recent reports that RAF received will be made available online, following a Freedom of Information Act request. Members of the public reporting UFO sightings are now directed to their local police force.

RAF said, through their spokesman, that it had been assessed it would be better to make these records available to the public online rather than keep on sending documents to the National Archives. They are planning to publish them on to a dedicated gov.uk web page.

The publication is expected to happen within the first quarter of 2020 as a clearance process for the documents is still going on.

The RAF described the files in response to the FOI request as “comprising entirely of correspondence with members of the public.”

29-01-2020 om 16:27 geschreven door peter

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The Bizarre UFO Waves of New York’s Hudson River Valley

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The Bizarre UFO Waves of New York’s Hudson River Valley

Sometimes UFOs show up in the most seemingly unlikely of places. The area of New York’s Hudson River Valley is known for its quaint, historical beauty, agriculture, and as a prominent winemaking region. Here many educated professionals have their homes in upscale neighborhoods, and it is one of the last places one would expect to be ground zero for some of the most intense UFO activity there is, yet for a few years starting from 1981, the peaceful Hudson River Valley began to gain a reputation as a hotspot for otherworldly phenomena that has generated much discussion to this day.

The beginning of it all is widely thought to have been on New Year’s Eve, December 31, 1981, when an unnamed off-duty police officer was out in the yard of his home in Kent, New York, with his family just a few minutes before the start of the new year, but this was to prove to be a bit more exciting than usual. Off in the distance they spied a group of red, green, and white lights that were approaching from the south, and which they at fist just took to be a plane. However, as the object approached it could be seen that rather than a plane, the multicolored lights were embedded within a boomerang-shaped craft of some sort, which slowly passed right over their heads at a height of around 500 feet while issuing only an eerie, faint humming sound. On several occasions the lights were reported as shifting from multicolored to an all-white coloration in different patterns, and this was quite obviously no normal aircraft.

It would turn out that there were many other witnesses to this incident at the time, as on nearby Interstate 84 several motorists also observed the object and were so awed by it that they stopped their vehicles along the road to watch it make its inscrutable journey across the sky. One of these motorists was 55-year-old Edwin Hansen, who would explain that the massive boomerang or V-shaped object was big enough to block out the stars, and could be seen to project some sort of light beam to the ground. Oddly, Hansen would also claim that he had made what he believed to be some sort of telepathic contact with the craft, his mind filled with strange images and thoughts that were not his own and the sensation that something was reading his mind and telling him to not be afraid.

This was to prove to be far from a one-off sighting of an unidentified flying object, and the strangeness would resume in February of the following year. On February 26, 1982, a witness by the name of Monique O’Driscoll was driving with her daughter when they saw a strange light in the sky that seemed to take up position over a frozen lake. When they stopped the car they could see that it was a large V-shaped object with numerous red, blue, and amber lights dotting it, as well as an underside crisscrossed by some sort of metal beams. At one point the object seemed to approach them, giving them a bit of a scare, before making its way off into the night. This object would be seen by quite a few other witnesses as well, and the police office would get a deluge of panicked calls at the time. Whatever it was did not seem to be finished frightening the area’s residents, as on March 17, 1983 it was seen again by a few witnesses in Brewster, New York, including by the Deputy Clerk for Putnam County Dennis Sant, who saw it from his home. Sant was left utterly baffled by the bizarre incident, as well as not a little frightened, and he describes what he saw thusly:

It was a very large object. The structure of it was very dark gray, metallic, almost girder-type looking. The object seemed to be very silent. The lights were iridescent, bright, they stood out in the sky and three-dimension. It looked like a city of lights. It just hung in the sky, all brilliant colors… We followed the object around to the backyard. And at that point, a feeling of fright came upon me. Thoughts started to flood my mind, thoughts of the craft touching ground, thoughts of an encounter with an alien being. Thoughts of being abducted. All types of fearful thoughts started to enter into my mind.

As with the other sightings, it was described as being a large boomerang-shaped craft, around 131 feet long, and more than 330 feet wide, with a multitude of bright red, green, amber and white lights along its fuselage, and it was largely silent. This incident would lead into another just a week later, when the object appeared on March 24, 1983 in the areas of Yorktown and New Castle to set off a whole new wave of sightings. Police began getting a flood of calls from people seeing weird things in the sky, all describing the same V-shaped lighted craft mostly described as being as large as a football field, although there were also reports of smaller objects dating through the sky or even two in different locations at the same time, suggesting there was more than one of them. Among the witnesses were several police officers, and one Officer Andi Sadoff of the New Castle Police explains what he saw as follows:

I was working a 4 PM to midnight tour and assigned to set up some radar to look for speeding cars and I looked up into the sky and saw a series of lights. And at first I thought it was a plane, it was quite a distance, quite far away, but it was, it was really quite large. As I recall, there were mostly white lights, but there were green lights also. It was alternating green and white lights. It approached my vehicle and it stopped and it seemed to hover. And I’m looking at this thing, thinking what is it? I wasn’t afraid. I was just amazed. I was in awe of it. I didn’t know what it was. The only thing that I recall the most is I was amazed that there was no noise. There was no humming. There was no engine, there was no sound. It was absolutely silent.

This particular report was supported by another that occurred at exactly the same time, this time the witness being a senior manager for IBM by the name of Ed Burns. He was only about 10 miles away from Officer Sadoff, and says that he was first clued in to something strange going on when his radio started acting oddly. Burns says:

Out of nowhere, I got a lot of static on the radio. I thought maybe I was on the wrong number, and then I went over to turn the dial again and that’s when I looked up and saw this craft. It was a triangular ship. And the back had to be as large as a football field at least. And there was no noise. I’m not into astronomy… but what I had witnessed that night was not from this planet.

The ship seemed to generate sightings all up and down the valley on this evening, startling motorists and spotted numerous times by police officers, and the following evening the object was seen by various people yet again. The apperance was always nearly identical; large, descriptions like “as big as a football field” or as large as an aircraft carrier” were thrown around, V-shaped or triangular, the lights studding the exterior. However, interestingly, the reports showed varied behavior for the object or objects, such as that they would shoot beams of light, spin around like a top, shoot away at fantastic speeds, display patterns of colors with their lights, detach what appeared to be smaller craft from the main body, or wink in and out of existence. One witness named Jim Booke, a biomedical engineer, allegedly saw it silently circle over the Croton Falls Reservoir dropping what seemed to be lighted probes into the water and shooting a red beam of light into the reservoir, and indeed the object seemed to often stop over bodies of water. It all left people absolutely baffled, and this time the incident hit the news in a major way, finally catching the attention of UFO researchers Philip J. Imbrogno and J. Allen Hynek, who had been a senior consultant on the Air Force’s Project Blue Book.

The Hudson River Valley

Imbrogno and Hynek arrived in the area and began interviewing as many witnesses to the UFOs that kept appearing as they could. They also set up a phone hotline for people who had seen the objects and very quickly received hundreds of calls, which along with the floods of calls police had received caused them to estimate that there were perhaps thousands of people out there who had observed the phenomenon on March 24 alone, the majority of these being from along the Taconic Parkway. Many of the witnesses were found to be reliable and upstanding citizens, and all of them described the same enormous boomerang shaped craft. The two researchers became convinced that something very off was going on, but the police had other ideas.

According to law enforcement authorities, the whole thing was a prank being pulled by normal ultralight planes or helicopters flying in formation in such a way as to seem more mysterious. The Federal Aviation Administration agreed with this theory, as did officials from nearby Stewart Air Force Base. Supporting the plane theory even futher was a report from an air traffic control specialist named Anthony Capaldi, who also had seen the phenomenon but had come to the conclusion that it was planes in formation. He would say:

The first time I observed the formation, it looked a little peculiar. And from our vantage point in the tower, they just appeared to be just one big light because they were flying in tight formation. I don’t think if this formation flew over an individual’s head at a thousand feet that there’s any way you could mistake it for anything but the formation flying, due to the sound of the aircraft engines. And I imagine that at a thousand feet, you could really determine that it’s aircraft.

There was also a certified hoax when some prankish night pilots buzzed over the region in April of 1983, but interestingly most people who saw this formation immediately recognized them as planes, the same of which could not be said of the other waves of sightings. In fact, many of the witnesses insisted that they knew the difference between planes and what they had seen, and refused to believe that the objects were normal aircraft. This, plus the fact that besides the April hoax no one had ever been caught in the act and there were no suspects, as well as the fact that ultralight planes would unlikely be able to remain so silent and pull off the aerial activities witnessed or hold formation so well, and that so many people had reported these UFOs, Imbrogno and Hynek came to the conclusion that planes in formation were not an acceptable explanation.

In the meantime, the waves of sightings continued, with another on March 31, yet again that summer on July 12, 19, and 24, and yet another the following year on March 25, 1984, each one of these waves generating hundreds of sightings. Some of these reports were rather unsettling, such as a crew at the Indian Point Nuclear Plant, who claimed that the massive craft had hovered over one of the nuclear reactors and caused the facility’s security systems to shut down, which had caused the supervisor to almost have his men open fire upon it, before it suddenly shot off into the night. Even more such sightings flaps would pop up in the coming years until it seemed to stop in 1986. Imbrogno and Hynek would estimate that more than 5,000 people had seen these objects, and they would write an entire book on it titled Night Siege: The Hudson Valley UFO Sightings. They also were able to find some certain idiosyncrasies among all of the data they managed to collect, such as that the sightings were clustered very tightly and seemed to fall on Monday, Thursday, and Sunday nights to a disproportionate degree. what this means is anyone’s guess.

Considering the sheer number of independent sightings in the Hudson River Valley between 1981 to 1986, the consistency of the reports, and the number of trained observers, as well as the intensity of it all over the course of years, it certainly seems as though, although some people may have tried to imitate it and hoax it, the phenomenon itself remains mired in mystery. Indeed, the UFO flaps of the Hudson River Valley have never really been satisfactorily explained, and are some of the most widely witnessed UFO phenomena ever seen. What was going on here? Was this just misidentified aircraft and hoaxers as the authorities would like us to believe, or is there something more to it all? If these really were visitors from another world, then what did they want and what brought them to this specific place at these specific times? It is likely we will never know, and the mystery remains a classic case within UFOlogy.

29-01-2020 om 01:08 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:UFOs , UAPs , USOS

British X-Files to be Released to the Public This Quarter

“It had been assessed that it would be better to publish these records, rather than continue sending documents to the National Archives, and so they are looking to put them onto a dedicated gov.uk web page.”

While U.S. presidential candidates make vague promises that they will release the government’s secret UFO files if elected and the U.S. Navy debates the security ramifications of releasing any more information on the infamous “Tic-Tac” UFOs, the British government isn’t waiting for an election to let it’s public see anything and everything that’s in its X-files. Numerous British publications and online media sites have been reporting the comments of an anonymous RAF spokesperson who responded to a Freedom of Information request submitted by PA Media, a multimedia news agency. The release will take place “some time within the first quarter of 2020.”

“When I worked on the MoD’s ‘UFO desk’ we didn’t find definitive proof of extraterrestrial visitation, but there were so many bizarre and unexplained sightings that we didn’t entirely rule it out.”

That statement could be made by no one but Nick Pope, journalist and former Ministry of Defence employee who had his hand in investigating many of those files. Unfortunately, the RAF spokesperson squelched hopes that there would be some dirt on aliens in the release.

“The MoD has no viewpoint on the existence or otherwise of excess terrestrial existence and does not look into UFO reports.”

Don’t look to the U.S. government – now or after the election – to fill in the blanks with their own release of American X-files. UFO researcher Christian Lambright sent a Freedom of Information (FOIA) request to the Navy’s Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) for records ON THE Nimitz Tic-Tac UFOs incident shortly after it came out. He recently got an answer.

“Specifically, under Section 1.4, the materials would trigger protections under subcategory c), the Intelligence Activities of the United States, as well as the Sources and Methods that are being used to gather information in support of the National Security of the United States. In addition, the materials would trigger protections under subcategory e), Scientific and Technological Matters related to the National Security of the United States. For this reason, the materials are exempt from release under the (b) (1) Exemption for Classified Matters of National Defense. As a result these records may not be released and are being withheld.”

It’s highly likely that the British and U.S. X-files have similar, and probably some identical, information. Why is the British government dragging its files out from under a rock into the broad public daylight, while the U.S. government continues to hide theirs in an Indiana Jones secret warehouse? Could the U.S. be waiting to see what the British have (does anyone really believe we don’t already know?) and how their public reacts to it? Is our government really so afraid of riots in the streets if it releases a bombshell like the existence of extraterrestrials? Why won’t the same thing happen if some other country releases that info first?

We’ve seen lately what happens to whistleblowers. We’ve also seen what happens when the government tries to cover things up. We all want to believe in the existence of other life forms and their ability to visit us in sophisticated flying machines. Unfortunately, we’re at the mercy of an unsophisticated power system bent on keeping knowledge away from us.

Who will win? Let’s hope the British X-files answer our questions and we don’t have to wait for the U.S. government anymore.

Image: Courtesy of the Neanderthal Museum

29-01-2020 om 00:36 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:UFOs , UAPs , USOS

What Happened When Humans Met An 'Alien' Intelligence? Sex Happened

BY ROBERT KRULWICH

Image: Courtesy of the Neanderthal Museum

We have dreamed about it for so long. We've told stories, made movies, imagined what it would be like when we humans have our first "close encounter" with an intelligent alien, a creature about our size, who can gaze back, talk (even if we can't understand what's being said) who can scare us, thrill us, make us feel its mind. Who wouldn't want a moment like the one in E.T., when the little alien puts out his finger? But that's the movies.

We now know how big the universe is, how far the stars are from each other. Just as I was getting used to the idea that even if there's intelligent life out there, there's no way we'll ever be able to find the light years to get together, I opened Chip Walter's new book, Last Ape Standing, and discovered — it's already happened.

First Encounter

We've already met our intelligent alien. We almost certainly had sex with them. And we did it here, right here on Earth, not so many generations ago.

In Chip's book, he describes one such encounter: We're in Europe, in a forest, maybe. It was an ordinary day, around 40,000 years ago, and a small band of Homo sapiens, some hunters, slender, looking much like us, their families nearby, are moving through the woods, looking for a boar, rabbits, something to eat, when all of a sudden "they" appear.

"Imagine this encounter, and its shattering effect," writes Walters. "Each group must have gazed at the other in bewildered amazement."

In an instant they would have seen that these creatures resembled them, but were clearly not one of them. Why didn't they communicate in the same way or even make the same sounds? This wasn't simply a different tribe ... this was another creature altogether, perhaps a god or an animal, or something in between.

God? Animal? Something In Between

On one side of that meadow stood ... us, or rather our ancestors, a group we now call Cro-Magnon (after the cave in France where their bones were discovered). We were modern humans 40,000 years ago, emigrants from Africa, baby-faced, scant of hair, but loaded with brain. We were smart. We probably carried sharp hunting tools of our own design, flint knives and spears for throwing and we had taught ourselves to kill animals from a distance — animals like those aliens making mysterious noises on the other side of the meadow.

What did the other group look like? They looked kind of like us, but stronger. Their hands were huge, their shoulders big, rounded with muscle, their faces, ah, their faces came with enormous noses, rich with nasal membranes that could warm the cold, dry air they breathed up north, where they lived.

We were more recently up from Africa, still dark skinned. They'd been 200,000 years in Europe, had grown fair, freckled and some of them had red or blond hair. And while you wouldn't know it from looking, their brains were even bigger than ours, at over 1700 cubic centimeters. "That's about 300 ccs larger than your brain or mine," says Walter. We had never seen their like, but you, you reading this, you know them from photos and magazines. They were Neanderthals. And Neanderthals have gotten a bum rap for the last hundred years.

Caveman With A Club?

We think of Neanderthals as primitives, stooped, brutish, club bearing — one of those not-quite-upright apes in a standard Evolution of Man cartoon. But they weren't stooped. That was an error. In 1908, a prominent French scientist, Marcellin Boule, examined a set of Neanderthal bones found in Southern France, put them together, and discovered an apish, bowed figure. He decided that's what all Neanderthals looked like, but he was wrong.

Boule's specimen was 40 to 50 years old, seriously old for a Neanderthal. He had suffered from chronic arthritis, "a disease that had cruelly twisted the man's spine," Walters writes. (Thus, the stoop.) "Walking must have been agonizing given the state of his bones. He died with no more than two teeth, which would have made eating the normal rough, Neanderthal diet nearly impossible. Yet this man's fellow tribesmen must have carried and fed him specialized foods for years, otherwise he would never have lived to such a ripe age."

So these people (and they were "people" — we share a common ancestor; living up north for 200 thousand years had changed them and made them a different species), they were hardly "brutish." At the very least, they were gentle to their elders. They must have carried, fed and cared for that old fellow for years. What's more, there's evidence they thought about life in complicated ways.

There's a gravesite in Iraq where a Neanderthal was found, "positioned fetal-like, as though he were sleeping." Neanderthals buried their dead before we Homo sapiens did, and on this site, the skeleton appears to have once surrounded by flowers and evergreens. Investigators found traces of pollen below and around him, as if to say, "We didn't abandon this man. We too knew how to love, to grieve, and we laid him here with the same tenderness you have for your people, and like you, we wished him soft passage ..."

Neanderthals, says Steven Mithen of Reading University, may have spoken a more musical, tonal language, a mix of cooing and keening, singsong beats, accompanied by gestures. Chip Walter likes to think that in their speech, and early on with their burial practices, they may have been a touch "more softhearted than we are," but we really don't know.

So what happened that afternoon in our meadow, in that moment of very first encounter? Did we think, "Food!" and attack? Did we flee? Did they? Or did we watch them, wait, take tentative steps toward each other, wondering, "What are they? Can we get closer? Can we trust them?" "The big and primal question — the mastodon in the room so to speak," writes Walters, is the simplest one: "Are they a friend or an enemy?"

Killing Them With Kindness?

Anthropologists differ on what happened. There is some evidence, but not a lot, that we regularly attacked and eventually annihilated the Neanderthals. There's evidence too, that we crowded them out of the best hunting sites, making it harder for them to earn a living (and they needed to eat more than we do to stay alive). But the third possibility, writes Chip Walter, is that "if we killed them at all, we killed them with kindness. We neither murdered them nor outcompeted them. We mated with them and, in time, simply folded them into our species until they disappeared."

De bronafbeelding bekijken

Image: Courtesy of the Neanderthal Museum

Love The One You're With

About 35,000 years ago, Homo sapiens and Neanderthals lived within shouting distance of each other in France and Spain for, at the very least, a few thousand years. If they mingled, some might have gone farther. There is a skeleton of a boy, found in Portugal, who lived after the last Neanderthals died in southern Spain, whose body seems to be a hybrid, part them, part us.

But the clincher is in your cells. I'm talking about you, you reading this, unless you are 100 percent Yoruba or San (groups that never emigrated from Africa). In 2010, scientists at the Max Planck Institute in Germany, discovered that most humans on Earth, especially if they descend from Europe and most of Asia, carry about 1 to 4 percent Neanderthal DNA in their cells. Proportions will vary. British comedian Eddie Izzard, discovered he's 2.8 percent Neanderthal. You don't carry Neanderthal DNA unless someone up your family tree coupled with one.

So that's our proof: that our first encounter with an intelligent alien led to ... umm, well ... more.

Image: Gilles Tosello/Science Source

Chip Walter's Book is Last Ape Standing: The Seven Million Year Story of How and Why We Survived. It's the story of our family tree, which includes, amazingly, 27 (and still counting) different varieties of walking, upright humans. Nature produced many, many different human species, only one line of which led to us. The rest just blinked out. Here's a gorgeous look at some of our predecessors:

As for close encounters, Neanderthals aren't the only intelligent humans who lived alongside us. In Siberia, a separate species called the Denisovans hunted and settled in the Altai Mountains 40,000 years ago. Another group, the Red Deer Cave people lived in south central China as recently as 11,500 years ago. And a mini-version of humanity, Homo floresiensis, often called "hobbits" may have been on an Indonesian island as recently as 17,000 years ago. Henry Gee, of Cambridge University, likes to think they may still be with us, hiding in some remote cave or forest in Indonesia.

Missing some content? Care to comment? Check the source: NPR

{ https://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/ }

29-01-2020 om 00:00 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:Diversen (Eng, NL en Fr)

28-01-2020

The Mystery of the Quimbaya Artifacts

The peoples of Earth’s past have on many occasions given us quite a bit of a headache. They leave their belongings behind, and we study them, but just as we think we understand them they will throw us a curveball in some inexplicable object or tech that just doesn’t fit in and has been lost to the mists of time, leaving us struggling to find answers. Examples of this are numerous, and it sometimes seems that the more we research past civilizations the less we understand. Among the many inexplicable objects left behind by cultures long gone, are a series of strange gold figurines that have managed to become much discussed and controversial.

From approximately the years 300 to 1550 AD, the region that is now the South American country of Colombia was the home of a pre-Columbian civilization known as the Quimbaya culture. There is much that is not known about this mysterious people, but they are well-known for their intense mining of gold and advanced metallurgy techniques, especially pertaining to the crafting of gold works of art renowned for their precise, detailed designs and technical brilliance, all fashioned from an alloy that is a mixture of gold and copper, called tumbaga. The Quimbaya fashioned gold into all manner of items and figurines, including those of humans, animals, plants, and insects, which they used in funeral offerings in their elaborate tombs, and also to supplement their trade with outsiders, and which have also become what they are most known for in modern times. Yet among some of these figurines there have been found some that have sparked some amount of debate, and which remain mysterious and evasive specters of the past.

Besides the mystery of how these people even managed to craft such high quality and pure grade of gold and copper seen in their work, sinceit would have required kilns far more advanced than any known at the time, there are also some anomalous gold figurines that stand out among the rest. The figures in question, which only measure a mere 2 to 3 inches in length, were originally found on the banks of the Otún River, with others found on the banks of the Cauca or the Magdalena, and they mostly seem to depict various birds and insects, albeit stylized and with certain artistic liberties taken. Yet there are a few among the total of one hundred and twenty three remaining figures that have caught the attention of people within the world of anomalous history, which are particularly odd in that they seem to be depictions not of a bird or bug, but rather fantastical, highly advanced flying machines of some sort.

The figures in question look different from the others, in that they very clearly seem to resemble what someone in modern times would recognize as something akin to an airplane, with clear set wings situated under a fuselage, and even stabilizer tails. This is all very odd considering that these figures date back to around 1,000 AD, long before airplanes were even a twinkle in our eyes, yet there they are, and it has sparked speculation on whether they could be indicative of some sort of ancient advanced knowledge of aeronautics, aerodynamics, and the mechanics of flight, and there has even been the idea that the Quimbaya may have actually gone about building these ancient aircraft, according to some more far-out theories even with the help of extraterrestrials. The figurines are so impressive that in in 1994, German researchers Peter Belting and Conrad Lubbers arranged tests in which the designs were scaled up and made into radio-controlled scale models of the objects, which were claimed to be actually flight worthy, so what are we to make of 1,000 year old airplanes?

While these mysterious figures certainly do resemble modern airplanes, there has been much skepticism aimed at what have come to be called the “Quimbaya Arifacts.” First is that, other than the figures themselves there is absolutely no evidence that such craft were ever manufactured by the Quimbaya people. We have their ruins, their artifacts and tombs, but not a single sign of the remains of any of these theoretical aircraft or the fuel that it is assumed they would have needed. It has also been argued that these people would not have had access to the resources and materials in the amounts needed to make these aircraft in the first place. Considering all of this, most archeologists have come to the conclusion that the figures are merely being misidentified, and are actually just anomalous looking, stylized depictions of common birds, fish, lizards, amphibians, and insects of the region. One skeptic on the site Pseudoarcheology says of the figures and the theories swirling around them:

The main argument from pseudoarcheology believers is that the zoomorphic pendants from the Quimbaya artifact collection are clear representations of flying machines. They argue that these pendants do not represent insects, fish, or birds; which main stream archaeologists believe them to be. Their main theory to support these claims is that the Quimbaya zoomorphic pendants are aerodynamic, proving that the Quimbaya culture understood the principles of flight. Aerodynamics is basically the study of how objects move through the air. It is likely that aerodynamics was understood by the Quimbaya people; however, that does not mean that they created airplanes or flying vehicles. There is no evidence in the archaeological record of any machines that show the Quimbaya people were capable of or had built flying aircrafts. Also many of these zoomorphic pendants were aerodynamic because they were depictions of aerodynamic animals, some of which could fly. Birds, fish, and many insects are aerodynamic allowing them to fly through the air or swim efficiently through water. These pendants are merely representations of aerodynamic creatures.

This has not at all stopped those who think that the Quimbaya artifacts are proof of ancient knowledge of flight, and there have even been theories that these were actual UFOs or connected somehow to the Nazca lines in Peru. Without any real evidence this is all pure speculation, and in the end we don’t really know what the Quimbaya people were thinking when they crafted these figures or why they did it. Was it just artistic representations of animal life or something more? With no written records and no further evidence, this is mystery is a ghost from another time, beckoning for us to decipher it but immaterial and ultimately confined to its own era. Whatever the Quimbaya artifacts are and whatever they represent, they certainly have managed to carve a space out for themselves in the world of the weird.

28-01-2020 om 23:56 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ARCHEOLOGIE ( E, Nl, Fr )

VERHAAL OVER TYLER VAN SECURETEAM EN MEN IN BLACK BLIJKT VERZONNEN ( VIDEO )

VERHAAL OVER TYLER VAN SECURETEAM EN MEN IN BLACK BLIJKT VERZONNEN ( VIDEO )

Alsof het al niet moeilijk genoeg was om in de wereld van ufo's het kaf van het koren te scheiden, komt daar nu nog een probleem bij.

Het spannende verhaal van ufo onderzoeker Tyler van Secureteam en zijn opsluiting en marteling door de autoriteiten blijkt geheel verzonnen.

Het goede nieuws is dat het mysterie rondom Tyler van het bekende Youtubekanaal Secureteam is opgelost, alleen niet op een manier zoals we dat graag hadden gezien.

Eind december schreven wij over deze populaire onderzoeker, hoe er kort een video online had gestaan met daarin een alarmerende video van Tyler die in een soort real life scenario van Men in Black was opgepakt door de autoriteiten, vervolgens opgesloten en gemarteld en daarna weer vrijgelaten.

Na bijna een maand stilte verscheen er wederom een korte video van Tyler online, waarin hij zijn terugkeer aankondigde, maar naar onze mening klopten er een aantal dingen niet, zoals we enkele dagen geleden schreven.

En dat dit vermoeden klopte is nu bevestigd door een bericht dat wij ontvingen van Ron Zandwijk, eigenaar van de website Ufo Sightings Hotspot. Dank Ron!

Hij schrijft het volgende:

Na het lezen van jullie artikel: ‘Wat is er gebeurd met Tyler van Secureteam’ vind ik het tijd worden om in de openbaarheid te treden en mijn kant van het verhaal eens naar buiten te brengen.

Voor een aantal jaren heb ik nauw samengewerkt met Tyler door als onderzoeker voor zijn Secureteam kanaal hem dagelijks een lijst met geselecteerde artikelen te mailen. 90% van zijn video’s van de afgelopen 2 jaar zijn voortgekomen uit mijn artikelen. Doch niemand weet hier iets van, aangezien ik als de stille kracht achter de schermen werkte voor Secureteam.

Sinds december 2019 ben ik gestopt met het werk voor hem aangezien hij tot op heden mij nog 4 maanden salaris moet betalen, doch hij blijft zwijgen wat ik hem zeer kwalijk neem. (Heb incasso bureau inmiddels ingeschakeld). Hij maakt geen video's meer, ondanks dat hij zijn volgers elke week belooft en zegt dat een nieuwe video bijna klaar is.

Tyler heeft reeds een lange tijd serieuze problemen met een verslaving aan antidepressiva pillen en dat is uitgegroeid tot de grens van het ontoelaatbare, van valse beloften, misleidende berichten op zijn sociale pagina’s tot veroordelingen voor rijden onder invloed tot huishoudelijk geweld, leeft al maanden in een hotel en noem maar op.

De eerste video in jullie artikel waarin hij zegt dat het een set-up is geweest is van A to Z gelogen en gefabriceerd en heeft hij snel weer verwijderd, in zijn tweede video probeert hij alles weer recht te trekken doch liegt hij weer, hij is niet meer geloofwaardig.

Je kunt de schuld geven aan de opiods drugs die hij dagelijks neemt, doch dat neemt niet weg, dat hij met een duidelijke intentie iedereen blijft misleiden en valse beloften blijft afgeven, de echte reden van zijn afwezigheid op zijn kanaal ligt in het feit dat hij blijkbaar niet meer achter zijn product staat en veel video’s heeft gemaakt voor mijn tijd, die niet op feiten berusten doch waar hij een mooi verhaal omheen hangt en wat hem blijkbaar zwaar valt om dat nog te verdedigen.

Een bewijs dat hij niet meer achter zijn product staat is te lezen op een forum, waar hij duidelijk vertelt dat hij ermee wil stoppen, dat dateert van vorig jaar mei, en dat is ook de periode dat het bergafwaarts ging met zijn Youtube kanaal.

Wellicht dat hij toch Secureteam kanaal niet kan verlaten, aangezien hij mij meerdere malen duidelijk opdracht heeft gegeven om door te gaan met het zenden van mijn dagelijkse mails en later nog weer schreef “laten we Secureteam weer de Nr.1 worden.” Het zijn mooie woorden zonder enige inhoud, want er gebeurt gewoonweg niets.

Hij houdt zijn volgers aan het lijntje om de enige reden dat hij elke maand nog inkomsten heeft vanuit zijn Youtube kanaal en de donaties vanuit zijn Patreon blog. Veel van volgers hebben hem inmiddels wel door doch het gros van de volgers zijn dumbsheeps en geloven alles wat hij hun vertelt zonder dat ze zich eens achter de oren krabben en op onderzoek uit gaan hoe het nu werkelijk in elkaar steekt.

Hierbij een aantal links met een video van de police cam van zijn arrestatie rijden onder invloed van pillen en wodka en een video met Mugshot van zijn arrestatie voor huishoudelijk geweld.

En hier een link waar je alles kunt lezen op het forum waarin Tyler vertelt dat hij niet meer achter zijn Secureteam kanaal staat. (Scroll naar beneden tot bericht van Tyler - Secureteam).

Als jullie meer informatie willen hebben of bewijs willen hebben dat ik lange tijd voor Tyler heb gewerkt, dan moeten jullie mij even mailen, dan zal ik een aantal mails met correspondentie tussen Tyler en mijzelf verstrekken.

Tot slot, als Tyler gewoon de waarheid had verteld aan zijn volgers en niet keer op keer van alles belooft, doch maar blijft voorliegen en de zaken verdraaien dan was er in feite niets aan de hand geweest en kan gewoon doorgaan met het maken video’s doch hijzelf heeft alles verprutst. Hem kennende zal hij wellicht weer terugkomen doch dat veel tijd gaan kosten om zichzelf weer geloofswaardig te maken aan zijn volgers.

Met vriendelijke groet,
Ron Zandwijk
Website: http://ufosightingshotspot.blogspot.com

{ https://niburu.co/ }

28-01-2020 om 23:16 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:NineForNews. nl ( new ipv NIBURU.nl) (NL)

Latest UFO Footage Caught on Film

Latest UFO Footage Caught on Film

Of all the television channels in the world, UFO fans are the most picky and yet, there is a whole other group of UFO fans out there. This latest UFO footage that has been made available on YouTube and other sites and this phenomenon is slowly taking over the world wide web. Some of these UFOs are captured on film, some they have seen on radar and there are some of them that were filmed by remote cameras. The latest UFO footage that has been made available on YouTube and other sites has caught the eyes of millions of UFO fans around the world.

This latest UFO footage has made a great deal of UFO fans interested in finding out more about what they believe these creatures are or is. They have gotten curious about the many sightings and the sightings that have happened in the US and the UFO footage. People are now getting to see where these UFOs have taken off from, to hear the sounds they have been making and have even caught on film.

While some UFO fanatics are arguing over what they really are, others have started to learn about the UFO phenomenon, like the latest UFO footage being made available on YouTube. There are some theories floating around but no one can really explain what exactly is going on. Still, UFO enthusiasts are getting curious about what these creatures are, and they can see some weird things happening out there in the world.

In the UFO community, people are usually divided into two groups; believers and skeptics. Those who are believers are the ones who see these UFOs as living creatures that have come to earth for different reasons. Many believers believe that they came from other planets, many have also claimed that they have experienced unexplained disasters while many people believe that they were sent by another civilization from some other planet. Some believe that these UFOs could be angels and that the entities have come to Earth to help them.

Still, many believers in the UFO phenomenon are thinking that these flying objects are not the real deal and that they are merely a hoax. No one has come up with a solid explanation for the UFO phenomenon and there are still those who say that they don’t exist and that it all is just a hoax to scare people and to get people to buy into the alien conspiracy theory.

Those who are skeptics say that there is nothing really happening and that the UFO phenomenon is all just a hoax. There are many people out there who are saying that the creatures out there are not living, and they are just dead satellites that have crashed onto our world. People have even said that the ancient Egyptian pyramids were built by the aliens.

The mystery still remains and people are just getting more intrigued about these UFOs. Those who believe in the UFOs have become more interested in the strange phenomenon that they have witnessed and more curious about what it could possibly be.

28-01-2020 om 23:01 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:UFOs , UAPs , USOS

Anonymous: UFOs Classified Info! They're Appearing Everywhere Now (2020)

We are Anonymous. We are legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us.
-Anonymous

Extraterrestrial life is hypothetical life which may occur outside of Earth and which did not originate on Earth. Such life might range from simple prokaryotes to beings with civilizations far more advanced than humanity. The Drake equation speculates about the existence of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe.

Unidentified flying object is the popular term for any aerial phenomenon that cannot immediately be identified. Most UFOs are identified on investigation as conventional objects or phenomena. The term is widely used for claimed observations of extraterrestrial spacecraft.

Anonymous: UFOs Classified Info! They’re Appearing Everywhere Now (2020) What do you think let us know in the comments!

28-01-2020 om 22:26 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:MYSTERIES ( Fr, Nl, E)

China Coronavirus Has Passed 50% Mark Diagnosed Compared To SARS. UFO Sighting News.

China Coronavirus Has Passed 50% Mark Diagnosed Compared To SARS. UFO Sighting News.

Source:

https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

Did you know that Coronavirus rose 2,000 cases a day for the last 2 days? SARS had a total of 8,000 diagnosed, but Cornonavirus is at 4,474 already, thats past the 50% mark of SARS. This thing is growing fast and is very sneaky since symptoms can take 14 days to show up. Here is a useful interactive site that has stats, graphs, daily increases, maps and more. I hope this helps.
Scott C. Waring

28-01-2020 om 21:41 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:Diversen (Eng, NL en Fr)

Ancient Face From Statue Found On Mars In Spirit Rover Photo, UFO Sighting News.

Ancient Face From Statue Found On Mars In Spirit Rover Photo, UFO Sighting News.

Date of discovery: Jan 28, 2020
Location of discovery: Mars
NASA source:

I found a few interesting objects in some Mars Spirit rover photos today. One looks like a sea shell, and not far from it are two interesting faces. But the best is a larger face that fell off of a statue and fallen in this location. Thats the face in the screenshot above. The face is obviously made of the local materials and you can make out the eye, nose, upper and lower mouth, chin, cheeks but something that really is rare...is that this face has a thin horn like fin on top of its head. This would signify a species I have never seen or heard of before. I have found thousands of faces, yet never seen one like this. The neck area appears to be a plug that pushed into the main part of the statue at the shoulders. However, I cannot find the rest of the statue in any of the photos. Perhaps it was buried or destroy. This is absolute proof that intelligent beings walked the Martian planet.
Scott C. Waring

28-01-2020 om 21:26 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:Ruins, strange artifacts on other planets, moons, ed ( Fr, EN, NL )

Enormous mysterious structure found at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean

As part of our project 'crashed UFOs and secret operational bases in Antarctica' my friend Frederick has found something extraordinary at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

Zooming in on the underwater structure it looks like a giant bridge of 38 KM has been built in ancient times.

The entire area around and below the bridge looks very strange as if there is some sort of entrance under the bridge.

The roads connected to the bridge seem to go to a possible underwater base and to a strange looking zigzag underwater structure that looks like a conductor.

The size of the zigzag structure is enormous and covers an area of about 255 km x 136 km. It is remarkable that the lines in the zigzag structure all have the same dimensions.

Enhanced images of the same objects - click images to enlarge.

Suppose these objects were built artificially, then who built them?

Bridge: 43°47'18.02"S 1° 9'6.08"W
Zigzag Structure: 51°56'5.50"S 5°33'2.62"W
Possible Base: 42°25'28.66"S 0°27'1.34"W

What happened in the past with our planet ? peter2011 - see videos...

28-01-2020 om 20:42 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

Close Encounters In Siberia

siberia-ufo

In June 1908, a massive explosion in a remote part of Siberia flattened the forest with the force of 1000 Hiroshima bombs. But the area was so remote and the times so turbulent, that no one attempted to find out what had happened for 20 years.

Other videos, selected by peter2011

28-01-2020 om 18:35 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

RAF's 'X-Files' of reported UFO sightings in the skies over Britain are to be published for the first time online

UFO sighting reports to be published more than a decade after RAF unit closed
A clearance process for the documents is now under way before publication
National Archives 'are looking to put them on to a dedicated gov.uk web page'

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER

UFO sightings received by a dedicated RAF unit are to be published online.

The RAF closed its UFO unit in 2009 after concluding that – in more than 50 years – none of the reports showed evidence of a threat.

Records were handed to the National Archives, often classified before being released after a number of years.

But an RAF spokesman said the most recent reports are now going online.

This phenomenon was photographed by a retired RAF officer. He sent this photo to his old bosses tasked with investigating UFOs. The RAF closed its UFO unit in 2009

A spokesman for the RAF said that 'it had been assessed that it would be better to publish these records, rather than continue sending documents to the National Archives, and so they are looking to put them on to a dedicated gov.uk web page'.

It added: 'The MoD has no opinion on the existence or otherwise of extra terrestrial life and does not investigate UFO reports.'

28-01-2020 om 01:43 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:UFOs , UAPs , USOS

Mysterious particles spewing from Antarctica defy physics

By Rafi Letzter

What's making these things fly out of the frozen continent?

Researchers prepare to launch the Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna (ANITA) experiment, which picked up signals of impossible-seeming particles as it dangled from its balloon over Antarctica.

(Image: © NASA)

Our best model of particle physics is bursting at the seams as it struggles to contain all the weirdness in the universe. Now, it seems more likely than ever that it might pop, thanks to a series of strange events in Antarctica.

The death of this reigning physics paradigm, the Standard Model, has been predicted for decades. There are hints of its problems in the physics we already have. Strange results from laboratory experiments suggest flickers of ghostly new species of neutrinos beyond the three described in the Standard Model. And the universe seems full of dark matter that no particle in the Standard Model can explain.

But recent tantalizing evidence might one day tie those vague strands of data together: Three times since 2016, ultra-high-energy particles have blasted up through the ice of Antarctica, setting off detectors in the Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna (ANITA) experiment, a machine dangling from a NASA balloon far above the frozen surface.

Related: The 18 Biggest Unsolved Mysteries in Physics

As Live Science reported in 2018, those events — along with several additional particles detected later at the buried Antarctic neutrino observatory IceCube — don't match the expected behavior of any Standard Model particles. The particles look like ultra high-energy neutrinos. But ultra high-energy neutrinos shouldn't be able to pass through the Earth. That suggests that some other kind of particle — one that's never been seen before — is flinging itself into the cold southern sky.

Now, in a new paper, a team of physicists working on IceCube have cast heavy doubt on one of the last remaining Standard Model explanations for these particles: cosmic accelerators, giant neutrino guns hiding in space that would periodically fire intense neutrino bullets at Earth. A collection of hyperactive neutrino guns somewhere in our northern sky could have blasted enough neutrinos into Earth that we'd detect particles shooting out of the southern tip of our planet. But the IceCube researchers didn't find any evidence of that collection out there, which suggests new physics must be needed to explain the mysterious particles.

To understand why, it's important to know why these mystery particles are so unsettling for the Standard Model.

Neutrinos are the faintest particles we know about; they're difficult to detect and nearly massless. They pass through our planet all the time — mostly coming from the sun and rarely, if ever, colliding with the protons, neutrons and electrons that make up our bodies and the dirt beneath our feet.

But ultra-high-energy neutrinos from deep space are different from their low-energy cousins. Much rarer than low-energy neutrinos, they have wider "cross sections," meaning they're more likely to collide with other particles as they pass through them. The odds of an ultra-high-energy neutrino making it all the way through Earth intact are so low that you'd never expect to detect it happening. That's why the ANITA detections were so surprising: It was as if the instrument had won the lottery twice, and then IceCube had won it a couple more times as soon as it started buying tickets.

And physicists know how many lottery tickets they had to work with. Many ultra-high-energy cosmic neutrinos come from the interactions of cosmic rays with the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the faint afterglow of the Big Bang. Every once in a while, those cosmic rays interact with the CMB in just the right way to fire high-energy particles at Earth. This is called the "flux," and it's the same all over the sky. Both ANITA and IceCube have already measured what the cosmic neutrino flux looks like to each of their sensors, and it just doesn't produce enough high-energy neutrinos that you'd expect to detect a neutrino flying out of Earth at either detector even once.

"If the events detected by ANITA belong to this diffuse neutrino component, ANITA should have measured many other events at other elevation angles," said Anastasia Barbano, a University of Geneva physicist who works on IceCube.

But in theory, there could have been ultra-high-energy neutrino sources beyond the sky-wide flux, Barbano told Live Science: those neutrino guns, or cosmic accelerators.

Related: The 11 Biggest Unanswered Questions About Dark Matter

"If it is not a matter of neutrinos produced by the interaction of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays with the CMB, then the observed events can be either neutrinos produced by individual cosmic accelerators in a given time interval" or some unknown Earthly source, Barbano said.

Blazars, active galactic nuclei, gamma-ray bursts, starburst galaxies, galaxy mergers, and magnetized and fast-spinning neutron stars are all good candidates for those sorts of accelerators, she said. And we know that cosmic neutrino accelerators do exist in space; in 2018, IceCube tracked a high-energy neutrino back to a blazar, an intense jet of particles coming from an active black hole at the center of a distant galaxy.

ANITA picks up only the most extreme high-energy neutrinos, Barbano said, and if the upward-flying particles were cosmic-accelerator-boosted neutrinos from the Standard Model — most likely tau neutrinos — then the beam should have come with a shower of lower-energy particles that would have tripped IceCube's lower-energy detectors.

"We looked for events in seven years of IceCube data," Barbano said — events that matched the angle and length of the ANITA detections, which you'd expect to find if there were a significant battery of cosmic neutrino guns out there firing at Earth to produce these up-going particles. But none turned up.

Their results don't completely eliminate the possibility of an accelerator source out there. But they do "severely constrain" the range of possibilities, eliminating all of the most plausible scenarios involving cosmic accelerators and many less-plausible ones.

"The message we want to convey to the public is that a Standard Model astrophysical explanation does not work no matter how you slice it," Barbano said.

Researchers don't know what's next. Neither ANITA nor IceCube is an ideal detector for the needed follow-up searches, Barbano said, leaving the researchers with very little data on which to base their assumptions about these mysterious particles. It's a bit like trying to figure out the picture on a giant jigsaw puzzle from just a handful of pieces.

Right now, many possibilities seem to fit the limited data, including a fourth species of "sterile" neutrino outside the Standard Model and a range of theorized types of dark matter. Any of these explanations would be revolutionary.hjh But none is strongly favored yet.

"We have to wait for the next generation of neutrino detectors," Barbano said.

The paper has not yet been peer reviewed and was published January 8 in the arXiv database.

Originally published on Live Science.

Part 1. The Untold UFO War in Antarctica

28-01-2020 om 01:18 geschreven door peter

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This 9-Gigapixel image—with 84 million stars—of the Milky Way will give you Goosebumps

Have you ever seen a 9-gigapixel map of the Milky Way Galaxy? The jaw-dropping image contains around 84 million stars and its unlike anything I’ve ever seen. The original image has 24.6 gigabytes. How would I define it? COSMIC LOVE.

This is just one SMALL part of the massive 9-gigapixel image.

Image credit ESO.

The image below shows a breathtaking view of the core of our galaxy, the Milky Way, as seen by the VISTA telescope from the European Space Agency.

With the naked eye, you’d probably see the center of the milky way—with countless stars and cosmic dust clouds—occupaing a small patch of a few inches.

However, thanks to the VISTA telescope we got one of the most detail portraits of the Milky Way EVER produced which has allowed astronomers to catalog a staggering 84 million stars.

After seeing this image, ask yourself.. are we alone in the Milky Way?

The above image is just a small, reduced—thumbanil version of the original image which has a mind-boggling resolution of 108,500×81,500—or if you prefer 9 gigapixels, occupying 24.6 gigabytes. If for some reason you want to download the 24.6-gigabyte image you can do so by clicking here.

Check out the ENTIRE 9-gigapixel image—and zoom in on those stars—by clicking here. This image is simply too big to be displayed at full resolution and is best appreciated using the zoom tool.

In order to obtain this image, ESO’s VISTA telescope—which stands for Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy—snapped thousands of images of the sky after which astronomers compiled them into one 9 gigapixel mosaic. The Vista telescope is one of the LARGEST visible and near infrared telescopes on the planet, and it just showed us how cool it really is which this mind-bending image.

The image you are seeing is crystal clear because the VISTA telescope boasts a stunning infrared camera which enables it to peer through the dust clouds that obscure the view of other telescopes.

In order to understand how powerful the VISTA telescope really is, here below is a comparison between an image of the Milky Way—the same image—as seen from an infrared telescope and a visible telescope.

Pretty amazing right? Just imagine what else is out there? The Milky Way galaxy is really unique, it’s beautiful and this image makes you love our cosmic home even more, right?

But this image wasn’t taken just for aesthetic purposes. In fact, this massive image has allowed scientists and astronomers to identify numerous cosmic objects in space that are worth researching further. This image allowed astronomers to identify 84 million stars in the Milky Way.

Our cosmic home—the Milky Way—is part of a supermassive structure interconnected by over 800 galaxies located at around 1000 million light years away. Our galaxy is part of an intergalactic highway that stretches some 500 million light years across and contains around 100,000,000,000,000,000 Suns, dubbed by scientists as Laniakea.

Oh and, just a fun fact here, did you know that astronomers maintain that there are around 500 billion galaxies in the known universe, which means there are around 50,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (5×10²²) habitable planets. Astronomers argue that just inside our Milky Way Galaxy, there are some 400 BILLION STARS.

Image credit: ESO

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28-01-2020 om 00:26 geschreven door peter

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27-01-2020

WAT IS ER GEBEURD MET TYLER VAN SECURETEAM? ( VIDEO )

WAT IS ER GEBEURD MET TYLER VAN SECURETEAM? ( VIDEO )

Eind december verscheen er na lange tijd kort een video online van ufo onderzoeker Tylerdie die daarna ook weer verdween.

Nu heeft hij opnieuw een video geplaatst met een aankondiging, maar zo te zien klopt er iets niet.

Er verschijnen hier de laatste tijd relatief weinig berichten die betrekking hebben op ufo's en andere bijzondere fenomenen.

Iets dat ook sommige lezers begint op te vallen.

Het valt me op, maar misschien dat ik het verkeerd zie hoor, dat er de laatste tijden minder vaak bericht wordt op jullie site over zaken als: UFO’s, contacten van mensen en ervaringen met buitenaardse intelligentie, Black Man, Black Eyed Kids, UFO – ontvoeringen, dierverminkingen als een aantal jaren geleden het geval was.

Het onderwerp dimensieportaal lijkt juist wat meer aan de orde gekomen te zijn. Prima hoor daar moet men ook niet minder over gaan schrijven als daar geen aanleiding toe is! Kan dit kloppen? Ik begrijp dat nieuws zich niet laat afdwingen. Als er op dat gebied niets (nieuws) over te melden is dan houdt het op natuurlijk.

Of heeft de redactie er voor gekozen om juist minder aandacht aan dit onderwerp te besteden. Jammer dan eigenlijk als dat het geval zou zijn. De ontwikkelingen in berichtgeving op dit gebied lijken me juist erg interessant. Voor mij waren vooral dit soort onderwerpen reden om uw site te lezen.

Het is niet een bewuste keuze, maar is eigenlijk veroorzaakt door een aantal dingen, waarvan misschien wel de belangrijkste is dat je geen enkele online video meer kunt vertrouwen. Recentelijk hebben we dat weer kunnen zien bij de video van het mysterieuze blauwe licht die er heel echt uit zag, maar toch ook weer een nepvideo bleek.

Je moet tegenwoordig een soort video expert zijn om te kunnen bepalen of opnames echt zijn of niet en aangezien wij dat niet kunnen, hebben we ervoor gekozen geen video's te plaatsen zonder dat we er ons van kunnen verzekeren dat die beelden echt zijn of niet.

Een tweede reden is dat Tyler van Secureteam van het toneel is verdwenen. Hij was één van de weinigen die behoorlijk in staat was/is te beoordelen of iets echt of nep is en vaak kreeg hij ook beeldmateriaal direct van zijn volgers. Bovendien is hij goed in het analyseren van die beelden en was daarom ook voor ons een betrouwbare bron voor beeldmateriaal.

Zo'n drie maanden geleden verdween hij zonder iets te zeggen plotsklaps van het toneel en eind december dook er een video op van Tyler met daarin een uitleg over wat er was gebeurd.

Paul Harmans van Ufowijzer stuurde ons toen het volgende bericht:

Als je hem niet hebt gezien: Tyler vertelde dat hij al een tijd wordt lastiggevallen en gesommeerd te stoppen met zijn activiteiten. Dat weigerde hij en sinds die tijd is het serieuzer geworden. Hij vertelde dat hij vlak voordat hij de video maakte thuiskwam van een week gevangenisstraf, opgepakt omdat 'iemand' de politie had gebeld met de melding dat hij zijn vrouw had geslagen. Toen de politie bij hem aanbelde wist Tyler van niets en ook zijn vrouw verklaarde dat het niet waar was, ze was niet geslagen. Maar de Amerikaanse politie is resoluut in dat soort zaken en dus arresteerden ze Tyler en voerden hem in handboeien af.

Hij verdween voor een week de cel in en hij vertelde dat hij gedurende die week regelmatig door bewakers in elkaar werd gemept met de boodschap te stoppen met zijn openbaringen. Tyler vertelde in de video dat hij niet stopt en doorgaat. Hij heeft advocaten in de arm genomen en zal inmiddels wel blut zijn. Als ze willen dat hij stopt vinden ze honderden manieren om dat door te zetten en zullen hem net zo lang voor de rechter slepen totdat hij grote schulden heeft.

Hier nogmaals die bewuste video:

Vervolgens werd het weer doodstil, tot enkele dagen geleden, toen Tyler na drie maanden weer de volgende video op zijn kanaal plaatste:

Wat vreemd is, is dat Tyler met geen woord rept over de dingen die hij in de eerder verwijderde video aanhaalde en dat geeft uiteraard te denken en er wordt dan ook volop gespeculeerd.

Was het inderdaad een soort set-up van Men in Black om hem te intimideren of had het simpelweg te maken met het feit dat er een aantal mensen zijn die zeggen dat Tyler die een vrouw en een zoontje heeft, is vreemd gegaan, betrapt, dat het allemaal uit de hand is gelopen en dat hij nu op een hotelkamer zit.

Of waren het inderdaad Men in Black die hem hebben bewerkt en misschien gedrogeerd? Dit ook, omdat hij in de tweede video duidelijk een soort opgeblazen gezicht heeft en zich niet gedraagt zoals normaal. Het is moeilijk uit te leggen, het is vrij subtiel, maar de blik in zijn ogen is anders en hij oogt niet zoals wij hem al jaren kennen.

Hoe dan ook, we zijn inmiddels alweer vijf dagen verder en nog steeds geen nieuwe opnames van Tyler.

En dan is er natuurlijk ook altijd nog ufoloog Scott Waring die regelmatig interessante dingen plaatst, hoewel ook niet altijd betrouwbaar, want iedere vlieg die voor een lantaarnpaal vliegt is voor Scott een ufo.

Dit keer heeft hij echter iets dat wel echt is. Het is een video die afkomstig is van Mufon en ook al op echtheid is gecontroleerd.

Het is een opname gemaakt door een beroepspiloot die op een hoogte van 40.000 feet vliegt boven de Amerikaanse staat Utha als hij opeens een soort sigaarvormige ufo onder hem ontdekt. Het is een bijzondere opname en Mufon heeft gezegd deze melding verder te zullen onderzoeken.

Al met al wordt de spoeling voor wat betreft betrouwbaar ufo materiaal erg dun. Mochten er mensen zijn die beschikken over betrouwbaar materiaal, laat het ons weten.

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27-01-2020 om 23:17 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:NineForNews. nl ( new ipv NIBURU.nl) (NL)

Operation High Jump: “The Untold UFO War in Antarctica” and the “Hollow Earth Theory” – ADMIRAL RICHARD E. BYRD - part I

These are must watch Video’s. Amazing story that all research says is 100% true.
All documented in the Government and Public Domain.

In 1946/1947 the US Government launched Operation: High Jump.

A War Fleet, complete with Aircraft Carriers, Destroyers and Attack Submarines, surrounded and invaded Antarctica.
After locating a powerful race of underground beings, they were attacked by UFO’s, ships sank and damaged, many killed, and told never to return armed again.

And we never have. A short time later, at US urging, the Antarctic was turned into a Peace Zone. No heavily armed Military presence, at all. EVER!

All, widely documented. Amazing Stuff!

NOTE: There is some disinformation on this subject coming from the Mainstream Media. Wikipedia says, “There never was any attack”, and they left only because “winter was approaching”, In Antarctica! LOL!
And others say, “the attacking flying disc’s were Nazi”

None of this is ever mentioned in Admiral Byrd’s writing’s or transcripts from interviews with him.

Everything that follows is.

Part 2. The Untold UFO War in Antarctica

Part 3. The Untold UFO War in Antarctica: Legacy

1946 Operation Highjump – AMAZING discoveries

ADMIRAL RICHARD E. BYRD
AND THE HOLLOW EARTH THEORY
PART 1

Authored By : Bill Kochman (aka The WordWeaver)

Published On : June 7, 1998

Last Updated : January 3, 2009

Admiral Richard Evelyn Bryd(1888-1957)

During the course of a two year period which extended from about early 1995 to the Spring of 1997, I undertook a serious study of some of the more questionable ideas and theories which have become quite prominent in Western society since the early part of this century. Labeled as ‘fringe ideas’ by most level-headed people, this study included an in-depth look into such areas as the Alien/UFO phenomenon, government conspiracy theories, New Age thought and other related topics. In undertaking this study, like most people, I was partially motivated by my own curiosity, as well as by a personal desire to expand my understanding of such matters so that I could write about them in a more knowledgeable fashion. To emphasize the degree of dedication to which I performed this research, allow me to inform you that at one point, I had collected over one thousand and three hundred files related to these different areas of thought. These files included hundreds and hundreds of reports, personal testimonies, book extracts, commentaries, and some of the best UFO photographs available via the Internet. I spent a great deal of money and time to collect this information; and I read every single bit of it; a project which took me literally months and months to complete.

What I quickly discovered during this time is that there is a worldwide body of people who have invested a great deal of time, energy, money and thought in their attempts to sort fact from fiction. Please note that I am not just referring to the common imaginative kooks who obviously have something loose rattling around in their brains; but I am referring to serious study groups which are organized and staffed by people with very professional backgrounds. The purpose of
these organizations is to gather and carefully analyze as much information as is humanly possible. Some of these people work on very limited budgets.

Even as a Christian, I must candidly admit that a lot of the information I came across is very interesting; some of it even to the point of being quite fascinating. Despite my long background in the study of the Bible, and my attempts to maintain a healthy degree of skepticism, at times, I too found myself being drawn into the web of delusion which has overcome some of those people who are not familiar with God’s Word and the warnings that it offers. I imagine that it is only the Lord’s mercy that I too was not completely deluded as some of these others have been. The reason I am sharing this with you is to emphasize the powerfully deceptive nature of some of this material. I expound more fully upon this topic in other of my alien/UFO and New Age related articles; as well as in some of my Endtime articles. I trust that you will take the time to read them.

One particular topic which is well established within these circles of thought, is that of the idea of the existence of underground civilizations and secret bases operated either by advanced alien civilizations, by the descendants of Nazi Germany, by U.S. Government shadow organizations, or by ancient human or semi-human civilizations which fled underground a very long time ago. In some cases, it is claimed that these underground bases and cities are joint human-alien endeavors. In studying this phenomenon, one comes across such topics as Mount Shasta and Telos, Shamballah and Agharta, Death Valley and the Panamint Mountains, Dulce, New Mexico, Tibet, the Gobi Desert, Iron, Mountain, Alice Springs, the Shaver Mysteries, the Teros and , the Deros, the Atlanteans and the Lemurians, the Mothmen, the Greys, the Reptilians, the Nordics, etc. Being as plenty of information, as well as dis-information, has already been written on these various subjects, I will only be discussing a few of these later on in this article. What I wish to address at this current time is one central theme which encompasses all of these different topics; that is, the Hollow Earth Theory.

According to the proponents of this theory, contrary to what is stated in modern science books, the Earth is not a solid sphere with a molten or semi-molten iron core; but rather it is more akin to a hard-boiled egg in which most of the white, or the albumen, has been removed, leaving the yolk floating in the middle of the egg with an empty space existing between it, that is, the yolk, and the remaining albumen, which itself is protected by the hard outer shell.
To put this in more geological terms, the adherents of the Hollow Earth Theory state that this ‘yolk’ is in actuality a nuclear mini-sun which provides both light and life to this purported inner world. In other words, the Earth is actually a hollow sphere with a mantle much less thick than what we have been taught, and without an outer or inner core. The inner surface of this mantle is actually the ground of the Inner Earth. It is claimed that the reason that the mini-sun does not crash into the inner surface of the Earth during its revolution around the Sun, is due to the energy released by this mini-sun acting as a repulsive force which keeps this mini-sun equidistant from all surfaces of the Inner Earth; a theory which I personally find hard to accept.

According to this theory, it is also said that the center of gravity is not in th center of the Earth, but rather in the middle of this much thinner mantle, which is just below the crust. In other words, just as a ball will drop to the ground if one is standing on the outside of the Earth, the very same thing will happen if one is standing on the inside of the Earth as well; that is, the ball will drop towards the ground, meaning, towards the outer surface of the planet, and away from the inner sun. In like manner, these theorists claim that just as we look up and see the sky
around us with the sun travelling its daily course due to the Earth’s rotation, an inhabitant of the Inner Earth also sees a blue sky, albeit a somewhat hazy one, with the inner sun floating in the midst of it. It is also believed by the adherents of the Hollow Earth Theory that this inner world
possesses valleys and mountains, and streams, rivers, lakes and oceans. It is the proposed origin of all of this water which leads us to the next part of our discussion.

According to a certain questionable publication, a small booklet distributed by a company in the state of Missouri, U.S.A., in early 1947, famous American aviator Admiral Richard E. Byrd was sent on an Arctic expedition by the United States Government for the purpose of determining the
feasibility of mining uranium in the Arctic Circle. If we believe what follows, on February the nineteenth, just after completing three hours into his flight, Admiral Byrd had an experience which totally changed his outlook on life, and his personal view of the American Government as well. Here then are what some people claim to be actual extracts from Byrd’s secret diary for the months of February and March of that year, and then some final remarks recorded nine years later in 1956 just prior to his death:

—– Begin Quote —–

I must write this diary in secrecy and obscurity. It concerns my Arctic flight of the nineteenth day of February in the year of nineteen and forty seven.

There comes a time when the rationality of men must fade into insignificance and one must accept the inevitability of the Truth! I am not at liberty to disclose the following documentation at this writing…perhaps it shall never see the light of public scrutiny, but I must do my duty and record here for all to read one day. In a world of greed and exploitation of certain of mankind can no longer suppress that which is truth.

FLIGHT LOG: BASE CAMP ARCTIC, 2/19/1947

0600 Hours- All preparations are complete for our flight northward and we are airborne with full fuel tanks at 0610 Hours.

0620 Hours- fuel mixture on starboard engine seems too rich, adjustment made and Pratt Whittneys are running smoothly.

0730 Hours- Radio Check with base camp. All is well a radio reception is normal.

0740 Hours- Note slight oil leak in starboard engine, oil pressure indicator seems normal, however.

0800 Hours- Slight turbulence noted from easterly direction at altitude of 2321 feet, correction to 1700 feet, no further turbulence, but tail wind increases, slight adjustment in throttle controls, aircraft performing very well now.

0815 Hours- Radio Check with base camp, situation normal.

0830 Hours- Turbulence encountered again, increase altitude to 2900 feet, smooth flight conditions again.

0910 Hours- Vast ice and snow below, note coloration of yellowish nature, and disperse in a linear pattern. Altering course for a better examination of this color pattern below, note reddish or purple color also. Circle this area two full turns and return to assigned compass heading. Position check made again to base camp, and relay information concerning colorations in the ice and snow below.

0910 Hours- Both magnetic and gyro compasses beginning to gyrate and wobble, we are unable to hold our heading by instrumentation. Take bearing with sun compass, yet all seems well. The controls are seemingly slow to respond and have sluggish quality, but there is no indication of icing!

0915 Hours- In the distance is what appears to be mountains.

0949 Hours- 29 minutes elapsed flight time from the first sighting of the mountains, it is no illusion. They are mountains and consisting of a small range that I have never seen before!

0955 Hours- Altitude change to 2950 feet, encountering strong turbulence again.

1000 Hours- We are crossing over the small mountain range and still proceeding northward as best as can be ascertained. Beyond the mountain range is what appears to be a valley with a small river or stream running through the center portion. There should be no green valley below! Something is definitely wrong and abnormal here! We should be over ice and snow! To the portside are great forests growing on the mountain slopes. Our navigation instruments are still spinning, the gyroscope is oscillating back and forth!

1005 Hours- I alter altitude to 1400 feet and execute a sharp left turn to better examine the valley below. It is green with either moss or a type of tight knit grass. The light here seems different. I cannot see the Sun anymore. We make another left turn and we spot what seems to be a large animal of some kind below us. It appears to be an elephant!
NO!!! It looks more like a mammoth! This is incredible! Yet, there it is! Decrease altitude to 1000 feet and take binoculars to better examine the animal. It is confirmed – it is definitely a mammoth-like animal! Report this to base camp.

1030 Hours- Encountering more rolling green hills now. The external temperature indicator reads 74 degrees Fahrenheit! Continuing on our heading now. Navigation instruments seem normal now. I am puzzled over their actions. Attempt to contact base camp. Radio is not functioning!

1130 Hours- Countryside below is more level and normal (if Imay use that word). Ahead we spot what seems to be a city!!!! This is impossible! Aircraft seems light and oddly buoyant. The controls refuse to respond!! My GOD!!! Off our port and starboard wings are a strange type of aircraft.
They are closing rapidly alongside! They are disc-shaped and have a radiant quality to them. They are close enough now to see the markings on them. It is a type of Swastika!!! This is fantastic. Where are we! What has happened. I tug at the controls again. They will not respond!!!! We are caught in an invisible vice grip of some type!

1135 Hours- Our radio crackles and a voice comes through inEnglish with what perhaps is a slight Nordic or Germanic accent! The message is: ‘Welcome, Admiral, to our domain. Weshall land you in exactly seven minutes! Relax, Admiral, youare in good hands.’ I note the engines of our plane have stopped running! The aircraft is under some strange control and is now turning itself. The controls are useless.

1140 Hours- Another radio message received. We begin the landing process now, and in moments the plane shudders slightly, and begins a descent as though caught in some great unseen elevator! The downward motion is negligible, and we touch down with only a slight jolt!

1145 Hours- I am making a hasty last entry in the flight log. Several men are approaching on foot toward our aircraft. They are tall with blond hair. In the distance is a large shimmering city pulsating with rainbow hues ofcolor. I do not know what is going to happen now, but I see no signs of weapons on those approaching. I hear now a voice ordering me by name to open the cargo door. I comply. END LOG

From this point I write all the following events here from memory. It defies the imagination and would seem all but madness if it had not happened.

The radioman and I are taken from the aircraft and we are received in a most cordial manner. We were then boarded on a small platform-like conveyance with no wheels! It moves us toward the glowing city with great swiftness. As we approach, the city seems to be made of a crystal material.
Soon we arrive at a large building that is a type I have never seen before. It appears to be right out of the design board of Frank Lloyd Wright, or perhaps more correctly, out of a Buck Rogers setting!! We are given some type of warm beverage which tasted like nothing I have ever savored before. It is delicious. After about ten minutes, two of our wondrous appearing hosts come to our quarters and announce that I am to accompany them. I have no choice but to comply.
I leave my radioman behind and we walk a short distance and enter into what seems to be an elevator. We descend downward or some moments, the machine stops, and the door lifts silently upward! We then proceed down a long hallway that is lit by a rose-colored light that seems to be emanating from the very walls themselves! One of the beings motions for us to stop before a great door. Over the door is an inscription that I cannot read. The great door slides noiselessly open and I am beckoned to enter. One of my hosts speaks. ‘Have no fear, Admiral, you are to have an audience with the Master…’

I step inside and my eyes adjust to the beautiful coloration that seems to be filling the room completely. Then I begin to see my surroundings. What greeted my eyes is the most beautiful sight of my entire existence. It is in fact too beautiful and wondrous to describe. It is exquisite and delicate. I do not think there exists a human term that can describe it in any detail with justice! My thoughts are interrupted in a cordial manner by a warm rich voice of melodious quality, ‘I bid you welcome to our domain, Admiral.’ I see a man with delicate features and with the etching of years upon his face. He is seated at a long table. He motions me to sit down in one of the chairs. After I am seated, he places his fingertips together and smiles.
He speaks softly again, and conveys the following.

‘We have let you enter here because you are of noble character and well-known on the Surface World, Admiral.’ Surface World, I half-gasp under my breath! ‘Yes,’ the Master replies with a smile, ‘you are in the domain of the Arianni, the Inner World of the Earth. We shall not long delay your mission, and you will be safely escorted back to the surface and for a distance beyond. But now, Admiral, I shall tell you why you have been summoned here. Our interest rightly begins just after your race exploded the first atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. It was at
that alarming time we sent our flying machines, the ‘Flugelrads’, to your surface world to investigate wha t your race had done. That is, of course, past history now, my dear Admiral, but I must continue on. You see, we have never interfered before in your race’s wars, and barbarity, butnow we must, for you have learned to tamper with a certain ower that is not for man, namely, that of atomic energy.
Our emissaries have already delivered messages to the powers of your world, and yet they do not heed. Now you have been chosen to be witness here that our world does exist. You see, our culture and science is many thousands of yearsbeyond your race, Admiral.’ I interrupted, ‘But what does this have to do with me, sir?’

The Master’s eyes seemed to penetrate deeply into my mind, and after studying me for a few moments he replied, ‘Your race has now reached the point of no return, for there are those among you who would destroy your very world rather than relinquish their power as they know it…’ I nodded, and the Master continued, ‘In 1945 and afterward, we tried to contact your race, but our efforts were met with hostility, our Flugelrads were fired upon. Yes, even pursued with malice and animosity by your fighter planes. So, now, I say to you, my son, there is a great storm gathering in your world, a black fury that will not spend itself for many years. There will be no answer in your arms, there will be no safety in your science. It may rage on until every flower
of your culture is trampled, and all human things are leveled in vast chaos. Your recent war was only a prelude of what is yet to come for your race. We here see it more clearly with each hour..do you say I am mistaken?’

‘No,’ I answer, ‘it happened once before, the Dark Ages came and they lasted for more than five hundred years.’

‘Yes, my son,’ replied the Master, ‘the dark ages that will come now for your race will cover the Earth like a pall, but I believe that some of your race will live through the storm, beyond that, I cannot say. We see at a great distance a new world stirring from the ruins of your race, seeking its lost and legendary treasures, and they will be here, my son, safe in our keeping. When that time arrives, we shall come forward again to help revive your culture and your race. Perhaps, by then, you will have learned the futility of war and its strife…and after that time, certain of your culture and science will be returned for your race to begin anew. You, my son, are to return to the Surface World with this message…..’

With these closing words, our meeting seemed at an end. I stood for a moment as in a dream….but, yet, I knew this was reality, and for some strange reason I bowed slightly, either out of respect or humility, I do not know which.

Suddenly, I was again aware that the two beautiful hosts who had brought me here were again at my side. ‘This way, Admiral,’ motioned one. I turned once more before leaving and looked back toward the Master. A gentle smile was etched on his delicate and ancient face. ‘Farewell, my son,’ he spoke, then he gestured with a lovely, slender hand a motion of peace and our meeting was truly ended.

Quickly, we walked back through the great door of the Master’s chamber and once again entered into the elevator.
The door slid silently downward and we were at once going upward. One of my hosts spoke again, ‘We must now make haste, Admiral, as the Master desires to delay you no longer on your scheduled timetable and you must return with his message to your race.’

I said nothing. All of this was almost beyond belief, and once again my thoughts were interrupted as we stopped. I entered the room and was again with my radioman. He had an anxious expression on his face. As I approached, I said, ‘It is all right, Howie, it is all right.’ The two beings motioned us toward the awaiting conveyance, we boarded, and soon arrived back at the aircraft. The engines were idling and we boarded immediately. The whole atmosphere seemed charged now with a certain air of urgency. After the cargo door was closed, the aircraft was immediately lifted by that unseen force until we reached an altitude of 2700 feet. Two of the aircraft were alongside for some distance guiding us on our return way. I must state here, the airspeed indicator registered no reading, yet we were moving along at a very apid rate.

215 Hours- A radio message comes through. ‘We are leaving you now, Admiral, your controls are free. Auf Wiedersehen!!!!’ We watched for a moment as the flugelrads disappeared into the pale blue sky.

The aircraft suddenly felt as though caught in a sharp downdraft for a moment. We quickly recovered her control. We do not speak for some time, each man has his thoughts….

ENTRY IN FLIGHT LOG CONTINUES:

220 Hours- We are again over vast areas of ice and snow, and approximately 27 minutes from base camp. We radio them, they respond. We report all conditions normal….normal. Base camp expresses relief at our re-established contact.

300 Hours- We land smoothly at base camp. I have a mission…..

END LOG ENTRIES.

March 11, 1947. I have just attended a staff meeting at the Pentagon. I have stated fully my discovery and the message from the Master. All is duly recorded. The President has been advised. I am now detained for several hours (six hours, thirty-nine minutes, to be exact.) I am interviewed intently by Top Security Forces and a medical team. It was an ordeal!!!! I am placed under strict control via the national security provisions of this United States of America. I am ordered to remain silent in regard to all that I have learned, on the behalf of humanity!!!! Incredible! I am reminded that I am a military man and I must obey orders.

30/12/56: FINAL ENTRY:

These last few years elapsed since 1947 have not been kind…I now make my final entry in this singular diary. In closing, I must state that I have faithfully kept this matter secret as directed all these years. It has been completely against my values of moral right. Now, I seem to sense the long night coming on and this secret will not die with me, but as all truth shall, it will triumph and so it shall.

This can be the only hope for mankind. I have seen the truth and it has quickened my spirit and has set me free! I have done my duty toward the monstrous military industrial complex. Now, the long night begins to approach, but there shall be no end. Just as the long night of the Arctic ends, the brilliant sunshine of truth shall come again….and those who are of darkness shall fall in it’s light..for I have seen that land beyond the pole, that center of the great unknown.

Admiral Richard E. Byrd
United States Navy
24 December 1956

—– End Of Quote —–

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27-01-2020 om 22:48 geschreven door peter

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Operation High Jump: “The Untold UFO War in Antarctica” and the “Hollow Earth Theory” – ADMIRAL RICHARD E. BYRD - part II

These are must watch Video’s. Amazing story that all research says is 100% true.
All documented in the Government and Public Domain.

In 1946/1947 the US Government launched Operation: High Jump.

It was in the following year after the above lines were supposedly written, that Admiral Richard E. Byrd died at the age of sixty-nine or seventy. The cause of his death is unknown to me at this time. Prior to his death in 1957, I have also read that he participated in a similar expedition to Antarctica, where his team also penetrated deep into the South Polar region.

The previous account concerning Admiral Byrd’s North Pole expedition is not the only information which has been usedto support the Hollow Earth Theory. During this past century, various other polar expenditions have also been launched, the primary goal of which was to reach the true geographical North Pole over land. To understand this, allow me to explain the following. As some of you are aware, there are actually what we might refer to as two North Poles.
First, there is the true geographical North Pole, which is situated at ninety degrees north latitude. This is because, being a sphere, the entire Earth is divided into three hundred and sixty degrees, both for latitude as well as for longitude. Thus, half of the Earth’s sphere would be divided into one hundred and eighty degrees. From the Equator to the geographical North Pole is ninety degrees; and from the Equator to the geographical South Pole is another ninety degrees.

Aside from the true geographical poles, there are also the magnetic North Pole, and the magnetic South Pole, which is where the Earth’s magnetic field is said to be the most intense. According to one science book I referred to, the magnetic North Pole is actually located about one thousand
six hundred and seventy kilometers south of the true geographical North Pole, in the vicinity of the ninety degree longitudinal line near Bathurst Island in northern Canada. In fact, some have suggested that there are actually as many as three magnetic North Poles which more or less ‘float’ around a particular area of the Arctic Circle. In other words, the magnetic poles are not stationary like the geographical poles. In the Southern Hemisphere, the magnetic South Pole is said to be located some two thousand six hundred and seventy kilometers north of the geographical South Pole, along the one hundred and forty degrees longitudinal line, near the coast of Antarctica. I am not sure if the same claims are made regarding the South Pole having as many as three magnetic poles.

According to certain statements supposedly extracted from the journals of some of the other polar explorers, there are similar observations and experiences which Hollow Earth Theory adherents claim have been purposely suppressed and kept from the knowledge of the general public. Just like Admiral Byrd’s description in his purported diary, these experiences are related to unusual natural phenomena which should not be occurring at such a northerly latitude.
Obviously, the further north one travels away from the Equator and the shorter rays of the sun, the colder it becomes. As a result of this, with each passing day, the Arctic Ocean becomes more impassable due to the sub-zero temperatures causing the surface water to freeze into large fields of ice. Because of the unstable nature of these ice fields, one never knows when a particular field might suddenly break up presenting a dangerous situation for thoseexploring these remote regions of the world. Between these natural dangers, the degree of human endurance, the limitation on how much supplies a team can carry with it, etc., polar exploration can indeed be quite a challenge, particularly decades ago when our current technology did not exist.

All of these other difficulties aside, as was stated in Byrd’s purported diary, the most serious challenge comes as one approaches closer and closer to the magnetic North Pole.
Quite simply, due to the strong magnetic field present at these latitudes, one’s instruments begins to fluctuate wildly, until one cannot even rely upon their accuracy in order to determine or maintain his bearings. At this point, other methods of navigation must be used. This magnetic interference and directional confusion has been such, that some polar explorers have become completely disoriented; and instead of veering truly north, they have gone off in some other direction.

According to some of these journals, if we accept them as being authentic, despite these difficulties, some of these arctic explorers were able to continue northward to varying degrees; however, to their great surprise, similar to the Byrd account, they began to encounter things which seemed to defy logic. For example, what had once been an ice-congested and impassable sea, became an easily navigable waterway above the seventy-five or eighty degree latitudinal line. In addition, instead of the sub-zero temperatures continuing todrop, they did the exact opposite to where they actuallybecame balmy. Even more astounding is that they began to experience a warm wind blowing down from the north. Finally, they began to notice fresh bits of twigs and leaves in the water, large flocks of birds and migrations of butterflies where there should have been no such thing, and other odd phenomena which seemed to indicate that they were travelling southward and not northward.

One clear example of a purported penetration into the Inner Earth which was not planned, is found in a biographical book written by Willis George Emerson entitled ‘The Smokey God’.
In this book, Emerson relates the tale of a father and son Norwegian fishing team whose small vessel is driven by a fierce oceanic storm until they find themselves sailing over the lip of the northern polar opening; what scientists refer to as the Polar Basin. The son, Olaf Jansen, claimed that this occurred in April of 1829. For the next two years, Olaf Jansen claimed that he and his father lived with the kind, courteous inhabitants of the Inner Earth, who measured some twelve feet in height. After this time, Jansen claimed that they exited the Inner Earth via the South Pole opening. The book derives its name from the fact that Olaf described the mini-sun as being smokey in appearance.

In accordance with the story of Norwegian Olaf Jansen, the adherents of the Hollow Earth Theory agree that an entrance to the Inner Earth exists at the South Pole as well. Similar to the Byrd account which describes the inhabitants of the Inner Earth speaking English with a Germanic accent, some New Agers claim that these underworlders are actually the descendants of the Nazis, who with their technology, escaped to the Inner Earth via the South Pole following their defeat at the close of World War II. It is said that part of this technology included the first prototype flying disks, and that current UFO sightings are modern versions of the same which follow flight corridors across South America leading from the South Pole. It is because of tales like these that some people are convinced that there is a greater reason for the presence of foreign governments on Antarctica than what has actually been stated publicly.

To add credence to these thoughts, Hollow Earth theorists point to a few disturbing facts. For example, when British camera crews for the BBC arranged for a visit to Antarctica, they were confronted with several unanticipated problems.
While their original itinerary, which was planned well in advance, included a direct flight from South Africa to Antarctica, which would have included an overflight of the so-called ‘Area Of Inaccessibility’, their plans were somehow bungled; and they were forced to travel first to South America. Upon arriving there, they discovered that the only commercial flight available to the subcontinent was operated by an American company, which ferried some twenty to thirty people at a time to the American base of McMurdo Station. These flights were only available during the summer months. Not only that, but when they finally did arrive at their destination, the Britons were treated with a degree of hostility by the Americans.

Another point worthy of note, is that it was discovered that due to the lack of any satellites flying over Antarctica, all weather reports originated on the ground from McMurdo Station itself. Hollow Earth theorists conclude that this is a direct step taken by the Americans to prevent the release of any satellite images of the South Pole which might show the polar opening. Another recent development which has also been viewed as a part of the overall conspiracy to hide the truth from the world, is that in recent years, an agreement was signed by various nations which would prohibit oil and mineral exploration on Antarctica for the next fifty years.
The last piece of purported evidence used by Hollow Earth theorists, is the claim that the ‘Ozone Hole’ over Antarctica is directly above the so-called South Polar opening. As you will see shortly, this may have deeper implications, that what at first may be apparent to the untrained individual.

Hollow Earth theorists point to other unusual signs as well in order to prove that something strange exists at both the extremes of Planet Earth. One of these signs is that of mammoth tusks which have been continually found on some of the islands situated within the Arctic Circle north of Russia. If this story is true, what is odd about this is the fact that it is claimed that for at least the past several hundred years, traders have gathered and sold these tusks; yet more continue to accumulate there. These mammoth tusks are directly related to another strange phenomenon; and that is that for a number of years now, the carcases of wooly mammoths have been found frozen in ice in Siberia and other regions of the Arctic Circle. I remember reading years ago that some of these even had fresh grass in their mouths.
While I believe that these well-preserved carcases are the result of a sudden worldwide catastrophe of thousands of years ago referred to as Noah’s Flood, which quickly froze many species of animals which existed at the time, Hollow Earth theorists claim that these carcases point to the fact that wooly mammoths still thrive within the Inner Earth.

It has been a long-held belief within certain Asian cultures and now within New Age thought as well, that rather than being comprised of a solid area of dense bedrock known as the mantle, the interior of the Earth is more akin to Swiss Cheese, in that it is permeated with a vast interconnecting system of underground caves and subterranean tunnels. In certain places, this global system is said to lead down to the Inner Earth. From the research I did, these sites are quite often said to be situated in or near deep mining operations and volcanic peaks located in various countries throughout the world, as well as in the Himalayan mountain range and the Gobi Desert. Fourteen thousand foot Mount Shasta, an extinct volcano located in northern California, U.S.A., is also claimed to be one such site. The true believers are convinced that this snow-capped mountain is actually the home of a large multi-tiered subterranean city known as Telos. There are often groups of New Age shamans and their followers camping out on the slopes of this mountain, hoping that they will be ‘blessed’ either with a unique spiritual encounter, or with a UFO sighting, or perhaps even with locating one of these fabled entrances to the famed five-level subterranean city.

Another story related to this concerns the San Andreas Fault located in the state of California, U.S.A. While geologists point to the Tectonic Plate Theory and claim that this fault line is a result of the Pacific plate pushing against the continental plate, some Hollow Earth theorists interpret the matter quite differently. According to them, and I musta admit that I have heard this same thing for the past several decades, since the 1950’s, the American Government has sent nuclear-powered submarines to explore the underwater topography of the western coast of the United States of America. It is claimed that while mapping this area, they were surprised to discover that the continental shelf is pocketed with many huge caverns and passageways; some of which are large enough to easily allow a submarine to navigate through them.

The horror came when after years of carefully andmeticulously mapping this submarine world, they realized that some of these caverns and tunnels extended as far back as the states of Utah and Nevada! In fact, one story claims that a certain American submarine, which was supposedly lost at open sea, was actually lost while exploring one of these hidden caverns. However, the most shocking thing they are said to have discovered, is the fact that the state of California is basically hanging over the ocean; that is, it is for the most part floating on top of the ocean, being supported by a series of submarine limestone pillars. While most people believe that the many earthquakes which have been experienced in California are due to shifts in these various tectonic plates, some Hollow Earth theorists propose that they are actually caused by the collapse of some of these larger submarine caverns. In fact, they suggest that this is the real nature of the San Andreas Fault; that is, it is either a submarine tunnel, or a series of large caverns, which have simply collapsed, creating the depression which is seen above ground.

If the above is indeed true, then the end result is quite obvious; even to one who doesn’t have a degree in geology.
If and when enough of those caverns and pillars collapse, most of California will break off and simply fall into the ocean. As tragic and as widespread as the loss of life would be, if this were to truly happen, I would personally view it as a severe judgment of the Lord due to the great degree of evil and deception which originates in, and which is also propagated from that state. Everyone knows that California is the haven for New Age thought, pay-per-minute psychics, homosexual and lesbian rights groups, and a plethora of other negative influences which have plagued America for literally decades, such as the violent and antichrist television and film industry. Not only that, but it is the center for the very technology which may someday soon be used to enslave mankind; that is, the computer industry.
While we computer-literate Christians view our machines as a blessing and a valuable tool for spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we are also fully aware that there is a dark side to this age of electronic wonders as well. May I suggest that you read my article ‘Mondex And The Mark Of The Beast’.

This is not the only information which is used to support the Hollow Earth Theory. One piece of evidence to which the believers point as proof of the existence of a Hollow Earth, has absolutely nothing to do with the Earth itself. This concerns certain photographs which have been taken of some of the other bodies in our planetary system. Due in part to certain deep craters and dark spots found at the polar regions and other surface areas of some of these celestial bodies, the proponents of the Hollow Earth Theory have come to the conclusion that they must also be hollow spheres, and that these craters or dark spots are likewise openings to these inner worlds. Furthermore, it has been suggested that some of these spheres might possibly be artificial in nature. At this point, the tales take some very unusual turns in the direction of soon-coming hostile alien invasions of the Earth and other such stories.

However on the serious side, if the information is to be believed, the planet Mars may offer some convincing evidence of the Hollow Earth Theory due some strange occurences which are said to have been observed at its poles. Due to various factors, such as its distance from the Sun, the Martian year is almost twice as long as an Earth year, being six hundred and eighty-seven days. During half of this period, one Martian ice cap will expand in size while the other will do the exact opposite. This expansion can be anywhere from ten to twenty times its smallest size, which has been estimated at around four hundred miles in diameter. It is also noteworthy that the Martian polar ice caps always maintain a definite circular shape. At any rate, during the final half of the year, the expanded ice cap will rapidly shrink, while the opposite one will grow in size. Where the excitement comes for Hollow Earth theorists is in the fact that on some occasions, the ice caps have shrunk to slightly less than their normal minimum diameter. It is claimed that it is at these times that astronomers have observed a black area, or perimeter, surrounding the ice caps. While astronomers have tried to dismiss this fact, some Hollow Earth theorists are convinced that this is nothing less that the outer edge of the polar opening leading into the inner world of Mars.

According to one theorist, the temperature and climate inside other hollow planets such as Mars may be very similar to that found inside the Hollow Earth; in other words, it is quite tropical in nature. If this is true, then it would result in the natural formation of a huge cloud mass at the polar entrances where the warm moist air from the interior of the planet rises to collide with the cold polar air on the outside of the planet. This temperature variation would be even greater during the Martian winter season, and thus would readily explain the sudden expansion and reduction of the cloud masses during each half of the Martian year. What has also elated Hollow Earth theorists, and added more weight to their theory, was the announcement that ‘ice,cliffs’ composed of actual water, and not of carbon dioxide, have been discovered at the Martian polar regions.

But this is not the only mystery which has been revealed on the planet Mars. In their on-going attempt to reinforce their argument with even more scientific validity, it has been pointed out by some of the more serious-minded Hollow Earth theorists, that on certain occasions, scientists and
astronomers have detected odd brilliant flashes of light originating at the poles of some of these celestial orbs, such as on the Moon and Mars. What do these sporadic flashes have to do with the Hollow Earth Theory? This brings us back down to Earth, and to a natural phenomenon known in the Northern Hemisphere as the Aurora Borealis, and in the Southern Hemisphere as the Aurora Australis; that is, the Northern and the Southern Lights. Scientists claim that these spectacular nocturnal light shows are the result of electrically charged particles from the sun striking the magnetic field which surrounds the Earth. The Lights are said to be most prominent during periods of high solar activity, that is, when sunspots are at their peak.

However, Hollow Earth theorists propose a completely different explanation for these awe-inspiring nocturnal light shows. They claim that every so often, the mini-sun within the core of the Earth will be perfectly aligned with one of the polar openings. These openings are said to be
some one thousand and four hundred miles in diameter. When these alignments occur, some of the light from the mini-sun flashes outward into the atmosphere, thus creating the beautiful Northern and Southern Lights. As proof of this,they point to the flashes of light observed by astronomers on the Moon, Mars, and possibly elsewhere.

As you can see, I have gone to great lengths to give you a basic idea of what the Hollow Earth Theory is all about. Of course, this article does not by any means include every single aspect of the theory, as there are simply too many ramifications which have been made from this central theme.
While I have expressed doubt in the theory, I have also tried to be fair by presenting as much evidence as I can to explain why some people are convinced that the Hollow Earth is not fiction, but actual fact. So exactly what is my personal opinion regarding this unusual theory?

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27-01-2020 om 22:46 geschreven door peter

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Unknown spacecraft and ancient triangle UFO discovered in Antarctica

Two space vehicles have been discovered in Antarctica. The first object is an ancient triangle UFO that has been crashed a long time ago. The second unknown object looks like a shuttle-like spacecraft.

The shuttle-like spacecraft in particular is interesting.
Where did it come from?
Is it extraterrestrial or is it a craft that belongs to the secret space fleet?
And what could be reason that it crashed or landed in Antarctica?

Triangle UFO - Size: 42 x 42 meters Coordinates: 74°18'52.37"S 9°27'18.32"W
Spacecraft: - Size: 45 meters. Coordinates: 74°47'54.86"S 110°33'38.27"W

27-01-2020 om 21:10 geschreven door peter

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Navy admits it still has never before released video of infamous USS Nimitz ‘Tic Tac’ UFO encounter

Navy admits it still has never before released video of infamous USS Nimitz ‘Tic Tac’ UFO encounter

LOTTIE TIPLADY-BISHOP

THE US Navy has admitted it has top secret footage from a UFO sighting - but say it can't be released as it would cause "grave damage" to national security.

Some footage from the USS Nimitz "Tic Tac" UFO incident in 2004, where a Navy Commander spotted a floating object that looked like "a 40ft Tic Tac", was released in 2017, but officials say there is more being held back for security reasons.

The incident, pictured, was never explained

Chad Underwood, pictured, who shot the now infamous footageCredit: Chad Underwood

Crew aboard the Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser USS Princeton had been spending the past two weeks tracking mysterious aircraft on and off.

The incident unfolded during carrier group exercises in the Pacific, off the coast of Mexico.

It was spotted by six pilots in total.

One baffled pilot who spotted the UFO said: "It would go from like 50 feet off the ground, which when you’re out in the open ocean, you know, off the coast of San Diego, it looked like it was just hovering over the water.

“But there was no method of propulsion that was keeping it airborne: no wings, no heat, keeping it airborne or aloft.”

Video of the 2004 encounter was revealed to public in 2017 and the Navy finally admitted the videos were real last November.

The discovery was made by researcher Christian Lambright who enquired with a Freedom of Information Request.

In a letter to the researcher, Coordinator Camille V’Estres, wrote: "Our review of our records and systems reveal that ONI has no releasable records related to your request.

"ONI has searched our records for responsive documents.

"We have discovered certain briefing slides that are classified TOP SECRET.

"A review of these materials indicates that are currently and appropriate Marked and Classified TOP SECRET under Executive Order 13526, and the Original Classification Authority has determined that the release of these materials would cause exceptionally grave damage to the National Security of the United States".

The spooky encounters have been the subject of many interviews - but have never been explained.

The discovery was made by researcher, Christian Lambright

Credit: Cascade News

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27-01-2020 om 16:24 geschreven door peter

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UFO Stories Are Becoming More Mainstream

ufo-superbowl

After the Pentagon admitted UFOs are real, Hollywood is making a flurry of films and television shows on how we should look at them.

Talking about UFOs is no longer weird, with former Blink-182 singer getting the American military to admit that it has UFO sighting videos.

Movies such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Arrival, and even Avengers are depicting UFOs with aliens who have come to Earth, which have had viewers from different parts of the world discussing more on the existence of extraterrestrials. However, today, there’s an increased focus on UFO researchers in Hollywood.

According to media critic and author Robbie Graham, the resurgence in popularity in aliens and UFOs is a direct result of the Pentagon revelations in 2017, which captured the attention of the press like there’s no UFO story in decades. Graham explained that the Pentagon UFO revelations helped legitimize UFOs as a topic of mainstream debate and opened up fresh political and scientific lines of inquiry for TV producers who are always searching for new approaches to this increasingly popular subject.

Irish actor Aiden Gillen, best known as Littlefinger in HBO’s Game of Thrones, said that people are more open to considering UFO sightings as a real event as opposed to just psychology. Gillen, who currently plays Dr. J. Allen Hynek in History Channel’s Project Blue Book, said that humans are naturally curious about UFOs and what’s up there. He added that talking about UFOs is no longer taboo and UFO topics are selling like never before as they are hot property on TV and everybody wants to stake a claim.

27-01-2020 om 16:18 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

Could salt-loving microbes explain Mars’ methane?

Posted by Paul Scott Anderson in SPACE

New laboratory studies – simulating conditions on the planet Mars and using salt-loving microbes – suggest that similar organisms could be producing Mars’ mysterious methane.

Ancient lake sediments in Gale Crater on Mars. The Curiosity rover has detected methane in this region, and this is the kind of environment where methanogenic archaea-type microorganisms might still survive today, with soils containing salts and clays.

Image via NASA/ JPL-Caltech.

Since it was first detected earlier in this century, methane in Mars’ thin air has been one of the most intriguing mysteries of the red planet. Record high levels of methane – reported in Mars’ atmosphere last June – was one of 2019’s biggest science stories. Is Mars’ methane created by geological processes? Or could it be a sign of life? That debate has raged more intensely in the past few years. Now a new study by researchers at Technical University Berlin (TU Berlin) outlines a possible mechanism where microbial life could indeed explain the findings.

The research was discussed in an article by Dirk Schulze-Makuch in Air & Space on January 9, 2020, and the peer-reviewed paper was published on January 8 in Scientific Reports. The findings were also presented on September 4, 2019, at the 19th EANA Astrobiology Conference in Orleans, France.

The study, led by Debbie Maus from TU Berlin, focused on how microbes can survive on water obtained only through deliquescence, where salts absorb tiny amounts of water directly from the air and then dissolve in the absorbed moisture. This would be essential on Mars, where there is no liquid water known on the dry, cold surface. Extremophile microorganisms on Earth can survive this way, however, making use of whatever tiny amounts of moisture are present. Could the same be true for Mars?

Some earthly microbes that employ deliquescence also release methane. And it’s known that Martian soil contains salts. So could deliquescence on Mars explain the methane in the air? While the current study doesn’t prove it does, the study does suggest that this explanation is plausible.

The 2020 lunar calendars are nearly sold out! Order yours before they’re gone. Makes a great gift!

Smooth gray cylinders in a cluster with black background.

A cluster of halobacteria, a type of archaea microorganism on Earth. Similar microbes may possibly explain the presence of methane on Mars.

Image via Wikipedia.

This Dec. 2, 2016 image taken by NASA's Curiosity rover shows rocky ground on the lower flank of Mount Sharp, a mountain on Mars. Curiosity landed on the red planet in 2012 and uncovered geologic evidence of an ancient environment.

How did Maus and her team reach these conclusions?

They used three different versions of simulated Martian soil, including the salts. These were contained in a special chamber that recreated conditions on the Martian surface. The researchers wanted to see if certain types of microbes would use the salts to obtain moisture through deliquescence in these simulated hostile conditions with very thin atmosphere, bitter cold and no liquid water.

The researchers tested three types of methanogenic archaea (methanogens), single-celled microorganisms similar to bacteria that, on Earth, live in environments with very low oxygen levels, much like Mars. All three types produce methane as a by-product of their metabolism.

Two out of the three types of microbes did produce methane in the simulated Martian conditions. Noteworthy is that this was particularly true when the tests used salts and soils similar to those found in ancient lakebeds on Mars, which have high clay content. This is just the kind of terrain that the Curiosity rover is in right now in Gale Crater – which used to be a lake or series of lakes a few billion years ago – and Curiosity has confirmed methane on more than one occasion now. Curiosity is currently examining clay-rich soil on the lower slopes of Mount Sharp in the middle of the crater.

The new study provides a plausible mechanism for the release of methane into the Martian atmosphere, although it still isn’t known for sure whether the methane is the result of biology or geology. On Earth, the vast majority of methane is produced by organisms, and the same could be true for Mars as well, but that is by no means certain at this point.

Cross section of subsurface below a volcano with text annotations.

Illustration depicting what processes could create and destroy methane on Mars. The methane may originate from below the surface and be released into the atmosphere through subsurface cracks.

Image via ESA.

The researchers found that even if the microbes were desiccated – dried out – and dormant, they could be revived by deliquescence and release methane. From the paper:

Our results show, for the first time, that rehydration of MRAs [Martian regolith analogs] through deliquescence can reactivate the metabolism of desiccated methanogenic archaea. The design of the CDS provided deliquescence-driven water transport into the incubation chamber, but only when a hygroscopic salt was present. Our data also showed that methane production depends greatly on the methanogenic species, the incubation temperature, and the type of MRA and salt used in the experiments.

With the custom-designed Closed Deliquescence System (CDS), we have simulated the in vitro process of deliquescence and demonstrated that Methanosarcina soligelidi and Methanosarcina barkeri can survive desiccation in the presence of 30 wt% sodium chloride in a phyllosilicate-containing Martian Regolith Analog, and furthermore become metabolically active after water is provided by deliquescence.

Thus, we conclude that methanogenic archaea can live in environments with transient water availability and cope with varying salt concentrations. Consequently, salt-rich near subsurface environments on Mars subject to periodic wetting, such as proposed for RSLs [recurring slope lineae], can be considered potential habitats for certain halotolerant methanogenic archaea and could potentially be a biological source of methane in the Martian atmosphere.

The RSLs or recurring slope lineae are another feature on Mars that contain hydrated salts. These dark streaks on steep slopes may be the result of brief flows of briny water, but there is still much debate as to their actual cause. If there is moisture involved, they may be ideal locations for such salt-loving microbes to exist. There are even some RSLs on Mount Sharp in the middle of Gale Crater. The Curiosity rover could drive closer, but its controllers at NASA decided against it; there was a risk of contamination by the rover, which could still have some stray earthly microbes of its own on board.

Diagram of Mars with text identifying spacecraft, dates and amounts.

A history of key methane measurements on Mars from 1999 to 2018.

Image via ESA.

Curiosity found evidence that the methane, at least near its location, is seasonal in its variation. That could be the result perhaps of clathrate ices or soils periodically releasing some trapped methane during warmer periods, other geological processes, or even a function of biology.

In a previous study, scientists found that the methane detected by Curiosity exhibits daily variations as well as seasonal ones. As John Moores at York University in Canada explained:

This most recent work suggests that the methane concentration changes over the course of each day. We were able – for the first time – to calculate a single number for the rate of seepage of methane at Gale Crater on Mars that is equivalent to an average of 2.8 kg [.7 gallons] per Martian day.

Another previous study also showed that wind erosion of rocks was unlikely to account for the variations in methane seen by Curiosity.

Methane was first found in the Martian atmosphere in 1999 by ground-based telescopes. The origin, however, is still a mystery despite the gas also being detected many times since then with various orbiters and the Curiosity rover. Curiosity also recently detected unusual seasonal variations in the amount of oxygen in Gale Crater, but further testing is needed to determine if there is any connection to the methane variations.

Rough rocky terrain with dark streaks running downhill.

An example of Recurring Slope Lineae (RSL) on the walls of Newton Crater, as seen by Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on May 30, 2011. They contain salts and possibly water.

Image via NASA/ JPL-Caltech/ University of Arizona.

So far, the search for life on Mars – past or present – has focused on the follow the water scenario.

Curiosity Rover
✔@MarsCuriosity

The game is afoot.

I'm continuing to investigate the Martian methane mystery. A follow-on investigation shows that this past week's methane levels have sharply decreased. http://go.nasa.gov/2ZC0xvc

2,558

1:00 AM - Jun 25, 2019

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477 people are talking about this

But if this new research is any indication, and as noted at the EANA Astrobiology Conference, maybe it’s time to modify that approach:

While our results emphasize the importance of the substrate, archaeal species, salt, and temperature used, we show – more importantly – for the first time that water provided through deliquescence alone is sufficient to rehydrate methanogenic archaea and to reactivate their metabolism under conditions roughly analogous to the near-subsurface Martian environment.

Thus, we suggest that a more important mantra for the search of life on Mars is ‘follow the salt’ rather than ‘follow the water.’ Future space missions, including life detection missions, should explore salt-rich regions on Mars as prime targets for astrobiology.

Mars Rover

Bottom line: New laboratory studies from researchers at Technical University Berlin suggest that microbes similar to methanogenic archaea on Earth could be producing Mars’ mysterious methane.
Source: Methanogenic Archaea Can Produce Methane in Deliquescence-Driven Mars Analog Environments
Source: The Process of Deliquescence Might Allow Methanogenic Archaea to Metabolize on Mars

27-01-2020 om 01:20 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ASTRONOMIE / RUIMTEVAART

26-01-2020

Phosphorus, a key ingredient of life, has been found in a newborn star system

Astronomers trace molecular phosphorus from still-forming star to comet in our solar system

young star jet

In a distant region of space, a young star shoots out jets of energy (inset), generating simple phosphorus-bearing molecules in the gas and dust of its surroundings.

ALMA/ESO, NAOJ, NRAO; V.M. RIVILLA ET AL; MARIO WEIGAND/WWW.SKYTRIP.DE

By Adam Mann

For the first time, phosphorus, a key ingredient of life, has been pinpointed in a cloud of gas and dust surrounding a newborn star.

Astronomers spotted a bright infant star shooting powerful jets of energy that created cavities in the gas and dust cocoon from which it formed. Different types of molecules in the cloud, including two simple phosphorus-bearing ones — phosphorus monoxide and phosphorus mononitride — were detected along the cavities’ walls, researchers report in the February Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Ultraviolet radiation from the newborn star helped form these molecules, the team suspects.

“Essentially, the young star is digging away at its natal cloud,” says Maria Drozdovskaya, an astrochemist at the University of Bern in Switzerland. Though phosphorus has been spotted around young stars before, its exact location had never been pinpointed, Drozdovskaya says. Her team showed that phosphorus monoxide dominated the dust regions closest to the infant star.

Molecules of phosphorus monoxide were also detected in a comet in our solar system, the team reports, helping link faraway star-forming regions where the molecules are created all the way to our part of the galaxy.

The findings add to evidence that comets may have helped deliver phosphorus, which is essential to DNA and many key organic chemicals, to the early Earth.

Observations of the young star were made using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, or ALMA, an enormous collection of radio dishes in Chile’s Atacama Desert. With its high-resolution instruments, ALMA was able to look in detail at the star, found in a star-forming region known as AFGL 5142 located about 7,000 light-years away from Earth.

Finding phosphorus in the earliest phases of a star’s life doesn’t necessarily mean it sticks around for long enough to become incorporated into planets. So the researchers turned to evidence closer to home, taking a second look at data from the European Space Agency’s now-defunct Rosetta spacecraft, which studied the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko from 2014 to 2016 (SN: 8/6/14).

Comets are thought to be pristine relics from the solar system’s past. Rosetta had already detected phosphorus as well as the simplest amino acid glycine in the atmosphere of comet 67P (SN: 5/27/16). But clued in by the presence of phosphorus monoxide in the protostellar cloud, the spacecraft’s scientists looked at their data again and found that phosphorus monoxide was the main form of phosphorus in the icy body.

“It’s clearly telling us that comets contain the ingredients of life in their most basic form,” Drozdovskaya says.

Though essential for life, most of the phosphorus on Earth is locked up in minerals in its crust. Organisms tend to get the amount they need through their diet. Phosphorus monoxide, however, has the advantage of being soluble in water, making it far more biologically available than phosphorus locked in minerals, says study coauthor Víctor Rivilla of the Arcetri Astrophysical Observatory in Florence. If comets delivered phosphorus to the young Earth in the form of phosphorus monoxide, perhaps that helps explain how early life was able to access the element.

It’s still unclear exactly how the phosphorus molecules were created or if comets actually delivered them to Earth. “As much as we’re making enormous progress — and this paper is an example of that — there are still these giant gaps,” says George Cody, a geochemist at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C., who was not involved in the work.

A sample return mission that collects ice from a comet and brings it to terrestrial laboratories would allow scientists to do much more detailed analyses of such simple molecules and perhaps start to fill in a few details, he says. While missions are under way to retrieve samples from asteroids (SN: 1/15/19), NASA’s most recent comet sample–retrieval proposal, the Comet Astrobiology Exploration Sample Return (CAESAR), was not selected in the agency’s last round of funding.

{ https://www.sciencenews.org/ }

26-01-2020 om 23:50 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ASTRONOMIE / RUIMTEVAART

Alien Sex won’t be like you suppose’: Evolutionary biologist explains how extraterrestrials might reproduce

No-one knows, because people haven’t yet caught beings from outer space within the act of physical affection.

However now a top evolutionary biologist has decided to shed some light on how aliens may make love.

Dr. Sarah Otto, director of the biodiversity analysis centre at the University of British Columbia’s Zoology division, told Mirror On-line that people would have to ditch their earthbound preconceptions if they wish to understand what sex may look like on one other planet.

If aliens exist, would they have sex?

“I have never thought about aliens before,” she mentioned.

“However it’s an interesting thought experiment.

“What do we know about 4 billion years of evolution on Earth and what would we predict if it occurred all over again on another planet?”

Males are from Mars…

Earlier this month, an American lady referred to as Niara Terela Isley claimed reptilian aliens regularly raped her at their base on the dark side of the moon.

However aliens would in all probability find it very difficult to get jiggy with people, as a result of our bits and bobs are likely to be completely different shapes.

In addition to this, it is unclear whether or not the familiar gender binary of female and male would be replicated in an alien species.

Alien eroticism would probably be completely different, having developed alongside its own evolutionary lines.

Dr Otto mentioned the 2 gender approach was unlikely to be discovered on one other planet, because it does not always exist on Earth.

“The separate female and male sexes is not even universal rule on this earth, let alone others,” she continued.

Sexed up: All slugs are hermaphrodites, which means they’re able to breed quickly

(Photo: Wyevale Garden Centres/Rain Communications)

Aliens could be hermaphrodites, Dr Otto advised, which means they can basically have sex with themselves, however this would rely upon what kind of beastie ET turned out to be.

This could be useful, as a result of it means ET would not have to find a partner and then speak them into bed.

“Organisms that can move and find different mates usually tend to have separate genders,” she mentioned.

“Those that are stationery tend to have female and male organs on the same individual.”

Intruigingly, Dr Otto advised being that can’t move would not essentially be any less clever than one that can run about, raising the prospect that alien lifeforms could look more like trees than people.

Just watch out for these wandering branches.

In Star Wars, the well-known Storm Troopers were mentioned to be exact copies – or clones – of the bounty hunter Jango Fett.

However in a real galaxy far, far away, aliens are unlikely to clone themselves, as a result of reproducing your exact genetic make up could leave a species at risk of being wiped out by one single disease.

If a creature cloned itself, the species wouldn’t be able to benefit from the combinations and mutations which occur when women and men merge their genetic code throughout reproduction.

“Clonal species do not tend to do well in the long run,” Dr Otto added.

Not every species on our own planet relies on sex which takes place exclusively between 2 genders.

“Rather than female and male, some species have categories like A, B, C, D and E,” Dr Otto added.

“But regardless of truth they may have a number of mating varieties, it is solely two that are likely to take part in mating.”

This means aliens would unlikely to get involved in orgies, as a result of when it comes to producing the subsequent generation, more than two parents is certainly a crowd.

Pleasure seekers

It’s usually stated that people are unique because we enjoy having sex.

Of course, each species is hardwired to reproduce – otherwise they would not last very long.

“It isn’t shock that evolution has linked sex to pleasure centres of our brain,” Dr Otto mentioned.

This would mean aliens would probably feel a an urge to get down and dirty, whether they loved it or not.

Sound familiar?

Brave New World

In his famous novel, Aldous Huxley imagined a future the place intercourse was purely for enjoyable and infants have been produced in factories.

We asked Otto if this was unlikely to be the best way aliens produced their offspring.

“I sure hope not,” she replied.

“In factories and manufacturing industries, you are attempting to do things the same way again and again.

“Evolution does not work that way.”

Just like earthly creatures, aliens are likely to have benefited from the flukes caused by combining their genes over the courses of many tens of millions of generations.

“Evolution stops if replication is done perfectly,” Dr Otto concluded.

{ https://wholesecrets.com/ }

26-01-2020 om 23:26 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )

Witnesses Say USS Nimitz “Tic-Tac” Had Incredible Flight Capabilities, But That’s Not All

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Witnesses Say USS Nimitz “Tic-Tac” Had Incredible Flight Capabilities, But That’s Not All

Micah Hanks

“Up, left, down, forward… any way it wanted to go, at any speed it wanted to go. Which was hard for your brain to kinda wrap around at first.”

This was how Gary Voorhis, former Petty Officer 3rd Class Fire Controlman aboard the USS Princeton, described the behavior of an unidentified flying object that was tracked and observed across multiple systems during a 2004 Naval incident off the coast of California. The events described here, commonly known today as the USS Nimitz UFO incident, have become one of the most widely-discussed instances involving unexplained aerial phenomena of the modern era.

A number of key factors have contributed to the attention this incident has gained, which include the involvement of multiple witnesses, and more fundamentally, that it had been a military encounter with obvious national defense implications. Also contributing to the interest it has received had been footage obtained with the help of the Raytheon ATFLIR targeting pod systems employed by the Navy, as well as observations by radar operators and other technicians in the Navy’s Strike Carrier Group-11. All of these sources provided information about the operational capabilities of the craft, which has since been popularly likened to a bus-sized, flying “tic-tac”.

Gary Voorhis and Ryan Weigelt, both of whom served with the Carrier Group-11 at the time of the incident, related a number of unique details to me during a recent interview I conducted with them about the incident. Voorhis, as described earlier, had been a Petty Officer 3rd Class Fire Controlman aboard the USS Princeton, and was one of the system technicians for the Cooperative Engagement Capability and AEGIS Combat systems, which included the AN/SPY-1 Bravo radar. Weigelt, a former Leading Petty Officer, had been the power plant specialist of the SH-60B Seahawk helicopter at the same time.

One of the key elements that both men shared with me in our interview had been their recollection of seeing the now-famous intercept attempt led by Commander David Fravor, a former commanding officer of Strike Fighter Squadron 41 (and, notably, the officer to first compare the object or aircraft’s shape to a “tic-tac”). Fravor was accompanied at the time of the intercept by his weapon systems officer and two other pilots.

“When I started watching this film to begin with,” Voorhis recalled, “they had already started the intercept. The object was moving around, and it was moving in conjunction with the pilot. It would move out of the frame, but then the pilot would adjust, and it would come back into the frame.

“And then it would move sharp to the right, sharp to the left, up, down, any particular direction it wanted to go. It had no rudders, no props, no jet plume. You couldn’t tell which side was the front and which side was the back, except that you’d just assume that which way is going forward is front. But you can’t even assume that, because it would just move sideways.

“You’re waiting for it to move,” Voorhis said. “Then it just moves.”

Voorhis also said that the objects were tracked more than once on radar over the course of several weeks and that, on a few occasions when such radar detections occurred, he attempted to observe the objects with binoculars from the top deck of the U.S.S. Princeton. Voorhis described seeing what appeared to be movement of phosphorescent, albeit ambiguous objects along the horizon in the direction indicated by radar.

And yet, perhaps the Nimitz object’s otherworldly maneuverability isn’t the only impressive thing about its capabilities. Shortly after the initial phase of the intercept, Fravor and the others were alerted via radio that the object reappeared, this time at a designated “cap point”, as indicated in interviews about the incident.

Video footage obtained by pilot Chad Underwood shortly after the initial intercept during the 2004 incident.

“We were at least 40 miles away, and in less than a minute this thing was already at our cap point,” Fravor told the New York Times in 2017. Although the unidentified object at no time displayed any offensive capabilities or other indications of hostile intent, the fact that it (or rather, its operators) had obvious knowledge of the Combat Air Patrol coordinates seems to indicate one of two possibilities:

1) That in addition to highly advanced maneuverability, the “tic-tac” also had the ability to decode the highly encrypted communications systems employed by the Strike Group at that time, or
2) The operators of the UAP technology may have somehow had foreknowledge or other means of access to this information.

The implications of either scenario are significant, and may even be fundamental to understanding the nature of the technology in question.

The various accounts of this object and its capabilities, observed at close-range by Fravor and his company during the intercept, as well as on radar by Voorhis, Day, and others, indicates something that is well beyond the capabilities of any known technologies possessed today by the United States; the same can be said of any other world superpower. This should not necessarily be alarming, as there was no indication of overt offensive capabilities displayed by the object. However, any object or aircraft with such highly advanced performance should not be ruled out as a concern.

It could be decades (at least) before any further information is released that will give the public a clear idea as to what the 2004 Nimitz incident really entailed. That, however, relies heavily on whether the U.S. government–or that of any nation–actually possesses any significant further information in the first place.

26-01-2020 om 22:37 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:UFOs , UAPs , USOS

Mushrooms Date Back to the First Plant Life on Earth

You’ve got to love mushrooms. They’re good to eat (well, most of them), they have psychedelic and healing powers, they come in a wide array of beautiful shapes and colors, they play a part in many folklore tales … we could go on and on about ‘shrooms. And now, there’s another great reason to love them – a new study finds that mushrooms are 300 million years older than first thought, dating back 810 million years to a time when they joined the first plants as the only living things on the dry surface of Earth. Yes, this is indeed a “This changes everything!” moment, brought to you by your favorite fungi – mushrooms.

“This is a major discovery, and one that prompts us to reconsider our timeline of the evolution of organisms on Earth.”

Where is everybody?

In a study led by Steeve Bonneville, professor at the Université libre de Bruxelles (a French-speaking private research university in Brussels, Belgium), researchers found fossilized remains of mycelium – microscopic strands of fungi — in ancient rocks from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. These 715 and 810 million-year-old rocks were at the Africa Museum in Tervuren, Belgium and had been determined to have been from a lagoon or coastal lake. The age and location makes these fungi-filled rocks historically special to Bonneville.

“The presence of fungi in this transitional area between water and land leads us to believe that these microscopic mushrooms were important partners of the first plants that colonized the Earth’s surface around 500 million years ago.”

Using non-destructive microscopic molecular analysis techniques such as synchrotron radiation spectroscopy, μ-Raman confocal microscopy, fluorescence microscopy and electron microscopy, Bonneville and his colleagues were able to study the organic remains in the rocks without damaging them. This allowed them to find traces of chitin, a very tough compound found in the cell walls of fungi, and determine that the cells had a nucleus, making them eukaryotic organisms … and the world’s oldest mushrooms.

We know what you’re thinking … are these the first magic mushrooms? Did the researchers eat them and experience 800-million-year-old visions? There’s nothing in the press release or the study, published in Science Advances, that would suggest they tried this, let alone even considered it. For that, you’ll have to visit the Democratic Republic of the Congo and find your own 800 million-year-old fungi-filled rocks to lick.

Now THAT would change everything.

26-01-2020 om 22:07 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ASTRONOMIE / RUIMTEVAART

A Policeman’s Bizarre UFO Encounter in New Mexico

The outskirts of Socorro, New Mexico blend right into desert badlands that stretch off into the horizon, a seemingly unforgiving, hostile place of parched earth and spiny plants. On April 24, 1964, at about 5:50 p.m., a plume of dust kicked up over this moonscape, originating from the patrol car of police officer Lonnie Zamora. He had been in a high speed chase moments before, when a strange roaring sound had filled his ears and he had witnessed a bluish, orange flame soaring through the sky some distance away. It was all odd enough that he had broken off from the chase and was now barreling down a rural road towards where he estimated the flame had originated from to investigate. At this point he was not thinking of UFOs or the world of the weird. His best guess was that a car had overturned or a dynamite shack in the vicinity had blown up, but as he navigated the winding, rough and remote road he saw something sitting out in that desert that he at first assumed to be a white car overturned on the road with what looked like two people standing nearby. At this point he thought that his instincts were correct, and that there had been an accident, but as he rushed forward to offer assistance he would soon realize that this was no car. And thus would begin one of the most well-documented and discussed UFO encounters there is.

As Zamora approached, he could see that rather than an overturned vehicle, the object seemed to be a whitish, “O” or egg shaped vehicle with no discernible windows or doors and a shiny sheen like aluminum, as well as what looked like a set of four thin legs underneath it propping it up, and the figures standing nearby were about the size of small adults, with somewhat large heads and wearing what looked like coveralls and possibly some sort of headgear. Even at this point he wasn’t struck by anything particularly outlandish, although it was starting to give him the odd feeling that something was “off.” The object had some sort of red insignia on it, although he could not tell what exactly it depicted or what it meant, and he says that one of the figures seemed to jump in surprise when it realized he was approaching, after which both of them seemed to disappear within the object. In the meantime Zamora had radioed in the incident and it was then that he would be truly shocked when the object in question began to lift up straight into the air. He explains of what happened next:

Hardly turned around from car, when heard roar (was not exactly a blast), very loud roar — at that close was real loud. Not like a jet — know what jets sound like. Started low frequency quickly, then roar rose in frequency (higher tone) and in loudness — from loud to very loud. At same time as roar saw flame. Flame was under the object. Object was starting to go straight up — slowly up. Object slowly rose straight up. Flame was light blue and at bottom was sort of orange color. From this angle, saw the side of object (not end, as first noted). Difficult to describe flame. Thought, from roar, it might blow up. Flame might have come from underside of object, at middle, possibly a four feet area — very rough guess. Cannot describe flame further except blue and orange. No smoke, except dust in immediate area.

After fell by car and glasses fell off, kept running to north, with car between me and object. Glanced back couple of times. Noted object to rise to about level of car, about 20 to 25 feet guess — took I guess about six seconds when object started to rise and I glanced back. I ran I guess about halfway to where I ducked down — about fifty feet from the car is where I ducked down, just over edge of hill. I guess I had run about 25 feet when I glanced back and saw the object level with the car and it appeared about directly over the place where it rose from.

I was still running and I jumped just over the hill — I stopped because I did not hear the roar. I was scared of the roar, and I had planned to continue running down the hill. I turned around toward the object and at same time put my head toward ground, covering my face with my arms. Being that there was no roar, I looked up, and I saw the object going away from me. It did not come any closer to me. It appeared to go in straight line and at same height — possibly 10 to 15 feet from ground, and it cleared the dynamite shack by about three feet. Shack about eight feet high. Object was travelling very fast. It seemed to rise up, and take off immediately across country.

He would claim that after this spectacular takeoff the craft ceased to make any noise or flame, and proceeded to silently shoot off into the distance over a mountain. As he stood there in shock and we at what he had just witnessed backup arrived, in the form of a Sergeant Chavez. Zamora excitedly told Chavez about what had happened, and the two searched the area to allegedly find strange indentations and scorch marks upon the earth. Other officers who would arrive claimed that some of the vegetation and the ground were still hot to the touch, with some of it even described as still smoldering, as if just hit by a massive heat. Not long after this, word got out about this outlandish incident and reporters were coming in droves, with headlines splashed all over the news talking of aliens and UFOs in the desert.

This quickly got the attention of the government, including the FBI and the U.S. Air Force, in particular the study it had initiated into UFO sightings, called Project Blue Book. Investigators would intensively question Zamora about the incident and deem him to be a reliable witness, a respected police officer who seemed to be telling the truth and had no reason to lie. The FBI would say Zamora was “well regarded as a sober, industrious, and conscientious officer and not given to fantasy.” When Zamora then brought them out to the alleged landing sight, they found wrecked, charred brush and the indentations he spoke of, as well as what looked like some sort of metal scrapings on a rock, and it was all rather baffling indeed.

Investigators were also able to track down other people who had possibly witnessed the same exact event. It turned out that several independent witnesses had also reported seeing an egg-shaped unidentified object trailing a blueish flame at approximately the same time as Zamora’s encounter. One witness in particular gave a dramatic report of some sort of silvery craft emerging from a bank of black smoke, of which he said, “a round, saucer or egg-shaped object ascended vertically from the black smoke… After climbing vertically out of the smoke, the object leveled off and moved in a southwest direction.” There were other witnesses as well, including those who had seen the object visually and those who had heard a strange roar echo out across the desolate landscape, as ell as those who had seen merely a bright flash from the region, but it is all intriguing as many of these reports came in before Zamora’s tale even hit the news. In the end, the case had experts and investigators stumped, and Major Hector Quintanilla, the Air Force Chief of Project Blue Book at the time, would call it a genuinely puzzling case, and he would write in his report on the matter:

There is no doubt that Lonnie Zamora saw an object which left quite an impression on him. There is also no question about Zamora’s reliability. He is a serious police officer, a pillar of his church, and a man well versed in recognizing airborne vehicles in his area. He is puzzled by what he saw, and frankly, so are we. This is the best-documented case on record, and still we have been unable, in spite of thorough investigation, to find the vehicle or other stimulus that scared Zamora to the point of panic.

This is particularly odd, as it was in an era in which Project Blue Book was on a crusade to debunk sightings as much as possible, the days of weather balloons, misidentified aircraft, and of course Venus, and rarely admitted to or covered up those that were genuinely unexplained. Adding to the weirdness of it all was a discovery allegedly made in 1968, when a a University of New Mexico doctoral student in radiation biology by the name of Mary G. Mayes claimed to have gone out to the site of the landing to do a study on the “plant material” of the area, and had found that not only were the plants around the site unusually dried out, but that there seemed to be an area of fused sand in the middle of all of this, which looked as if “a hot jet had hit it.” She would claim that after these discoveries the Air Force had moved in to acquire all of her research, data, and samples and that was the last she heard of it.

In later years, the Zamora incident would gain a lot of traction in the UFO community, as it was extremely well-documented and considered a truly unclassifiable event made by a reliable witness, and Zamora would continue to stand by his story. Of course, the main problem is that there is only one person who ever saw the landed craft and around which all of this revolves, and that is Zamora himself. As such, there has been much debate as to how much any of it holds up, and so there have been a lot of theories proposed on what might have gone on out there along that remote road. It has often been suggested that this was all a hoax, not necessarily implemented by Zamora, but perhaps a prank played on him by some enterprising individuals, but if that is the case then they did a good job of fooling everyone involved, including the FBI and Air Force. There is also of course the notion that Zamora set this all himself, as part of a scheme in order to raise tourism to the area.

Other ideas have really run the range, including ball lightning, dust devils, mirages, and top secret military aircraft, even an experimental lunar surveyor being tested out of the nearby White Sands Missile Range. Then of course there is the idea that this was an actual encounter with otherworldly forces, and that this was a genuine alien encounter. It is hard to say, as Zamora is no longer with us, having taken what he saw to the grave with him, and the case has mostly been dropped officially, merely an unexplained little hiccup listed simply as “unknown” and not worthy of follow-up. Whatever it is Zamora encountered out there, it has remained one of the most well-documented and oft discussed UFO encounters out there, and without any definitive answers we will probaby never know exactly what transpired.

26-01-2020 om 21:17 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:UFOs , UAPs , USOS

Alien Craft Recorded By Pilot Over Utah, Video, UFO Sighting News.

Alien Craft Recorded By Pilot Over Utah, Video, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: Sept 2019

Location of sighting: Utah, USA

Source: MUFON #105762

A professional pilot recorded this at 40,000 feet. This is just absolutly amazing. This is great raw footage of an actual UFO. Most UFOs appear white and orb shaped...but this disk is unique. This is an important video because not only does it tell us the size, shape and color of the object, but it tells us how smoothly and easily this craft moves through the sky.

Scott C. Waring - Taiwan

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

26-01-2020 om 20:03 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

UFO Armada Over Ocean Seen From Space Station, Video, UFO Sighting News.

UFO Armada Over Ocean Seen From Space Station, Video, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: Jan 26, 2020

Location of sighting: Earths orbit a ISS

Source: ISS live NASA cam

This is some cool footage of three UFOs rising up out of the ocean. Each UFO is about 1.5 km long...and one of them is still half under water. UFOs have been reported by pilots that size, so its not unusual at all. The UFO on the far left is the the leader of the fleet. You can see the UFO on the far left is about 75% out of the water, the center UFO is 45% and the UFO on the far right is only about 20% out of the water. Once the UFOs have left the water, they must wait in position for a few minutes until most water has fallen off the ship, because the water can cause hull damage when heating up fast and freezing fast exiting our atmosphere...but when they go light speed...a little water can really send them off track by a long ways.

Scott C. Waring - Taiwan

2018

2017

26-01-2020 om 19:51 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

Giant metallic disc with portholes seen in the sky over Tulsa, Oklahoma

Shannon was walking with her son to school when she saw a huge metallic disc with portholes in the sky over Tulsa, Oklahoma on January 20, 2020. The sun was reflecting off of it and although it scared her what she saw, she took a photo of the UFO with her phone.

Shannon states: I can tell you, first of all there was a humming noise that I heard that was not heard by anyone else all the night before.

It was huge, I'd say, maybe 3 football fields wide. It was surrounded by clouds that we're all different colors. It was very low and the top part of it was completely enveloped.

After I dropped my son off at school I came back out and stood amazed, I couldn't believe no one else reported it.

Remarkable; a similar UFO with portholes has been photographed by Daniela in Germany. (See image above).

In the following video Mrmbb333 talks about these two UFOs.

26-01-2020 om 19:19 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

Time-Traveling Humans From the Future Might Be Piloting UFOs

Gary Wilcox UFO

Over the decades, many people have fascinated with unidentified flying objects (UFOs) and aliens. However, visiting extraterrestrials may be products of time rather than the universe.

UFO pilots could be our future progeny that have understood well the landscape of time and space. Montana Tech University professor Michael Masters recently claimed that the ET spacecraft or commonly called as UFOs that people previously observed, could have contained humans from the future rather than aliens.

Dr. Masters said that humans would utilize contraptions to travel back in time for them to understand their evolutionary past.

He is focusing on human evolution study and says his theory is consistent with reams of UFO sightings. He believes that time travelers from the future are anthropologists much like himself with so many claims of alien abductions and medical examinations.

Those who claimed to have been abducted described humanoid aliens with incredible technology. Scientists experimented with the arrow of time reversal for a split second to simulate the possibility of time travel using quantum particles named qubits. If this experiment gives even a slight chance, it will support the theory of Dr. Masters.

The professor believes that UFOs are time machines from the future.

He described the extra-tempestrial as being bi-lateral symmetry, having five fingers on each foot and hand, upright-walking, bipedal, having two eyes, a mouth, a nose and having the ability to communicate with us in our languages.

The proof that led the professor to this bizarre theory is when most people who reported close encounters with aliens always seem to describe them in the same way. He stated that he took a multidisciplinary approach to understand the oddities of this phenomenon. However, he remains vigilant in his skepticism and does not have a staunch unwavering devotion to this notion. He believes that going back in time to study ancient humans would be the holy grail of paleontology.

Anthropologists do not discount the possibility that humans of the future will crack the secrets of time travel, considering the fast pace of scientific and technological advancement over the past century

Read about how this video was made

26-01-2020 om 18:50 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

Rippling ice and storms at Mars’ north pole

Stormy activity at Mars’ icy north pole

Rippling ice and storms at Mars’ north pole

ESA’s Mars Express has captured beautiful images of the icy cap sitting at Mars’ north pole, complete with bright swathes of ice, dark troughs and depressions, and signs of strong winds and stormy activity.

The poles of Mars are covered in stacked layers of ice that subtly shift in extent and composition throughout the year.

During summer, the pole is permanently covered by thick layers of mostly water ice; during winter, temperatures plummet below -125 degrees Celsius and carbon dioxide begins to precipitate and build up as ice, creating a thinner additional layer a couple of metres thick. Winter also brings carbon dioxide clouds, which can obscure the polar features below and make it difficult to see clearly from orbit.

Mars’ north pole in context

This view from Mars Express’ High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) suffers from very little such cloud cover, and shows the northern polar cap during the summer of 2006.

The landscape is a rippled mix of colour, from the bright whites of water ice to the dark reds and browns of martian dust, and displays a number of interesting phenomena.

Dark red and ochre-hued troughs appear to cut through the ice cap. These form part of a wider system of depressions that spiral outwards from the very centre of the pole. When viewed on a larger scale, as in the context map, this pattern becomes evident: the rippling troughs curve and bend and slice outwards in an anti-clockwise orientation, wrapping around the pole and creating a pattern akin to zebra stripes.

These spiralling features are thought to have formed via a mix of processes, the most significant one being wind erosion. It is thought that winds circle radially away from the centre of the north pole, moving outwards cyclically to create the spiral pattern we see.

Mars’ north polar ice cap in 3D

These winds, known as katabatic winds, move cold, dry air downslope under the force of gravity, often originating in areas of higher elevation (such as glaciers or snow-covered plateaus) and flowing down into lower, warmer areas such as valleys and depressions. They are acted upon by the Coriolis force as they move, which causes them to deviate from a straight path and form the aforementioned spiral pattern we see.

Visible to the left of the frame are a few extended streams of clouds, aligned perpendicularly to a couple of the troughs. These are thought to be caused by small local storms that kick up dust into the martian atmosphere, eroding scarps and slopes as they do so and slowly changing the appearance of the troughs over time.

The poles, and any active processes taking place in these regions, are particularly interesting areas of Mars. These layers of ice hold information about Mars’ past, particularly concerning how its climate has evolved and changed in the last few millions of years: ice mixes with layers of surface dust and settles at the north and south poles, capturing a snapshot of the planet’s characteristics during that period of history.

A key goal of HRSC is to explore the various phenomena occurring in the martian atmosphere, such as winds and storms, and the many intriguing geological processes that take place across – and below – the Red Planet’s surface.

The camera has been returning impressively detailed views of Mars for many years. Mars Express arrived at the Red Planet in late 2003, and has revealed much about the planet and its history – including mapping its surface at resolutions of 10 m/pixel or greater, exploring how wet and humid early Mars may have been, characterising its amazing volcanoes and bizarre surface features and geography, and probing deeper to determine the structure and components of its sub-surface.

This aim of characterising the entirety of the planet and its history will be continued and furthered by the ESA-Roscosmos ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, which arrived at Mars in 2016, and the ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover and its accompanying surface science platform, which will arrive next year.

This image is published to coincide with the Seventh International Conference on Mars Polar Science and Exploration, which is taking place in Argentina from 13 to 17 January 2020. This is the latest in a series of international and interdisciplinary conferences to share knowledge about the intriguing polar regions of the Red Planet.

{ http://www.esa.int/ }

26-01-2020 om 01:47 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ASTRONOMIE / RUIMTEVAART

The problems with modern physics

By Paul Sutter

Physicists have certainly achieved a lot, but many mysteries about the universe remain.

The galaxy cluster Abell 1689 is famous for the way it bends light in a phenomenon called gravitational lensing. Study of the cluster has revealed secrets about how dark energy shapes the universe.

(Image: © NASA, ESA, E. Jullo (JPL/LAM), P. Natarajan (Yale) and J-P. Kneib (LAM))

Paul M. Sutter is an astrophysicist at Stony Brook University and the Flatiron Institute, host of Ask a Spaceman and Space Radio, and author of "Your Place in the Universe." Sutter contributed this article to Space.com's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

Modern physics has many achievements to be proud of. A quantum understanding of three of the forces of nature. A beautiful, elegant description of gravity though the bending of space-time. An understanding of the history of our universe stretching back billions of years.

Physicists should rightly pat themselves on the back for such a bang-up job. This is isn't easy stuff.

And yet, mysteries abound, and sometimes we feel more in the dark than we did 100 years ago. Let's explore some of the major issues that modern physics is still trying to understand.

Related: The History & Structure of the Universe (Infographic)

Bring everyone together

The early 1900s was such a simple time. We had our theory of electromagnetism, which elegantly and simply unified our understanding of electricity, magnetism and radiation. It was awesome. And we also had Newton's laws, which provided a solid framework for understanding motion. These two pillars propped up our physical world. It was great.

Then folks like Albert Einstein had to come and smash it all. With special relativity, we had to completely rewrite our notions of time, space, distance and speed. And with quantum mechanics, we had to sit down and have a serious rethink about … well, basically all of fundamental reality.

And so physicists undertook a massive program of unification, trying to put all physics laws under a single roof. And they were largely successful: special relativity married to gravity gave us general relativity. Special relativity combined with quantum mechanics led to the quantum field theories, which went on to enhance our understanding of the electromagnetic force, and once they were discovered, the strong and weak nuclear forces.

We didn't stop the train there. Experiments and theory in the 1950s revealed that the electromagnetic and weak nuclear forces were actually two sides of the same "electroweak" coin — these forces merged into one entity at high energies. Not to be outdone, so-called Grand Unified Theories put forward attempts to fold in the strong nuclear force as well.

The last force standing independently is gravity. And still today, decades later, we have no quantum description of gravity. And we've worked really hard on the problem, but every time we try to apply quantum techniques to Einstein's force, the math goes haywire and we can't make predictions.

Why? Who knows.

What can we do to fix it? Who knows.

Related: 8 Baffling Astronomy Mysteries

But why this universe?

Certain physics constants rule our everyday experience. The speed of light. The charge on the electron. The strength of the weak nuclear force. All in all, about 18 individual numbers need to be plugged into the Standard Model — our quantum framework for three of the four forces of nature and all the particles that make up the building blocks of our world — to make it work.

The Standard Model simply can't explain why we have the forces of nature that we do, why we have the families of particles that we do, why those forces and particles act the way they do and basically any other question that starts with the word "why."

In fact, the way the creaky mathematical machinery behind the Standard Model works, those constants must be measured experimentally and plugged into a few key places in the equations; otherwise all the calculations blow up. It's a slightly uncomfortable sensation to know that our math wouldn't be able to make predictions without these constants plugged in.

The strengths of the forces are particularly troublesome, especially gravity. Gravity is so embarrassingly weak: it's billions upon billions of times weaker than the weak nuclear force. Let that sink in: gravity is even weaker than the force with "weak" literally in its name.

Why? This is called the hierarchy problem. We don't have a solution, just a name for the problem.

Seeing in the dark

Our troubles aren't limited to theoretical pursuits to unify the forces, questionable mathematics and puzzling particle collider results. Starting a few decades, astronomers decided that we didn't have enough problems and tossed in a brand-new ingredient to the universe: dark matter.

We know that dark matter exists: we see evidence for it everywhere from the motion of stars inside galaxies to the background light left over from the earliest days of the universe. And while we understand a lot about what dark matter must act like, we haven't nailed down the culprit. We can only detect it through its gravitational effects, and astronomers suspect that it's a new kind of particle, hitherto unknown to the Standard Model, that floods the universe but does not interact through the electromagnetic force, making it completely invisible.

And then there's dark energy.

In the late 1990s, astronomers discovered — and we've backed this up since then with a host of independent observations — that the expansion of our universe is accelerating.

We have absolutely no idea what's causing this.

Our best guess is that it has something to do with the energy locked in the vacuum of space-time itself, but our simplest, most naïve calculations estimate a strength of dark energy that's about 10,120 orders of magnitude too high.

Whoops.

So that's a big mystery. As far as we can tell, we're not misunderstanding something about the way gravity works at the largest scales, so whatever is causing dark energy must be a new ingredient character operating in the cosmos.

As to more details in the pursuit of pinning down this strange acceleration, we're at a loss.

But at least we have some job security.

Learn more by listening to the episode "Is String Theory Worth It? (Part 1: Unify This!)" on the Ask A Spaceman podcast, available on iTunes and on the Web at http://www.askaspaceman.com. Thanks to John C., Zachary H., @edit_room, Matthew Y., Christopher L., Krizna W., Sayan P., Neha S., Zachary H., Joyce S., Mauricio M., @shrenicshah, Panos T., Dhruv R., Maria A., Ter B., oiSnowy, Evan T., Dan M., Jon T., @twblanchard, Aurie, Christopher M., @unplugged_wire, Giacomo S., Gully F. for the questions that led to this piece! Ask your own question on Twitter using #AskASpaceman or by following Paul @PaulMattSutter and facebook.com/PaulMattSutter.

Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.

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

26-01-2020 om 01:33 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ASTRONOMIE / RUIMTEVAART

Crab Nebula: Visualize an exploded star

Posted by Eleanor Imster and Deborah Byrd in SPACE

A new NASA video combines visible, infrared and X-ray views of the famous Crab Nebula, a star that exploded into view in our sky 1,000 years ago.

NASA released the video above on January 5, 2020, saying it was created by astronomers and visualization specialists from its Universe of Learning program. These experts combined visible, infrared and X-ray vision of the famous Crab Nebula, the remains of a star that exploded into view in Earth’s sky in the year 1054. The video shows images from the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes. It shows the pulsar at the heart of the Crab Nebula – the rapidly spinning, super-dense crushed core of the exploded star – which sends high-energy jets in either direction into the nebula, and which serve as what NASA calls the powerhouse “engine” of the entire system.

In a statement, NASA said:

The tiny dynamo [the pulsar] is blasting out blistering pulses of radiation 30 times a second with unbelievable clockwork precision.

The visualization was produced by a team at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland; the Caltech/IPAC in Pasadena, California; and the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It debuted earlier this month at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Honolulu, Hawaii.

EarthSky 2020 lunar calendars are available! Only a few left. Order now!

Electric blue blob on a black background with jet coming out of oval center.

X-ray view of the Crab Nebula from Chandra X-Ray Observatory.

Image via NASA/ CfA/ J. DePasquale.

STScI’s visualization scientist Frank Summers led the team that developed the video. He said:

Seeing two-dimensional images of an object, especially of a complex structure like the Crab Nebula, doesn’t give you a good idea of its three-dimensional nature. With this scientific interpretation, we want to help people understand the Crab Nebula’s nested and interconnected geometry. The interplay of the multiwavelength observations illuminate all of these structures. Without combining X-ray, infrared, and visible light, you don’t get the full picture.

NASA described the video this way:

The movie begins by showing the Crab Nebula in context, pinpointing its location in the constellation Taurus. This view zooms in to present the Hubble, Spitzer, and Chandra images of the Crab Nebula, each highlighting one of the nested structures in the system. The video then begins a slow buildup of the three-dimensional X-ray structure, showing the pulsar and a ringed disk of energized material, and adding jets of particles firing off from opposite sides of the energetic dynamo.

Appearing next is a rotating infrared view of a cloud enveloping the pulsar system, and glowing from synchrotron radiation. This distinctive form of radiation occurs when streams of charged particles spiral around magnetic field lines. There is also infrared emission from dust and gas.

The visible-light outer shell of the Crab Nebula appears next. Looking like a cage around the entire system, this shell of glowing gas consists of tentacle-shaped filaments of ionized oxygen (oxygen missing one or more electrons). The tsunami of particles unleashed by the pulsar is pushing on this expanding debris cloud like an animal rattling its cage.

The X-ray, infrared, and visible-light models are combined at the end of the movie to reveal both a rotating three-dimensional multiwavelength view and the corresponding two-dimensional multiwavelength image of the Crab Nebula.

Summers commented:

The three-dimensional views of each nested structure give you an idea of its true dimensions. To enable viewers to develop a complete mental model, we wanted to show each structure separately, from the ringed disk and jets in stark relief, to the synchrotron radiation as a cloud around that, and then the visible light as a cage structure surrounding the entire system.

These nested structures are peculiar to the Crab Nebula. They reveal that the nebula is not a classic supernova remnant as once commonly thought. Instead, the system is better classified as a pulsar wind nebula. NASA explained:

A traditional supernova remnant consists of a blast wave and debris from the supernova that has been heated to millions of degrees. In a pulsar wind nebula, the system’s inner region consists of lower-temperature gas that is heated up to thousands of degrees by the high-energy synchrotron radiation.

Bright yellow lines, bright pink blob against a black background.

Isn’t this a cool image? It’s the famous Crab Nebula – the remnant of a star that exploded 1,000 years ago – as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope. Superimposed on the visible light image from Hubble is an X-ray image from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory (in lavender), revealing the nebula’s high-energy heart.

Image via NASA/ ESA/ J. DePasquale (STScI)/ R. Hurt (Caltech/IPAC).

Bottom line: A new NASA video combines visible, infrared and X-ray views of the famous Crab Nebula, a star that exploded into view in our sky 1,000 years ago.
Via HubbleSite

26-01-2020 om 01:02 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ASTRONOMIE / RUIMTEVAART

Ex Navy boss stumped by UFOs

Milestone: This is De Void’s first UFO story to make the Herald-Tribune’s print edition. Please note the direct style, as well as the paucity of adverbs and meaningless tangents.

SARASOTA – America’s former Chief of Naval Operations stated on Thursday that the unidentified flying objects that appeared to have outperformed Navy fighter pilots on videos recorded in 2004 and 2015 remain a mystery.

“I’ve seen the videos and, at least in my time, most of the assessments were inconclusive as to what it was,” said retired Admiral Gary Roughead, following a speaking engagement in Sarasota. “But the whole issue of defense against autonomous vehicles is one that the Department is taking pretty darned seriously.”

Three sets of gun-camera videos – one taken from an F-18 assigned to the USS Nimitz operating off southern California in November 2004, and two more from Super Hornets attached to the USS Roosevelt during maneuvers off Jacksonville in January 2015 – were authenticated as official government footage by the Defense Department last year.

Former Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Gary Roughead takes questions from a Sarasota Institute of Lifetime Learning audience

CREDIT: Billy Cox

The target of the 2004 footage, dubbed the “Tic Tac” for its oblong shape, reportedly plunged from 80,000 feet to 20,000 feet in less than a second, a speed that would have easily destroyed a conventional aircraft. The New York Times broke the story in 2017 and, last summer, in an unprecedented move, the Navy publicly announced it had issued new guidelines for its pilots to report “unidentified aircraft.”

Roughead commanded both the Atlantic and Pacific Fleets before serving as CNO from 2007 through 2011. Booked for a Sarasota Institute of Lifetime Learning lecture on China’s 21st century military strategy, the Admiral said “there weren’t that many” such events on his watch, but that developing “unmanned autonomous aircraft” remains a priority.

“I think we’re going to continue to see new technology in the form of unmanned systems that will begin to interfere with military capability. And we’re not alone. There’s no question that China and Russia want to plan.

“Without knowing what they may be — are they phenomena or are they vehicles that someone was able to get into place? — I think one of the great challenges that more people looked at is, where would these have come from? And quite frankly, I haven’t spent a lot of time on that issue.”

Retired Navy Cmdr. David Fravor, who chased the Tic Tac UFO and recounted that experience for The Times, also reported a related mystery occurring simultaneously underwater, beneath the Tic Tac. Roughead said underwater weapons systems pose the next great evolutionary hurdle.

“I remember there was one (UFO), and it may have been after I retired, that seemed to go under water,” he said. “If in fact it was a real vehicle, how did it launch and recover? Because as you know, it’s not an easy thing to get something that can perform extraordinarily well in the air and dive into the water and become something else. What that phenomenon was, I can’t help you out there.”

In fact, Roughead recalled how, in public speeches to defense contractors, he announced the next “game-changing” breakthrough will be submersible military assets, whose power-sourcing could be “more transformative than the autonomous stuff in the air.” He compared the scale of such ambitions to the Apollo moon shots, which will demand “a triad of business, government, and academia coming together.

“The aerodynamics and the hydrodynamics and the strength that’s required to be able to fly and operate at depths, and the power you need to move at high speeds in the air, then how do you convert that power to something under the water – those are huge technological challenges,” he said. “There’s no question in my mind that in the future of warfare, probably long after I’m gone, we’ll see that type of thing beginning to occur.”

Imagine, Roughead said, being able to park military technology at the bottom of the ocean, virtually undetected, at a strategic location, “tell it to go to sleep” indefinitely, and then activate it when needed.

But with a little foresight, he added, investigations into such mind-bending scenarios could be used to build bridges with rivals like China.

“We have to look for opportunities, we have to look for venues where we can bring caring people together to say, OK, there’s a technological issue here, how do we bring the bright minds together,” Roughead said.

“How do we protect our legitimate national security technologies and intellectual property, but still get after some of the hard problems? I think that’s a way for closing some of the gaps down the road and bringing trust between the two.

“The first step for me is, how do you define what it is that we can work on together (to) remove some of the sensitivities and suspicions? Until you have that discussion, you’re not going to make any progress. The journey begins with the first step.”

{ http://devoid.blogs.heraldtribune.com/ }

26-01-2020 om 00:41 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:UFOs , UAPs , USOS

Jupiter may not have caused our solar system's 'Great Divide' after all

By Mike Wall

Pressure peaks in the protoplanetary disk may be responsible.

An ALMA image of the young star HL Tau and the disk of gas and dust surrounding it. Rings in such protoplanetary disks indicate regions of pressure maxima, which could establish boundaries that help shape the developing planetary system

(Image: © ALMA (NRAO/ESO/NAOJ); C. Brogan, B. Saxton (NRAO/AUI/NSF))

One of our solar system's fundamental boundaries may have existed since the very beginning, a new study reports.

That demarcation, which lies just beyond Jupiter's orbit, is a dramatic one. The planets, asteroids and other objects sunward from the invisible line are lacking in carbon-containing organic compounds, whereas the stuff farther out is rich in organics.

Jupiter's hefty gravitational presence has been widely invoked to explain this "Great Divide." But computer simulations indicate that the gas giant was never big enough early in its history to keep the carbon-rich rocks and pebbles from spiraling into the inner solar system with the observed effectiveness, the new study found.

Related: How Did the Solar System Form?

"We banged our head against the wall," lead author Ramon Brasser, a researcher at the Earth-Life Science Institute, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan, said in a statement. "If Jupiter wasn't the agent responsible for creating and maintaining that compositional dichotomy, what else could be?"

Brasser and co-author Stephen Mojzsis, a professor of geological sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder, found inspiration, and a possible solution, in newly forming exoplanetary systems.

Images captured by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile have revealed intricate ring structures in the disks of dust and gas that surround newborn stars. The material in these disks is what planets are made of — and those rings serve as a sort of blueprint for the future planetary system, Brasser and Mojzsis determined.

A ring indicates that there is a band of maximum pressure in the protoplanetary disk, according to the two researchers. And such pressure peaks could explain our solar system's Great Divide.

"One or multiple such — potentially mobile — long-lived pressure maxima almost completely prevented pebbles from the Jovian region [from] reaching the terrestrial zone, maintaining a compositional partition between the two regions," the researchers wrote in the new study, which was published online today (Jan. 13) in the journal Nature Astronomy.

"We thus suggest that our young solar system's protoplanetary disk developed at least one and probably multiple rings, which potentially triggered the formation of the giant planets," they added.

The "almost" in the above statement is an important qualifier, however. Dribs and drabs of material from the outer system did sneak through the pressure net long ago, and some of it rained down on the young Earth, luckily for us.

“Those materials that might go to the Earth would be those volatile, carbon-rich materials," Mojzsis said in the same statement. “And that gives you water. It gives you organics."

Mike Wall's book about the search for alien life, "Out There" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), is out now.

Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall.

Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.

26-01-2020 om 00:27 geschreven door peter

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25-01-2020

Scientists Say We Travel To Parallel Universes When We Dream

Every night, humans have an average of 6-10 dreams. A few minutes after being awoken, these dreams are usually forgotten. However, what if there's actual meaning to dreams that would make them more lucrative to remember?

Modern science, as well as Native American tribes and Mexican nations, believe that we, or at least our brains visit a "parallel universe" when we dream. This would explain why humans can dream in color, and can senses with all five feelings what's happening within the dream. If you've ever dreamed of eating your grandmother's signature apple pie per se, have you ever realized that it feels like you can taste and smell the delicious pie in front of you? Or maybe you've dreamed of riding a roller coaster and felt the thrill of riding it as it climbs up the steep hills and rushes down the ramps.

The True Science Of Parallel Universes

Mystics also believe that there are places where dreaming takes place, but have related it to supernatural beings such as ghosts and spirits. However, since 1920 scientists have been trying to avoid such questionable beings, and in their quest to find the ideal place of nuclear particles to host dreams, they realized that such a formation would be impossible on Earth. Thus they shifted the argument away from the supernatural, and into an arguably more confusing field of physics.

An example of the scientist's theory of parallel universes would be to think of two worlds: one in which you are born, and one in which you aren't. Logically, you can never be in such a "dual" state within one dimension, and thus the need for multiple parallel dimensions arises. Think about it: in another world, there could be a copy of yourself who does things slightly differently, and as a result may have a better life than you. In another world, there could be a person like you who didn't forget his lines at the corporate meeting. In another world, there could be another version of you who understands what is going on with our dreams--and maybe by then, we'll know if the scientists or the mystics win out on this debate.

{ https://www.disclose.tv/ }

25-01-2020 om 23:50 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:Diversen (Eng, NL en Fr)

Watch Latest UFO Footage – Is This Real Or Not?

Watch Latest UFO Footage – Is This Real Or Not

The most recent UFO sightings are often not investigated by those who claim to have seen the UFO. Of course, the majority of UFO sightings can be accounted for by the lens of the human mind, so it is a fact that many people see UFOs. However, many of these people have no knowledge of how to spot a UFO and are open to misinformation when they do.

Many people are very skeptical when it comes to seeing what they believe to be UFOs because they are unfamiliar with the actual evidence. Sometimes, they simply have no clue what they are looking at. So, how can you spot a UFO? Here are some things to consider.

One thing to consider is the overall aura of the film; in other words, does the footage seem real or does it look like a fake? This is important because the UFO is often perceived in a similar way. Is the film realistic and does it appear to be real?

Does the movie have a real sense of creepiness? If so, then the footage you are seeing may not be as genuine as you thought. It may just be a group of teenagers messing around with a camera, or someone trying to shoot a UFO with their very own camera.

Another thing to consider is the artistic license Jimmy Semper used with his shots. Have you ever noticed that many of the UFO’s shot in these movies seem to mimic real UFO’s? It is easy to see how this is possible, but it can be annoying.

You will also want to be careful about those comments that Jimmy Semper left on his website. Are they true or false? I don’t care about this, but you should decide if you believe Jimmy Semper’s statements.

These are just a few things you will want to think about before you decide to watch a YouTube video. Of course, the world is filled with UFO videos, so you are bound to see many others. That is why it is a good idea to check out more recent UFO footage, so you can learn how to spot a UFO and enjoy the best of the newest UFO footage that is available to watch.

Source:

http://footageofufos.com/2020/01/watch-latest-ufo-footage-is-this-real-or-not/

25-01-2020 om 22:58 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:UFOs , UAPs , USOS

These Are the First Living Robots: Machines Made from Frog Stem Cells

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a new kind of life.

By Courtney Linder

Scientists from Tufts University, the University of Vermont, and the Wyss Institute at Harvard have developed tiny, living organisms that can be programmed. Called "xenobots," these robots were made with frog stem cells.
The research, published in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is meant to aid development of soft robots that can repair themselves when damaged.
Ultimately, the hope is these xenobots will be useful in cleaning up microplastics, digesting toxic materials, or even delivering drugs inside our bodies.

What happens when you cross stem cells from a frog heart and frog skin? Not much—that is, until you program those cells to move. In that case, you've created a xenobot, a new type of organism that's part robot, part living thing.

And we've never seen anything like it before.

Researchers from Tufts University, the University of Vermont, and Harvard University have created the first xenobots from frog embryos after designing them with computer algorithms and physically shaping them with surgical precision. The skin-heart embryos are just one millimeter in size, but can accomplish some remarkable things for what they are, like physically squirming toward targets.

"These are novel living machines," Joshua Bongard, a computer scientist and robotics expert at the University of Vermont who co-led the new research, said in a press statement. "They're neither a traditional robot nor a known species of animal. It's a new class of artifact: a living, programmable organism."

By studying these curious organisms, researchers hope to learn more about the mysterious world of cellular communication. Plus, these kinds of robo-organisms could possibly be the key to drug delivery in the body or greener environmental cleanup techniques.

"Most technologies are made from steel, concrete, chemicals, and plastics, which degrade over time and can produce harmful ecological and health side effects," the authors note in a research paper published in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "It would thus be useful to build technologies using self-renewing and biocompatible materials, of which the ideal candidates are living systems themselves."

Building Xenobots

Xenobots borrow their name from Xenopus laevis, the scientific name for the African clawed frog from which the researchers harvested the stem cells. To create the little organisms, which scoot around a petri dish a bit like water bears—those tiny microorganisms that are pretty much impossible to kill—the researchers scraped living stem cells from frog embryos. These were separated into single cells and left to incubate.

They differentiated the stem cells into two different kinds: heart and skin cells. The heart cells are capable of expanding and contracting, which ultimately aids the xenobot in locomotion, and the skin cells provide structure. Next, using tiny forceps and an even smaller electrode, the scientists cut the cells and joined them together under a microscope in designs that were specified by a computer algorithm.

Interestingly, the two different kinds of cells did merge together well and created xenobots that could explore their watery environment for days or weeks. When flipped like a turtle on its shell, though, they could no longer move.

Other tests showed whole groups of xenobots are capable of moving in circles and pushing small items to a central location all on their own, without intervention. Some were built with holes in the center to reduce drag and the researchers even tried using the hole as a pouch to let the xenobots carry objects. Bongard said it's a step in the right direction for computer-designed organisms that can intelligently deliver drugs in the body.

Evolutionary Algorithms

On the left, the anatomical blueprint for a computer-designed organism, discovered on a UVM supercomputer. On the right, the living organism, built entirely from frog skin (green) and heart muscle (red) cells. The background displays traces carved by a swarm of these new-to-nature organisms as they move through a field of particulate matter.

SAM KRIEGMAN, UVM

While these xenobots are capable of some spontaneous movement, they can't accomplish any coordinated efforts without the help of computers. Really, xenobots couldn't fundamentally exist without designs created through evolutionary algorithms.

Just as natural selection dictates which members of a species live and which die off—based on certain favorable or unfavorable attributes and ultimately influencing the species' characteristics—evolutionary algorithms can help find beneficial structures for the xenobots.

A team of computer scientists created a virtual world for the xenobots and then ran evolutionary algorithms to see which potential designs for the xenobots could help them move or accomplish some other goal. The algorithm looked for xenobots that performed well at those particular tasks while in a given configuration, and then bred those microorganisms with other xenobots that were considered "fit" enough to survive this simulated natural selection.

In the video above, for example, you can see a simulated version of the xenobot, which is capable of forward movement. The final organism takes on a similar shape to this design and is capable of (slowly) getting around. The red and green squares at the bottom of the structure are active cells, in this case the heart stem cells, while the blueish squares represent the passive skin stem cells.

DOUGLAS BLACKISTON

All of this design work was completed over the course of a few months on the Deep Green supercomputer cluster at the University of Vermont. After a few hundred runs of the evolutionary algorithm, the researchers filtered out the most promising designs. Then, biologists at Tufts University assembled the real xenobots in vitro.

What's the Controversy?

Anything dealing with stem cells is bound to meet at least some flack because detractors take issue with the entire premise of using stem cells, which are harvested from developing embryos.

That's compounded with other practical ethics questions, especially relating to safety and testing. For instance, should the organisms have protections similar to animals or humans when we experiment on them? Could we, ourselves, eventually require protection from the artificially produced creatures?

"When you’re creating life, you don’t have a good sense of what direction it’s going to take," Nita Farahany, who studies the ethical ramifications of new technologies at Duke University and was not involved in the study, told Smithsonian Magazine. "Any time we try to harness life … [we should] recognize its potential to go really poorly."

Michael Levin, a biophysicist and co-author of the study from Tufts University, said that fear of the unknown in this case is not reasonable:

"When we start to mess around with complex systems that we don't understand, we're going to get unintended consequences," he said in a press statement. "If humanity is going to survive into the future, we need to better understand how complex properties, somehow, emerge from simple rules."

At its heart, the study is a "direct contribution to getting a handle on what people are afraid of, which is unintended consequences," Levin said.

Source: The University of Vermont

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

25-01-2020 om 18:50 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:SF-snufjes }, Robotics and A.I. Artificiel Intelligence ( E, F en NL )

MOXIE - MARS 2020 Mission

The Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment is better known as MOXIE. NASA is preparing for human exploration of Mars, and MOXIE will demonstrate a way that future explorers might produce oxygen from the Martian atmosphere for propellant and for breathing.

Tech Specs

Main Job	To produce oxygen from the Martian carbon-dioxide atmosphere
Power	300 watts
Volume	9.4 x 9.4 x 12.2 inches (23.9 x 23.9 x 30.9 centimeters)
Oxygen Production Rate	About 10 grams per hour (About 0.022 pounds per hour)
Operation Time	Approximately two hours of oxygen (O2) production per experiment, which will be scheduled intermittently over the duration of the mission

"When we send humans to Mars, we will want them to return safely, and to do that they need a rocket to lift off the planet. Liquid oxygen propellant is something we could make there and not have to bring with us. One idea would be to bring an empty oxygen tank and fill it up on Mars."

- Michael Hecht, Principal Investigator

5 Things to Know

1. MOXIE Makes Oxygen on Mars

Carbon dioxide makes up ~96% of the gas in Mars' atmosphere. Oxygen is only 0.13%, compared to 21% in Earth's atmosphere.

2. MOXIE Is a Test Model

MOXIE is the size of a car battery. Future oxygen generators that support human missions on Mars must be about 100 times larger.

3. MOXIE Helps Future Explorers

To launch off of Mars, human explorers need about 33 to 50 tons (30 to 45 metric tons) of fuel, about the weight of a Space Shuttle.

4. MOXIE Breathes like a Tree

MOXIE makes oxygen like a tree does. It inhales carbon dioxide and exhales oxygen.

5. Homemade on Mars

Homemade liquid oxygen on Mars could supply more than ¾ of the propellant humans need for exploration on the Red Planet.

Where Is MOXIE Located?

Did You Know?

Oxygen produced on Mars could help support the breathing air supply for human explorers.

For Scientists

NASA is preparing for human exploration of Mars, and the MOXIE investigation on the Mars 2020 mission aims to address key knowledge gaps.µ
Read More ›

The Story Behind the Name

MOXIE is a short, snappy name for a tool that helps lead to human footprints on Mars. It helps humans explore Mars by making OXygen. It works "In situ" (in place) on the Red Planet, and is an Experiment."

"Moxie" can also be a personality trait. Someone with moxie is considered bold and adventurous, hardy and spirited! No one is sure, but the word may trace back to Native American place names for "dark water." In the late 1800s, people drank "Moxie," a tonic and later a soft drink. Because the drink claimed health benefits, people began using moxie to mean vitality and endurance. It surely endures in American vocabulary today! You can still drink Moxie in some old-time, nostalgic soda-pop shops today.

{ https://nasa.gov/ }

25-01-2020 om 18:19 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ASTRONOMIE / RUIMTEVAART

US Space Force logo looks like one from Star Trek

US Space Force logo on left and the Star Trek emblem on right

US HANDOUTImage caption

US Space Force logo on left and the Star Trek emblem on right

The newly unveiled logo for US Space Force appears to have boldly gone where Star Trek went before.

Twitter users noted that the emblem, revealed by President Donald Trump, bears an uncanny likeness to the insignia from the cult sci-fi TV series.

The striking resemblance left many critics as stunned as though they had been zapped by Captain Kirk's phaser.

But others online insisted the logo was really based on the US Air Force One.

The intergalactic controversy comes after mockery erupted last week when it emerged Space Force troops would wear woodland camouflage uniforms.

Unveiling the insignia on Friday, Mr Trump tweeted: "After consultation with our Great Military Leaders, designers, and others, I am pleased to present the new logo for the United States Space Force, the Sixth Branch of our Magnificent Military!"

George Takei, star of the original 1960s Star Trek TV series, tweeted archly in response.

Another Twitter user joked that the Space Force had copied Star Trek's "homework".

But others pointed out that the new logo seemed to bear equal likeness to another, suborbital branch of the US military.

Space Force: Trump 2020 asks supporters to vote on logo

10 August 2018
Space Force: Trump officially launches new US military service

21 December 2019

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

25-01-2020 om 17:31 geschreven door peter

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Bizarre Encounters with the Demons That Come at Night

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Bizarre Encounters with the Demons That Come at Night

Of all of the times in our life, we are at our most vulnerable and helpless when we are asleep. There is nothing we can really do about this, as all lifeforms that we know of must do this, but it is a rather awkward time for us. We lie there, unaware of our surroundings, paralyzed by our own bodies, surrounded by darkness. It seems unsurprising that many spooky tales and strange phenomena have come to gravitate towards the evening hours and our nightly vacation from the physical world, when we surrender ourselves to the night. It seems that this is a time when there are things that can come to us, which step out of the gloom and seem to be no mere nightmare. These are the seemingly demonic entities that descend upon us in the comfort of our own bedrooms, and are worse than any bad dream.

One frightening report comes from the site The Paranormal Society, with a witness who claims this all began when he developed an intense interest in the occult, and spent hours feverishly reading about it. He claims that one day the atmosphere of his room started to change, the air feeling heavier by the day, the room imbued with an unnatural cold and darkness, even in the summer, and he would experience a strange sense of being watched that grew in intensity with each passing day. This apparently went on for around a year before it would graduate to the truly frightening. The witness began to notice at night a strange, circular shadow in the corner of the ceiling of his bedroom. At first he thought nothing of this anomaly, but night after night it seemed to grow larger, ever blooming out across that ceiling in an inexorable crawl outward and possessing an inky unnatural black. No matter how much he moved the furniture around the shadow was always there, and he could not figure out what could be casting this strange shadow. He would still try to rationalize it as having a mundane explanation, but then a terrifying experience would prove him wrong. The witness says of what happened:

It seemed to get a bit bigger. Confused, I moved some things around in my room, figuring again something in there was casting a shadow, to no avail. The shadow stayed the same, and although I was a bit disturbed by it, I figured there was a scientific reason for it — something outside was casting the shadow — and I would go to sleep like normal. Then, one night as I turned out the light and went to bed as usually, I noticed the shadow seemed bigger than normal. I repeat, this was a very strange shadow. It seemed to be “thicker” than a normal shadow, almost like a puddle of black coffee.

As I lay there, trying to fall asleep, but feeling very uncomfortable for some reason, I began to notice that with each opening and closing of my eyes, the shadow would loom larger and appear to be seeping toward me. I was frightened, of course, yet intrigued. It seemed the longer I kept my eyes closed, the quicker it would move toward me, but it would always stop right where it was whenever I opened my eyes.

At one point, the thing was at the foot of my bed. I opened my eyes to look at it, expecting it to pause there. At this point, I was becoming increasingly frightened. Instead of pausing, it began to “pour” toward me, and I felt the most unnatural empty, cold, hungry, evil I’ve ever felt in my life come from it. It was then and there I knew for sure in my heart it was a demon, and I knew that it had relation to the junk I was studying. I pulled the blanket over my head, switched on the Christian music station, and prayed like crazy.

This seems to have worked, as the demon departed, and it encouraged him to give up his pursuit of the occult as a result, after which he says the entity then left him alone and did not come back. He remains convinced that what he saw was an actual demon, that came for him as a result of his dabbling in the arcane. Another bedroom encounter that is just as frightening was experienced by a commenter “RhythmSnail” on Your Ghost Stories. He claims this happened in Perth, Western Australia, when he was living with his mother in a home that had apparently had a rather violent history, although his mother would never tell him what exactly that was or what it entailed. Over time he became convinced that he was constantly being watched by something from the shadows, and would occasionally catch fleeting glimpses of something moving or skulking about in the periphery of his vision, never seen head on. This happened for some time before one night he had an experience he would never forget, which began with him waking in the middle of the night to a room far more frigid than it should have been. The witness says:

I noticed that my door was wide open, and I didn’t remember leaving it that way because I don’t usually do that. My mum was fast asleep and my sister was staying at her dad’s place for the night. To my horror, I saw a small figure watching me from the entrance of my room. It looked like a “dense” shadow. I’m not quite sure how else to explain it. Slightly propping myself up on one elbow, I spoke out my little sister’s name thinking it was probably her (I thought maybe she had changed her mind and had been dropped off during the night). Then suddenly, the being rushed up to my bedside in the blink of an eye and moved alarmingly close to my face.

Terrified, I found myself staring into a face with no discernible nose or eyes, and a gaping wide mouth. Where its eyes were meant to be, were dark holes from what I can remember, anyway. I’m not too sure. My body froze in horror. Moments passed with just that creature and me in the room, “gazes” transfixed on each other’s faces. Eventually, I was able to snap out of the frozen state my body had taken on in fright and I flailed and kicked at the thing until it suddenly dissipated with a blood-curdling sound that reminded me of an anguished scream of some sort. I heard it out loud and deep within my head, if that makes sense. It made my hair stand on end and my heart beat alarmingly fast.

To this day, I have no idea what it was. A demon of some sort? I don’t know what it wanted. It was terrifying and every so often I catch glimpses of shadow-like people/creatures from my peripheral vision. Many times I’ve awoken from sleep from someone calling my name, and it is usually a man or someone who sounds a lot like me. Even when I’m not asleep, I sometimes hear whoever it is calling my name. And occasionally, I can feel something touching me that I can’t see.

These sorts of frightening cases often seem to happen to witnesses who have just woken up to a completely alert state without any discernible cause, and that same can be said of our next account, which comes from a Reddit user called “P3rspective.” He says he woke up suddenly and without warning in the middle of the night to see something there with him in the room. He explains of the strange encounter:

I was lying in my bed and remember sitting up and seeing 3 figures standing in my room with a dim lit blue light coming from somewhere that illuminated them. I don’t remember what exactly they said, or rather, he said, cause the one in the middle was speaking directly to me. I remember his mouth opening in a very inhuman way, with the jaw extending further than it should be able to. Their mouth, and eyes, were black, not like, solid back, but a smoky type of black, so sorta grey, but you could still recognize teeth and such.

I remember them saying something about them coming in a few days for something, I don’t remember what it was exactly. I then remember passing back out, and waking up, actually waking up, and seeing some dark form dart across the room and hover directly over my bed (my bed is in a corner, so it was sitting/hovering between the wall and I, about 4-inch gap at the time). I then felt a very, VERY intense sense of dread and heaviness throughout my entire fiber and being, and remember feeling this for a few minutes while it was just sitting there, my back turned to it.

We also have the case of Reddit user JllFucherina, who says this happened one Christmas Eve when she was only 12 years old. She similarly woke suddenly with a start, already in a state of readiness and without any grogginess or sleepiness. She says of her unsettling experience:

I woke up suddenly and fully alert. I was laying on my back and when I opened my eyes they met another set of eyes. Outside sitting in the tree beyond the fence was what I can only describe as a demon, it’s fully fixed on me and not moving. The eyes reminded me of a cat’s, huge with elongated pupils, yellow and very iridescent. The body was not large, pretty lean, and dark scaly skin. It was sitting with its legs pulled up to its chest, kind of crouched. This visual has stayed with me so vividly for my entire life. Over twenty years have passed and I can still see it like it was right in front of me.

I felt scared and threatened inside of myself. We maintained eye contact for what felt like a very long time, and I don’t remember breaking eye contact, saying anything, or seeing it move. It seemed like I just fell back to sleep at some point but kind of doubt that’s how it really went. I wonder if I was hypnotized sometimes. I woke up the next day and remembered it immediately. I knew, just knew that it wasn’t a dream, it was far too real.”

To make this particular case even scarier, she claims that she now passes out every Christmas Eve at approximately the same time as she had this terrifying encounter. Why? Who knows? It is interesting to note how many cases like this have happened to people who were children or very young at the time and remember it so vividly well into adulthood, as if children have minds that are more malleable and susceptible to perceiving these outlandish entities. Another case involving a younger witness happened to a commenter on Ghost Village, who says she was only around 8 or 9 years old when this happened, and she explains:

I was sleeping in my grandma’s bed, when I woke up in the middle of the night cold. I look out the bedroom door into the kitchen and saw this manly figure. I assumed it was my dad, but then I saw what I thought was long hair. It was like a shadow, black, but like outlined in a glowing white, and it had red eyes. I was scared to death, and afraid it would see me (it was looking the other direction, straight on as if looking at or for something) I went under the covers and tried to fall asleep. The next morning my sister told me that that same night she felt an uncomfortable presence in the house and then I told her about what I saw. My dad being a skeptic said I was dreaming and tired, but man, I was WIDE awake. and my mom’s side of the family has had numerous paranormal experiences so she believed me.

There are countless other similar cases like these, far too many to cover all of them here, and they all leave us struggling to understand just what could possibly be going on here. The seemingly most rational explanation is that these people are experiencing what is known as “sleep paralysis,” also called the more ominous sounding “Old Hag Syndrome.” It is basically a condition in which the sleeper wakes in a half-dream state, with the mind active and awake yet the body still under the influence of sleep and the body’s chemicals that keep us immobile while sleeping. It is caused by an interrupted or dysfunctional REM cycle, the period of sleep in which we dream, and the result is that we experience a state between wakeful lucidity and a nightmare, compounded by the fact that it is often accompanied by being utterly helpless and unable to move. This is not some rare disorder, as it is estimated that between 25 to 50 percent of the population will experience this at least once in their lives, and the results can sometimes be extremely vivid and horrifying. One commenter on Thought Catalog says of his frightening experiences with sleep paralysis:

I have a few different “sleep paralysis demons.” The demon ones are the usual shadowy figure standing over me or by my bedroom door. The worst one was while I was lying on my side with my back to the door and it felt like someone got into bed behind me. Under the covers and put their arm round my waist. Then it felt like they were cuddling into me and I could feel breath on my neck. It felt like they cuddled me for about half an hour. All this time I’m trying not to show that I’m panicking because it feels like I’m getting cuddled by a skeleton with claws. It was only about the second, maybe third time I’d had sleep paralysis, so I nearly had a heart attack when this thing feels like its moving in closer to kiss me behind the ear. Worst of all it whispered “Not yet. You’re not ready yet. I’ll come back when you are.” To me it sounded disappointed and excited. It felt like it was silently telling me it meant that it was coming back when I was about to die. Scared the fucking shit out of me.

It reads very much like the other reports of these supposed demons, and this is somewhat usual for sleep paralysis cases. Yet, many people who have experienced these terrifying demonic night visitations insist that they were fully awake at the time and able to move, even getting up to walk around. Even people who suffer sleep paralysis and know what that is will have experiences that they are sure are different, such as a witness on Reddit called “JackmanB,” who says:

I swore it was wearing like a hood even though it was shadowy and it’s shape was ominous (but obviously humanoid). I couldn’t tell much else about its appearance because it was dark and because my reaction to fear like that is not to stare intently at what I’m looking at. I watched as the shadow figure slowly skirted the outside of the room before it cut inside to be standing right alongside my bed, in front of my face. Here’s what it did: It opened the door to my room and then shut it, and then it kind of hung out near the door at the edge of the room for a hot minute. At that point I started breathing loudly and unevenly (which was the only thing I could do) to try and scare it away.—Just some background, I get sleep paralysis semi-often, usually attached to naps, but never before have I experienced anything resembling this.

While some cases like this might be attributable to sleep paralysis, can they all be so easily dismissed? If some of these cases are not sleep paralysis then what could they be? There are many ideas on this. One is that they are actually demons, coming to us when we are at our most susceptible, in that borderline between sleep and wakefulness. Another idea is that they are some sort of interdimensional interlopers, invading the sanctity of our most vulnerable time for purposes we may never understand and perhaps are never meant to. They could also be aliens, Shadow People, ghosts, or even just flat out tall tales, but this is a widespread enough phenomenon that it seems to deserve some consideration and discussion.

25-01-2020 om 16:54 geschreven door peter

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What On Earth Was This Mysterious Light In The Sky Above The West Coast Last Night?

Last night a mysterious light lit up the skies over California, leaving people as far east as Louisiana perplexed. What was that weird blue glow in the sky? Naturally, there was some speculation that perhaps the light was a UFO or even a meteor - but in reality it was the launch of a Trident II (D5) missile by the U.S. Navy.

The unarmed missile launched from the Kentucky, an Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine that sits off the coast of Southern California in the Pacific Test Range. The test was pre-planned although not announced or confirmed until a few hours after the launch. These types of launches are routine, although rarely announced ahead of time, and help ensure the reliability of Naval systems.

According to the San Diego Times, Cmdr. Ryan Perry with the Navy’s Third Fleet said, “The test was part of a scheduled, on-going system evaluation test. Each test activity provides valuable information about our systems, thus contributing to assurance in our capabilities.”

The Navy frequently uses a test range just northwest of Los Angeles to test fire standard cruise and Tomahawk missiles from submarines and other ships. The airspace over the test range has been activated and all nighttime flights to and from Los Angeles International Airport have been diverted away from that area for the coming week. Neither the military nor the FAA have disclosed what activities will be taking place near the country’s second-busiest airport over the next six nights.

Since there was no advance warning of the test fire, witnesses across the state and several states over speculated that the object streaking across the sky could be part of the annual Taurid meteor shower, which is currently reaching itspeak and is known to produce fireballs. According to astronomer Phil Plait, “this was moving far too slowly to be a meteor, and the behavior was all wrong.”

Brian Keating, an astrophysicist at UC San Diego told the Times, “The Taurid meteors would be coming from the east — and this light came from the west. We'd also be more likely to see meteors about midnight, and the flash came near sunset.”

Since the launch occurred at sunset, it made for a spectacular show. The missile’s exhaust reflected sunlight as it soared through the sky, producing a stunning view. You may remember earlier this year when an Atlas V launched from Florida’s Cape Canaveral and produced similar striking views. An expanding halo can be seen in most of the pictures and that is most likely due to a staging event. The missile has three stages and as one is shut down and ejected, the next stage ignites via a small explosion known as an ordnance. If the staging event occurred when the missile was high enough in the atmosphere, it would produce a bright flash and a halo of gas.

Who knows what else we may witness over the next week as the test range remains active.

2018

2017

2015

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

25-01-2020 om 16:09 geschreven door peter

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Mysterious Lights in Sky Over Bethel, Ohio, Still Unexplained a Week Later

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Mysterious Lights in Sky Over Bethel, Ohio, Still Unexplained a Week Later

“Anybody else see this tonight? The sky was flashing pink and purple – super bright. Thought it might be lightning, but it’s fairly cold (40 degrees), and there was no thunder.”

Well, that certainly sounds strange and the witness has a video from his doorbell camera – the 2020’s replacement for the dash cam, Google Maps and security cameras for capturing strange phenomena. (Watch it here.) One would think that giving it broad media coverage would quickly identify the source of these flashing lights in the sky over Bethel, Ohio. Weather anomaly? Fireworks? Transformer explosions? Meteor? Military? Aliens? Yet it’s been over a week and no one has solved the mystery of the flashing lights of Bethel.

“The first thing that came to mind was what just happened with Iran, and I thought it might be a nuclear explosion. It was that bright and that powerful. I was in the Army and it reminded me of phosphorescent flares we used that light up the whole sky.”

Tim Walker and his daughter Carolyn Walker saw the flashes on the evening of January 12. Walker got the video from Ring.com and posted it on Facebook, where it was picked up by multiple media sites. Over a week later, the comments on the video are still speculative with no confirmed cause. Another witness, Charles Rogers, sent his video to local station FOX19 NOW, which contacted all of the usual suspects and experts.

“We contacted Clermont County Emergency Management. They have no explanation but did hear from plenty of people reporting the flash. Bethel Police had the same response. We also reached out to Duke Energy. According to them, 584 customers lost power for two minutes just before 7 p.m. Sunday. Crews drove that line Monday and found no issues. We also asked an astronomer if this could be a meteor. He says no because a meteor would flash above the clouds rather than below. As for lightning, the nearest strike was hundreds of miles away.”

That was the latest from them as of January 14. On January 20, the Lexington Herald-Leader picked up a story by Mark Price of the Charlotte Observer, who asked Walker if the flashes had been identified. Walker said they hadn’t. Other witnesses have posted on his Facebook page, but no confirmed explanations. Price had no answers either.

“I’ve done a lot of reporting on UFOs and other strange phenomenon, and this is really the strangest light show I’ve ever seen caught on video.”

It’s too bad David Letterman is no longer doing his show with the popular segment, “Is this anything?” Bandleader Paul Schaefer always had interesting, speculative comments on the strange things Dave would show him. That seems to be better than asking government agencies or local authorities these days, as the fine folks in Colorado, Nebraska and Wyoming are finding out with the mysterious drone formations they’ve received no answers on despite their presence in the night sky since before Christmas.

Which brings us back to Tim Walker’s first reaction when he saw the lights over Bethel, a small village east of Cincinnati near the Kentucky border.

“The first thing that came to mind was what just happened with Iran.”

There’s no doubt Walker was in the majority in having that first reaction … one that the people in Colorado have while watching their own mysterious things in the sky.

Perhaps it’s time to accept the obvious … getting no answer is now the new norm.

25-01-2020 om 15:40 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

UFO Hunter Claims Responsibility for Mysterious Colorado Drones

The mysterious giant drones that have been flying in formation over parts of Colorado, Nebraska and Wyoming just got a possible explanation … and it may create more mysteries than it solves … if it solves any. A member of a group of amateur UFO trackers claims they’ve been flying drones in formation over Colorado in an organized search for the “unidentified aerial phenomenon” that has become known as the Tic Tac UFOs. Yes, the ones seen by USS Nimitz pilots in 2004 on the east coast. What are they doing in Colorado, you ask? Let’s find out.

“If there was any interference with any other aircraft, that absolutely was not ours.”

In what appears to be an exclusive report by the Sterling Journal-Advocate (Sterling is in far northeastern Colorado where many of the drone sightings have occurred), Michael Spicer of Durango (a long way from Sterling in far southwest Colorado) takes an obviously defensive position as he talks the drone formations he and his group have been flying in and around Sterling. Spicer says the group is known as ArchAngleRECON and they’re headquartered in Wichita, Kansas – almost 500 miles from Sterling. He admits the group has been flying groups of 6 to 12 drones along longitude and latitude lines in northeast Colorado – the “grid pattern” many witnesses have described. Of course, he didn’t think they were doing anything wrong. Until …

“Spicer said the group was unaware of the stir caused by drones until he was contacted recently by the Federal Aviation Administration. He said he was interviewed by special Agent Michael Bumberger of the FAA’s Investigations and Law Enforcement Assistance Program. He said none of ArchAngelRECON’s drones were ever flown anywhere near any airport, and they did not encounter any other civilian aircraft.”

That was probably as part of the multi-government-agency investigation that ended recently with the “no harm, no foul” conclusion that they still don’t know whose drones they are, but they’re not illegal, so go back to what you were doing and forget about them. Despite that, Spicer seemed shaken by the contact and was probably questioned about reports that a drone may have interfered with a hospital helicopter and others were seen over Sterling Municipal Airport – an obvious FAA violation.

Before you ask, there’s not much info about ArchAngelRECON. There’s a 75th ArchAngel Recon “Multi game clan” with some videos on YouTube, but they’re related to gaming, not drones or UFOs. As usual these days, Spicer claims the group is tracking the new technology aircraft which is what the infamous Tic Tac UFOs from the 2004 incident are suspected by many of being. However, he’s quick to point out that not all of the drones seen recently belong to his group. He doesn’t say how many are and the report is pretty empty of any additional investigative evidence. Spicer also gives no information on whether they saw any of the drones/Tic Tacs.

It’s almost as if “looking for Tic Tac UFOs” is the new cover for any nefarious activities, and heading to Colorado to hunt the drones is becoming this year’s “Storm Area 51.” Will ‘Storm Sterling’ solve the mystery or end up in a failed rock concert too?

“That absolutely was not ours.”

OK, Michael Spicer, we’re not blaming you for that. In fact, you’re not the first to connect the drones to the Tic Tac. That honor belongs unofficially to Mike Turber, the investigative journalist and cybersecurity expert who made the link earlier this week.

So, despite the government’s plea to “move along, nothing to see here,” the Colorado/Nebraska/Wyoming/??? Drone mystery isn’t going away.

25-01-2020 om 15:26 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:MYSTERIES ( Fr, Nl, E)

Bizzare Particles From Under Antarctica Defy Physics

The final nail in the coffin for the Standard Model of particle physics might be coming from under the Antarctic ice. While a series of new discoveries have challenged our understanding of physics, recently astrophysicists revealed they had detected ; according to the researchers, any possible explanation of these particles defies the Standard Model of astrophysics.

The Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna (ANITA) floats above Antarctica on a NASA balloon and detects cosmic particles that manage to pass through the Earth. Since 2016, three bursts of particles caught the ANITA researchers by surprise. They all looked like ultra-high-energy neutrinos, but they couldn’t be. While low-energy neutrinos can pass through the Earth with ease, ultra-high-energy neutrinos shouldn’t be able to—according to our current understanding of physics.

A balloon launch at ANITA.

According to a new paper, the last remaining Standard Model explanation for these mysterious articles has some serious flaws. The explanation revolves around cosmic neutrino accelerators: big, violent cosmic objects like the stars at the centers of galaxies that could accelerate neutrinos and other particles fast enough to push them through our planet. According to Anastasia Barbano, a University of Geneva physicist, either the mysterious particles are coming from cosmic accelerators, or from some unknown source here on Earth. The problem is, however, that if there were a big group of neutrino guns blasting particles through Antarctica, they wouldn’t only be shooting ultra-high-energy neutrinos. There should be a whole bunch of other particles along with them. But they’re not there.

According to the recent paper, the team looked at seven years of data and attempted to find cosmic accelerator sources that matched the angle and length of the mysterious particles detected in Antarctica. No potential cosmic accelerators matching those parameters were found.

We’ve always known there was something weird under Antarctica.

The results don’t completely exclude the cosmic accelerator explanation, but they do “severely constrain” it. Right now the data the researchers have is very limited, and they’re not sure which way they should go with it. With many of the plausible explanations seemingly rendered impossible (along with many of the less plausible ones too), all remaining explanations are “revolutionary”—they just don’t know which revolutionary explanation is the right one.

Anastasia Barbano, a University of Geneva physicist, says that what they’re trying to say is that, whatever it is, it’s a big deal:

“The message we want to convey to the public is that a Standard Model astrophysical explanation does not work no matter how you slice it.”

According to Barbano, the team will have to wait until the next generation of neutrino detectors are online before they can attempt to unravel the mystery any further. So yeah, our physics is all broken. We just don’t know how yet.

other videos, peter2011

25-01-2020 om 15:04 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:MYSTERIES ( Fr, Nl, E)

NASA Abruptly Cuts Live Feed ISS After This Appears Over The U.S.

Jujubee’s Adams had just turned on his ISS app to take a look when some kind of object appeared on the live feed, so Adams took some photos and a video of the strange anomaly, just before NASA abruptly cuts the live broadcast.

And it is not the first time NASA cuts the live feed from the International Space Station. At the moment alien objects appear on camera, they switch over to the well known screen and text that there is a sudden loss of signal between the station and the communications network.

The following video recorded by Adams on January 22, 2020 is a clear example of how NASA is trying to disguise the existence of UFOs and other unknown advanced objects in space.

https://ufosightingshotspot.blogspot.com/

25-01-2020 om 14:14 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

Watch: The UFO Footage That American Navy Admits Is Genuine

ufo-dod

The US Navy has revealed that the three videos showing leaked military footage of UFOs are real. The clips show several UFOs travelling through the air at incredible speed while the military tracked them. One video was from 2004, and the other two were from 2015 that feature audio from US fighter pilots expressing doubt at what they just saw whether the objects were drones or something else.

To the Stars Academy of Arts & Science, a team co-founded by Blink 182 singer Tom DeLonge to research UFOs, originally published them in December 2017 and March 2018. The US Navy has confirmed recently that the leaked footage is real and the UFOs have been classified as unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP).

Spokesman Joseph Gradisher said that these three videos show incursions by unidentified aerial phenomena into their military training ranges. The Navy has characterised the mysterious events as unidentified.

Tom DeLonge’s group had claimed the clips went through a declassification review process and were approved for release.

You can find more info about this UFO event in newly released kindle book Top 10 UFO Sightings: Best Cases.

25-01-2020 om 12:51 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

China releases eerie images of the far side of the moon from its pioneering Chang'e-4 mission to mark one year anniversary of its launch

China recently published data collected by its pioneering Chang'e-4 mission to the far side of the moon
It recently completed a full year in operation and a vast amount of data was beamed back to Earth
The data dump of around 10GB includes several images of the mission including of the lander and the rover
Images were processed professionally by a NASA camera expert to reveal their true colouration

By JOE PINKSTONE FOR MAILONLINE

China's space agency has released a huge batch of stunning images from the far side of the moon, revealing the beauty of the mysterious terrain.

The high-resolution images were released on the agency's dedicated website and were enhanced by a NASA expert.

Doug Ellison, who heads up the engineering camera team for the Curiosity Mars Rover at NASA, processed the images and posted them on Twitter.

One image of the Chang'e-4 lunar lander with the immaculate tracks of the Yutu-2 rover was brought to life in colour using sophisticated computer software.

Scroll down for video

Some of the images include a look at the Von Karmer crater in which the mission landed and reveals the criss-crossing tracks of the rover (pictured)

Pictured: Tracks of the lunar rover Yutu-2, which translates directly as Jade rabbit, are shown etched into the powdery surface of the moon

Detailed images of the surface of the far side of the moon were released by the Chinese space agency as the rover and lander continue their scientific missions to learn more about the geology and history of the moon

Pictured: the ridge of the Von karmer crater in which the Chinese mission landed and is now exploring. The panoramic images taken from the Yutu 2 rover's on-board camera capture the bleak landscape

The images were taken by Chang'e-4 lander's terrain camera and the panoramic camera on the Yutu-2 rover.

The data dump measured more than 10GB and includes images taken over the course of its first year in operation.

Mr Ellison tweeted 'Oh - this is so pretty' after successfully debayering the photos.

Debayering is a technique that uses computer software to reveal the true colour of a photo.

The images were taken by Chang'e-4 lander's terrain camera and the panoramic camera on the Yutu-2 rover

Mr Ellison debayered the images to reveal their true colour

‹ SLIDE ME ›

Doug Ellison, who heads up the engineering camera team for the Curiosity Mars Rover at NASA, processed the images and posted them on Twitter. He debayered the images to reveal their true colour

The data dump measured more than 10GB and includes images of more than a year in operation. It includes images of the moon's pockmarked surface (pictured, a small crater imaged by Yutu)

The images were sent back in what appears to be black and white but it is actually an incomplete colour image. Computer programmes can be set up to extract the true colouration (pictured)

WHY IS THE FAR SIDE OF THE MOON KNOWN AS THE 'DARK SIDE'?

The far side of the moon - colloquially known as the dark side - actually gets as much light as the near side but always faces away from Earth.

Less than a fifth of the opposite half of the moon is ever visible and it wasn't until 1959 until we received images of what it looked like when the Soviet Luna 3 spacecraft returned snapped the mysterious region.

In 1968, astronauts aboard the Apollo 8 spacecraft were the first humans to set eyes on the far side in person as they orbited the moon.

Since then, several missions by NASA and other space agencies have imaged the lunar far side.

That includes NASA’s Deep Impact spacecraft, which imaged the far side from a distance of 31 million miles (49m km) in 2008.

This relatively unexplored region is mountainous and rugged, making a successful landing much harder to achieve.

Professor of astrophysics at the University of Nottingham, Christopher Conselice, said the far side is much more rugged and has less volcanic activity than the side we see from Earth.The images were sent back in what appears to be black and white, but they are actually incomplete colour images.

Computer programmes can be used to extract the true colouration.

Some of the images feature views of the Von Karmer crater in which the mission landed.

It is the largest impact crater in the entire solar system at eight miles (13 km) deep and 1,600 miles (2,500 km) in diameter.

The far side of the moon - colloquially known as the dark side - actually gets as much light as the near side but always faces away from Earth.

This is because the moon is tidally locked to Earth, rotating at the same rate that it orbits our planet, so the far side - or the 'dark side' - is never visible from our planet.

Days on the moon last for 14 Earth days thanks to its orbit around Earth and it can only operate during the lunar day when it is warmer.

Chang'e-4 and Yutu-2 are entering their 14th lunar day in operation.

The Chang'e-4 lunar probe mission - named after the moon goddess in Chinese mythology - launched last December from the southwestern Xichang launch centre.

It is the second Chinese probe to land on the moon, following the Yutu rover mission in 2013.

The remarkable images are a secondary perk to the vital data that it is beaming back to Earth via its own dedicated relay satellite named Queqiao.

It is permanently stationed in operational orbit about 40,000 miles beyond the moon and is used to bounce images from the far side of the moon back to Earth.

The tasks of the Chang'e-4 include astronomical observation, surveying the moon's terrain, landform and mineral composition, and measuring the neutron radiation and neutral atoms to study the environment on the far side of the moon.

China's Chang'-4 mission was the first from any nation to land on the far side of the moon. It followed the success of Chang'e-3 and is laying the foundations for future missions

Jade Rabbit 2 - the direct translation for Yutu-2 - weighs 308lbs (139kg) and has six individually powered wheels so it can continue to operate even if one wheel fails. It rolled on to the lunar surface from the lander via two ramps in January 2019

Yutu-2 has a host of instruments and is powered by solar panels. This includes a spectrometer which analyses the bizarre terrain on the far side of the moon

The Lunar explorer touched down at 10.26am local time (2.26am GMT) January 4 2019. Chang'e-4 landed in the Aitken basin, the largest impact crater in the entire solar system at eight miles (13 km) deep and 1,600 miles (2,500 km) in diameter

Recently, it was revealed how an on-board biosphere was used to grow a plant on the moon.

Xie Gengxin of Chongqing University devised a cylindrical garden capsule to try and bring gardening deeper into outer space.

The capsule stood around 8 inches tall with a 6.5 inch diameter and had a rectangular seed bed that was loaded with cotton, potato, rape seeds, a variety of weed called Arabidopsis, and fruit fly eggs.

Arabidopsisis a plant used widely by scientists in experiments and is used ot model how many plants will respond to various stimuli.

WHAT DO THE NAMES OF CHINA'S MOON MISSION MEAN?

Chang'e-4

Chang'e is the moon goddess and wife of god Houyi in Ancient Chinese mythology.

Houyi is one of the most powerful mythological figures in China.

It is said that he shot down nine Suns to make Earth a liveable habitat for human beings.

The number four in the name is a more modern-day nod to the space programme.

This spacecraft is the fourth of the Chang'e missions.

Yutu-2

Yutu (jade rabbit) is the companion of Chang'e in the mythological stories.

This is fittingly also the name of the rover on-board Chang'e-4.

Yutu-2 is so labelled because it is the successor to Yutu-1 which was deployed from the Chang'e-3 mission earlier this decade.

Queqiao

Queqiao is the relay satellite and translates to Magpie Bridge.

This name also stems from Ancient Chinese mythology.

Queqiao, or the Magpie Bridge, is a legendary bridge which appears once a year to connect Niu Lang and Zhi Nv.

Niu Lang is a cattle herder on Earth while Zhi Nv, or the Weaving Maid, is a goddess in heaven.

The couple met and fell in love when Zhi Nv snuck to the 'human world' in secret to play. Their union enraged the chief goddess, Queen Mother of the West.

The couple got banished to live at different sides of the Milky Way.

Every year on the seventh day of the seventh month on the Lunar Calendar, thousands of magpies that are moved by the couples' love story will form the Magpie Bridge, or Queqiao, so that Niu Lang and Zhi Nv can meet each other.

This relay satellite will allow communication between the moon probe and Earth.

25-01-2020 om 01:55 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ASTRONOMIE / RUIMTEVAART

Fancy a ride on a space plane? Maybe AstroClipper will be what you're looking for.

By Elizabeth Howell

An artist's depiction of the Exodus Space Corp.'s AstroClipper space plane separating after launch.

(Image: © Exodus Space)

Startup Exodus Space Corp. plans to build a space plane to ferry cargo around Earth. Eventually, that cargo could include people, if the spacecraft is deemed safe enough.

The spaceship — called AstroClipper — will take off from a runaway, make a flight into space and then land again, plane-style. A heft booster at the space plane's back end will help it get into orbit by giving AstroClipper the speed it requires to break out of Earth's atmosphere.

Exodus is new and still raising money, but its team includes deep experience across the space industry. Principals at the company have worked at SpaceX, Lockheed Martin and NASA, among others.

Related: Space Planes: Evolution of the Winged Spaceship (Infographic)
In Photos: SpaceX Launches X-37B Space Plane, Lands Falcon 9 Rocket

The company's first step is a technology demonstrator in 2022 that would remain within Earth's atmosphere but eventually lead to suborbital and orbital spacecraft. The eventual dream, in the 2030s, would be carrying passengers if Exodus can get the necessary human-rating regulations achieved.

"This has been a very private project that was in the works for the last 10 years," Exodus CEO Miguel Alaya told Space.com. "It was not all full-time, but just an ongoing process. Since last year, we have put together a strong leadership team to commercialize this intellectual property."

He added that the focus on human passengers will come only after Exodus feels confident it can launch reliably and regularly. "Once our concept is well understood and we have a strong track record of success, we will start focusing on human-related applications," he said.

Exodus has filed for patents and the company is now asking for an undisclosed amount of money. The first test vehicle, called AstroClipper Pico, will launch a drone-size craft to 6 miles (10 kilometers) in altitude to make sure the technology works. If all the funding and development goes to plan, Pico should fly in about 2022.

An artist's depiction of the Exodus Space Corp.'s AstroClipper space plane.

(Image credit: Exodus Space)

After that vehicle, Exodus may raise more funds to get ready for its first suborbital flights, which the company hopes to achieve in 2024. It will do so using a Cessna-size spacecraft, called AstroClipper Nano, that will be designed to launch up to 220 pounds (100 kilograms) of cargo to roughly 60 miles (100 km) in altitude.

"With that suborbital vehicle, we are targeting at least three markets," Alaya said. Exodus is looking at suborbital research and development, hypersonic research (relating to vehicles moving five times the speed of sound or faster, a field of research that is popular with the U.S. government) and also faster point-to-point transport for the government and for commercial clients.

Exodus plans to follow Nano with two more models of AstroClipper that could eventually carry about 2,650 pounds (1,200 kg) of cargo into space by 2030. The company's current final target is dubbed AstroClipper Max and would fly up to 20 passengers sometime in the 2030s, should the vehicle be approved to carry humans.

Alaya acknowledged that the AstroClipper series of vehicles are in an early stage of development right now, but maintained that the company's leadership has the expertise to help see the work through. "Looking at the market for the last 10 years, we have a strong understanding of what things we can work or not, and in addition we are not new to the space or the aerospace industry," he said.

"We've worked on vehicles, spacecraft and aircraft. We're a very experienced leadership team. We also have an extended team of around 40 people that helps us with different aspects of our technology … [so] we do have a big team we're going to draw from. Once we get funded, we have the people in line to start getting to the work."

Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

25-01-2020 om 01:32 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ASTRONOMIE / RUIMTEVAART

Linda Moulton Howe: Alaska Underground Dark Pyramid Is Real.. Incredible Discovery Beyond Comprehension

Linda Moulton Howe: Alaska Underground Dark Pyramid Is Real... Incredible Discovery Beyond Comprehension

This is a truly huge discovery, in many ways. This pyramid is 4 times bigger than the great pyramid. Who built this pyramid in Alaska and is it an energy source?

Linda’s documentaries have included A Strange Harvest and Strange Harvests 1993, which explored the worldwide animal mutilation mystery. Another film, A Prairie Dawn, focused on astronaut training in Denver. She has also produced documentaries in Ethiopia and Mexico for UNICEF about child survival efforts and for Turner Broadcasting in Atlanta about environmental challenges.

Other videos, by peter2011

25-01-2020 om 01:16 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:MYSTERIES ( Fr, Nl, E)

Amazing nightvision UFO footage – Florida, 2020

florida-ufos

This footage was recorded in the sky above Florida a few days ago.

Witness report:

UFO, ORB’s and Anomalies.Best in HD. First UFO catch of 2020, First up is a bat then a small fleet of UFO’s do a fly-by.

25-01-2020 om 00:50 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

24-01-2020

Antarctica shock: Scientists' groundbreaking discovery 400ft below ice revealed

ANTARCTICA scientists were stunned by the results of a 400-foot drill into the ice sheet, perhaps revealing a glimpse into the Earth’s future.

By CALLUM HOARE

Antarctica is the planet's southernmost continent where the geographic South Pole is located and is home to some 1,000 scientists attempting to understand more about the history of Earth and the effects of climate change. However, one programme, known as the Antarctica Drilling Project (ANDRILL), took things one step further by drilling more than 400 feet into the ice sheet, exposing a shocking past. Their experiment was shown during NOVA’s “The Secrets of Antarctica” documentary, in which they hoped to uncover more about past periods of global warming and cooling.

The narrator revealed in 2015: “Unlike drilling through sea ice which is just 26 feet thick the ice shelf here is 400 feet at least.

“But that’s only the beginning, no one has ever drilled through an ice shelf and it presents a challenge because they float up and down with the tide so you’ve got to deal with vertical and sideways change.

“Eventually the drill pipe will get bent, to you need to drill through a thick layer of ice that is constantly moving without breaking.

“To confront this unique challenge, the ANDRILL team invents a new tool, a hot-water drill, this marvel of engineering is a moving ring of heat that blasts jets of steaming water to melt a wide hole so the drill can operate freely through 400 feet of shifting ice.

Antarctica scientists made a stunning discovery

Antarctica scientists made a stunning discovery

(Image: GETTY/NOVA)

The drill went more than 400 feet below the ice

The drill went more than 400 feet below the ice

(Image: NOVA)

It contains microfossils of single-celled animals known as forams

Secrets of Antarctica

“Once again, time is so precious that the team must work around the clock, not only retrieving cores but also analysing them.”

The narrator went on to reveal the groundbreaking discovery made thanks to the revolutionary drill.

He added: “An 80 feet core dates back about three million years and is closely examined.

“It contains microfossils of single-celled animals known as forams.

“They are from the crucial warm period called the Pliocene and these tiny shells are precise indicators of ocean temperature.”

READ MORE: How Antarctica doubled in size following 'major transformation'

Scientists worked around the clock

(Image: NOVA)

Dr Gavin Dunbar, from the Antarctic Research Centre, explained how the sample of forams may reveal a shock to Earth’s path.

He said in 2015: “These guys are about the size of a grain of sand and because the same species lived through time we can use the chemistry and molecule examples to calibrate the ancient examples.

“We can measure two metals, magnesium and calcium that are in the ocean that get incorporated into their shells.

“That process depends on the temperature of the ocean, so if we know those levels, we can determine the temperature of the ocean at the time that foram lived.

“What this is telling us is that temperatures were three to four, maybe even five degrees above present.”

DON'T MISS

Small molecules were discovered in the core samples

Small molecules were discovered in the core samples

(Image: NOVA)

Scientists are still studying the results

Scientists are still studying the results

(Image: NOVA)

Shockingly, the find may mean that Earth once suffered global warming levels considerably worse than what we see today.

However, more research needs to be done to confirm the results.

The ANDRILL project involves scientists from Germany, Italy, New Zealand, and the United States and is based at the McMurdo Station.

The $30million (£23million) programme has since achieved its operational goal of retrieving a core record of the last 17 million years, filling crucial gaps left by previous drilling projects.

It is now up to scientists to study each sample and come up for a future hypothesis.

{ https://www.express.co.uk/ }

24-01-2020 om 18:21 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:Diversen (Eng, NL en Fr)

“I SEE DEAD COWS” – TOWARD A MUTILATED VISION OF REALITY

by Scott Corrales

By Alejandro Agostinelli – Factor 302.4

They return every so often, especially when the weather grows cold and the media runs out of stuff to talk about, or the story runs afoul of a hungry editor starving for a juicy ration of paranormal ghoulishness.

The flaps of “cow mutilations” or cases involving “cattle mutilations” represent a branch phenomenon of popular ufology or the urge to find evidence of extraterrestrial activity on Earth. It is also kept alive, however, by other media-created mysteries, such as the Chupacabras, or it receives a dose of crafty explanations such as those built by conspiracy theorists (which should not be cast aside, despite their minimal diffusion, as these are often turned into successful sci-fi scripts).

On August 25 of this year, the La Nación newspaper published another news item. Last year another appeared in Tucumán, and if we keep searching, or google back even further, there isn’t a year that does not include a report on this mystery that proves hard to extinguish. Likewise, we find a more intensive presence in provinces such as Entre Rios, where local UFO groups – highly interested in the matter – publicize accounts that would otherwise go unnoticed.

In 2002, this phenomenon manifested itself in Argentina with unprecedented strength. Personally, its importance was such that a chapter based on the matter displaced another on the mysteries of Capilla del Monte in my book Invasores: Historias Reales de Extraterrestres en Argentina (Sudamericana, 2009).

De bronafbeelding bekijken

The following is an abbreviated version of the most theoretical part of the chapter included in Invasores:

12 years ago, Argentina experienced its first ufological cow-icide. I started in April and reached its climax in June 2002, particularly in the province of Buenos Aires and the Pampean region. Farmhands, cattlemen and local residents woke up to find dead cows of all breeds and ages all over the place. Dozens of bovine carcasses rested near circles of flattened grass, near empty water tanks – drained by who knows what and for which reason – and others in unusual circumstances.

All of the animals presented as “proof” of the flap bore similar injuries: their edges were irregular, as though cauterized. According to farmhands and cattlemen, these incisions appeared to have a purpose. Their carcasses had been despoiled of their soft tissue (tongue, eyes, ears, nipples, genitals, udders) and sometimes they appeared exsanguinated. Locals would sink their knives into them and the blade would emerge dry, as if they had been plunged into a piece of pound cake.

The discovery of over two hundred mutilated animal carcasses was reported in less than three months, a ruthless and doubtful notion, but giving the impression that an intelligence had been at work and the deaths were not due to natural causes, such as the onset of the cold of winter or seasonal diseases followed by the instinct of certain predators looking for nourishment. Agreement between cattlemen, journalists, policemen and ufologists was overwhelming: the incisions looked artificial. These animals filled the ranks of the bizarre while predator activity was dismissed by some veterinarians in their homilies. The cult of the mutilated cow was confected by all of them, with or without an awareness of the subject.

The flap ended almost if by decree. On July 1, 2002, the National Food Safety and Quality Service (SENASA) blamed the weather and carrion animals. Presto: a mystery cauterized.

The official body stated that rodents belonging to the Oxymycterus rufus genus – among other vermin – had devoured the cattle in fine gourmet style while other victims lay dead as a result of ice storms, disease or natural causes. Bernardo Cané, the head of the organization, stated: “We are dismissing Martians, the Pombero and other rural Argentinean beliefs.” (1) The sentence would have been less odious if Cané had not ascribed the mutilations to “esoteric practices” a week earlier. (2) Forty-five days later he was dismissed from his position under suspicion of underhanded dealings. (3)

Other experts were also caught on the hop. Veterinarian Alejandro Martínez suspected “some sort of techno-cattle rustling” wielding the thermocauterizer (a pistol that fires darts) to underscore that the mysterious incisions could be caused by “any agency”. Pathologist Ernesto Odriozola supported “the actions of some madman”. Even the most experienced forensic pathologists stoked the mystery. Days later, SENASA disclosed the results of a necropsy performed on twenty animals collected from fifteen farms in different sections of Buenos Aires province. Cané presented his conclusions in a press conference: the cattle died “due to pneumonia, malnutrition, metabolic or infectious diseases that are highly prevalent during the winter season.” Thus, the mystery was halved: the mutilated cows…were already dead. The enigmatic incisions had been subsequently caused by various carrion animals, the red-muzzled mouse among them.

“Extraterrestrials Laugh at SENASA” proclaimed one of the screens of the Crónica TV channel. The mouse’s humorous moniker prompted the notion that it had all been a gag. It was around that time that I phoned Dr. Alejandro Soraci, one of the parties involved in the study conducted by Universidad Nacional del Centro (UNICEN). “Could you photocopy the report, and I’ll send for it?” But there was nothing to photocopy. The only material available, he explained, was the press release and the video of the mouse in action. SENASA results were simply two hastily drafted pages. The investigation could hardly be taken seriously with such apathy. “Why were mutilated cows found in places where the Oxymycterus isn’t found? And if it was the mouse, why didn’t SENASA undertake a campaign to control it?” wondered ufologist Quique Mario. To him, and to many other ufologist, the media oasis was deceitful. “Matters remain the same: nothing has changed. Two animals were found mutilated last Saturday, thirty kilometers from here. Last week there were five and seventeen down south, around Cuchillo Có,” he told me in mid-2003.

What factors were at play in unleashing the epidemic? Why now, and not before?

This is how SENASA – spokesman for official explanations – has belittled the human dimension of these experiences. Not everyone is willing to believe that cows are abducted by UFOs, or that a clandestine operation was set in motion to decimate the bovine population and attack those who came too close to the truth. It is also unfair that aliens should mock SENASA. The fact that the initial speculations of its experts should contradict the formal verdict speaks volumes about the fantasies that the mystery creates in all of them, scientists included. On the other hand, it doesn’t say as much about the quality of the study, which does not exempt SENASA from the mistake of making a pronouncement before the results were in hand.

The red-muzzled mouse’s leading role gave the matter an almost humorous cast: The scene-stealing and headline-grabbing mouse obscured the investigation’s credibility. It is possible that the media stressed the rodent’s involvement because there can be nothing better than a Supermouse to displace a Chupacabras. The irregular, serrated tooth marks of the Oxymycterus rufus appeared on the skin and bones of the analyzed animals. Those marks explained the origin of the strange incisions, some of them described as perfect circles. “Ever since Tom and Jerry, we know that a [mouse hole] has a circular opening. Rodents stand up and work from top to bottom,” explained Fernando Kravetz, full professor of Ecology in the School of Exact and Natural Sciences of the University of Buenos Aires. “The rodent population grew with the increase in the availability of dead animals due to classic diseases, changes in vegetation and pastures deteriorated by the ice storms. Crops are harvested in March and the weather changed abruptly in April.” (4)

The quantity and dispersion of dead animals did not startle the professor, considered the main expert in rural ecology. “If three hundred mutilations were reported, the existence of a total of two thousand carcasses could be estimated. A congruent number for that time of year.” SENASA also mentioned less photogenic predators, such as the Pampas fox, seagulls and armadillos. But the red-muzzled mouse was on the cover, because the cow mutilation wave resulted in the casual discovery of an unexpected mutation in it dietary habits. Up to 2002, it was believed to be an insectivore, but it feasted on beef when given the chance. Kravitz measured the marks appearing on the cattle’s toughest tissue (such as the base of the tongue) and found the same patterns as in “cattle mutilations”.

Nor was SENASA the only agency to reach a prosaic conclusion. The Animal Health Group of the National Livestock Technology Institute (INTA Balcarce) studied ten cases. “The incisions and absence of internal organs, ears and nipples are due to action by predators found in the region.” The causes behind these animal deaths – when they could be ascertained – were not mysterious either (intestinal parasites, mineral deficiencies, metabolic diseases, malnutrition) as well as the cold and ice storms that blanketed the southeastern region (5).

What SENASA neglected to do – never mind other official agencies that were unresponsive to the mystery – was to find a hypothesis able to answer a question that can be stated in three ways: Why did men experienced in cattle activities feel certain that those incisions were qualitatively different from those caused by other predators? How can the belief about the phenomenon’s novelty be justified? What changed so that some more or less ordinary deaths should turn into an epidemic? Perhaps the answers would offer no consolation to cattlemen and others impressed by direct experience, but it is better to try to answer tough questions that feel the breath of the Chupacabras on the nape of one’s neck again.

The cattle mutilation wave did not occur at just any moment in time. The harsh reality suggested that attention given to these “strange events” responded to the infinity of existing social concerns. The mystery, therefore, could be considered an outgrowth of the crisis. According to the theory’s most newfangled variant, the phenomenon had been deliberately inflated to distract the population from the nation’s state of malaise. But more than a smokescreen, the exaggerated diffusion of such news looked like another symptom of the same illness.

On December 19, 2001, a crowd of Argentineans took the streets, banging on cooking pots, to protest against a government asleep in the midst of the most brutal crisis of recent history. Ferocious reprisals followed the protests, resulting in thirty-nine dead at the hands of the police. Bank freezes, the uncontrolled dollar and high rates of unemployment added to the sad national ordeal. The ashes were still hot in 2002. Shortly before the wave of alien cattle rustling, the emblem of creole opulence had been prey to minor “depredations”. It is still hard to forget the image broadcast by a news program, when a truck with beef cattle overturned on the outskirts of Rosario, Santa Fe, in 2001 and a crowd surged to butcher the animals on the roadside. Other factors – frivolous to some, but serious in their psycho-social impact – fostered the dejected popular mood: around the same time, the Argentinean football team had been eliminated from the world cup in the first round.

For once, a modern expression of the supernatural drew the interest of two specialists in myth and legends. Martha Blache and Silvia Balzano, researchers with CONICET, put forth an explanatory model for the events. They suggested the possible interconnection between Chupacabras reports, the penetration of genetically-modified sorghum and the use of new herbicides whose preparation is controlled by American laboratories. They wondered, for example, if the phenomenon might not be a warning against the uncertainty created by these changes and the perceived lack of control evinced by cattlemen. Globalization may be related to the role played by a country that “benefits from our raw materials and natural resources, removing them in an efficient yet imperceptible manner,” without leaving traces. News about cattle mutilations, they write, seemed to condense a wider metaphor reflecting a country in a state of crisis that is trying to identify the culprits. Who is attacking the cows, tame and apathetic representative of Argentine heritage? Is our blood being sucked by international agencies or domestic carrion animals?” The popular imagination, they conclude, “could sublimate the conflicting demands of the IMF with regard to the foreign debt.” (6)

In proposing their model, Blache and Balzano did not conduct a survey on the political trends or the technical-scientific concerns of cattlemen. Implementing a sort of psycho-cultural analysis using press clippings is always risky. But the authors are the first to say that their hypothesis rests only on journalistic sources. At least they didn’t keep quiet.

The authors also noticed the similarity in the conclusions reached by Kenneth M. Rommel when the FBI assigned him to study the bovine massacre in the United States in 1980 and those of SENASA in 2002. In his study of twenty-seven cattle mutilations, Rommel ascribed the phenomenon to the combined effect of the media, the social influence of “experts” and the action of various predators in the genesis, formation and extension of the wave. (7) Both in the United States and Argentina, the mutilated carcasses were found according to pre-defined patterns. What the authors have termed “the media transmission chain” supposes the participation of narrators who contribute to disseminating a legend regardless of their posture toward it.
This consensual version of the reality to be defined arises from an “identikit”, and these strangeness patterns configure, in turn a “selection criteria”. Thus, in order for the animal to belong to the category of “mutilated cattle”, it must meet a number of symptoms and even common scenarios. In order to build a “classic cattle mutilation scenario”, the animal must be found without its organs or soft tissue. The edges of its skin must be “clean, circular or with sharp angles” and the body must be as dry as possible, “as though exsanguinated”. Rommel did not find this “ideal case” in any of the one hundred seventeen mutilations he researched between 1975 and 1979, especially because – as in the Argentinean case – “surgical precision” vanished under the microscope and the exsanguination was only apparent. “Blood always pools in the lower parts of the carcass.” The missing parts – soft tissue organs – are the parts appealing to a carnivorous predator. He also discovered that the areas under the carcasses’ weight was also intact. An “intelligent mutilator” would have turned it over to devour the hidden parts. This was never the case.

[…]

In the United States, sociologist J.R. Stewart found that the number of cattle mutilation incidents was directly related to the volume of news devoted to the subject in the media. He also interviewed eight hundred adults and determined that the police, having no experience in elucidating the causes of cattle deaths, and certain local vets, more accustomed to treating live animals, were inclined to accept the farmers’ eyewitness accounts (9). A similar study was not performed in Argentina, but the phenomenon came to an end when the media moved on to other subjects.
Application of the “pitted windshield theory” can lead one to think of a case of selective perception molded by the stereotype provided by the media. I must stress that I am not a sociologist who can reduce the phenomenon to a case of mass hysteria. Even so, this theory seems more convincing to me than finding explanations in the incursions of a bloodthirsty Chupacabras, aliens hankering to throw some creole spareribs on the grill or a gang of lunatic scientists injecting strange potions into our cows.

For the moment, we know that the media is accustomed to broadcasting mutilated images of reality, and we cannot ask cows for their opinion. They can’t even moo. The red muzzled mouse – Professor Kravetz told me – swallowed their tongues.

Sources

“El Senasa dictaminó que las vacas mutiladas murieron ‘por causas naturales’” (01-07-02), in diario La Nación , Buenos Aires. “Vacas muertas: eran mutiladas por ratones de campo y zorros”, in diario Clarín, Buenos Aires (2-07-2002).
“Las vacas podrían haber sido mutiladas”, in diario Clarín (22-06-2002) y “El enigma de las vacas mutiladas, reportado por dos investigadoras en Internet”, in diario Clarín (24-06-2002).
“La salida de Cané del Senasa fue por una disputa política” (23/8/2003). In diario Río Negro.
Agostinelli, Alejandro (2002); “Vague de mutilations animales en Argentine”. In VSD Hors Série N° 5, pp. 56-61. Ed. GS Presse Com., Francia.
Balmaceda, Oscar (2002); “El INTA dice que las vacas mutiladas murieron por causas naturales” (29-06-02), in Diario La Nación, Buenos Aires. “Observaciones sobre supuestas mutilaciones en bovinos en el sudeste de Buenos Aires. Grupo de Sanidad Animal” INTA EEA Balcarce.
Balzano, Silvia; Blache, Martha (2004); “La leyenda del Chupacabras en el área pampeana. Una posible interpretación” In Folklore Latinoamericano, Tomo V, pp. 41-53, Buenos Aires, Instituto Universitario Nacional del Arte. Also see: Balzano, Silvia; Blache, Martha (2003-2004); “La cadena de transmisión mediacional en una leyenda contemporánea: El caso de las vacas mutiladas como metáfora de la crisis argentina actual”. In Estudos de Literatura Oral, No. 9-10, 39-55, Universidade do Algarve, Portugal.
Rommel, Kenneth (1980); Operation Animal Mutilation Project.
Stewart, James R. (1980); “Collective Delusion. A comparison of believers and skeptics” en Midwest Sociological Society, Milwaukee, Winsconsin, Estados Unidos.

[Translation (c) 2014 Scott Corrales, Institute of Hispanic Ufology (IHU)]

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

24-01-2020 om 17:59 geschreven door peter

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Several Ancient Viruses Have Been Discovered in 15,000-Year-Old Glacial Ice

main article image

Several Ancient Viruses Have Been Discovered in 15,000-Year-Old Glacial Ice

KRISTIN HAUSER, FUTURISM

In 2015, a team of scientists from the United States and China traveled to Tibet to gather samples of Earth's oldest glacial ice.

Earlier this month, they published a paper on the pre-print server bioRxiv detailing their discovery of 28 new virus groups in the 15,000-year-old ice - and warning that climate change could free the ancient viruses into the modern world.

The team drilled 50 meters (164 feet) down into the glacier to obtain two ice cores, which then underwent a three-step decontamination protocol.

After that, the researchers used microbiology techniques to identify microbes in the samples.

Those techniques revealed 33 virus groups - including, notably, 28 ancient viruses that scientists had never seen before.

"This study establishes ultra-clean microbial and viral sampling procedures for glacier ice, which complements prior in silico decontamination methods and expands, for the first time, the clean procedures to viruses," the team wrote.

As the team pointed out in their paper, climate change now threatens both our ability to exhaustively catalogue those tiny lifeforms - as well as our ability to stay safe from dangerous ones.

"At a minimum, [ice melt] could lead to the loss of microbial and viral archives that could be diagnostic and informative of past Earth climate regimes," they wrote.

"However, in a worst-case scenario, this ice melt could release pathogens into the environment."

READ MORE: Ancient never-before-seen viruses discovered locked up in Tibetan glacier [Live Science]
More on ice melt: The Melting Arctic Is Releasing Poison, Disease and Nuclear Waste

Local health officials in China confirmed that an unknown viral pneumonia has been affecting people in the central city of Wuhan.

Pixabay

{ https://futurism.com/the-byte }

24-01-2020 om 17:14 geschreven door peter

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Ancient Plants Revive After Being Trapped in Ice for 400 Years

Scientists visiting Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic discovered something remarkable and fascinating .

Led by Catherine LaFarge, a geologist from the University of Alberta in Edmonton (Canada), they were exploring an area called the Sverdrup Pass, which until just recently had been covered by ice. The Teardrop Glacier had spread all across Ellesmere Island during the Little Ice Age, a global cold spell that affected weather and climate conditions in the Northern Hemisphere between 1550 and 1850.

While trudging across newly exposed ground, the scientists found clumps of moss that were mostly browned or blackened. But in among this dead plant life were some spots of green, indicating that a process of regeneration and regrowth had started to occur.

This was remarkable, because LaFarge and the other scientists knew they were not looking at moss that had grown recently. What they’d discovered had originally lived and died several hundred years ago, and it had been trapped beneath the ice for several centuries. Incredibly, moss that had been buried and frozen solid beneath the Teardrop Glacier had begun to regenerate, as if it hadn’t been affected by its centuries-long entombment at all.

LaFarge was able to identify these moss samples as bryophytes, which are extremely resilient plants that have been on Earth for millenia. They are vital contributors to the health and vitality of polar ecosystems, playing a role in their creation and maintenance. They’d been hardy enough to survive in the harsh Arctic climate in the first place, and now that warming trends had exposed them to the open air they had sprung to life once again. They had likely been exposed to the open air for about two years by the time they’d been discovered by the Canadian scientists.

The scientists took samples of the bryophytes back to their laboratory for further study and experimentation. Radiocarbon dating methods confirmed that the moss was approximately 400 years old, yet its ability to produce new life had not been extinguished by the trauma it had experienced.

To test its potency, LaFarge and her team sliced the moss into sections and placing them in controlled environments where light, temperatures and nutrition were ideal for growing. Eventually, seven out of 24 samples sprouted new plants, which to all appearances were perfectly healthy and vibrant.

As LaFarge explained, new moss doesn’t grow from seeds or spores, but from individual plant cells that can create copies of themselves directly. This unique quality may contribute to moss’s ability to regenerate quickly and robustly, even after being placed in suspended frozen animation underneath a glacier for more than four centuries.

More Moss Miracles

This important discovery forced biologists to revise their ideas about the ability of life to survive frozen conditions. But as remarkable as this finding was, scientists affiliated with the British Antarctic Survey and Reading University did their Canadian counterparts one better .

In 2014, just one year after the Ellesmere Island discovery, the British scientists retrieved moss samples from deep inside a frozen moss bank found on the Antarctic tundra. Using radiocarbon dating, they discovered the moss was approximately 1,500 years old. But despite its tremendous antiquity, when the plants were sliced into sections and placed inside an incubator, after a few weeks they, too, began to regenerate.

Even after suffering through the deepest of deep freezes in the coldest continent on our planet, these moss samples had not lost their capacity to regenerate when given enough light, water and nutrition.

“This experiment shows that multi-cellular organisms, plants in this case, can survive over far longer timescales than previously thought,” said Professor Peter Convey, one of the lead scientists involved in this study. “These mosses, a key part of the ecosystem, could survive century to millennial periods of ice advance.”

“If they can survive in this way,” he continued,” then recolonisation following an Ice Age, once ice retreats, would be a lot easier than migrating trans-oceanic distances from warmer regions. It also maintains diversity in an area that would otherwise be wiped clean of life by the ice advance.”

And while the idea may seem farfetched, Convey mentions another possibility that has probably occurred to everyone who has heard this story.

“Although it would be a big jump from the current finding, this does raise the possibility of complex lifeforms surviving even longer periods once encased in permafrost or ice.”

Convey doesn’t specify what he means by “complex lifeforms.” But it boggles the mind to think about what might be buried under the glaciers that cover the polar realms. One thing we know for sure is that thanks to global warming, much of the land that is currently ice covered above the Arctic Circle and near the South Pole may eventually be exposed.

Could Rampaging Viruses —or Vegetable Men —Be Next?

There are many science fiction movies that feature the reanimation of living creatures frozen solid in ice. In 1951’s “The Thing from Another World,” a man-eating, six-foot tall vegetable from another planet, originally encased in a block of ice, terrorizes the occupants of an Arctic research station after accidentally being thawed out by an electric blanket. In 1967’s “The Frozen Dead,” a mad scientist thaws and resuscitates Nazi soldiers he’s kept stored on his English country estate, unaware that they’ve been converted into bloodthirsty zombies.

Far-out storylines like this might appear to have no connection to defrosted and revived moss. But just because moss is benign, that doesn’t mean there aren’t dangers inherent in thawing out lifeforms that lived in others epoch. Some of these lifeforms could very well represent a threat to the health and safety of humanity, and scientists should think carefully about the possible ramifications before opening Pandora’s box and reviving everything they can find.

In the real world, the concern is not so much about frozen animals, Neanderthals, or aliens from crashed spaceships. The real fear is that scientists might mistakenly activate long-dormant viruses or bacteria that we would have no capacity to resist. As human activity continues to heat the planet, the thawing of the tundra in Siberia and the retreat of the glaciers inside the Arctic Circle and in Antarctica could release and reactivate hidden and potentially lethal microorganisms. If such a scenario were to be realized, we could be exposed to hazards that might be even more deadly than Nazi zombies or alien vegetable-men.

The possibility of such an event is not strictly theoretical. In 2014, a group of French scientists revived an ancient virus found frozen in a soil sample taken from 30 metres below the icy tundra of eastern Siberia. Dubbed Pithovirus Sibericum , this gigantic virus was far larger and more complex than the viruses we see today, and is believed to evolved entirely separately from modern infectious agents.

Fortunately, this virus was found to be harmless to humans. But the next one or the next one after that could be lethal, and if humans are unwittingly exposed to it because of thawing tundra there is no telling how much damage it might do.

Top image: Regenerating moss. Credit: mllevphoto / Adobe Stock

By Nathan Falde

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

24-01-2020 om 16:43 geschreven door peter

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Ancient Mystery Viruses Discovered Sealed Within Tibetan Glacier For 15,000 Years

Scientists have found 28 new groups of ancient viruses buried deep within a cold slumber. The viruses were discovered inside the cores of a 15,000-year-old Guliya ice cap on the Tibetan Plateau.

In their paper available on bioRxiv, researchers explain that contaminating such samples of viruses is not difficult. Hence, scientists employed a new method to study microbes preserved within the ice for ultraclean microbial and viral sampling, according to LiveScience.

They employed their techniques to study two ice core samples of the Tibetan glaciers which were collected and stored previously without special care against contamination. So, the exteriors were contaminated but the insides of the samples were still in mint condition.

SEE ALSO: China Quarantines Wuhan City After Coronavirus Outbreak

The team was able to access the samples by gradually getting rid of the outer layers of ice by various methods. In a cold room maintained at -5°C, researchers used a sterilized band to cut a layer of ice, followed by ethanol to melt another layer of ice and then washed with sterile water to remove another layer. A total of 1.5 centimetres of ice was removed to reach an uncontaminated layer. The researchers found 33 groups of virus genera of which, 28 were previously unknown. The microbes found in each ice core differed from the others, indicating that they were stored at different periods of climate conditions.

While these microbes were studied by researchers in controlled conditions, it is possible that the ice melt due to global warming might cause such ancient microbes to be released into the environment. The researchers in their paper explained, “At a minimum, this could lead to the loss of microbial and viral archives that could be diagnostic and informative of past Earth climate regimes; however, in a worst-case scenario, this ice melt could release pathogens into the environment.”

SEE ALSO: NASA Has Plans To Build Homes On Moon And Mars Made Of Fungi

*image for representation purpose only.

{ https://in.mashable.com/}

24-01-2020 om 16:31 geschreven door peter

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New models reveal inner complexity of Saturn moon

by Southwest Research Institute

New SwRI models reveal inner complexity of Saturn moon

Using new geochemical models, SwRI scientists found that CO₂ in Enceladus' ocean may be controlled by chemical reactions at the seafloor. Integrating this finding with previous discoveries of H₂ and silica suggests geochemically diverse environments in the rocky core. This diversity has the potential to create energy sources that could support life.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

A Southwest Research Institute team developed a new geochemical model that reveals that carbon dioxide (CO₂) from within Enceladus, an ocean-harboring moon of Saturn, may be controlled by chemical reactions at its seafloor. Studying the plume of gases and frozen sea spray released through cracks in the moon's icy surface suggests an interior more complex than previously thought.

"By understanding the composition of the plume, we can learn about what the ocean is like, how it got to be this way and whether it provides environments where life as we know it could survive," said SwRI's Dr. Christopher Glein, lead author of a paper in Geophysical Research Letters outlining the research. "We came up with a new technique for analyzing the plume composition to estimate the concentration of dissolved CO₂ in the ocean. This enabled modeling to probe deeper interior processes."

Analysis of mass spectrometry data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft indicates that the abundance of CO₂ is best explained by geochemical reactions between the moon's rocky core and liquid water from its subsurface ocean. Integrating this information with previous discoveries of silica and molecular hydrogen (H₂) points to a more complex, geochemically diverse core.

"Based on our findings, Enceladus appears to demonstrate a massive carbon sequestration experiment," Glein said. "On Earth, climate scientists are exploring whether a similar process can be utilized to mitigate industrial emissions of CO₂. Using two different data sets, we derived CO₂ concentration ranges that are intriguingly similar to what would be expected from the dissolution and formation of certain mixtures of silicon- and carbon-bearing minerals at the seafloor."

Another phenomenon that contributes to this complexity is the likely presence of hydrothermal vents inside Enceladus. At Earth's ocean floor, hydrothermal vents emit hot, energy-rich, mineral-laden fluids that allow unique ecosystems teeming with unusual creatures to thrive.

"The dynamic interface of a complex core and seawater could potentially create energy sources that might support life," said SwRI's Dr. Hunter Waite, principal investigator of Cassini's Ion Neutral Mass Spectrometer (INMS). "While we have not found evidence of the presence of microbial life in the ocean of Enceladus, the growing evidence for chemical disequilibrium offers a tantalizing hint that habitable conditions could exist beneath the moon's icy crust."

The scientific community continues reaping the benefits of Cassini's close flyby of Enceladus on Oct. 28, 2015, prior to the end of the mission. INMS detected H₂ as the spacecraft flew through the plume, and a different instrument had earlier detected tiny particles of silica, two chemicals that are considered to be markers for hydrothermal processes.

"Distinct sources of observed CO₂, silica and H₂ imply mineralogically and thermally diverse environments in a heterogeneous rocky core," Glein said. "We suggest that the core is composed of a carbonated upper layer and a serpentinized interior." Carbonates commonly occur as sedimentary rocks such as limestone on Earth, while serpentine minerals are formed from igneous seafloor rocks that are rich in magnesium and iron.

It is proposed that hydrothermal oxidation of reduced iron deep in the core creates H₂, while hydrothermal activity intersecting quartz-bearing carbonated rocks produces silica-rich fluids. Such rocks also have potential to influence the CO₂ chemistry of the ocean via low-temperature reactions involving silicates and carbonates at the seafloor.

"The implications for possible life enabled by a heterogeneous core structure are intriguing," said Glein. "This model could explain how planetary differentiation and alteration processes create chemical (energy) gradients needed by subsurface life."

Explore further

Scientists find evidence of complex organic molecules from Enceladus

{ https://www.swri.org/ }

24-01-2020 om 12:34 geschreven door peter

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OUDSTE INSLAG OP AARDE SUGGEREERT DAT EEN METEORIET DE IJZIGE AARDE LIET ONTDOOIEN

OUDSTE INSLAG OP AARDE SUGGEREERT DAT EEN METEORIET DE IJZIGE AARDE LIET ONTDOOIEN

Vivian Lammerse

Door de immense klap kwam er veel waterdamp vrij, wat een einde maakte aan de bevroren staat van onze aarde.

Onderzoekers hebben zich in een nieuwe studie gepubliceerd in het toonaangevende tijdschrift Nature Communications gebogen over de Yarrabubba-krater. Deze krater is te vinden in het binnenland van West-Australië en is ontstaan door een inslag van een meteoriet. De bevindingen zijn zeer interessant. Want niet alleen hebben de onderzoekers de leeftijd van de krater weten te achterhalen, het is ook gelukt om de gevolgen van de impact bloot te leggen.

Leeftijd
Het team besloot allereerst de precieze leeftijd van de krater te bepalen. “Yarrabubba was al vele jaren erkend als inslagkrater,” zegt onderzoeker Chris Kirkland. “Maar tot nu toe wist men nog niet hoe oud deze eigenlijk was.” Na een grondige analyse van de aangetroffen mineralen zirkoon en monaziet, zijn de onderzoekers erachter gekomen dat de Yarrabubba-krater een slordige 2.229 miljard jaar oud is. En dat is bijzonder oud. Sterker nog, het betekent dat deze krater de oudste op aarde is. De Yarrabubba-krater blijkt daarnaast zo’n 200 miljoen jaar ouder dan de eerstvolgende inslagkrater

Het mineraal zirkoon dat werd onderzocht om de Yarrabubba-krater te dateren.

Afbeelding: Curtin University

Bovendien lukte het de onderzoekers om een beeld van de meteoriet-inslag te schetsen. Waarschijnlijk stortte de meteoriet neer in een met ijs bedekt landschap. Hierdoor verdampte een grote hoeveelheid ijs dat vervolgens naar de atmosfeer werd getransporteerd. De inslag vormde bovendien een enorme krater met een diameter van wel 70 kilometer.

Sneeuwbalaarde
Door verschillende gegevens en informatie over onze aarde naast elkaar te leggen, kwamen de onderzoekers erachter dat de inslag een grote klimaatverandering teweeg heeft gebracht. En dat is interessant. Waarschijnlijk heeft de meteoriet-inslag er namelijk voor gezorgd dat de eens bevroren aarde begon te ontdooien. “De Yarrabubba-krater ontstond aan het einde van wat ook wel de sneeuwbalaarde wordt genoemd,” legt Kirkland uit. In die tijd was de aarde volledig bedekt met ijs en herbergde bevroren oceanen. Maar op een bepaald moment werden oceanen zuurstofrijker en verdween het ijs. En het zou best weleens kunnen dat de meteorietinslag in de Yarrabubba-krater daarvoor het startschot gaf. “De leeftijd van de inslagkrater komt overeen met de ondergang van een reeks oude ijstijden,” legt onderzoeker Nicholas Timms uit. “Na de inslag zien we in de data 400 miljoen jaar lang geen ijsafzettingen. Deze speling van het lot suggereert dat de grote meteorietinslag invloed kan hebben gehad op het wereldwijde klimaat.”

Waterdamp
Om daar een goed beeld van te krijgen, besloten de onderzoekers er wat modellen op los te laten. “Berekeningen gaven aan dat een dergelijke inslag op een met ijs bedekt continent een half biljoen ton waterdamp – een belangrijk broeikasgas – de atmosfeer in stuurde,” zegt Timms. En het zou heel goed kunnen dat dit een einde heeft gemaakt aan de bevroren staat van onze planeet.

De bevindingen hebben belangrijke implicaties voor toekomstige ontdekkingen van inslagkraters. “De resultaten benadrukken dat het belangrijk is om de precieze leeftijd van kraters te achterhalen,” zegt onderzoeker Aaron Cavosie. “Het bestaan van de Yarrabubba-krater was al zeker twee decennia bekend, maar nu pas weten we hoe oud hij is.” En dankzij deze informatie krijgen wetenschappers een steeds beter beeld van de geschiedenis van de aarde. De vraag is nu of de Yarrabubba-krater de oudste zal blijven, of dat onderzoekers op nóg oudere inslagkraters gaan stuiten. “Het roept de vraag op of alle oudere inslagkraters zijn geërodeerd, of dat ze nog steeds wachten om ontdekt te worden,” besluit Cavosie.

Bronmateriaal:

"New research finds Earth’s oldest asteroid strike linked to ‘big thaw’" - Curtin University
Afbeelding bovenaan dit artikel: Родион Журавлёв via Pixabay

24-01-2020 om 12:21 geschreven door peter

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Is a mini ICE AGE on the way? Scientists warn the sun will 'go to sleep' in 2030 and could cause temperatures to plummet

New study claims to have cracked predicting solar cycles
Says that between 2030 and 2040 solar cycles will cancel each other out
Could lead to 'Maunder minimum' effect that saw River Thames freeze over

By MARK PRIGG FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

The Earth could be headed for a 'mini ice age' researchers have warned.

A new study claims to have cracked predicting solar cycles - and says that between 2020 and 2030 solar cycles will cancel each other out.

This, they say, will lead to a phenomenon known as the 'Maunder minimum' - which has previously been known as a mini ice age when it hit between 1646 and 1715, even causing London's River Thames to freeze over.

Scroll down for video

A silent sun: In 2011 this image was captured showing an almost clear sun - which experts say could happen for almost a decade from 2030.

THE SOLAR CYCLE

Conventional wisdom holds that solar activity swings back and forth like a simple pendulum.

At one end of the cycle, there is a quiet time with few sunspots and flares.

At the other end, solar max brings high sunspot numbers and frequent solar storms.

It's a regular rhythm that repeats every 11 years.

Reality is more complicated.

Astronomers have been counting sunspots for centuries, and they have seen that the solar cycle is not perfectly regular.

The new model of the Sun's solar cycle is producing unprecedentedly accurate predictions of irregularities within the Sun's 11-year heartbeat.

It draws on dynamo effects in two layers of the Sun, one close to the surface and one deep within its convection zone.

Predictions from the model suggest that solar activity will fall by 60 per cent during the 2030s to conditions last seen during the 'mini ice age' that began in 1645, according to the results presented by Prof Valentina Zharkova at the National Astronomy Meeting in Llandudno.

The model predicts that the pair of waves become increasingly offset during Cycle 25, which peaks in 2022.

During Cycle 26, which covers the decade from 2030-2040, the two waves will become exactly out of synch and this will cause a significant reduction in solar activity.

'In cycle 26, the two waves exactly mirror each other – peaking at the same time but in opposite hemispheres of the Sun,' said Zharkova.

'Their interaction will be disruptive, or they will nearly cancel each other.

'We predict that this will lead to the properties of a 'Maunder minimum''

'Effectively, when the waves are approximately in phase, they can show strong interaction, or resonance, and we have strong solar activity.

'When they are out of phase, we have solar minimums.

'When there is full phase separation, we have the conditions last seen during the Maunder minimum, 370 years ago.'

THE MAUNDER MINIMUM

The Maunder Minimum (also known as the prolonged sunspot minimum) is the name used for the period starting in about 1645 and continuing to about 1715 when sunspots became exceedingly rare, as noted by solar observers of the time.

It caused London's River Thames to freeze over, and 'frost fairs' became popular.

This period of solar inactivity also corresponds to a climatic period called the 'Little Ice Age' when rivers that are normally ice-free froze and snow fields remained year-round at lower altitudes.

There is evidence that the Sun has had similar periods of inactivity in the more distant past, Nasa says.

The connection between solar activity and terrestrial climate is an area of on-going research.

Some scientists hypothesize that the dense wood used in Stradivarius instruments was caused by slow tree growth during the cooler period.

Instrument maker Antonio Stradivari was born a year before the start of the Maunder Minimum.

Maunder Minimum (also known as the prolonged sunspot minimum) is the name used for the period starting in about 1645 and continuing to about 1715 when sunspots became exceedingly rare, as noted by solar observers of the time

It is 172 years since a scientist first spotted that the Sun's activity varies over a cycle lasting around 10 to 12 years.

But every cycle is a little different and none of the models of causes to date have fully explained fluctuations.

The Frozen Thames, 1677 - an oil painting by Abraham Hondius shows the old London Bridge during the Maunder Minimum

Many solar physicists have put the cause of the solar cycle down to a dynamo caused by convecting fluid deep within the Sun.

Now, Zharkova and her colleagues have found that adding a second dynamo, close to the surface, completes the picture with surprising accuracy.

'We found magnetic wave components appearing in pairs, originating in two different layers in the Sun's interior,' she said.

'They both have a frequency of approximately 11 years, although this frequency is slightly different, and they are offset in time.

'Over the cycle, the waves fluctuate between the northern and southern hemispheres of the Sun. Combining both waves together and comparing to real data for the current solar cycle, we found that our predictions showed an accuracy of 97%,' said Zharkova.

Montage of images of solar activity between August 1991 and September 2001 taken by the Yohkoh Soft X-ray Telecope, showing variation in solar activity during a sunspot cycle.

Zharkova and her colleagues derived their model using a technique called 'principal component analysis' of the magnetic field observations from the Wilcox Solar Observatory in California.

They examined three solar cycles-worth of magnetic field activity, covering the period from 1976-2008.

In addition, they compared their predictions to average sunspot numbers, another strong marker of solar activity.

All the predictions and observations were closely matched.

24-01-2020 om 12:11 geschreven door peter

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VAN WIEG TOT GRAF: ZO ZIET HET LEVEN VAN EEN STER ERUIT

VAN WIEG TOT GRAF: ZO ZIET HET LEVEN VAN EEN STER ERUIT

Jurjen de Jong

Als je ze ziet twinkelen aan de hemel zou je het niet zeggen. Maar al deze sterren worden mede mogelijk gemaakt door catastrofale explosies. En velen ervan komen door zo’n zelfde explosie aan hun einde.

Je hebt vast wel eens naar de hemel gestaard en je misschien afgevraagd wat al deze lichtpuntjes die wij sterren noemen nu werkelijk zijn en hoe het leven van een ster, zoals onze zon, begint en verdergaat. Na het lezen van dit artikel heb je antwoorden op al deze vragen.

Geboorte
Sterren ontstaan door het samentrekken van gaswolken (nevels) die wel enkele lichtjaren – de afstand die licht aflegt in een jaar tijd – breed kunnen zijn. De ineenstorting ontstaat onder de invloed van zijn eigen gewicht en de zwaartekracht. Dit proces kan enkele honderdduizenden jaren duren. Het grootste deel van zo’n gaswolk bestaat uit de lichtste elementen van ons universum: waterstof en helium. De rest zijn zwaardere elementen. Dit zijn overblijfselen van oudere sterren die aan hun einde gekomen zijn door middel van een supernova explosie. Hier komen we later op terug.
Zodra zo’n gaswolk begint ineen te storten, zal ook de temperatuur stijgen. Niet al het materiaal beweegt zich naar één punt, maar een gaswolk splitst zich op in meerdere subgaswolken. In de kern van zo’n subgaswolk komt materiaal samen en begint steeds sneller rond te draaien. Als gevolg daarvan wordt er een compact lichaam gevormd dat we een protoster noemen. De hoeveelheid van het beschikbare materiaal bepaalt hoe heet en groot de ster wordt. Ook komt het regelmatig voor dat er een dubbelstersysteem of soms zelfs een meervoudig sterysteem ontstaat, waarbij er dus meerdere sterren gravitationeel aan elkaar gebonden zijn.

Niet al het materiaal van een subgaswolk vormt een protoster. Dit betekent dat een ander deel rond de protoster in banen blijft draaien. Dit wordt de protoplanetaire schijf genoemd, waaruit later planeten kunnen ontstaan. Ondertussen stopt langzaam de ineenstorting van het materiaal van de protoster, doordat er ook een uitwaartse stralingsdruk is vanuit de kern. Zodra de zwaartekracht en de stralingsdruk in balans zijn, is de protoster stabiel en wordt dan een ster genoemd. De temperatuur is door de samendrukking van de atomen hoog genoeg geworden om kernfusie op gang te laten komen. Je kunt dan ook wel zeggen dat een ster eigenlijk een natuurlijke kernfusiereactor is.

Kernfusie
Als eerste worden waterstofatomen door kernfusiereacties gefuseerd tot heliumatomen. Vier waterstofatomen zijn gelijk aan één heliumatoom plus een resterende massa. Deze overgebleven hoeveelheid massa wordt door de welbekende formule van Einstein 𝐸 = 𝑚𝑐2 omgezet in energie. Deze energie zorgt voor extra weerstand tegen ineenstorting.
Over het volledig omzetten van een waterstofkern naar helium doet een gemiddelde ster ongeveer 90% van zijn leven (een ster leeft miljarden jaren). Zodra de ster zijn waterstof volledig ‘opgebrand’ heeft in de kern, stoppen de kernfusies en heb je een heliumkern. Omdat de temperatuur nog niet hoog genoeg is om helium te gaan fuseren, begint de kern weer in elkaar te krimpen en de temperatuur te stijgen. Aan de buitenrand van de kern zit nog waterstof en deze temperatuur stijgt ook, totdat het hier warm genoeg is voor de fusie van waterstof. De kern krimpt in de tussentijd, waardoor de temperatuur steeds meer toeneemt en de waterstoffusie in de buitenrand van de kern versnelt. Uiteindelijk is de temperatuur in de kern hoog genoeg geworden om helium te gaan fuseren tot koolstof en zuurstof.

Kernfusie. Links tijdens waterstoffusie, rechts tijdens heliumfusie in de kern en waterstoffusie in een schil er omheen.

Rode reus
Als er buiten de kern een fusieproces plaatsvindt, gaat de ster plotseling veel meer energie opwekken en begint op te zwellen. Doordat de oppervlakte toeneemt, neemt de oppervlaktetemperatuur af en verandert de ster van kleur. In dit stadium wordt de ster een ‘rode reus’ genoemd. Dit is een vrij instabiele periode in het leven van een ster. De ster is aan het opzwellen en inkrimpen. Als een ster lichter is dan 2,2 maal de massa van de zon en de temperatuur opgelopen is tot 100-200 miljoen, ontstaat er een plotselinge heliumflits. Tijdens zo’n heliumflits komt er net zoveel energie vrij als alle sterren in de Melkweg in dezelfde periode opwekken. Bij zwaardere sterren gaat de kernfusie van helium naar koolstof en zuurstof een stuk geleidelijker, waardoor er geen plotselinge heliumflits ontstaat.

Laatste levensfases
Wat er volgt in het leven van een ster is sterk afhankelijk van de grootte van de ster. Je zou misschien verwachten dat een kleinere ster een korter leven heeft. Dit is niet zo. Hoe groter, hoe korter het leven, omdat de kernfusies langzamer gaan in kleinere sterren. Zo kan de lengte van het leven van een ster variëren tussen de 1 miljoen en 100 miljard jaar.
Sterren met een massa tussen de 0,08 en 0,5 maal de massa van de zon, worden ‘rode dwergen’ genoemd. Over hun laatste levensfases is weinig bekend, omdat ons universum nog te jong is om dit type ster de tijd te geven om op een natuurlijke manier aan zijn einde te komen.
Voor sterren die lichter zijn dan achtmaal de massa van onze zon, is er geen volgende stap nadat het helium in de kern uitgefuseerd is, omdat er geen temperatuur behaald kan worden die zorgt voor fusie van koolstof. Uiteindelijk zal de kern samendrukken totdat er geen samenpersing meer mogelijk is. Op dit moment heet de ster een ‘witte dwerg’. De witte dwerg kan zijn buitenste lagen niet meer vasthouden en deze worden afgestoten en vormen een planetaire nevel (dit heeft overigens niks met planeten te maken). Dit lot staat onze zon dus ook te wachten. Maar geen paniek: het duurt nog 5 miljard jaar voordat onze zon door zijn waterstofvoorraad heen zal zijn.

“BEDENK DAT BIJNA AL HET MATERIAAL DAT JE IN HET DAGELIJKS LEVEN OM JE HEEN ZIET, OF HET IJZER DAT IN JE BLOED ZIT, UITEINDELIJK GROTENDEELS GEPRODUCEERD IS IN ZWARE STERREN”

Voor sterren die grofweg zwaarder zijn dan achtmaal de massa van onze zon is het wel mogelijk om een temperatuur te bereiken waarbij koolstof gefuseerd kan worden tot neon. Verder vindt nog, in verschillende lagen rond de kern, fusie van de lichtere elementen (waterstof, helium en koolstof) plaats. Hoe dichter bij de kern, hoe warmer en hoe zwaarder de elementen zijn die gefuseerd worden. De kernfusies van steeds zwaardere elementen gaan door totdat ijzer in de kern ontstaat. Dit element wordt niet gefuseerd tot zwaardere elementen, omdat de fusie in plaats van energie oplevert, juist energie kost. Als gevolg valt de druk vanuit de kern weg en stort de ster in onder zijn eigen zwaartekracht. Dit resulteert in een heftige explosie, welke ook wel bekend staat als een supernova. Voor sterren met een kern lichter dan driemaal de massa van de zon, blijft de kern over als een neutronster. Dit is een ster met een enorme grote dichtheid. Het kan zijn dat zo’n ster misschien maar een diameter van 10 km heeft, terwijl het gelijk is aan de massa van de zon. Als de ster zwaarder is, dan zal de kern imploderen en veranderen in het welbekende – maar toch mysterieuze – zwarte gat. Dit is een extreem compacte ‘massa’, die de ruimtetijd heftig vervormt. Hieraan kan niks ontsnappen, zelfs licht niet.

De elementen die door een supernova uitgestoten worden, zijn de zware elementen die weer in andere gaswolken terechtkomen. De explosie van zo’n supernova kan ook een gaswolk weer triggeren om ineen te storten. Op deze manier ontstaan er weer nieuwe sterren en begint het hele verhaal weer van voor af aan…

Over de auteur
Jurjen de Jong (1993) heeft een bachelor wiskunde en bachelor natuurkunde behaald in Utrecht en een master wiskundige natuur-en sterrenkunde in Gent afgerond. Onlangs rondde hij de master-na-master in Space Studies in Leuven af met een stage bij de ESA en momenteel werkt hij als data scientist. Jurjen leest graag over de verschillende ontdekkingen en ontwikkelingen op wetenschapsgebied en door er over te schrijven hoopt hij zijn kennis te delen met een groter publiek. Zijn artikelen verschijnen niet alleen op Scientias.nl, maar ook op een blog die hij recent lanceerde: Asbronomers.com. Eerder verscheen van Jurjens hand al dit interessante artikel waarin hij uitzoekt of het nodig is dat ook de ruimtevaart groener wordt. Ook zocht hij voor Scientias.nl uit of de ruimtelift werkelijk toekomst heeft. Recent publiceerde hij ook artikelen over ruimtemijnbouw en de slimme stad.

Bronmateriaal:

S. G. Ryan., A.J. Norton (2010). “Stellar Evolution and Nucleosynthesis”. Cambridge University Press

NASA. “The Life Cycles of Stars: How Supernovae Are Formed”,

24-01-2020 om 12:09 geschreven door peter

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ZIJN WE ONLANGS - ZONDER HET TE BESEFFEN - EEN NIEUWE ZONNECYCLUS INGEROLD?

ZIJN WE ONLANGS - ZONDER HET TE BESEFFEN - EEN NIEUWE ZONNECYCLUS INGEROLD?

Caroline Kraaijvanger

Het zou zomaar kunnen nu er recent – na een lange periode van afwezigheid – weer zonnevlekken op onze moederster zijn gespot.

De dag voor kerst zagen astronomen twee groepen zonnevlekken op onze moederster. Nu hoor ik je denken: zo bijzonder is dat toch niet? Nou, de astronomen keken er toch even van op. Want de zon was al sinds 14 november 2019 vrij van zonnevlekken. De laatste keer dat de zon zo’n lange periode zonnevlekvrij was, was in 1996.

Cyclus
Die inactiviteit is te herleiden naar de cyclus van de zon. Onze moederster doorloopt namelijk een grofweg 11 jaar durende cyclus die gekenmerkt wordt door een zonneminimum – een periode waarin de zon heel rustig is en weinig zonnevlekken en zonnevlammen genereert – en een zonnemaximum, waarin de ster juist veel actiever is. Het zonnemaximum vond in 2014 plaats. Sindsdien neemt de activiteit op de zon af en is het wachten op het zonneminimum dat tevens het einde van deze zonnecyclus en het begin van een nieuwe markeert. Onderzoekers voorspelden eerder dat het zonneminimum zich rond april 2020 aan zou dienen. Maar dat kon ook zes maanden later of zes maanden eerder worden; de ervaring leert dat de zon het niet zo nauw neemt met de tijd.

Nu er na een lange periode van rust weer zonnevlekken op de zon opduiken, is de grote vraag of dit dan het zonneminimum was en daarmee dus een nieuwe zonnecyclus is aangebroken. Wetenschappers hebben meer data nodig om met zekerheid te kunnen zeggen dat deze zonnevlekken daadwerkelijk een nieuwe zonnecyclus inluiden, maar dat een nieuwe cyclus aanstaande is, staat vast en wordt door de komst van de zonnevlekken duidelijk onderschreven.

Wat brengt het ons?
Wat die nieuwe zonnecyclus ons brengt, is altijd enigszins koffiedik kijken. De ene cyclus is namelijk de andere niet. Soms verloopt zo’n cyclus – zoals het exemplaar waar we nu nog net (of net niet meer) inzitten – vrij gemoedelijk en is de zon zelfs tijdens het zonnemaximum nog relatief rustig. Maar er zijn ook cycli geweest waarin het zonnemaximum gekenmerkt werd door een hoop onrust op de zon. Die onrust komt tot uiting in veel zonnevlekken, zonnevlammen, en meerdere zogenoemde coronale massa-ejecties per dag. Met name die coronale massa-ejecties kunnen nog weleens venijnig zijn; tijdens deze uitbarstingen op de zon worden energierijke deeltjes en magnetische velden de ruimte ingeslingerd. Deze kunnen behalve een fraai poollicht genereren, ook schade aanrichten aan satellieten in een baan rond de aarde en – in uitzonderlijke gevallen – zelfs voor problemen zorgen op aarde (zie kader).

Onze aarde wordt omringd door een magnetisch veld dat ons onder meer beschermt tegen de grillen van de zon. Maar heel soms schiet dat aardmagnetisch veld tekort. Dat kan gebeuren als er sprake is van een samenloop van omstandigheden die leidt tot een extreme, op de aarde gerichte, uitbarsting op de zon. Dat gebeurde bijvoorbeeld in 1859. Een coronale massa-ejectie raakte toen de aardse magnetosfeer – de invloedssfeer van het magnetisch veld dat de aarde zelf genereert – waardoor deze verstoord raakte. Het leidde tot het uitvallen van de telegraafverbinding tussen Europa en Amerika. En in 1989 zorgde de zon er zo voor dat een elektriciteitsnetwerk in Canada werd uitgeschakeld en zo’n zes miljoen mensen meer dan negen uur zonder stroom zaten.

Gezien de impact die een actieve zon op de aarde en omgeving kan hebben, is er onderzoekers veel aan gelegen om te kunnen voorspellen wat een zonnecyclus gaat brengen. Maar dat is zo gemakkelijk nog niet. Want nog steeds weten we niet precies hoe onze ster met name diep van binnen werkt. Toch wagen sommige onderzoekers zich wel aan een voorspelling. En die is enigszins geruststellend. Naar verwachting wordt de volgende zonnecyclus net als de cyclus waar we nu in zitten (of net uit zijn gerold) vrij rustig. Sterker nog: NASA voorspelde vorig jaar dat het wel eens de zwakste zonnecyclus in 200 jaar tijd zou kunnen worden, waarbij de intensiteit van het zonnemaximum – gemeten in het aantal zonnevlekken – 30 tot 50% lager ligt dan in de meest recente zonnecyclus. Het zou goed nieuws zijn voor de plannen van NASA, die in 2024 – dus rondom het zonnemaximum – mensen naar de maan wil sturen en daar geen gevaarlijk ruimteweer bij kan gebruiken.

Bronmateriaal:

"Two sunspot groups from the new solar cycle" - Solar-Terrestrial Centre of Excellence
Afbeelding bovenaan dit artikel: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

24-01-2020 om 11:35 geschreven door peter

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NASA abruptly cuts live feed ISS after THIS appears over the U.S.

The ISS live feed was interrupted by NASA at the moment a weird UFO-like anomaly appears in front of the the camera.

Jujubee's Adams had just turned on his ISS app to take a look when some kind of object appeared on the live feed, so Adams took some photos and a video of the strange anomaly, just before NASA abruptly cuts the live broadcast.

And it is not the first time NASA cuts the live feed from the International Space Station. At the moment alien objects appear on camera, they switch over to the well known screen and text that there is a sudden loss of signal between the station and the communications network.

The following video recorded by Adams on January 22, 2020 is a clear example of how NASA is trying to disguise the existence of UFOs and other unknown advanced objects in space.

It's not the first time... other videos selected by peter2011

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

24-01-2020 om 10:47 geschreven door peter

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Pilot captures unusual cigar-shaped object soaring over Utah from cockpit

Pilot captures unusual cigar-shaped object soaring over Utah from cockpit

A plane pilot appears to have captured a cigar-shaped UFO at 40,000ft soaring through the air above Utah.

The footage – taken over Zion National Park in the US state – shows the strange white object making its way across the sky.

Its shape appears much like a cigar or even a tic-tac – matching dozens of similar sightings over the past few months.

Given the altitude of the craft, it is difficult to see how fast it is travelling.

The clip was taken back in September 2019, but the footage only surfaced yesterday after being posted by YouTube channel Tales From Out There.

In the video description, the uploader said: “Video recording is taken from a cockpit at 40,000ft of an object flying at a lower altitude over the terrain.

UFO hunters 'chasing tic-tac craft' claim responsibility for Colorado drones

Ominous black ring-shaped ‘cloud’ spotted hovering in skies terrifies residents

“Not sure what it is.” He added in the title he believed it could be a “flying disc”.

Viewers soon flooded in to voice their thoughts, with one writing: “That’s an alien ship.”

“Nice proof,” another said, believing the extraterrestrial explanation.

Another wrote: “Where is the flying disc? I only see a white stripe.”

Others were less convinced, though. One sceptic suggested the distance and angle meant it “could easily be another plane”.

Snake-like UFOs

First sighting of snake-like UFO
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Strange ‘craft’ in Wyoming meteor shower
‘Alive’ UFO appears over New York

A second claimed it was nothing more than a “smudge on a window” while a third believed it was a “weather balloon”.

The footage comes days after footage emerged of a mysterious tube-shaped object hovering in the skies above Massachusetts.

Cameraman John Baglio told Daily Star Online the craft had “two big lights” at the front and was “the size of a bus”.

Source: Read Full Article

{ https://wstale.com/ }

24-01-2020 om 10:26 geschreven door peter

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Pilot captures UAP hovering over Zion National Park, Utah

Aprofessional pilot has filed a report which contains clear video of an unidentified object flying in close formation below his aircraft.

The video was recorded while flying at approximately 40,000 feet over Zion National Park Utah in September of 2019 and submitted to Mufon.

Witness report:

Video recording is taken from cockpit at 40000 ft of an object flying at a lower altitude over the terrain. Not sure what it is.

24-01-2020 om 10:13 geschreven door peter

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23-01-2020

Goldilocks stars best for alien life?

Posted by Paul Scott Anderson in SPACE

A new research study suggests that K-type dwarf stars (smaller and cooler than our sun) are the best place to search for alien life. These stars are not too hot, not too cool, and not too violent for life to evolve.

Yellow, orange, and red spheres on black background.

Size comparison of G dwarfs (sunlike) stars, K dwarfs and M dwarfs.

Image via Sankalan Baidya/ Facts Legend.

Astronomers use the term Goldilocks zone to describe a star’s habitable zone, where temperatures can allow liquid water to exist on a rocky planet. This zone around a star is generally thought to be the best place to search for life beyond our solar system. Now, scientists are also speaking of Goldilocks stars that are not too hot, too cool, or too violent for life to evolve on any suitable planets. This emerging scenario is based on three decades of observations of exoplanets and their stars.

The newest results regarding this research were presented earlier this month at the 235th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Honolulu, Hawaii. The meeting ran from January 4-8, 2020.

The new program, called the GoldiloKs Project, is being led by Edward Guinan and Scott Engle of Villanova University in Pennsylvania. The project involves undergraduate students measuring the age, rotation rate, and X-ray and far-ultraviolet radiation in a sampling of mostly cool G dwarf (sunlike yellow dwarfs) and K dwarf (orange dwarf) stars. Data was obtained from various telescopes and satellites, including Hubble Space Telescope, Chandra X-ray Observatory, and XMM-Newton. Hubble in particular is valuable for this research, these astronomers said; Hubble is sensitive to radiation from hydrogen, and it has measured hydrogen radiation from 20 different K-type dwarf stars.

A few EarthSky 2020 lunar calendars are still available. Order now. Going fast!

Different kinds of stars various widths of habitable zones, with text annotations.

Comparison of M, K and G stars in terms of habitable zone, X-ray irradiance, relative abundance, and longevity. New research supports the idea that K stars are the most friendly for habitable planets.

Image via NASA/ ESA/ Z. Levy/ Hubblesite.

The research suggests that these types of stars are the most likely to have habitable planets. They are slightly smaller and cooler than our sun, which is a G dwarf star. It’s easy to think, of course, that sunlike stars would be the most ideal, but that might not be the case, after all. As Guinan explained in a statement:

K dwarf stars are in the ‘sweet spot,’ with properties intermediate between the rarer, more luminous, but shorter-lived solar-type stars (G stars) and the more numerous red dwarf stars (M stars). The K stars, especially the warmer ones, have the best of all worlds. If you are looking for planets with habitability, the abundance of K stars pumps up your chances of finding life.

This is encouraging news for those hoping to find extraterrestrial life, since there are about three times as many K dwarf stars in our galaxy as there are sunlike stars. Some of them are fairly close by, as well, with about 1,000 of them within 100 light-years. That’s close enough for any planets orbiting them to be studied by telescopes.

These stars also live a lot longer than our sun will, from 15 billion to 45 billion years. That provides a much longer time period for evolution, as compared to our sun, which is already halfway through its lifetime of 10 billion years. Guinan said:

Solar-type stars limit how long a planet’s atmosphere can remain stable.

Artist’s concept of a habitable planet orbiting an orange K dwarf star.

Image via NASA Ames/ JPL-Caltech/ Tim Pyle/ NASA Ames.

What about red dwarfs? They are the most abundant type of stars, and have even longer lifetimes, but they are very violent places for planets. The X-ray and ultraviolet (UV) radiation from red dwarfs, or M dwarfs, can be up to hundreds of thousands of times more intense than what Earth receives from its sun. Even planets in the habitable zone could have their atmospheres stripped away. Needless to say, not the most ideal location for life to evolve, at least advanced forms of life, as Guinan noted:

We’re not so optimistic anymore about the chances of finding advanced life around many M stars.

K dwarfs, on the other hand, are much less active and hostile, with lower levels of radiation. During the same period of time as the lifetime of our sun, about 10 billion years, they only increase in brightness from about 10-15%. This, with their already longer lifetimes, gives evolution much more time to evolve into higher lifeforms.

Three of the K dwarf stars included in the observations were Kepler-442, Tau Ceti, and Epsilon Eridani. Guinan said:

Kepler-442 is noteworthy in that this star (spectral classification, K5) hosts what is considered one of the best Goldilocks planets, Kepler-442b, a rocky planet that is a little more than twice Earth’s mass. So the Kepler-442 system is a Goldilocks planet hosted by a Goldilocks star!

Icy landscape with red star and planets in sky.

Artist’s concept of the view from one of the seven known planets in the TRAPPIST-1 red dwarf star system . Red dwarfs are very common, but hostile to planets orbiting them.

Image via ESO/ Slate.

Tau Ceti and Epsilon Eridani were also targets for Project Ozma in 1960, the first attempt to detect radio signals coming from advanced alien civilizations. That search came up empty, but based on the new research and what we have learned about these kinds of stars since then, these stars may yet turn out to have habitable planets.

An earlier study from last year by researchers at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center had also come to the conclusion that K dwarf stars would be the most likely to have habitable planets. According to Giada Arney at Goddard:

I like to think that K stars are in a ‘sweet spot’ between Sun-analog stars and M stars. I find that certain nearby K stars like 61 Cyg A/B, Epsilon Indi, Groombridge 1618, and HD 156026 [part of the 36 Ophiuchi system] may be particularly good targets for future biosignature searches.

Edward Guinan of Villanova University, who led the new project.

Image via ExpertFile.

Over 4,000 exoplanets have been confirmed so far orbiting distant stars, and some of those are in K dwarf star systems. With K dwarfs being so abundant, and with the ever-increasing numbers of Earth-sized worlds being found, including in habitable zones, it would seem to be only a matter of time before a truly habitable planet is discovered. And perhaps, not only habitable, but actually home to some form of life, whether it be intelligent aliens or microbes.

Bottom line: New research shows that Goldilocks stars – K dwarfs, or orange dwarfs – are the most likely to have planets that can support life.
Via Hubblesite

https://rnz.co.nz/news/top/407660/victoria-fires-unveil-ancient-lava-channel-eel-farming-system…

23-01-2020 om 23:44 geschreven door peter

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Mysterious Structure Older Than the Pyramids Revealed in Wake of Devastating Australian Bushfires

Lake Surprise . Budj Bim

Mysterious Structure Older Than the Pyramids Revealed in Wake of Devastating Australian Bushfires

by Svetlana Ekimenko

The Budj Bim aquatic system, located in southeastern Australia, was built over 6,000 years ago -- older than Egypt's pyramids.

(Courtesy Visit Victoria/YouTube)

The aquatic system of the Budj Bim Cultural Landscape – an elaborate series of stone-lined channels and pools crafted by ancient indigenous people in Australia - has long been known to archaeologists, and was finally added to UNESCO's World Heritage List in July 2019.

Budj Bim Cultural Landscape.

(gunditjmirring.com/CNN)

Raging bushfires in Australia have revealed extra sections of an ancient aquaculture system built by indigenous people in south-west Victoria, Australia thousands of years ago.

The fires, that started back in December and were brought under control only recently, ripped through the state, burning away the thick vegetation in the area to lay bare the remarkable discovery.

The Bent pyramid, listed on UNESCO's world heritage list as part of the Memphis necropolis.

The Bent pyramid, listed on UNESCO's world heritage list as part of the Memphis necropolis.

(AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

The Budj Bim Cultural Landscape, consisting of extensive water channels and dams built by indigenous Australians from volcanic rocks to trap and harvest eels for food, is one of the world's most extensive and oldest aquaculture systems.

Gunditjmara representative Denis Rose, project manager at the non-profit group Gunditj Mirring Traditional Owners Aboriginal Corporation said the recent discovery revealed the system was significantly larger than previously recorded.

"When we returned to the area, we found a channel hidden in the grass and other vegetation. It was about 25 meters (82 feet) in length, which was a fairly substantial size," Rose told CNN.

According to the official, new structures were now distinctly seen in the burnt landscape, resembling channels and ponds.

Prof. Elizabeth Grant

@DrElizabethGran

The one good news story from the #BushFireCrisisAustralia is that new sites of ancient Indigenous occupation have been found at the Budj Bim Cultural Landscape on Gunditjmara Country #BudjBim #bushfireaustralia #UNESCO

#Indigenousarchitecture

6:45 AM · Jan 20, 2020Twitter Web App

5 retweet
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"It was a surprise continually finding new ones that the fires revealed," he said.

Initially, the fire in the vicinity of the national park was caused by a lightning strike in late December. Spreading rapidly, it engulfed an area of around 790 hectares (3 square miles), according to Mark Mellington, district manager for Forest Fire Management Victoria.

Firefighters and local groups, he said, had joined efforts to identify culturally important sites and use "low impact techniques" to replace heavy machinery when dousing the flames.

UVic Anthropology

@UVicAnthro
Fire reveals ancient structures for mass harvesting of eels by the Gunditjmara people in Budj Bim Cultural Landscape, an Australian
@UNESCO
World Heritage Site

Image =A channel and weir at Budj Bim, Victoria. Photo: Tyson Lovett-Murray, Gunditj Mirring Traditional Owners Aboriginal Corporation
7:58 PM · Jan 20, 2020·Twitter Web App
2 Retweets

14Likes

The bushfires in this area did not cause the same level of devastation as in other parts of Australia, and locals hope now they will make ample use of this opportunity to further explore the ancient aquaculture system.

"Over the next few weeks, we are hoping to conduct a comprehensive cultural heritage survey to check areas that were not previously recorded. It's important because it provided a rich, sustainable life for the traditional people, and has continued to be an important part of our cultural life," said the Gunditjmara representative.

The aquatic system at Budj Bim has long been known to archaeologists, and was added to UNESCO's World Heritage List last July.
Constructed by the Gunditjmara people more than 6,600 years ago, it is believed to be older than Egypt's pyramids

sophie

@sophieadamsmelb

Well worth the trip to Heywood- Gunditjmara land. World heritage eel traps, homes and the remains of Lake Condah mission. Braydon is a national treasure. #budjbim

9:41 AM · Jan 14, 2020Twitter for iPhone

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Budj Bim or Mount Eccles is an extinct volcano near Macarthur in southwestern Victoria, Australia.
The Gunditjmara name, Budj Bim, translates as “High Head”.

The peak is a scoria hill that was thrown up near a group of three overlapping volcanic craters that now contain Lake Surprise.

The Budj Bim lava flows provided the basis for the complex system of channels and dams developed by the Gunditjmara in order to trap, store and harvest kooyang (short-finned eel – Anguilla australis) from Lake Condah.

This aquaculture system provided an economic and social base for Gunditjmara society for six millennia, believe scientists.
Initially with a population believed to be in the thousands, the Gunditjmara was one of several indigenous groups of people that used to reside in the southern parts of the present-day Victoria state before the European settlement.

Budj Bim is believed to convincingly uproot the myth that all indigenous people were nomadic and not agriculturally inclined.

Budj Bim Cultural Landscape was added to UNESCO's World Heritage List last July, ending a 17-year campaign for recognition.

"The Budj Bim Cultural Landscape bears an exceptional testimony to the cultural traditions, knowledge, practices and ingenuity of the Gunditjmara," says the UNESCO World Heritage Centre site.

{ https://sputniknews.com/ }

23-01-2020 om 22:47 geschreven door peter

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Bosbranden Australië leggen bouwwerken ouder dan de piramides bloot. Maar wat zijn het?

Foto: Wikimedia Commons CC0

Bosbranden Australië leggen bouwwerken ouder dan de piramides bloot. Maar wat zijn het?

Het Budj Bim-landschap in het zuidwesten van Australië, dat vorig jaar op de Werelderfgoedlijst is gezet, is een groot natuurgebied bestaande uit kanalen, vulkaangebieden en moerassen.

Het gebied was 6000 jaar lang een belangrijke plek voor de Aboriginals.

Door de verwoestende bosbranden zijn bouwwerken onthuld die duizenden jaren geleden in het gebied zijn neergezet door de inheemse bevolking.

Aanzienlijk groter

Door de hevige branden verdween de dichte begroeiing en kwamen de opmerkelijke bouwwerken bloot te liggen.

Het Budj Bim-landschap bestaat uit een systeem van kanalen en dammen die door de Aboriginals zijn aangelegd met behulp van vulkanisch gesteente.

Dit systeem blijkt nu aanzienlijk groter te zijn dan altijd is gedacht.

Ouder dan de Egyptische piramides

Het is ruim 6600 jaar geleden aangelegd door het Gunditjmara-volk en zou daarmee ouder zijn dan de Egyptische piramides.

Het complexe systeem van kanalen en dammen is door de Gunditjmara ontworpen om alen te vangen die uit een nabijgelegen meer afkomstig waren.

“Toen we terugkeerden naar het gebied ontdekten we een verborgen kanaal in het gras met een lengte van 25 meter,” zei projectmanager Denis Rose tegen CNN.

Verrassing

Onderzoekers hebben in het verbrande landschap meerdere nieuwe bouwwerken ontdekt, die lijken op kanalen en vijvers.

“Het was een verrassing om steeds weer nieuwe [bouwwerken] te ontdekken die door de branden zijn blootgelegd,” zei Rose.

De bosbranden in dit deel van Australië zijn eind december vorig jaar ontstaan als gevolg van blikseminslag.

[Sputniknews]

© Copyright (c) NineForNews.nl

23-01-2020 om 22:08 geschreven door peter

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Mysterious Lights in Sky Over Bethel, Ohio, Still Unexplained a Week Later

“Anybody else see this tonight? The sky was flashing pink and purple – super bright. Thought it might be lightning, but it’s fairly cold (40 degrees), and there was no thunder.”

“The first thing that came to mind was what just happened with Iran, and I thought it might be a nuclear explosion. It was that bright and that powerful. I was in the Army and it reminded me of phosphorescent flares we used that light up the whole sky.”

“We contacted Clermont County Emergency Management. They have no explanation but did hear from plenty of people reporting the flash. Bethel Police had the same response. We also reached out to Duke Energy. According to them, 584 customers lost power for two minutes just before 7 p.m. Sunday. Crews drove that line Monday and found no issues. We also asked an astronomer if this could be a meteor. He says no because a meteor would flash above the clouds rather than below. As for lightning, the nearest strike was hundreds of miles away.”

“I’ve done a lot of reporting on UFOs and other strange phenomenon, and this is really the strangest light show I’ve ever seen caught on video.”

Which brings us back to Tim Walker’s first reaction when he saw the lights over Bethel, a small village east of Cincinnati near the Kentucky border.

“The first thing that came to mind was what just happened with Iran.”

There’s no doubt Walker was in the majority in having that first reaction … one that the people in Colorado have while watching their own mysterious things in the sky.

Perhaps it’s time to accept the obvious … getting no answer is now the new norm.

VIDEOS, selected by peter2011

23-01-2020 om 19:13 geschreven door peter

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UFO Hunter Claims Responsibility for Mysterious Colorado Drones

“If there was any interference with any other aircraft, that absolutely was not ours.”

“Spicer said the group was unaware of the stir caused by drones until he was contacted recently by the Federal Aviation Administration. He said he was interviewed by special Agent Michael Bumberger of the FAA’s Investigations and Law Enforcement Assistance Program. He said none of ArchAngelRECON’s drones were ever flown anywhere near any airport, and they did not encounter any other civilian aircraft.”

“That absolutely was not ours.”

So, despite the government’s plea to “move along, nothing to see here,” the Colorado/Nebraska/Wyoming/??? Drone mystery isn’t going away.

23-01-2020 om 19:01 geschreven door peter

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Have You Ever Seen Someone Showing Unidentified Flying Objects In Their Videos?

With the recent explosion of UFO footage in recent years, many people wonder if it is possible to identify a UFO in someone’s video. You may be able to tell the difference between your own UFO and the strange lights in someone’s video, but what do you think a “Truther” might do if they could find your video? Would they tell everyone on the internet that you are a professional con man?

We have all heard the stories of deception in the past and will continue to do so, especially when we hear information about things that are not real, and people getting fooled by these people. I guess you could say that a UFO is like the golden goose in the movie The Wizard of Oz, if you think about it; a hoax is just like a hoax, however, if you could disprove something that people claim is real you could convince the masses of its fakery.

Of course, the only way you can do this is to make a person think that you have proof that someone else has proven something to them. Now, if the skeptics like yourself had something, like videos of UFOs, then you could definitely convince some of the skeptics. But, you do not, so how do you proceed?

If you are the guy that says, “Look at my photos!” then I would recommend that you hold off on making any videos until you get someone to believe you. You see, I have to put the picture of this subject out there, in order for people to believe what I have to say, if they can prove something to me, then I will have no need for them.

If you can prove that people have been seen in the photos, then you will have convinced more people than you know that the UFO phenomenon is real, but, it is probably not, that’s why they all go to the movies to see alien aliens. Some have pointed out to me that since UFOs are just that; they could justbe pictures of old mountain ranges or clouds.

Then again, maybe these are not real, and a more reliable source of UFOs is a web site with videos. If you are sure that these UFO videos are real, then the last thing that I would want to do is to convince anyone of the reality of aliens.

So you see, you do not have to be so sure. If you cannot find any evidence, then simply say that they are in the same category as the pictures you see in your mind’s eye, no one needs to know!

Source:

http://footageofufos.com/2020/01/have-you-ever-seen-someone-showing-unidentified-flying-objects-in-their-videos/

23-01-2020 om 18:51 geschreven door peter

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AMAZING UFO video filmed from a plane over Utah

This really interesting UFO video was just uploaded to MUFON. It was recorded over Zion National Park in Utah on 19th August 2019!

Witness report:

Video recording is taken from cockpit at 40000 ft of an object flying at a lower altitude over the terrain. Not sure what it is.

23-01-2020 om 18:36 geschreven door peter

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Nostradamus Predicted Killer Virus As Coronavirus Continues To Spread

Even though he passed away in 1566, Nostradamus correctly predicted many events that happened after his death, such as the rise of Hitler and Napoleon, in addition to the 9/11 attacks on America. And based on recent events, it seems as though another one of the French prophet’s predictions has come true.

In one of his passages, he wrote, “The great plague of the maritime city will not cease until there be avenged the death of the just blood, condemned for a price without crime, of the great lady outraged by pretense.” It seems as though he was predicting the SARS-like outbreak that’s happening right now in the world. An outbreak of a new coronavirus started in China and has spread to different countries around the world: Thailand, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the United States.

Nostradamus

As for the “maritime city” that was mentioned in the passage, a conspiracy theorist has an idea of what location Nostradamus was referring to. “The start of SARS and preponderance of cases are in China, many of which are in Hong Kong. Therefore it is reasonable to view Hong Kong as ‘the maritime city’.”

And the “great lady” could possibly be Wu Yi who was previously the Chinese Health Minister and who helped to control the SARS virus.

So far, the deadly Chinese coronavirus – which has flu-like symptoms that include coughing, fever, shortness of breath, and difficulty breathing – has affected approximately 500 people with 17 deaths. What’s even more frightening is that scientists have warned the public that as many as 10,000 people could have caught the SARS-like virus while visiting Wuhan, China.

There has so far been one diagnosed case in the United States (Washington State) as a man in his 30s caught the virus while visiting Wuhan.

So where did this virus come from? According to a new study (which can be read in full here), it is believed that the virus originated in snakes and spread to humans. There are two types of snakes that are commonly found around the area in which the outbreak originated: Bungarus multicinctus (or the many-banded krait) and Naja atra (or the Chinese cobra).

Nostradamus predicted many disturbing things in history, and this new SARS-like virus is one of the scariest predictions he has made, as more and more people are being affected by this deadly strain.

23-01-2020 om 11:42 geschreven door peter

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Mysterious Burst of Gravitational Waves From Unknown Source Hits Earth

Something big recently happened in space, but astronomers have no idea what it was. Whatever happened, it was powerful enough to stretch the fabric of reality itself, sending a brief instance of gravitational waves rippling through space-time, and picked up here on Earth. The burst of gravitational waves was unusually brief and lacked other qualities astronomers usually see in gravitational waves.

On January 14, astronomers at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and the Virgo interferometer detected a burst of gravitational waves lasting 14 milliseconds. Scientists have attempted to locate the source of the waves, but so far they have no idea what caused them.

Gravitational waves tend to stick around a little longer than the recently observed burst. Most detected gravitational waves are the result of two massive objects colliding with each other. As the two bodies of mass get closer and closer on their collision course, the gravitational waves change in frequency. On January 6, researchers published their observations of a collision between two neutron stars that occurred in 2017.

Like this, but through all of space-time.

It’s possible this burst of gravitational waves resulted from a quicker, more immediate event like a collapsing star. However, researchers have never observed the gravitational waves from a collapsing star. Andy Howell, a staff scientist at Los Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network told Live Science:

“[The burst] seems a little too short for what we expect from the collapse of a massive star. On the other hand, we’ve never seen a star blowing up in gravitational waves before, so we don’t really know what it would look like.”

What’s more, a supernova would produce neutrinos—subatomic particles with no charge—and researchers detected no neutrinos alongside the gravitational waves. Some speculated that the waves may have been a signal from the star Betelgeuse which has recently been acting strange and is nearing the end of its life. However, as Live Science points out, Betelgeuse is still there.

A supernova would likely release neutrinos alongside its gravitational wave burst.

esultedIt’s possible the burst of waves may have been the result of an immediate black hole collision, an event that LIGO was specifically looking for. However, it is believed that while an immediate black hole collision would be shorter than that of a neutron star collision, it would still be possible to see the changing frequencies of the gravitational waves as the collision happened.

Yet another possibility is that it was a supernova that immediately turned into a black hole without producing any neutrinos, but that is highly speculative and with the possibility-realm of “what-if-it’s-a-thing-we-know-that-doesn’t-do-what-we-know-it-should.”

Astronomers are now pointing telescopes at that region of the sky to try and ascertain what caused the burst of gravitational waves. They say it could be an entirely new type of astronomical event.

It seems the more telescopes and gadgets we have up in the sky, the more anomalous events seem to occur. It’s a good reminder that we don’t know all that much about what happens outside our pale blue dot.

23-01-2020 om 11:34 geschreven door peter

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UFOs May Actually Be Tourist-Carrying Cruise Ships From the Future

Anyone who has been on a European river cruise or an organized bus tour through cities with ruins dating back thousands of years has no doubt felt that they were traveling back in time and probably wished it were possible to go back in time and see these cities when they were alive with our ancestors. If we feel that way, it’s not hard to imagine that our future descendants will have the same yearnings. What they may also have is the technology to pull off such a time-traveling tour package. A professor of biological anthropology believes UFOs are actually identified tour ‘buses’ from the future and lays out a case on how to prove it.

“Undoubtedly in the future, there are those that will pay a lot of money to have the opportunity to go back and observe their favorite period in history. Some of the most popular tourist sites are the pyramids of Giza and Machu Picchu in Peru … old and prehistoric sites.”

Michael Masters is a professor of biological anthropology at Montana Technological University in Butte and the author of “Identified Flying Objects: A Multidisciplinary Scientific Approach to the UFO Phenomenon.” In a presentation at the 2019 International UFO Congress and a more recent interview with Space.com, Masters lays out his reasons to believe that aliens are future human tourists. The ‘human’ part is certainly plausible – he points out that most “extratempestrials” are described as bipedal beings with human features who can communicate in our languages and travel in ships that seem to be based on current technology … like a Ferrari resembles a Model T.

“We know we’re here. We know humans exist. We know that we’ve had a long evolutionary history on this planet. And we know our technology is going to be more advanced in the future. I think the simplest explanation, innately, is that it is us. I’m just trying to offer what is likely the most parsimonious explanation.”

Masters sees the stories of alien abductees as indicators that many of the UFO time machines contain anthropologists doing what he wishes he could do if he had the technology – meeting ancient civilizations and perhaps picking up a few samples. Space.com adds credence to the connection to abductee stories by bringing in Larry Lemke, a retired NASA aerospace engineer and ufologist who points out that some abductee experiences coincide with what might happen if they were taken onboard a ship that was able to defy the usual laws of aerodynamics and Newtonian mechanics.

“There’s a group of thinkers in the field of UFOs that point out that phenomena reported around some UFOs do, in fact, look exactly like general relativity effects. Missing time is a very common one.”

Just like today, once the explorers and scientists are done analyzing (and looting) ancient sites, people with a lot of money start visiting them. Eventually, the costs go down and these tours become available to the masses. Have our future selves reached that point yet? Were those recent Tic Tac UFOs merely time-traveling tour buses filled with extratempestrials – noses pressed to the windows, future cell phones taking selfies as they try to see ten cities in ten … minutes?

“Our job as scientists is to be asking big questions and try to find answers to unknown questions. There’s something going on here, and we should be having a conversation about this. We should be at the forefront of trying to find out what it is.”

Not to mention selling souvenirs to these time-traveling tourists.

23-01-2020 om 09:43 geschreven door peter

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A Terrifying Alien Encounter in the Wilds of Australia

UFO encounters run the range between those of a benevolent type, and others that are more sinister in nature. Throughout accounts of such encounters one kind find a wide range of experiences lying along this scale, to the point that it is often difficult to know what to make of it all. One very odd and frightening case supposedly played out over an expanse of the Australian Outback, and which has not been solved to this day. It is the tale of a mundane trip across the desert that would turn into a nightmare from possibly another world.

On January 20, 1988, Faye Knowles, her adult sons Patrick (24), Sean (21) and Wayne (18), and their two dogs were making their way towards Melbourne, Australia across a vast expanse of limestone bedrock called the Nullarbor Plain. The area is a remote desert moonscape of a place, with no one around for miles and other cars a rarity, so it was considered odd when in the very early morning hours a light was spotted some distance ahead, just outside of the tiny town of Mundrabilla. The light seemed to get steadily brighter as they watched it, and as they got closer they could see that it was semi-spherical or egg shaped and was most certainly not another vehicle as it was just a single bright light and seemed to be hovering in the air over that desolate expanse.

Nullarbor Plain

As the family struggled to comprehend what they were seeing, the strange object allegedly emitted a beam of light that swept towards their vehicle and caused the driver, Sean, to take evasive maneuvers. The beam missed the car, but this is when Sean would claim the object had begun to follow them down that lonely roadway, easily keeping pace with them no matter how fast they went. They apparently passed another car going the other direction, after which the mysterious object stopped pursuing them and followed the other vehicle. Sean the reportedly turned the car around to follow the other car and its UFO pursuer to figure out what was going on, but thought better of it and turned around yet again. The object then must have decided to go after them again, because it was soon ominously closing in on them once again.

It purportedly got brighter and closer, passing them a few times to circle around to approach again before positioning itself right above their car as the terrified family within screamed out in fright. There was then a thump on the roof, and the car slowed down as if something very heavy were sitting atop it, leading them to the horrible realization that it had actually lowered itself to make contact with the vehicle. According to the witnesses, it then issued a shrill, ear piercing sound, and Faye would say that they were overcome with the sense of something invading their minds, later saying, “It felt like something was going into our heads,” and Patrick would say “I felt like my brain was being sucked out.” They also claimed that their voices became distorted and that they moved sluggishly, as if underwater or experiencing a slowing of time itself. Things would intensify when they then felt the car physically lift off of the road, after which they were shaken violently from side to side as a grey mist filled the car and dropped back down with such force that it blew one of their tires and disabled the vehicle to leave to leave it lying in that unforgiving place like a wounded beast. Fay Knowles would say of the otherworldly encounter:

I wound down the window and I felt this thing on the roof… all of this smoke stuff started coming into the car, the car was covered in black stuff. It was a small light and all of a sudden it became big like this, like a big ball. We thought we were dying, then we got out the car and we hid behind a little tree and the bushes and it couldn’t find us.

When the cowering family were sure the object was gone, they warily went back to their car, changed the tire, and got out of there as fast as they could, eventually making their way to Mundrabilla, where they excitedly told of what had happened to them. Interestingly, a trucker at the gas station there would tell them that he had also seen the strange, eerie light out over the desert as well. When their car was examined, it was found to be banged up, and both the exterior and interior covered with a fine film of black material like soot or ash that had an unusual odor like “a blown fuse.” The Knowles were able to get some truckers to go with them out to where the incident had supposedly occurred, where they allegedly found odd skid marks on the road that seemed to show that the vehicle has been dragged sideways by some powerful force, making it all even stranger.

South Australian Police in Ceduna were notified, and analyses of the soot on the car would be carried out that later prove to be divisive, with some saying it was merely sand and dust particles from the desert, while others claimed that there were also traces of an explosive compound called Potassium Chlorate, as well as a radioactive chemical called Astatine. Yet another analysis found that the dust on the outside of the car and that of the interior were different. The surprising differences of these results seem like they would deserve more follow-up, but oddly the South Australia police were apparently very eager to distance themselves from it all, finish the investigation, and sweep it under the carpet, and the whole case was just sort of filed away even as it was hitting the news in a big way. This would cause Faye Knowles to lament:

We are all angry. Everybody knows that this happened to us but the people who should be concerned have just ignored it. There has been a cover-up. The government owes us and the public an explanation.

Theories on what might have happened to the Knowles family out on that lonely and forbidding stretch of road have swirled ever since, ranging from the mundane to the far-out. One idea is that they had been tired from a 13-hour car ride all night along an isolated road in the middle of nowhere, and had then perhaps misidentified some natural phenomenon in their fatigued state. This has been speculated as perhaps being a truck’s headlights in the distance or the planet Venus, that were distorted by a temperature inversion, which is basically a layer of warm air over cooler air that can cause mirages and tricks of light. However, this in no way explains their car being picked up off of the ground and dropped.

It has also been suggested that they might have experienced a meteor that just happened to disintegrate and cause a shockwave near their car, or even a rocket fired from a military base at nearby Woomera. Other theories include that they were caught in a dust storm or some sort of electromagnetic storm, but none of these really fits all of the details of the encounter. Of course there is the idea that this was an actual UFO abduction, and a possibly even weirder idea is that it was an attack by a secret government organization using a helicopter and a powerful, technologically advanced electromagnet to lift the vehicle up. Researcher William Buckley has said of this strange idea:

The attack on the Knowles family was orchestrated and carried out by a well-resourced paramilitary organization operating in Australia, using a sophisticated helicopter with specialized lifting equipment. The Knowles’ involvement was purely accidental. They were not the intended target and were attacked only because they resembled the real target group who were also travelling on the same road that night. The nature of this covert action by this paramilitary group and the importance of the assassination attempt on the real target group are now shrouded in secrecy and cover-up and nobody wants the truth to be revealed.

This is obviously a case of attempted murder of four people who were all extremely traumatised by this hour-long attack. There was plenty of forensic evidence and witnesses to prove that the family was attacked and a major police investigation should have been triggered to uncover the truth.

Not quite as interesting as any of these is the idea that the family was trying to pull an insurance scam or even that it was just a flat-out hoax. For their part, the Knowles family has always insisted that what they experienced was very real, and very frightening, and they have never sought to gain fame or large amounts of money from any of it, mostly lying low about the whole thing. What happened to this family out on that bleak stretch of road? What forces came calling for them to follow them around and terrorize them? Was this aliens, a weather phenomenon, or something else? No one really knows, and the case remains controversial and debated to this day.

23-01-2020 om 09:37 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:UFOs , UAPs , USOS

THE ASTEROID THAT KILLED THE DINOSAURS ALSO CREATED A MASSIVE VOLCANIC ERUPTION

New study reconsiders that one time the universe got a little too excited about catastrophes.

About 65 million years ago, the dinosaurs went extinct. We know this. And scientists suspect the reason was an asteroid coming to an abrupt halt just off the Yucatan Peninsula. But new research suggests there was another layer to the cataclysm: The asteroid hit the earth so hard that it spurred a massive volcanic eruption on the Indian subcontinent that helped eradicate other dinosaurs who might have survived as well as killing 70 percent of the Earth’s entire species.

At least those are conclusions from a new study published Thursday in Science, authored by American and Indian researchers spread across the globe.

The consensus among scientists is that a huge asteroid crashed into the planet and spurred the mass extinction of life at the end of the Cretaceous period, and resulted in the Chicxulub crater at the edge of the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico.

At the same time, India was rife with volcanic activity in a place known as the Deccan Traps, a 200,000 square mile region that used to be basically covered in lava flow. More than 65 million years ago, the Deccan Traps began forming after a series of volcanic eruptions that are thought have lasted about 30,000 years.

The Deccan Traps, east of Mumbai

Nichalp, via Wikimedia Commons

The asteroid isn’t thought to have outright caused the initial volcanic eruptions, but rather augmented the intensity. The impact from the Chicxulub crash most likely caused earthquakes of about a magnitude 11, which would have shaken the planet’s crust up enough so molten rock could begin flowing out. The more magma was flowing up to the surface, the more unstable the things got. Cue explosions, fire, and dinopocalypse.

The research is an early stepping point to bridging the gap between the asteroid and the volcanic activity. Scientists will need to do a lot more work before we have a better picture about how all of this went down long ago. What’s for certain is that both of these events, individually, were capable of profoundly changing the world as it was. The odds of them happening together are extraordinarily rare — and the consequences were that much more transformative for the future of the Earth.

23-01-2020 om 00:19 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ASTRONOMIE / RUIMTEVAART

Scientists Find Mechanism That Extends Worm Lifespans by 500 Percent

main article image

Scientists Find Mechanism That Extends Worm Lifespans by 500 Percent

CARLY CASSELLA

A few simple genetic changes is all it takes to prolong a worm's life span by 500 percent, a new study has found.

That's much longer than we ever expected, and scientists working the problem think results such as these might help us understand our own ageing process a little better.

That's because worms like the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans can actually tell us a lot about the workings of the human body. Compared to mammals, these simple little fellas live for only two or three weeks, which makes them perfect for studying various genes and metabolic pathways also shared by humans.

In the past, for instance, scientists have shown that altering the insulin signalling pathway (IIS) in worms yields a 100 percent increase in their lifespan; meanwhile, changes in the so-called TOR pathway (target of rapamycin) result in a 30 percent increase.

This latest study has managed to genetically alter both pathways in just the right way to cause a result four or five times greater than the sum of their separate effects.

"The synergistic extension is really wild," says molecular biologist Jarod Rollins from the the MDI Biological Laboratory in Maine.

"The effect isn't one plus one equals two, it's one plus one equals five."

These findings show that ageing is not simply the result of one individual gene or pathway acting on its own, but rather a confluence of networks all working together in the long-term.

This could certainly explain why no one gene or cellular pathway has been found that can provide longer life for either worms, humans or any other animal for that matter.

When tweaks were made to both the IIS and the TOR pathways, the authors found their downstream activity worked synergistically, inducing a mitochondrial stress response that promoted longevity.

Whether or not something like this mechanism proves directly useful in humans remains to be seen, but knowledge of this relationship has certainly opened up new avenues for research.

Unfortunately, because of the long lives of humans, scientists find it quite hard to study our own ageing (it's also not ideal to play around with our genes just to see what happens), so we have to rely on animal proxies like mice, flies and worms instead. In fact, last year researchers were able to extend the lifespan of a mouse and decrease its chances of cancer by extending its telomeres.

But even with all the scientific limitations on human ageing research, we've had some progress. This year a human clinical trial is going to test the drug metformin, a widely-used treatment for type 2 diabetes that has the potential to delay the onset of age-related diseases like cancer, cardiovascular disease, and Alzheimer's disease.

Perhaps this new research on C. elegans will open similar doors for clinical trials in the future.

"Despite the discovery in C. elegans of cellular pathways that govern ageing, it hasn't been clear how these pathways interact," says nephrologist Hermann Haller, president of the MDI Biological Laboratory.

"By helping to characterise these interactions, our scientists are paving the way for much-needed therapies to increase healthy lifespan for a rapidly ageing population."

The study was published in Cell Reports.

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

23-01-2020 om 00:09 geschreven door peter

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22-01-2020

Betelguese's bizarre dimming has astronomers scratching their heads

One of the night sky's brightest stars is now the faintest it's been in a century. Astronomers aren't sure what it means.

By Erika K. Carlson

This artist's impression shows a vast amount of material being flung into space from Betelgeuse.

ESO/L. Calcada

Over the last few weeks, Betelgeuse, the bright reddish star in the constellation Orion, has dimmed to the faintest it's been in a century. Astronomers have been buzzing with excitement about the event, discussing the star over social media and speculating what might be going on.

The big question on everyone’s mind is whether the star is about to go supernova and explode. That’s probably not what’s about to happen, astronomers say, but they’re still excited to be witnessing behavior they’ve never seen from Betelgeuse before. There’s a lot astronomers still don’t know about the variable behavior of supergiant stars like Betelgeuse, so any strange activity is a chance to learn more about the lives of stars.

A Fading Supergiant

For over a century, astronomers have watched Betelgeuse brighten and dim again and again. Betelgeuse is a red supergiant, a star late in its life that has expanded to an enormous size. Bubbles of material rise from inside the star to its surface and sink back down, changing the mix of hotter and cooler stuff on the star’s surface. These changes make Betelgeuse appear brighter and fainter over time.

For about 25 years, Richard Wasatonic, an astronomer at Villanova University in Pennsylvania, has measured the brightness of Betelgeuse with a 10-inch diameter telescope in his backyard. He's worked with another Villanova astronomer named Edward Guinan, as well as an amateur astronomer named Thomas Calderwood. In October, they noticed that Betelgeuse was getting fainter again. By early December, they realized that Betelgeuse had gotten fainter than it had in the past 25 years and put out a post on a site known as The Astronomer’s Telegram to alert other astronomers.

“It kept getting fainter,” Guinan said. “Every night, it was fainter than the previous night, and I said, ‘Well, it has to stop soon.’ And it hasn’t.”

On Dec. 23, they posted an update. Betelgeuse had gotten fainter still, and it was now the faintest it has been in the last century or so — for as long as astronomers have been able to measure its brightness with detectors rather than judging by eye. At its brightest, Betelgeuse is usually one of the six or seven brightest stars visible to humans in the night sky. By mid-December, it had dropped several places on that list, to 21st brightest.

About to Blow?

The unusual dimming episode has made some astronomers wonder whether Betelgeuse is about to go supernova. Life on Earth would be fine if Betelgeuse did explode.

Based on its mass, astronomers estimate that the supergiant will go supernova when it’s roughly 9 million years old. According to Guinan, Betelgeuse is probably between 8 and 9 million years old now. Astronomers have recently estimated that Betelgeuse might be due for a supernova in about 100,000 years or so. When it blows, it'll be spectacular. The explosion will be about half as bright as the full Moon, Guinan said. Anyone lucky enough to be around would be able to see it shine during the day for months until it fades away.

Astronomers have carefully observed the behaviors of many stars after they exploded as supernovae. But no one has had a detailed look at how a star behaves leading up to a supernova. So astronomers don’t really know whether the current dimming event is leading up to a supernova. What they do know is that it’d be pretty unlikely for the explosion to go off now when there’s so much uncertainty in their understanding of Betelgeuse’s behavior and even its age.

Guinan and his team will keep monitoring Betelgeuse, as they have been for decades. Based on Betelgeuse's past dimming and brightening patterns — the star seems to cycle in brightness both every 6 years or so and every 425 days — they expect that it'll get its faintest in January and then get brighter again. But they'll have to see if that's the case.

"It defies prediction," Guinan said. "It's hard to predict what it’s going to do in the future."

{ https://astronomy.com/ }

22-01-2020 om 23:50 geschreven door peter

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Strange night flashes, vibrations and ‘humming noise’ in Ohio town spark talk of UFO

A strange series of color flashes that turned the night sky reddish in Bethel, Ohio, has gotten international attention, as people scramble for a good explanation.

So far, nobody seems to have one, even after a week of debate.

A doorbell video, posted on Facebook by Tim Walker, shows a series of rapid flashes that changed in color and size over 20 seconds, from white to a red that filled the horizon.

It was recorded Jan. 12, just before 7 p.m., as Walker was rolling a trash bin outside his home about 30 miles southeast of Cincinnati.

“Anybody else see this tonight?” he wrote on Facebook. “The sky was flashing pink and purple - super bright. Thought it might be lightning, but it’s fairly cold (40 degrees), and there was no thunder. ...It was crazy — super bright.”

After circulating online, the U.S. Navy has confirmed the authenticity of videos taken in 2004 and 2015 from its planes that show unidentified objects flying through the air. BY AP

It’s been a week and Walker told McClatchy News Monday that “we have not gotten any explanation yet on what this was.”

He and his daughter, Carolyn, were both frightened by the flashes, which he says “got brighter and brighter.” The family lives next to a 4,800-acre state park, where quiet is the norm after sunset.

“The first thing that came to mind was what just happened with Iran, and I thought it might be a nuclear explosion. It was that bright and that powerful,” Walker told McClatchy. “I was in the Army and it reminded me of phosphorescent flares we used that light up the whole sky.”

His daughter was the first to see it, he said.

“I was scared,” she told Fox 19 News. “I thought it was an explosion when I first saw it, so it made me really nervous.”

Commenters on Walker’s video have also shared concerns, with Kendra Fox pointing out: “This is how every alien world domination movie starts!!”

Walker wasn’t the only one to see it, April Pierce said on Facebook.

“So many people are posting about it in Bethel and Amelia,” she wrote. “Some people said their power even flickered on and off.”

Walker didn’t report hearing an explosion of any kind accompanying the flashes, but Kat Carmosino said she heard a noise that added to the unnerving experience.

“We were in between Amelia and New Richmond, when the power went out there was the light show. The floor was vibrating and there was a humming noise. It was really odd,” she wrote.

The phenomenon has been covered by news outlets in Europe such as The Daily Mail, which said “there has been no logical explanation.”

While a UFO and aliens have come up as ideas, more down-to-earth speculation has included fireworks, a meteor and a transformer explosion. And the UK Express had a headline that asked: “Mystery US Military test exposed?”

Duke Energy told Fox19 that “584 customers lost power for two minutes just before 7 p.m. Sunday,” but a crew sent to inspect the line “found no issues.”

Strange lights off the Outer Banks spark UFO debate: Was it aliens or the military?

OCTOBER 04, 2019 8:15 AM

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Strange UFO-shaped hole appears in the clouds, but alien landing not likely in NC

NOVEMBER 11, 2019 1:32 PM

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Strange ‘rotating disc’ caught on video by driver stuck in NC traffic. Is it a UFO?

NOVEMBER 08, 2019 11:14 AM

Tim Walker of Bethel, Ohio, posted this video on Jan. 12, asking if others saw it. The lights have yet to be explained.

Tim Walker of Bethel, Ohio, posted this video on Jan. 12, asking if others saw it. The lights have yet to be explained.

FACEBOOK VIDEO SCREENSHOT/TIM WALKER

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

22-01-2020 om 23:40 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

Hollywood's UFO Stories Are Becoming Way More Realistic

The Pentagon admits UFOs are real. So Hollywood is making a flurry of movies and TV shows about how we should look for them.

By MJ Banias

UFOs are everywhere, and Hollywood has noticed. Talking about UFOs is no longer fringe, with former Blink-182 singer Tom DeLonge getting the U.S. military to admit that it has videos of UFOs.

Small and big screens alike have always carried alien and UFOs. From films like Close Encounters of the Third Kind to Contact to Arrival and even The Avengers franchise, bizarre aliens and their vehicles have come to Earth and have had audiences the world over question the existence of extraterrestrials. But there is an increased focus on UFO hunters in Hollywood.

“I think it’s fair to say that it is, and that this resurgence in popularity is a direct result of the Pentagon UFO revelations of 2017, which captured the attention of the establishment press like no UFO story has in decades,” Robbie Graham, media critic and author of Silver Screen Saucers: Sorting Fact from Fantasy in Hollywood's UFO Movies, said. “This helped to legitimize UFOs as a topic of mainstream debate and has opened up new scientific and political lines of inquiry for TV producers who are always looking for fresh approaches to this enduringly popular subject.”

Recent polls indicate a little over half of Americans believe UFOs exist and one third buy into the belief that they are alien spacecraft, Graham isn’t totally convinced that UFOs will be the next big thing. He does point out that young people are being drawn into the subject matter like never before.

“It does seem that UFOlogy is not quite as dorky as it once was, thanks to an influx over the past several years of relatively young and trendy researchers who have been drawn to the subject through its newfound legitimacy. UFOlogy was once an old person’s game; now it’s a young person’s game,” stated Graham.

In 2017, former lead singer for Blink 182, Tom DeLonge, publicly announced his UFO/technology/media company, To the Stars Academy, alongside the New York Times article announcing a secret Pentagon program designed to study anomalous phenomena. Young gun UFO enthusiasts turned to social media, #UFOTwitter became an actual hashtag and the once invisible UFO discourse became incredibly public.

“I think people are more open to considering it as a real phenomenon as opposed to just psychology,” Aiden Gillen told Motherboard in an interview. Gillen, known best for playing the role of Littlefinger in HBO’s Game of Thrones, plays Dr. J. Allen Hynek in History Channel’s Project Blue Book, which returns next week. “I suppose you could have said that in the 50s and 60s as well, in the age of science, that people would be more open to the idea that we're not alone in the universe. I'm also fully aware of how unlikely it is that we will find each other.”

Project Blue Book is a fictional TV series about the infamous 1950’s and 60’s Air Force UFO investigation program of the same name.

Gillen said that humans are naturally curious about UFOs.

“It's inevitable that you are going to wonder. This is something that people have done since we began standing on our own two feet as a species. ‘What's up there?’ It's always been, ‘What's up there?’” he said. While Gillen doesn’t think the government should be spending vast sums of money chasing UFOs, as we have more direct problems to deal with, he does think that talking about UFOs is no longer taboo.

“I think there is something that is becoming cool about UFOs. It’s easier to talk about or reference,” Gillen explained. “I feel like Close Encounters of the Third Kind is one of the coolest films of the 70s, and when this role came my way, I actually thought, ‘This is fucking cool.’”

While TV dramas like Project Blue Book are fictional, reality UFO themed programs still have a long way to go.

They “depict presenters chasing lights in the sky in Jeeps while wearing night-vision goggles and brandishing walkie-talkies. It’s nonsensical and devoid of educational value. It doesn’t have to be this way though, and this coming wave of factual UFO TV shows will likely reflect the more serious tone that the mainstream news media have begun to adopt with this topic,” Graham said. “Certainly, UFOs are ‘selling’ like never before. They’re hot property in TV land right now, and everybody wants to stake a claim.”

{ https://www.vice.com/en_in }

22-01-2020 om 23:20 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:UFOs , UAPs , USOS

EARTH’S OLDEST ASTEROID IMPACT ‘MAY HAVE ENDED ICE AGE’

Image copyrightINTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION

Image caption

An image of the Yarrabubba area taken from the International Space Station

Scientists have identified the world's oldest asteroid crater in Australia, adding it may explain how the planet was lifted from an ice age.

The asteroid hit Yarrabubba in Western Australia about 2.2 billion years ago - making the crater about half the age of Earth, researchers say.

Their conclusion was reached by testing minerals found in rocks at the site.

The scientists say the find is exciting because it could account for a warming event during that era.

The Curtin University research was published in the journal Nature Communications on Wednesday.

How did they date it?

The crater was discovered in the dry outback in 1979, but geologists had not previously tested how old it was.

Due to billions of years of erosion, the crater is not visible to the eye. Scientists mapped scars in the area's magnetic field to determine its 70km (43 miles) diameter.

A marked photograph and map of the crater in Western Australia

Image copyrightCURTIN UNIVERSITY

Image caption

Yarrabubba is located about 600km north-east of the city of Perth

"The landscape is actually very flat because it's so old, but the rocks there are distinctive," researcher Prof Chris Kirkland told the BBC.

To determine when the asteroid hit Earth, the team examined tiny zircon and monazite crystals in the rocks. They were "shocked" in the strike and now can be read like "tree rings", Prof Kirkland said.

These crystals hold tiny amounts of uranium. Because uranium decays into lead at a consistent pace, the researchers were able to calculate how much time had passed.

A shocked zircon crystal used to date the Yarrabubba impact. The margin (pink) re-crystallised during impact, leaving the inner core (blue) intact.

Image copyrightCURTIN UNIVERSITY

Image caption

A zircon crystal used to date the impact Yarrabubba

It is at least 200 million years older than the next most ancient impact structure - the Vredefort Dome in South Africa.

"We were interested in the area because the Western Australian landscape is very old but we didn't expected [the crater] to be as old as this," Prof Kirkland said.

"It's absolutely possible that there's an older crater out there just waiting to be discovered, but the difficulty is in finding the crust before it erodes and you lose that early Earth history".

Could it have ended an ice age?

The timing of the impact could also explain why the world warmed around this time, according to the researchers.

Scientists believe the planet was previously in one of its "Snowball Earth" periods, when it was largely covered in ice. At some point, the ice sheets melted and the planet began to rapidly warm.

The ancient memories trapped in the world's glaciers

"The age of the [crater] corresponds pretty precisely with the end of a potential global glacial period," Prof Kirkland said.

"So the impact may have had significant changes to our planetary climate."

Using computer modelling, the team calculated that the asteroid struck a kilometres-thick ice sheet covering the Earth. The event would have released huge volumes of water vapour, a greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere.

This could have helped the planet's warming during the Proterozoic era - a stage when oxygen had just appeared in the atmosphere and complex life had not yet formed.

A view of the Yarrabubba crater looking west from Barlangi Rock, an outcrop of impact melt rock near the centre of the crater

Image copyrightTIMMONS ERICKSON

Image caption

The crater as seen from Barlangi Rock, with an outcrop in its centre

"Obviously we were very excited just with the age itself," Prof Kirkland said. "But placing that right with the context of Earth's other events makes it become really very interesting."

There is not enough modelling from the time to comprehensively test the theory, but "the rocks tell a story about the massive impact into the planet".

Another theory for the warming event is that volcanic eruptions may have pushed carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

{ https://newsfortomorrow.com/ }

22-01-2020 om 23:04 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ASTRONOMIE / RUIMTEVAART

Astrophysicists find massive black holes wandering around dwarf galaxies

New research has uncovered the presence of at least thirteen ‘wandering’ black holes in dwarf galaxies. Something, that until recently was not believed possible.

A new search led by Montana State University has revealed more than a dozen massive black holes in dwarf galaxies that were previously considered too small to host them, and surprised scientists with their location within the galaxies.

The study, headed by MSU astrophysicist Amy Reines, searched 111 dwarf galaxies within a billion light years of Earth using the National Science Foundation’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, two hours outside Albuquerque in the plains of New Mexico. Reines identified 13 galaxies that “almost certainly” host massive black holes and found something unexpected: The majority of the black holes were not in the location she anticipated.

“All of the black holes I had found before were in the centers of galaxies,” said Reines, an assistant professor in the Department of Physics in the College of Letters and Science and a researcher in MSU’s eXtreme Gravity Institute. “These were roaming around the outskirts. I was blown away when I saw this.”

The eXtreme Gravity Institute brings together physicists and astronomers to study phenomena where the forces of gravity are so strong they blur the separation between space and time, such as the big bang, neutron stars and black holes.

There are two main types of black holes, incredibly dense areas of space with gravitational pulls strong enough to capture light. Smaller, stellar black holes form as large stars die and are roughly 10 times the mass of our sun, according to Reines. The other type, known as supermassive or massive black holes, tend to be found at the center of galaxies and can have masses millions or even billions that of our sun. Scientists don’t know how they are created.

The Milky Way, a spiral galaxy consisting of somewhere between 100 and 400 billion stars, has a massive black hole at its center, Sagittarius A*. Dwarf galaxies can be of any shape, but are much smaller than the Milky Way, with up to a few billion stars.

Reines’ results confirm predictions from recent computer simulations by Jillian Bellovary, an assistant professor at Queensborough Community College in New York and Research Associate at the American Museum of Natural History, which postulated that black holes may often be off-center in dwarf galaxies due to the way galaxies interact as they move through space. The findings may change how scientists look for black holes in dwarf galaxies in the future.

“We need to expand searches to target the whole galaxy, not just the nuclei where we previously expected black holes to be,” Reines said.

Reines’ paper, “A New Sample of (Wandering) Massive Black Holes in Dwarf Galaxies from High Resolution Radio Observations,” was published Jan. 3 in The Astrophysical Journal, and Reines reported the findings at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Honolulu, Hawaii, on Jan. 5.

Reines has been searching the skies for black holes for a decade. As a graduate student at the University of Virginia, she focused on star formation in dwarf galaxies, but in her research she found something else that captured her interest: a massive black hole “in a little dwarf galaxy where it wasn’t supposed to be.”

Thirty million light years from Earth, the dwarf galaxy Henize 2-10 was previously believed to be too small to host a massive black hole. Conventional wisdom told us that all massive galaxies with a spheroidal component have a massive black hole, Reines explained, and little dwarf galaxies didn’t. Yet Reines found one in the center of the dwarf galaxy. It was a “eureka” moment, she said. Her findings were published in the journal Nature in 2011 and Reines turned her research to searching for other black holes in dwarf galaxies.

“Once I started looking for these things on purpose, I started finding a whole bunch,” Reines said.

Her next search of the universe shifted to visual data rather than radio signals. It uncovered over 100 possible black holes in the first systematic search of a parent sample of more than 40,000 dwarf galaxies. For her latest search, described in the paper released this month, Reines wanted to go back and look for radio signatures in that sample, which she said would allow her to find massive black holes in star-forming dwarf galaxies. Only one galaxy was identified using both methods.

“There are lots of opportunities to make new discoveries because studying black holes in dwarf galaxies is a new field,” she said. “People are definitely captivated by black holes. They’re mysterious and fascinating objects.”

Reines’ discoveries have poured new energy into the search for black holes in dwarf galaxies, opening up new areas of astrophysics as she and other scientists attempt to discover how these massive black holes form.

“When new discoveries break our current understanding of the way things work, we find even more questions than we had before,” said Yves Idzerda, head of the Department of Physics at MSU.

Provided by: Montana State University

More information: Amy E. Reines et al. A New Sample of (Wandering) Massive Black Holes in Dwarf Galaxies from High-resolution Radio Observations. The Astrophysical Journal (2020). DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/ab4999

Image: A new search led by Montana State University astrophysicist Amy Reines has revealed more than a dozen massive black holes in dwarf galaxies that were previously considered too small to host them, surprising scientists with their location within the galaxies.
Credit: MSU, Adrian Sanchez-Gonzalez

{ https://sciencebulletin.org/ }

22-01-2020 om 22:50 geschreven door peter

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Mythical Benben Stone: The Landing Site of Egyptian God Atum

The Benben stone is an object that is found in the mythology of ancient Egypt. This mythical stone is said to have once been housed in a shrine within the compounds of the temple dedicated to the deity Atum in Heliopolis. The Benben stone is also an architectural term, and is the name given to the tip of an obelisk or the capstone placed on top of a pyramid. This architectural feature is known also as a pyramidion (or pyramidia in its plural form).

In the mythology of ancient Egypt, there are several accounts of the creation of the world. One of these is centred on the god Atum, and had its origins in the city of Heliopolis. According to this version of the creation story, the universe was brought into being by Atum. In the beginning, there was nothing but darkness and chaos. It was out of the dark waters that the primordial hill, known as the Benben stone arose, on top of which stood Atum. As the Benben stone rose from the primeval waters, it has been suggested that this word is associated with the verb ‘weben’, which is the Egyptian hieroglyph for ‘to rise’.

The god Atum, First book of respirations of Usirur

The god Atum, First book of respirations of Usirur

( public domain )

According to another interpretation, the Benben stone was the primeval hill on which Atum first landed. The god looked around, and realised that there was nothing around him but darkness and chaos, and that he was all alone. Desiring companionship, Atum began the work of creation. In some versions of the myth, Atum masturbated, and through this act, created Shu (the god of air) and Tefnut (the goddess of moisture). In other versions of the story, these deities were created by Atum’s copulation with his own shadow. Shu and Tefnut left Atum on the Benben stone, and went away to create the rest of the world. After some time, Atum is said to have grown worried about his children. Removing his eye, he sent it in search of them. Shu and Tefnut returned with their father’s eye, and the deity, seeing his children return, shed tears of joy. These teardrops, which fell on the Benben stone that Atum was standing on, transformed into human beings.

Pyramidion of Hori, New Kingdom 18th Dynasty 1350 BC, Limestone

Pyramidion of Hori, New Kingdom 18th Dynasty 1350 BC, Limestone

( Mary Harrsch / Flickr )

The Benben stone is also recorded to have been a sacred object that was once kept in the special shrine known as the ‘hwt benben’, which translates as ‘House of the Benben’. This sacred relic was the innermost sanctuary of the temple in Heliopolis, where Atum once served as its chief deity. The original cult object is said to have been lost at some point of time in history. Nevertheless, based on pictorial evidence, it has been suggested that this was an upright stone with a rounded top. It has also been pointed out that later on, other solar temples would also have their own Benben stones. For example, the temple of Aten in El-Amarna / Akhetaten, that was built by the 18 ^th Dynasty pharaoh, Akhenaten, during the 14 ^th century B.C., is recorded to have possessed a Benben stone of its own.

Pyramidion of king's writer Pauty, Saqqara

Pyramidion of king's writer Pauty, Saqqara

( Rob Koopman / Flickr )

Apart from being the name of a cult object, the Benben stone is also used to describe a type of ancient Egyptian architectural element. To the ancient Egyptians, this was known as a ‘benbenet’ (the feminine form of ‘benben’), whereas for people today, the stone is known also as a pyramidion. This term is used to describe the capstone that was placed either on the top of a pyramid or on the top of an obelisk. It has been said that in the case of the former, the pyramidion is often covered with electrum or gold. Examples of pyramidions have survived, and may be found in museums. One, for instance, is the pyramidion that once topped the 12 ^th Dynasty Pyramid of Amenemhat III, which is today displayed in the Egyptian museum in Cairo.

The golden capstone of an obelisk in Luxor

The golden capstone of an obelisk in Luxor

( public domain )

Featured image: The Benben stone (pyramidion) from the Pyramid of Amenemhat III, Egyptian museum, Cairo. Photo source: Wikimedia.

By Wu Mingren

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

22-01-2020 om 21:32 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ARCHEOLOGIE ( E, Nl, Fr )

Gigantische massa onbekend materiaal op de maan ontdekt - HLN.be

Bron: CNN, Inverse

REUTERS

De achterkant van de maan, in beeld gebracht door de Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

WETENSCHAP Diep onder de oppervlakte van de maan zit een enorme massa onbekend materiaal. Dat hebben onderzoekers van Baylor University ontdekt. De massa komt overeen met een gigantische hoeveelheid metaal, meer dan vijf keer zo groot als het eiland Corsica.

De onverwachte massa bevindt zich onder het Zuidpool-Aitken-bekken, een enorme inslagkrater op de maan van 13 km diep en ongeveer 2.000 km breed. De ovale krater - een van de grootste in het zonnestelsel - is niet zichtbaar vanop de aarde, omdat hij zich aan de achterkant van de maan bevindt.

De ontdekte massa is er een van minstens twee triljoen kilogram - 350 miljoen keer zwaarder dan de Piramide van Cheops - en zou tot meer dan 300 km diepte onder de oppervlakte van de maan begraven liggen. De massa werd ontdekt op basis van gegevens verzameld tijdens de Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory-missie van NASA in 2011. Die data werden gekoppeld aan de topografie van de maan zoals de Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter die in kaart bracht. Bleek dat de instrumenten onder het Zuidpool-Aitken-bekken iets erg abnormaals hadden opgepikt. Waarschijnlijk is de mysterieuze massa afkomstig van een inslag op de maan meer dan vier miljard jaar geleden, zo stelt het team van professor Peter B. James.

De maan zelf zou 4,5 miljard jaar geleden gevormd zijn na een botsing tussen de aarde en een planeet met de omvang van Mars. De meest plausibele verklaring is, volgens de wetenschappers, dat de maan zich kort na haar vorming stabiliseerde en dat daarna een grote asteroïde aan relatief lage snelheid is ingeslagen op de maan. Met vervolgens de kolossale metaalmassa als restant.

Maar professor James heeft nog een andere verklaring: de massa zou ook een concentratie van dichte oxiden kunnen zijn die kristalliseerden in de maankorst tijdens de latere stadia van het stollen van het magma van de maan. Verder onderzoek dringt zich dus nog op. De huidige studie werd gepubliceerd in Geophysical Research Letters.

Selectie video's door peter2011

22-01-2020 om 21:07 geschreven door peter

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’s Werelds oudste krater ligt in West-Australië en maakte volgens onderzoekers “een einde aan de superijstijd” - HLN.be

Google Maps

Yarrabubba in West-Australië is 's werelds oudste krater.

WETENSCHAP De Yarrabubba-krater is er eentje om U tegen te zeggen. Naar schatting is hij wel 70 kilometer diep waardoor de krater een groot gebied in West-Australië beslaat. Het is ’s werelds oudste krater en hij maakte wellicht een einde aan de ijstijd. Dat schrijven onderzoekers in vakblad Nature Communications.

De naam Yarabubba doet misschien denken aan een of andere planeet uit Star Wars, in werkelijkheid gaat het om ’s werelds oudste krater. Kenners wisten al langer dat de grandioze inslagkrater bestond, maar dat Yarrabubba wel 2,229 miljard jaar oud is, hadden ze nooit durven denken.

Nu, dankzij een nieuwe ouderdomsbepaling, is de krater plotsklaps ’s werelds oudste exemplaar. Daarmee stoot hij de Vredefort-krater in Zuid-Afrika – die ‘slechts’ 2 miljard jaar oud is – van de troon.

Einde van de superijstijd

Bovendien kan de nieuwe, oudere leeftijd van Yarrabubba betekenen dat hij een rol speelde bij het einde van de superijstijd, opperen de onderzoekers. Op het moment van de inslag was het immers ontzettend koud maar de daaropvolgende 400 miljoen jaar niet meer. De onderzoekers suggereren dat er door de inslag immense hoeveelheden ijs verdampt zijn. De waterdamp, was een broeikasgas is, zou tot een stijging van de temperatuur hebben geleid. Wil men dat bevestigd zien, dient een vervolgonderzoek op poten gezet te worden.

De leeftijd van een asteroïde bepalen

Een asteroïde die inslaat, is een van de meest gewelddadige geologische gebeurtenissen. In een oogwenk staat de aardkorst onder zodanig veel druk dat die als het ware explodeert. Grote inslagen kunnen littekens achterlaten ter grootte van een kleine stad.

Miljarden jaren later merk je echter weinig van die littekens. Alleen specialisten kunnen de vlaktes met in het midden een verdikking, herkennen. Vervolgens worden de microscopische korrels zirkoon en monaziet – het gesteente dat ontstaat bij een inslag – bestudeerd. Die bestaan uit hoge concentraties radioactief uranium en thorium waarmee men de absolute ouderdom van de gesteentes kan bepalen.

De bronafbeelding bekijken

De Yarrabubba-krater is wel 70 kilometer diep en beslaat daarmee een groot gebied in West-Australië.

Nature Communications

De Yarrabubba-krater is wel 70 kilometer diep en beslaat daarmee een groot gebied in West-Australië.

selectie video's door peter2011

22-01-2020 om 20:49 geschreven door peter

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Tube-Shaped UFO Sighting Above Massachusetts

A video of a puzzling, glittering object seen above Massachusetts has sparked conspiracy claims, just like the weird snake-like UFO sightings that made the rounds online last year.

John Baglio uploaded the video on Facebook. He shot the footage while driving on the highway between Boston and Malden with his son. According to John, he had caught a glimpse of a spinning bright, white object over his head. The UFO is shown moving from one chemtrail to the other, slowly diminishing in size.

One commenter suggested that this type of object was frequently observed elsewhere across the US, Mexico, and England. They said the craft was cylinder-shaped and approximately 200 feet long.

John said the object was around the same size as a bus and it was hovering low over the highway around 200 feet. He explained that the UFO was right above them, they drove directly under it and it had two big lights that were facing forwards while the object in question was moving.

John said that they could not hear anything from the object, unlike a plane that would have been incredibly loud even from the inside of a car.

22-01-2020 om 20:25 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

Could future moon homes be made of fungi?

Posted by Eleanor Imster in HUMAN WORLD | SPACE

For future homes on the moon, Mars, and other worlds, NASA is exploring technologies that would use mushrooms to grow self-repairing, self-replicating habitats.

Instead of building future moon structures of metal and glass, NASA is exploring technologies that could grow structures out of fungi for future habitats on the moon, Mars and other worlds.

A fungus is a group of organisms, including mushrooms and molds, that produces spores and eats up organic material. NASA researchers are investigating the potential of mycelia – the nutrient-absorbing, underground threads that make up a fungus’s main bulk – to help construct outposts on the moon and Mars. These tiny threads build complex structures with extreme precision, networking out into larger structures like mushrooms. With the right conditions, say the researchers, they can be coaxed into making new structures, ranging from a material similar to leather to the building blocks for a Mars habitat. The NASA researchers call it myco-architecture.

EarthSky 2020 lunar calendars are available! Only a few left. Order now!

Black-gloved hands holding small round dish with branching fibers on it.

A researcher holding a petri dish containing mycelia – the underground threads that make up the main part of a fungus – growing in simulated Martian soil, also known as Martian regolith.

Image via NASA/ Ames Research Center/ Lynn Rothschild

NASA astrobiologist Lynn Rothschild is the principal investigator on the early-stage project. She said in a statement:

Right now, traditional habitat designs for Mars are like a turtle – carrying our homes with us on our backs – a reliable plan, but with huge energy costs. Instead, we can harness mycelia to grow these habitats ourselves when we get there.

According to NASA:

Ultimately, the project envisions a future where human explorers can bring a compact habitat built out of a lightweight material with dormant fungi that will last on long journeys to places like Mars. Upon arrival, by unfolding that basic structure and simply adding water, the fungi will be able to grow around that framework into a fully functional human habitat – all while being safely contained within the habitat to avoid contaminating the Martian environment.

A fungi structure would be more than just a shell, say the researchers. It would have its own ecosystem of sorts, with multiple kinds of organisms alongside the humans it’s designed to protect. NASA said:

Just like the astronauts, fungal mycelia is a lifeform that has to eat and breathe. That’s where something called cyanobacteria comes in – a kind of bacterium that can use energy from the sun to convert water and carbon dioxide into oxygen and fungus food.

This research is part of a field known as synthetic biology: the study of how we can use life itself as technology, in this case fungi.

A stool constructed out of mycelia after two weeks of growth. The next step is a baking process that leads to a clean and functional piece of furniture. The myco-architecture project seeks to design not only for habitats, but for the furniture that could be grown inside them as well.

Image via 2018 Stanford-Brown-RISD iGEM Team/ NASA.

The researchers say the technologies could also be used here on Earth. For example, mycelia could be used for water filtration and biomining systems that can extract minerals from wastewater, bioluminescent lighting, humidity regulation and even self-generating habitats capable of healing themselves. Rothschild said:

When we design for space, we’re free to experiment with new ideas and materials with much more freedom than we would on Earth. And after these prototypes are designed for other worlds, we can bring them back to ours.

Bricks produced using mycelium, yard waste and wood chips as a part of the myco-architecture project. Similar materials could be used to build habitats on the moon or Mars.

Image via 2018 Stanford-Brown-RISD iGEM Team/ NASA.

Bottom line: NASA researchers are exploring technologies to build – and grow – structures on the moon and Mars made of mushrooms.
Via NASA

22-01-2020 om 17:33 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ASTRONOMIE / RUIMTEVAART

Meet the Chinese robot worm that could crawl into your brain

Scientists in Shenzhen are developing a machine that sounds like a form of ancient black magic because it could enter the brain and send signals to the neurons
Magnetically controlled device could be used to deliver drugs or interact directly with computers

Stephen Chen in Beijing

The device could be sent into the brain and transmit electric pulses to the neurons.

Photo: Shutterstock

According to an ancient southern Chinese form of black magic known as Gu a small poisonous creature similar to a worm could be grown in a pot and used to control a person’s mind.

Now a team of researchers in Shenzhen have created a robot worm that could enter the human body, move along blood vessels and hook up to the neurons.

“In a way it is similar to Gu,” said Xu Tiantian, a lead scientist for the project at the Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

“But our purpose is not developing a biological weapon. It’s the opposite,” she added.

In recent years, science labs around the world have produced many micro-bots but mostly they were only capable of performing some simple tasks.

But a series of videos released by the team alongside a study in Advanced Functional Materials earlier this month show that the tiny intelligent robots – which they dubbed iRobots – can hop over a hurdle, swim through a tube or squeeze through a gap half its body width.

The 1mm by 3mm robotic worms are not powered by computer chips or batteries, but by an external magnetic field generator.

A video from the team showed the robots performing a range of manoeuvres.

Photo: Handout

Changing the magnetic fields allows the researchers to twist the robot’s body in many different ways and achieve a wide range of movements such as crawling, swinging and rolling, according to their paper.

They can also squeeze through gaps by using infrared radiation to contract their bodies by more than a third.

The worm’s body is also capable of changing colour in different environments because it is made from a transparent, temperature-responsive hydrogel and the video shows that when added to a cup of water at room temperature they become almost invisible.

It also has a “head” made from a neodymium iron-boron magnet and a “tail” constructed from a special composite material.

Xu believes they will prove particularly useful for doctors in the future, for example by being injected into the body and delivering a package of drugs to a targeted area, for example a tumour.

This would limit the effect of the drug to the areas where it is needed and reduce the risk of side effects and the robot worm could exit the body once its task is complete.

The patient would need to lie in an MRI style machine that generates the magnetic field needed to control the robots during the procedure.

The robot worms are controlled by electromagnetic signals.

Photo: Handout

It could also be implanted into the brain because its high mobility and ability to transform means it can survive in this harsh environment where there are rapid blood flows and tiny blood vessels.

Currently, brain implants can only be inserted via a surgical procedure and have a limited capability to integrate with the neurons, which means they can only perform a few simple tasks.

But Xu said the new robots could “work as an implant for brain-computer interface” that would make it possible to communicate directly with a computer without needing a keyboard or even a screen.

She believes this would work by carrying a transmitter that converts external signals into an electric pulse and connect with brain cells to stimulate activities that are not possible using current technology.

Xu admitted that it may be possible to misuse the technology by turning it into a weapon, but said there were still some major barriers to making this effective.

For instance, the controller would need to build a powerful electric field generator with a long effective range to operate the robot worms.

It would also be very difficult to send the microbots to their designated locations without the cooperation of the person they are implanted into because they have to sit or lie down and stay perfectly still while they are moving through the body.

But improving the hardware may overcome these obstacles so Xu could not rule out the possibility the technology could be weaponised one day, but added: “We just hope that day will never come.”

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

22-01-2020 om 17:13 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:SF-snufjes }, Robotics and A.I. Artificiel Intelligence ( E, F en NL )

Chinese Scientists Invent Robotic Worm That Will Burrow Into Your Brain

“You see, their young enter through the ears and wrap themselves around the cerebral cortex. This has the effect of rendering the victim extremely susceptible to suggestion… Later, as they grow, follows madness and death…”
– Khan Noonien Singh

Anyone who has ever seen Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan, the second movie in the series, can still remember the horror of Khan releasing larvae of Ceti eels into the ears of Reliant officers Commander Pavel Chekov and Captain Clark Terrell, where they wormed their way into their brains, wrapping themselves around the cerebral cortex to cause brain control, pain, madness and eventual death. It’s nice to know that’s pure fiction, right? RIGHT?

“Once you consume them, they can move throughout your body — your eyes, your tissues and most commonly your brain. They leave doctors puzzled in their wake as they migrate and settle to feed on the body they’re invading; a classic parasite, but this one can get into your head.”

According to CNN, in 2013 a British man of Chinese was found to have a tapeworm moving inside his brain in 2013 – a parasite known as Spirometra erinaceieuropaei. It’s extremely rare and found mostly in Asia – the adult parasite lives in dog and cat intestines, but the eggs can be spread via fecal matter, particularly in water, which appears to be how the man contracted it. In 2018, a man in India died after his brain, brain stem, and cerebellum were infected by the tapeworm Taenia solium. It’s a good thing these worms are rare and no one is trying to make robotic versions of them, right? RIGHT?

“It could also be implanted into the brain because its high mobility and ability to transform means it can survive in this harsh environment where there are rapid blood flows and tiny blood vessels.”

The South China Morning Post reports that scientists in Shenzhen have developed a tiny robot worm that can enter the human body, swim through along blood vessels and hook up to neurons in the brain. The 1mm-by-3mm (.04 in by .12 in) robots are powered externally by a magnetic field generator and use infrared radiation to contract their size by up to a third to squeeze through tight spots. On the noble cause side, Xu Tiantian — lead scientist for the project at the Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences – says the robot worms will allow doctors to deliver drugs directly to a specific tumor and then exit the body when done.

“But our purpose is not developing a biological weapon. It’s the opposite.”

Needless to say, using the robot worm as a weapon is entirely possible as soon as a more powerful electric field generator with a longer effective range is available and the robot worms obtain the ability to move while the host human is in motion – they currently have to be lying perfectly still. If he were around today, robot designer Khan Noonien Singh might say: “Piece of cake.”

Xu agrees.

“We just hope that day will never come.”

Or is it already here? Mr. Chekov, care to comment?

22-01-2020 om 16:47 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:SF-snufjes }, Robotics and A.I. Artificiel Intelligence ( E, F en NL )

Birds and the World of the Supernatural

Tales of birds and the world of the paranormal are easy to find. Some accounts, however, are far more intriguing than others. Here are a few examples that, for me, stand out. We’ll begin with a man named Elliott O’Donnell, an acclaimed authority ghosts and life after death, and who penned dozens of books on supernatural phenomena. Born in 1872, he continued writing until his death in 1965, at the age of ninety-three. O’Donnell also had a deep interest in reports of strange creatures, as the following 19^th century account demonstrates: “Henry Spicer, in his Strange Things Among Us, tells the story of a Captain Morgan, an honorable and vivacious gentleman, who, arriving in London in 1841, puts up for the night in a large, old-fashioned hotel. The room in which he slept was full of heavy, antique furniture, reminiscent of the days of King George I, one of the worst periods in modern English history for crime. Despite, however, his grimly suggestive surroundings, Captain Morgan quickly got into bed and was soon asleep. He was abruptly awakened by the sound of flapping, and, on looking up, he saw a huge black bird with outstretched wings and fiery red eyes perched on the rail at the foot of the four-poster bed.”

The tale continues: “The creature flew at him and endeavored to peck his eyes. Captain Morgan resisted, and after a desperate struggle succeeded in driving it to a sofa in the corner of the room, where it settled down and regarded him with great fear in its eyes. Determined to destroy it, he flung himself on the top of it, when, to his surprise and terror, it immediately crumbled into nothingness. He left the house early next morning, convinced that what he had seen was a ghost, but Mr. Spicer offers no explanation as to how one should classify the phenomenon. It may have been the earth-bound spirit of the criminal or viciously inclined person who had once lived there, or it may have been the phantom of an actual bird. Either alternative is feasible.

O’Donnell concluded: “I have heard there is an old house near Poole, in Dorset, and another in Essex, which were formerly haunted by spectral birds, and that as late as 1860 the phantasm of a bird, many times the size of a raven, was so frequently seen by the inmates of a house in Dean Street, Soho, that they eventually grew quite accustomed to it. “But bird hauntings are not confined to houses, and are far more often to be met with out of doors; indeed there are very few woods, and moors, and commons that are not subjected to them. I have constantly seen the spirits of all manner of birds in the parks in Dublin and London. Greenwich Park, in particular, is full of them.” Now, moving on…

The Reverend F.G. Lee was the author of a still-acclaimed 19^th century book titled Glimpses in the Twilight. Published in 1888, it is filled with all manner of amazing and chilling tales, including one of a terrible, monster-bird. Lee, who extensively researched the strange story, said: “In the middle of the last century, circa 1749, owing to several remarkable circumstances which had then recently occurred, a conviction became almost universal among the inhabitants of the village, that the vaults under the church of West Drayton, near Uxbridge, were haunted.”

He continued: “Strange noises were heard in and about the sacred building, and the sexton of that day, a person utterly devoid of superstition, was on inquiry and examination compelled to admit that certain unaccountable occurrences in regard to the vault had taken place. Others maintained that three persons from an adjacent manor-house in company had gone to look through a grating in the side of the foundation of the church – for the ventilation of the vault, and from which screams and noises were heard constantly, and there had seen a very large black raven perched on one of the coffins.”

According to the Reverend Lee: “This strange bird was seen more than once by the then parish clerk pecking from within at the grating, and furiously fluttering about within the enclosed vault. On another occasion it was seen by other people in the body of the church itself. The wife of the parish clerk and her daughter often saw it.” Eventually, however, the beastly bird’s reign of terror was brought to an end, as the reverend noted:

“The local bell-ringers, who all professed to deny its existence and appearance, one evening, however, came together to ring a peal, when they were told by a youth that the big raven was flying about inside the chancel. Coming together into the church with sticks and stones and a lantern, four men and two boys found it fluttering about amongst the rafters. They gave chase to it, flinging at it, shouting at and endeavoring to catch it. Driven from hither and thither for some time, and twice or thrice beaten with a stick, so that one of its wings seemed to have thus been broken and made to droop, the bird fell down wounded with expanded wings, screaming and fluttering into the eastern part of the chancel, when two of the men on rushing towards it to secure it, and driving it into a corner, vaulted over the communion-rails, and violently proceeded to seize it. As the account stands, it at once sank wounded and exhausted on to the floor, as they believed in their certain grasp, but all of a moment – vanished!”

In relation to this particularly weird saga, the wife of Reverend R. L. Burgh, who served at the church of West Drayton in the 1800s, wrote the following to Reverend Lee: “It was many years ago; and I had quite forgotten it until I got your note. I can remember feeling persuaded that a bird must have got into the family vault, and in going outside to look into it through the iron bars to try if anything could be seen there, the sounds were then always in the chancel in the same place.”

Now, it’s time to share with you a story that involves me. Just like almost everyone who has lost someone, my family and I mourned a passing and celebrated a life. For me, it was when my mom died of the effects of Alzheimer’s in 2010. There was, however, something very odd which occurred at the time of my mother’s death. It’s something I have never forgotten. On one particular morning, at my dad’s place in England, we were sitting in the living-room when our conversation was briefly brought to a sudden end. By a loud, single thump. It clearly came from somewhere outside. Puzzled, we took a look out back and found that a blackbird had slammed into the kitchen window and was lying on the ground. It had clearly been killed on impact. Then, the very next day, we drove to the nearby nursing-home which my mom had permanently lived in since 2002. The purpose: to thank all of the staff for their help and care over the years. Right outside the main door to the facility was a dead, brightly-feathered, small bird. We literally had to lift our feet above it to get into the building.

About a week later we had my mom’s funeral, and a few days after that it was time to fly back to the United States. Well, on getting home, what was practically on the doorstep? Yep, another dead bird. And again, it was a brightly colored one. Of course, at some point in their lives pretty much everyone stumbles on a dead bird. But, three of them, across less than two weeks? And one at my dad’s place in the U.K., one in Arlington, Texas where I live, and one at my mother’s care-home, all in the aftermath of her death? Could it have been an odd coincidence? Of course it could. I can’t say I’m a full-on believer in the afterlife. I guess like a lot of us, I just don’t know. I sometimes think there’s something on the “other side.” On other occasions, and also like others, though, I think it might be lights-out forever. But, I still occasionally think of those three dead birds after my mom’s funeral.

22-01-2020 om 16:24 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:MYSTERIES ( Fr, Nl, E)

Scientists Determine Earth’s Oldest Impact Crater Is 2.2 Billion Years Old

Scientists have determined that the Earth’s oldest asteroid crater – named the Yarrabubba crater – happened 2.229 billion years ago. The crater, which is located between Sandstone and Meekatharra in Western Australia’s outback, measures 43 miles wide.

A team of experts from Curtin University in Perth were able to determine the exact age of the crater by using isotopic analysis of the minerals found at the impact zone. They studied zircon and monazite minerals that were found at the bottom of the Yarrabubba crater and were “shock recrystallized” because of the impact. Their study was published in Nature Communications and can be read in full here.

Australian outback

It was always agreed upon that the Yarrabubba crater was one of the oldest on Earth but scientists weren’t able to determine its exact age until recently. In fact, it’s so old that it happened 200 million years before the next oldest impact zone that’s located in South Africa and called the Vredefort crater.

What’s even more interesting is that this impact may have helped lift our planet out of an ancient ice age called “Snowball Earth”. Curtin University Professor Chris Kirkland explained, “Now we know the Yarrabubba crater was made right at the end of what’s commonly referred to as the early Snowball Earth – a time when the atmosphere and oceans were evolving and becoming more oxygenated and when rocks deposited on many continents recorded glacial conditions.” “This twist of fate suggests that the large meteorite impact may have influenced global climate,” added Associate Professor Nicholas Timms.

The Yarrabubba impact may have helped lift our planet out of an ancient ice age.

Half a trillion tons of water vapour would have been sent into Earth’s atmosphere with such a large asteroid hitting a continent covered in ice, therefore, possibly causing changes to our climate. “This finding raises the question whether this impact may have tipped the scales enough to end glacial conditions,” said Timms.

Their study is very important in properly dating ancient craters, some of which may even be older than Yarrabubba. “Yarrabubba is about half the age of the Earth and it raises the question of whether all older impact craters have been eroded or if they are still out there waiting to be discovered,” stated Dr. Aaron Cavosie from Curtin University. As a matter of fact, materials that came from an ancient impact crater have been found in Africa and Australia and they date back to over 2 billion years old, however, the craters in which they came from are still unidentified.

22-01-2020 om 16:05 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ASTRONOMIE / RUIMTEVAART

The Bizarre Case of the Allagash Alien Abductions

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The Bizarre Case of the Allagash Alien Abductions

For as long as the UFO phenomenon has been around there have been those cases of people who claim to have actually been physically whisked away by these entities. What happens after they have been captured varies from report to report, with some speaking of gaining amazing new knowledge, to more cryptic encounters, to truly terrifying ordeals. The case we are looking at here is of the latter variety, and revolves around a group of men who just wanted to have a peaceful vacation in the wilderness, but who would experience what is considered to be one of the most intense and scariest alien abductions on record.

It all started as just a camping and canoeing trip with a group of buddies up in the remote wilderness of Allagash, Maine, in the United States back in the summer of 1976. The plan was for the group, composed of brothers Jim Weiner and Jack Weiner and their friends Charles Foltz and Charles Rak, who had all met at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, to go canoeing down the Allagash Wilderness Waterway, camping out and fishing along the way, and it was supposed to be a great week-long adventure for them. The first day and night went as well as they could hope for, but things would start to get strange from the second evening of their brave excursion, when Weiner noticed a very strange light in the sky, of which he would say:

It was just floating above the treetops, didn’t seem to be moving in any direction. And I looked at it through the binoculars for maybe 15 seconds, 30 seconds, and it suddenly just winked out from the outside edges inward. I mean, it literally just went whooht, like that, and it was gone. There was something about this thing that left me with an odd feeling that wasn’t quite right, but I really didn’t dwell on it.

He tried to just write the strange incident off as an aircraft and get on with his trip, but it would not be long before weird phenomena started up again, this time witnessed by the entire group. On the fourth day of the trip, the group was out night fishing on their canoe at a place called Big Eagle Lake. On the shore they had lit a large bonfire, which flickered eerily out over the black water below them and was meant to give them a sense of direction in the darkness, but even as that beacon sat there on the shore, another light entirely caught their attention, this one in the star flecked sky above them. Rak would explain of it:

I had a feeling there was someone staring at me from behind me. I turned over my right shoulder like that, and I saw this large, round globe of light that looked exactly like what we had seen two nights previously. It had this roiling effect to it, like a miniature sun, very, very bright. It lit the treetops up like daylight, and it was absolutely silent. After looking at it for what seemed like several moments, we decided to signal this thing. That’s when Charlie picked up the flashlight and squeezed off a message–s.o.s.

The plan to signal the object was in retrospect probably not such a good idea, as it then reportedly changed course to head directly towards them. Alone in the wilderness, with no civilization for miles around and bobbing about in the middle of this darkened frigid lake, the sight of this intimidating otherworldly bright object, estimated as being around 80 feet in diameter, caused them to panic and start rowing for shore as fast as they could even as the object drew up upon them. Jim Weiner could not help but look behind him at the inexorable approach of this odd light, and could see that it would soon be right on top of them. He recalls:

I remember looking over my shoulder, trying to keep an eye on this object as it was coming up behind us. It was getting very close. It was almost on top of us at this point. I remember thinking that we’re not going to outrun this thing. I remember thinking, ‘I could pick up a stone and bounce it off this thing’s side.’ That’s how close it was. And then, all of a sudden, it just streaked away very, very fast, and within a few seconds, it was like a star, just another light in the sky.

Reaching the shore, the group of men was surprised to see that the robust bonfire, which should have been blazing strong after so little time had passed, had been reduced to mere smoldering embers. This suggested that several hours must have passed, yet each of the men agreed that they had only been on the water for less than half an hour, making the dying fire a puzzling conundrum. Even so, they found that they were all extremely exhausted and tired out for some reason, and so just wanted to get back to camp to get a good night’s sleep and continue on with their trip. In fact, at the time they didn’t even really talk about the strangeness that they had just seen, the overwhelming fatigue taking over. This might have been the end of it, and for several years it was, until Weiner began having very vivid, horrific nightmares that would invade his sleep nearly every night and leave him waking up in a cold sweat and state of absolute terror. The content of the dreams was always the same and very specific, with Weiner stating:

I was starting to have nightmares, really terrible nightmares that I could not explain. I found myself in a very brightly lit room. I had no idea where I was or why I was there. To my left, I could see my brother Jim, Chuck Rak, and Charlie Foltz sitting on some type of bench, and they were all naked. I was wondering why they weren’t helping me, because I felt like I was in danger, and while I’m trying to figure this out, I notice this figure or a dark, shadowy-type figure emerging from this light– this bright light in front of me. I would wake up, uh, uh, sweating and breathing heavily and just in a– in a state of terror and shock.

These bizarre nightmares got so bad that they started to affect his waking life, and it would get stranger when he discovered that the other men who had been with him on that trip were having similar nightmares as well, all of which had shared elements of a feeling of helplessness and of an unknown entity present in the shadows. It did not take long for them to connect these strange nightmares to the incident they’d had out at that remote lake with the mysterious light, and this caused them to contact a UFO researcher by the name of Ray Fowler, of the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), who speculated that they might have been abducted by unknown entities and were having suppressed memories bubbling up to the surface in their dreams. He arranged to have the men hypnotically regressed in order to see if their memories could be dug up, and this is where the story would get even weirder than it already was.

The hypnotic sessions were conducted by an Anthony Constantino, and each man was hypnotized separately, with no interaction between them in the meantime, and the stories they had to tell are terrifying to say the least. In every instance, the men described being taken aboard a strange craft at the time of the lake incident, where they were put into a diffusely lit room that looked, according to one of the witnesses, “like a vet’s office.” Here they were approached by grey, long-necked entities with large bald heads, metallic, lidless eyes, and four skeletal fingers, which approached them and proceeded to carry out a series of humiliating medical experiments on them, including taking bodily fluid and tissue samples, as well as performing painful procedures with silvery machines. Foltz in particular was described as being especially subjected to various strange probes and painful scans with a metallic, curved machine, which apparently caused him to scream out in agony. Weiner would say during his session:

They’re–they’re– they don’t know what to do. I think they think I’m going to come after them. I feel like I want to. I feel like I want to– the first one that comes near me, I’m going to throttle him. I don’t like these things. I don’t care where they come from. They shouldn’t be doing this to people. They’re right there. Their face is right in my face. I don’t know why. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know what they want. They’re saying things. In my head they’re saying, ‘Don’t be afraid. They say, ‘Do what we say. Just do what we say.

Interestingly, although the accounts were independent, all of the men involved described the exact same thing, right up to Foltz’ bizarre body scans. Being artists, they were able to draw detailed sketched of the entities and the room they had been in, all of which looked the same, and additionally they all passed psychiatric evaluations and polygraph tests with flying colors. It was all very harrowing and frightening, with Constantino himself saying of it all:

It was the most intense experience I’ve had as a hypnotist. After working with those guys, I was scared. I still am. I think it’s true. I think they were being tagged — the way we tag and study sharks and bears and then release them.

For all appearances it seemed as if they were telling the truth, or at least strongly believed they were. Fowler was so excited about the case that he would go on to write a whole book on it, called The Allagash Abductions, but over the years there would appear some cracks in the story. It all started when Charles Rak began to fall unusually silent on the matter of the abduction, even as the other men freely discussed it with researchers. He would finally come forward to make the claim that, although the lights in the sky had been real, the abductions had been entirely fabricated by the group for the purpose of making some money. Pretty much the only thing he agreed really happened was that they all saw anomalous lights in the sky, but according to him the missing time and the eerie alien encounters they all described were a load of bunk and had never happened, and that on top of this they were all stoned at the time. Yet, the other three men adamantly stuck by their story, with Weiner saying:

Jack, Charlie, and I, after all these years, are still in agreement with the Eagle Lake event as we (three) remember it. We also accept the results of the hypnotic regression sessions and subsequent polygraph tests as supportive of an abduction scenario.

To make matters more complicated still, they and Fowler believe that Rak was intentionally trying to destroy their credibility after a falling out, interestingly because they say that he was the one trying to make money off of it and the rest of the group did not agree with that. They are also quick to point out that Rak was always a bit of a wild card and had long had temper issues, essentially painting him as someone who had lost control and then flown off the rails. Weiner would tell Fowler of Rak:

We definitely steer clear of him because the guy is a loose cannon and a mental disaster area. I personally believe that Mr. Rak’s self-aggrandizing rationalizations and disparaging accusations are simply the rantings of an angry and resentful individual, on whom his former friends have turned their backs.

So what is going on here? Was Rak just fed up with his friends and wanted to spoil the party? Are the other three correct in their assessment of what went on? The case of the Allagash abductions has gone on to become quite the classic case, and has been debated and discussed to this day. What happened to these men out there in that remote land? Was this a genuine UFO abduction or is there something else going on behind the scenes? The three witnesses other than Rak have continued to stand by their story, and the truth of the matter is that we will probably never know, and this just serves to be one more weird case to add to the many.

22-01-2020 om 14:08 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )

Four Mysterious Objects Are Found Orbiting Milky Way’s Black Hole

An illustration of the orbital paths of the six known G-objects around the supermassive black hole in the center of the Milky Way.

(Credit: Anna Ciurlo, Tuan Do/UCLA Galactic Center Group)

Four Mysterious Objects Are Found Orbiting Milky Way’s Black Hole

“The center of the galaxy is where extreme astrophysics occurs — the X-sports of astrophysics.”

If that description of the black hole at the center of the Milky Way doesn’t get more young students interested in astrophysics, nothing will. Andrea Ghez, UCLA’s Lauren B. Leichtman and Arthur E. Levine Professor of Astrophysics and director of the UCLA Galactic Center Group, used those words in a press release to describe a new discovery concerning Sagittarius A* — the supermassive black hole that the rest of the Milky Way revolves around and tries to avoid being sucked into. Unfortunately (well, not for the black hole), Ghez and her team have discovered four mysterious objects that may belong to a new class that will soon (in space terms) be a lost class.

“One of the things that has gotten everyone excited about the G objects is that the stuff that gets pulled off of them by tidal forces as they sweep by the central black hole must inevitably fall into the black hole. When that happens, it might be able to produce an impressive fireworks show since the material eaten by the black hole will heat up and emit copious radiation before it disappears across the event horizon.”

Mark Morris, UCLA professor of physics and astronomy and co-author with Ghez of the new study published in the journal Nature, sounds equally excited as he describes the discovery of G3, G4, G5 and G6 – strange objects joining G1 and G2 in orbit around Sagittarius A*. Ghez also discovered G1 and both were puzzling because they “look like gas and behave like stars.” The new four also appear to be the same but have very different orbits. Ghez now believes that all of this strange behavior and appearance is due to these G-objects once being binary stars that have been forcefully merged together as they approach the supermassive black hole.

“Mergers of stars may be happening in the universe more often than we thought, and likely are quite common. Black holes may be driving binary stars to merge. It’s possible that many of the stars we’ve been watching and not understanding may be the end product of mergers that are calm now.”

“Blame the black hole” could become the new catch-all excuse for strange occurrences around the universe, but in this case it sounds plausible. Of course, everything is ultimately about us, so Ghez addresses the inevitable question of how this discovery will affect Earth – even though our Sun isn’t a binary.

“The Earth is in the suburbs compared to the center of the galaxy, which is some 26,000 light-years away.”

That sounds somewhat comforting … except discoveries like these keep making the universe seem smaller and supermassive black holes, wandering black holes, supernovas and other destructive space objects and events seem so much closer. Perhaps it’s inescapable (just like the gravity of Sagittarius A*) that young astrophysicists will continue to make these kinds of discoveries and scare us with more stories of the extreme sports X-sports going on int the not-so-distant supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way.

22-01-2020 om 13:58 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ASTRONOMIE / RUIMTEVAART

The “Project Blue Beam” Controversy: My Views

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The “Project Blue Beam” Controversy: My Views

A couple of nights ago I was asked for my thoughts on the hugely controversial Project Blue Beam. If you don’t know about it, read on. Within the field of conspiracy theorizing, there are few greater controversies than Project Blue Beam. Allegedly, it is the brainchild of a secret group of powerful figures in, among many others, NASA, the United Nations, the Bilderbergers, the Trilateral Commission, and the Vatican. Project Blue Beam, so the story goes, will be at the forefront of a program to create a new society dominated by martial law and a ruthless world government. And how might such a government come about? By faking the second coming of Jesus Christ, specifically by using sophisticated hologram-type technology to project huge images of the Son of God across the skies of the United States, Canada, Australia, and much of Europe. Other parts of the world will see massive images of Buddha, of Allah, of Krishna, of Mohammed, and of multiple other gods, depending on the regions, the people and their cultures, and the beliefs of the relevant nations.

In mere days, however, each and every one of those images will merge into one far more sinister and terrifying image: that of the Anti-Christ, who will inform the people of Earth that not a single one of the world’s religions has the correct version of events. Only that of this nightmarish entity is the accurate version. As a result, the entire human race will be expected to bow down and worship the Anti-Christ. Such a thing will result in worldwide chaos, disorder, and anarchy – which the people behind Project Blue Beam shrewdly know only all too well. With the world plunged into states of fear and mayhem, this terrible ruse will then allow the United Nations to coordinate a planet-wide program to enslave the Earth’s entire population. The story is as fantastic as it is terrifying. But is it true?

The source of the Project Blue Beam story was Serge Monast, a journalist from Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Although Monast began in his career in regular journalism, by 1994, he was focused almost exclusively on conspiracy theories, including matters relative to Masonic-based conspiracy theories and matters relative to the one world government scenario. It was at this time that Monast claimed to have uncovered massive amounts of secret information on Project Blue Beam, and how it would be utilized to enslave all but that aforementioned elite. That Monast died in December 1996, of a heart attack, and at the age of just fifty-one, has led to suspicions within conspiracy-driven realms that he was murdered by agents of this dangerous program. The reason: to prevent Monast from blowing the whistle, big-time, on the project.

The story has provoked numerous questions: Are our gods about to be brought before us, but in a fashion few could scarcely imagine? Does such sophisticated holographic technology really exist? Could such an incredible ruse fool the entire Human Race? What are the long-term goals of Project Blue Beam? Who was Serge Monast? Who were his sources of information? Was he murdered for what he knew? Is Project Blue Beam looming just around the corner? Or, is the Project Blue Beam saga nothing more than one of the most outrageous hoaxes of the modern era?

There’s no doubt that government and military agencies have worked hard to perfect the ultimate holograms – chiefly to use them on battlefields. When it comes to the matter of Project Blue Beam, I can sum up my views in four, concise words: “Give me a break!!!” It’s one thing to develop advanced holograms for military purposes. It’s quite another, however, to have the entire planet and everyone on it controlled by secret societies and government agencies – and all in a matter of just weeks, which is what Monast suggested. As our technologies develop, so will our holograms; that is all but inevitable. But, a holographic Anti-Christ and a one-world government, one that we all accept and don’t stand up against in our billions? Don’t worry: it’s garbage. Entertaining garbage. But, still garbage.

22-01-2020 om 13:49 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:MYSTERIES , Complot Theories, ed ( EN, FR, NL )

The Dark Forest Theory: A Grim Answer for Where All the Aliens Are

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The Dark Forest Theory: A Grim Answer for Where All the Aliens Are

The question of whether we are alone in the universe has swirled around our consciousness since as long as we were able to even comprehend the concept of a universe at all. We have long reached out to the stars, looked out over that vast sea of cosmic mysteries, and wondered if there might be anyone else out there doing the same, looking right back at us. Is there other intelligent life in the universe, or are we truly alone in this cold expanse? There has never been an answer to this, and we continue to try and find one, yet as time goes by it sometimes seems that for all we know there is no one looking out, and that we are the sole consciousness of this universe of ours. We throw out our radio signals, announce our presence, and scour every corner that our technology will allow, but there is nothing, only silence. There have been many ideas on why this should be, and some are far more ominous and sinister than others.

The main problem we face in the end with regards to other intelligent lifeforms is that, although the universe is vast, with the Milky Way alone composed of around 200 billion stars and billions of planets, if even a tiny faction of those have produced intelligent, spacefaring civilizations, then it has been reasoned that we should have definitely heard from them or at least detected them by now. This conundrum was perhaps best illustrated in what has come to be called the Fermi Paradox, which I have covered before but which probably deserves a refresher here. In 1950, influential and notable physicist Enrico Fermi was working for Los Alamos National Laboratory, and one day while having lunch with colleagues Emil Konopinski, Edward Teller and Herbert York, the conversation came around to UFOs and alien life. The group began discussing the possibility of other alien civilizations out there scattered across the galaxy, and that was when Fermi simply and bluntly asked “Where are they?” This generated a bit of laughter around the table, but he was perfectly serious. When the others asked exactly what he had meant, Fermi explained that if there was another civilization or civilizations that had developed out there with the technological ability to traverse space, then eventually they should have already spread out all over the galaxy, and we should have had some brush with them by now in some form.

Fermi reasoned that there had been plenty of time for them to do so, and utilized complicated equations to illustrate that over millions and millions of years, just a drop in the bucket compared to the age of the universe, these hypothetical alien civilizations should have at least found us by now. Fermi explained that with so many stars and potential planets in the observable universe, then if even a fraction of those had produced intelligent, spacefaring life then they would have exponentially broken their barriers and moved out into the galaxy, colonizing new worlds, and we would have surely known about them by now. By Fermi’s various calculations, the probability for intelligent life somewhere in the universe was high considering the sheer scale of it all, and if such advanced societies had developed, then after so much time aliens should be everywhere by now, or at the very least given us some sort of sign of their existence, even if such societies are rare. Yet there is no one, no evidence of such a thing, not a single sign that there is anyone else out there at all. Essentially, like Fermi asked, where is everybody?

This is the main gist of what has gone on to become known as the “Fermi Paradox,” and although it has been criticized by many as being perhaps too simplistic and making too many assumptions based on our own ideas of life, it has nevertheless gone on to become a major cornerstone for debate on the topic of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, and has inevitably hung over most discussions on the matter. This offhand lunchtime remark has propelled the imagination and driven the efforts of organizations like SETI. No matter what one thinks of the veracity of Fermi’s question, it is a compelling one to say the least, and there have been many numerous and varied theories that have come forth to try and explain just why we have not found anyone else out there in this cold universe of ours.

This is all backed up by what is known as the Drake Equation, which was conceived of in 1961 by a Dr. Frank Drake, of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, West Virginia. Drake wished to come up with a mathematical formula for calculating the number of possible technologically advanced civilizations in our galaxy and takes into consideration various factors such as the number of stars and their rate of formation, the number of possible planets around these stars, the number which might be inhabitable, and many others. When all of this is plugged into the formula, the result is that there should be around two dozen spacefaring civilizations in our galaxy, yet we have not heard a peep. There have been many reasons for why this might be, some of which I have covered here before, but one of the more sinister and grim of these is what is rather ominously known as the “Dark Forest Theory.”

The depressing idea more or less boils down to that every alien race would naturally put its survival above that of another species, and that considering the chaotic nature of the universe and innate problems with trying to communicate with a completely alien civilization, compounded by the fact that we can never know what the intentions of such a race would be, the best bet is to stay quiet and hope no one finds you, or conversely wipe them out before they do the same to you. The theory was best laid out in the 2008 science fiction novel The Dark Forest, part of the Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy by author Lui Cixin, in which the argument is presented that A) All life seeks to ensure its own survival, B) There is no way to know if another lifeform will try to destroy you, and C) Without an assurance that this won’t happen, the safest logical way to avoid termination is to stay hidden or destroy them before they can do the same to you, a sort of preemptive attack. In essence, any alien races that haven’t annihilated each other already are maintaining “radio silence” so to speak, hiding away in a state of paranoia and fear, and so are loathe to make their presence known. Lui would write of this:

The universe is a dark forest. Every civilization is an armed hunter stalking through the trees like a ghost, gently pushing aside branches that block the path and trying to tread without sound. Even breathing is done with care. The hunter has to be careful, because everywhere in the forest are stealthy hunters like him. If he finds other life — another hunter, an angel or a demon, a delicate infant or a tottering old man, a fairy or a demigod — there’s only one thing he can do: open fire and eliminate them. In this forest, hell is other people. An eternal threat that any life that exposes its own existence will be swiftly wiped out. This is the picture of cosmic civilization. It’s the explanation for the Fermi Paradox.

Lui also mentions that resources in the universe would be finite and limited, and so for a civilization to expand across stars they would necessarily have to consume as much as they could and eliminate any competitors. In other words, any other alien race other than one’s own is an unknown competitor at best, and a catastrophic threat at worst. Between members of one species, such as between humans, this might be resolved through diplomatic solutions, although even that doesn’t work out a lot of the time, yet with a completely alien race all bets would be off, so the best solution to ensure survival is to hide or destroy the other before they have a chance to pose a threat. This theory was touched on and supported by science fiction writer David Brin as well, of which he rather darkly writes:

It is consistent with all of the facts and philosophical principles described in the first part of this article. There is no need to struggle to suppress the elements of the Drake equation in order to explain the Great Silence, nor need we suggest that no ETIS anywhere would bear the cost of interstellar travel. It need only happen once for the results of this scenario to become the equilibrium condition in the Galaxy. We would not have detected extraterrestrial radio traffic- nor would any ETIS have ever settled on Earth- because all were killed shortly after discovering radio.

If this theory has any merit at all, then it is probably not a good idea that we have been relentlessly announcing our position and existence into the frigid void of space through decades of radio transmissions and space probes, something that has alarmed the more negative of the scientific community. The late physicist Stephen Hawing notoriously opposed contact with extraterrestrials, often lamenting that to make contact would be a death sentence for us, and he once said:

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. We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet.

Many other scientists have shared this sentiment. This fits in very well with the Dark Forest Theory, and if it is an accurate solution to the Fermi Paradox, then we are very lucky that no one has been listening, or perhaps there are alien races cowering in the shadows who are indeed listening, and just wishing that we would shut up. Even if the other civilization knows that we are technologically inferior and not a threat now, the distances and time frames involved make sure that there are no guarantees. As one commenter on the site Quora puts it:

You might be thinking that if an advanced civilization detects the radio signals from Earth then they would know that we are less advanced and therefore not a threat. But again you have to consider the vast distance and time it takes for those signals to travel. Even if a nearby civilization (only 10 or 20 light years away) detects us, it would take hundreds or even thousands of years for them to reach us and that is plenty of time for a technological explosion. If they don’t attack us at once, then we might develop technology fast enough to catch up and threaten them.

It won’t be like Star Trek. Without faster than light travel, there won’t be any communication, diplomacy or trade with alien races. It’s kill or be killed. So that’s why we haven’t heard a peep from other civilizations. The universe is a dark forest where every civilization is a silent hunter. They desperately try to stay undetectable while hunting for other planets to colonize and threats to destroy.

It is all about the best interest of one’s own race, every man for himself, and in this theory this is the only way to guarantee that we survive this morass of bleakness. The Dark Forest Theory has drawn comparisons to a thought experiment known as “The Prisoners’ Dilemma,” a paradox in which two individuals acting in their own self-interests do not always produce the optimal outcome that is most beneficial to both. Basically imagine you have two criminal accomplices to a crime being interrogated in two separate rooms, with no way of knowing what the other is up to. Each one is told that if neither of them rats the other out, and they both remain silent, then they will both go to jail for one year on a lesser charge. However, if one of them is to implicate the other, he will walk free while the other does a 3-year sentence, longer than they would have done otherwise. If both of them point the finger, they will both get 2 years. The best outcome for both is obviously to keep quiet, but not knowing what the other will do and without faith that the other will also stay silent, the safe bet is to incriminate the other as soon as possible and avoid jail time altogether just to be safe. This is the general gist of the Dark Forest Theory in essence.

It is all rather pessimistic and morbid for sure, and paints the universe as an innately unfriendly place and all intelligent species as ruthless predators looking to exploit, hide, or kill. It all seems actually pretty possible just from looking at life on earth. Humans have long subjugated and wiped out other tribes and species in an attempt to expand, so mightn’t an alien race be prone to the same sort of behavior, as Hawking pointed out? There seems to be no universal moral code that other cultures must abide by, so in this way of thinking, if we can’t even follow our own moral rules on this planet, then how could we ever expect a positive outcome from an alien race?

In some ways it makes sense, but never fear, because there have been a criticisms aimed at the idea of the Dark Forest as well. The main problem with it is that it takes a very narrow and human-centric view of what an advanced civilization should be like. Who is to say they would have to be aggressive and looking to destroy, or that they would think in any way like us at all? Indeed, there have been a lot of scientists who support the idea that any spacefaring civilization would be hundreds or thousands of years more advanced than us, and so would by definition have by necessity learned to overcome such self-destructive behaviors such as war and murder, and to have mastered universal empathy. One scientist who believes this is Seti’s former director, Jill Tarter, who thinks that such a civilization would have risen above such things and that the very fact that they are advanced enough to come to us means that they would be sophisticated, peaceful, and benevolent. Tarter said of this to Business Insider:

The idea of a civilization which has managed to survive far longer than we have…and the fact that that technology remains an aggressive one, to me, doesn’t make sense. The pressure of long-term survival — of limiting population…I think requires that the evolutionary trends that ratcheted up our intelligence…continues to evolve into something that’s cooperative and take on global scale problems.

With regards to a species hiding out and lying low in the hopes that others don’t come for them, there is the criticism that it would be very hard to advance to this stage of development by remaining completely silent and meek. To reach a state of advanced technology and the ability to cross the sea of stars would be very difficult to do while remaining completely invisible to other such races, so there would be no guaranteed way for them to totally cower in the shadows while simultaneously reaching such a pinnacle of civilization. There is also the fact that for as much as other powers might be a threat, there has always been value in trade, cooperation, and forging alliances as well, which would not be possible in this climate of extreme paranoia. Yet another fact is simply that we cannot possibly know how an alien species would perceive threats or risks, so assuming what they should do is over anthropomorphizing them.

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, depending on how you look at it, we have not yet made alien contact as far as we know, and so the question remains: where are all of the aliens? One would like to think that they are out there and we simply, for some reason haven’t found them yet, and one would also hope that if we ever get the opportunity to make their acquaintance that they will be benevolent and friendly. The Dark Forest Theory is in the end just one idea, and one that was originally posited as fiction, so perhaps we can look forward to a more positive outcome, and have hope that the universe is not an inhospitable enemy. Only time will tell, and perhaps one day we will know the answer to the question of whether it was a good idea to shout out our presence, or if we should have hidden in the shadows like everyone else.

22-01-2020 om 12:32 geschreven door peter

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Mysterious Chevron shaped UFO passes ISS captured on live feed cam

On January 20, 2020 while watching NASA's live feed, a resident of Brighton, UK noticed a chevron UFO in the background of the International Space Station. The chevron UFO is surrounded by mystery and often compared to the black knight UFO. Besides you may wonder why NASA and other space agencies use the chevron logo.

Witness report:

I was on my phone watching the NASA’s spacewalk 63 aboard the ISS aired in real time yesterday on the 20th of January 2020, around 6 hours and 30 mins into the space walk the last astronaut was preparing to enter back into the air lock for depressurization and re-entry into the interior of the ISS.

The two female astronauts involved in the spacewalk included Christina Koch and Jessica (can’t remember the surname).

I was watching Jessica on her way to the air lock impressed with the quality of the camera being used filming the final moments of the spacewalk on the exterior of the ISS, and then I noticed something strange in the bottom right corner of the screen.

In total for the time I viewed the UFO on screen it stood perfectly still for about three seconds before shooting off which took about 0.5 seconds.

Honestly I briefly thought it was an insect given it’s appearance as a tilted letter T, assuming that the shaft of the T was the body and the extremities either side (longer than the shaft of the t like shape) were perhaps it’s wings.

I then looked to see if it was attached to the ISS in any way hoping that perhaps a beam of light might reflect of a wire demonstrating that this T shaped object was connected to the exterior of the ISS.

Whilst doing so I had a sudden realization that it wasn’t attached at all and that it was perhaps a UFO. I decided to quickly screenshot it and upon doing so it zoomed of SO fast it was like, god I don’t know it was gone and shrunk to a point of infinity in less than the space of a second.

It did not gradually accelerate it just instantaneously shot off into the distance exactly following the direction the camera was facing until it could no longer be seen.

The video feed in use soon after changed to a different camera aboard the station.

NASA and other space agencies use the chevron logo.

The photo of the UFO, submitted to Mufon, was about 80% during its shooting off phase, it was originally about 5 times closer and larger looking due to its close proximity. You can see that isn’t just some glitch in the camera lens as the sun light hitting the object is on the same side as the sun light hitting the ISS.

Other videos of objects seen by ISS, selected by peter2011

22-01-2020 om 11:26 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

Here’s Why Scientists Are So Dismissive Of UFOs

Our new alien overlords aren’t likely to be landing anytime soon, sad to say, despite news reports of the Pentagon’s secret UFO program.

A Department of Defense “Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program,” which investigated sightings of mystery aircraft moving in impossible ways, thrilled UFO fans in reports this week in both the New York Times and Politico Magazine. Accompanied by released videos of military pilots expressing bafflement at artifacts on cockpit screens, the news seemed a respite from earthly concerns about death and taxes.

John Podesta
✔@johnpodesta

Lift the veil. Thanks @SenatorReid. #TheTruthIsOutThere #ToTheStars http://nyti.ms/2AFSy46

Glowing Auras and ‘Black Money’: The Pentagon’s Mysterious U.F.O. Program

The shadowy program began in 2007 and was largely funded at the request of Harry Reid, the former Senate majority leader, who has had a longtime interest in space phenomena.
nytimes.com

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18:57 - 16 Dec 2017

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But experts in real-life optical illusions expressed more caution, perhaps best summed up by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson telling CNN, “Call me when you have a dinner invite from an alien.”

“Green flashes,” “inversion,” and “ghost” mirages have bedeviled fliers for decades. These illusions are created by different layers of the air acting like lenses. An optical effects archive maintained by astronomer Andrew Young of San Diego State University details the physics of such observations as seen by the eye, cameras, and video recordings. A “subsun,” for example, is a remarkably bright solar reflection from ice crystals floating in the air. The reflection’s circular or flattened shape could resemble a UFO.

Solar mirage and green flash

Not all of the effects reported by news stories can be explained by mirages, optics expert Joseph Shaw of Montana State University told BuzzFeed News. “Reports of objects accelerating in different directions seen by pilots sounds different,” as well as claims of fallen “alloys” collected by the Pentagon. But that doesn’t mean the objects come from outside of our atmosphere.

“Certainly the Air Force should be trying to figure out phenomena reported by pilots,” investigative writer Joe Nickell of the Center for Inquiry, who has investigated UFO reports for two decades, told BuzzFeed News. “But to immediately decide something unexplained is ‘extraterrestrial’ is just really unlikely.”

Defense Department investigations into unexplained aerial phenomena date at least to the start of the Cold War, since the 1947 “Roswell Incident” crash of a secret spy balloon, Project Mogul, in the New Mexico desert.

Around the end of the Cold War, in the “X Files” era, reports of mystery aircraft picked up, security analyst John Pike of GlobalSecurity.org told BuzzFeed News, tied to early development of US stealth fighter and bomber planes. A long history of dubious reports since the 1960s lead him to conclude, “anyone who was paying attention to UFOs had too much time on their hands.”One other source of skepticism about the Pentagon’s UFO program is that it originated in the patronage of former Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, and was contracted to Bigelow Aerospace, owned by an avowed believer in UFOs, Robert Bigelow. It reappeared in the news reports as a private effort headed by its former program director, Luis Elizondo, and supported by Blink 182 guitarist Tom DeLonge. Elizondo identified himself as a believer in extraterrestrials in the reports.

“I think it is telling that the program was initiated at the behest of Senator Reid and on behalf of a friend and constituent of his,” Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists told BuzzFeed News. “If DoD had been genuinely concerned about the subject, I believe it would have undertaken the program on its own volition.”

A Defense Department spokesperson, Laura Ochoa, confirmed to BuzzFeed News that it cancelled the $22 million program in 2012. “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.

But that doesn’t mean the government’s search for aliens has stopped forever, she added: “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.”

Source

www.buzzfeednews.com

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

22-01-2020 om 00:35 geschreven door peter

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For the first time, an asteroid has been found nearer to the sun than Venus

The space rock probably reached its orbit after a series of close encounters with rocky planets

Asteroid 2020 AV2 (arrow), found orbiting closer to the sun than Venus, appears as a white dot in this image from a telescope in Italy that is part of the Virtual Telescope Project.

GIANLUCA MASI/THE VIRTUAL TELESCOPE PROJECT

22-01-2020 om 00:11 geschreven door peter

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21-01-2020

President Eisenhower and Extraterrestrials? Film Explores This Urban Legend

Article by Greg Archer - (desertsun.com)

• Earlier this month, Christopher Munch screened his new movie, “The 11th Green” at the 31st annual Palm Springs International Film Festival in Palm Springs, California. The movie portrays President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s alleged secret meetings with extraterrestrial emissaries during the 1950s.

• “There was an urban legend out there …in the 1950s that Dwight Eisenhower had one or more face-to-face interactions with visitors from other worlds,” says Munch. “What interested me about the story was not so much the specifics of it or whether it was true or not, but more so … how (Eisenhower) would have potentially reflected back on those experiences late in his life. Would he have regrets or done things differently?”

• The storyline involves a Washington DC journalist named Jeremy who moves into his late father’s house, which by coincidence was formerly owned by President Eisenhower before the President’s death in 1969. Jeremy’s father served on the National Security Council staff for President Eisenhower back in the day. His father’s former protégé gives him reels of film that suggest America had interaction with off-world visitors 50 years ago, but the “extraterrestrial question” was left in the wrong hands. The film portrays Eisenhower in 1967 contemplating the extraterrestrial presence kept hidden by a shadow government. The story switches time-periods from Jeremy’s father as a young counselor to the President in the 1950s, to modern day as Jeremy is piecing together the history.

• Munch notes that, “In the course of the last year, the film has become timelier … as “major publications have documented … incidents involving the U.S. Military engaging with UFOs over the past 15 years or so.” The military’s revelations of UFOs “cannot be easily dismissed, as it was from the 1950s onward, where UFOs and ETs were only considered in the context of the ‘giggle factor.’”

• Regarding Eisenhower’s encounters with alien beings, Munch believes that such encounters would have been “routine” for the former President. “I don’t think anything really phased Eisenhower,” says Munch. As a mainstream journalist, Jeremy’s character “certainly has a predisposition”. “[B]ut it’s balanced out by his concern for the validity of what he’s reporting. I think that’s the quandary for any journalist who is having to report on the subject of UFOs or extraterrestrials.”

• [Editor’s Note] I doubt that Eisenhower considered his meetings with extraterrestrial beings to be “routine”. I doubt that anyone would find interactions with aliens routine, except maybe Corey Goode. Eisenhower was famously under a great deal of stress, causing multiple heart attacks during his presidency. After he had completed his second term in office, his farewell address in January 1961 alluded to a shadow government hiding the fact that they were working with extraterrestrial beings, and creating a massive ‘military industrial complex’ that owed no allegiance to the elected government of the United States nor its citizens.

Christopher Munch

Written and directed by Christopher Munch, “The 11th Green” begins on slow simmer and eventually arrives at an emotional boil as it floats back and forth through time to explore a curious proposition: that former President Dwight D. Eisenhower was not only interested in but also had contact with extraterrestrials.

The film, which was partially shot in Palm Desert and other Coachella Valley locations, screens in the Locals Spotlight program at the 31st annual Palm Springs International Film Festival.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower

that Dwight Eisenhower had one or more face-to-face interactions with visitors from other worlds,” Munch says. “What interested me about the story was not so much the specifics of it or whether it was true or not, but more so the emotional ‘what if?’ involving Eisenhower. How this man would have potentially reflected back on those experiences late in his life. Would he have regrets or done things differently?”

How did Munch craft a story with a potentially contentious subject matter that today’s audiences could embrace? With an inventive storyline.

The plot: After his 85-year-old father dies from a sudden heart attack, slick Washington D.C. journalist Jeremy Rudd (played by Campbell Scott) returns to his golf resort home. Fighting memories of his beleaguered father-and-son relationship, Jeremy suddenly becomes much more acquainted with his father’s mysterious legacy.

Toss in a romantic interest via his father’s former assistant, Laurie (played by Agnes Bruckner), and a visit from his father’s protégé, Jacobsen (played by Currie Graham), who hands Jeremy reels of film that suggest America had interaction with off-world visitors 50 years ago, and our protagonist suddenly finds himself in a personal and professional conundrum.

Is his newfound potential love interest clouding his interest? Should he believe in the film footage presented to him?

A scene from "The 11th Green" directed by Christopher Munch.

Provided

Running parallel to the present-day storyline, the story reveals Jeremy’s father served on the National Security Council staff of the former president (played by George Gerdes) and that the country’s collective fear pretty much left the “extraterrestrial question” in the wrong hands. Then, in 1967, two years before his death, the president finds himself revisiting the ghosts of his past in the same house that Jeremy would later inherit from his father, who, in this creative iteration, happened to own it after Ike.

“Originally the storyline was to focus just on Eisenhower in his home in Palm Desert,” Munch says. “But ultimately it would take place in several different time periods. I adopted the framing device of a contemporary journalist whose father was a young man in Eisenhower’s council and very trusted and I took the liberty of having him purchase the house Eisenhower once lived in, which, of course, didn’t happen in real life, but it seemed like a way that the protagonist could get immersed into what happened.”

Munch, a Los Angeles resident who frequents the valley, filmed the project on a low budget and with minimal crew. He says he found the Greater Palm Springs Film Alliance & Film Office to be very helpful, noting, “it’s exactly the opposite of when you’re filming a major production in places like Los Angeles where there’s a lot of red tape.”

Local landmarks such as Shields Date Garden in Indio, which Munch had visited many times, are also featured in the film.

“I wrote a scene that would take place there in the Shields’ theater, where our intelligence operative shows our protagonist the alleged footage from Eisenhower’s meeting with the extraterrestrial,” he says. “It was nice way to photograph these historic local places.”

As for the subject matter of the film, there could be a bit of kismet involved.

A 2017 Washington Post article noted that The Pentagon officially confirmed there was a $22 million government program “to collect and analyze ‘anomalous aerospace threats’ — government-speak for UFOs.” In 2019, the New York Times featured interviews with several Navy pilots who said they witnessed, and in several instances recorded, unexplained flying objects off of the East Coast.

“In the course of the last year, the film has become timelier,” Munch says. “Major publications have documented, in a very dry and matter-of-fact way, incidents involving the U.S. Military engaging with UFOs over the past 15 years or so. This has all been presented in a way which cannot be easily dismissed, as it was from the 1950s onward, where UFOs and ETs were only considered in the context of the ‘giggle factor.’ The subject is timelier even though these current articles have no direct relation to those Eisenhower years.”

And what of Eisenhower’s alleged encounters with a higher intelligence?

“I find that it would have been very routine for him; I don’t think anything really phased Eisenhower,” Munch muses. “As far as my protagonist in the film, I certainly arrived at the scenes with his incredulity. He’s a journalist who’s reported on mainstream and fringe science. He certainly has a predisposition, but it’s balanced out by his concern for the validity of what he’s reporting. I think that’s the quandary for any journalist who is having to report on the subject of UFOs or extraterrestrials.”

16:14 minute Eisenhower farewell speech, January 17, 1961 (‘Ewafa’ YouTube)

{ https://exonews.org/ }

21-01-2020 om 23:54 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )

Ancient stardust in meteorite is older than Earth

Posted by Paul Scott Anderson in SPACE

Grains of stardust – particles left behind by star explosions – in an Australian meteorite are now the oldest known material on Earth. A new study suggests this stardust came to be long before our sun ever existed.

Round colored ripples with highlighted gray nodule and stars in background.

Graphic depicting a granola-like clump of stardust from the Egg Nebula.

Image via NASA/ W. Sparks (STScI)/ R. Sahai (JPL)/ Janaína N. Ávila/ EurekAlert!.

As the saying goes, we are all made of stardust. It’s true. The elements in our bodies – oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, calcium and so on – are made in the thermonuclear furnaces of stars. When scientists speak of stardust, or cosmic dust, they’re speaking of the leftover tiny particles from dead stars that exploded as supernovae. This stardust later goes into forming new stars, planets and moons, including those in our own solar system. It goes into the solar system’s debris, the asteroids and comets, and ultimately into meteorites, or rocks from space that find their way to Earth’s surface. Now scientists at the Field Museum in Chicago have found the oldest known samples of stardust in a meteorite that landed in Australia. The meteorite is estimated to be 5 to 7 billion years old. The stardust samples are the oldest material ever discovered on Earth. This dust is even older than our solar system.

The new peer-reviewed study was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on January 13, 2020.

Philipp Heck, a curator at the museum and lead author of the paper, said in a statement:

This is one of the most exciting studies I’ve worked on. These are the oldest solid materials ever found, and they tell us about how stars formed in our galaxy.

These particles, also known as presolar grains, are indeed really, really old. They formed long before our sun ever existed. As Heck commented:

They’re solid samples of stars, real stardust.

EarthSky 2020 lunar calendars are available! Only a few left. Order now!

A smiling young woman wearing plastic gloves, holding a big rock.

Study-co author Jennika Greer at University of Chicago. She said, “Once learning about this, how do you want to study anything else?”

Image via UChicago.

Clump of gray-colored grains on white background.

Scanning electron microscope image of one of the clumps of presolar grains, or stardust.

Image via Janaína N. Ávila/ EurekAlert!.

Though stardust is a common ingredient for new stars in our Milky Way galaxy, it’s incredibly rare on Earth. How can it be found? As in this case, the stardust was discovered in a meteorite, or space rock. To give you an idea of how rare that is, fewer than 5% of meteorites appear to contain grains of stardust. The grains within a meteorite are a true treasure and of particular interest for scientists. They’ve remained unchanged for billions of years. They can offer a glimpse of what conditions were like before our solar system came to be.

The samples being studied by researchers at the Field Museum are from the Murchison meteorite, which fell in Australia in 1969. The Field Museum has the largest chunk of this meteorite, and the grain samples were first extracted from the meteorite at the University of Chicago (UChicago) 30 years ago.

Fragments of the meteorite are smashed into a powder, which can be a rather smelly process. As Jennika Greer, a co-author of the study at UChicago, explained:

It starts with crushing fragments of the meteorite down into a powder. Once all the pieces are segregated, it’s a kind of paste, and it has a pungent characteristic – it smells like rotten peanut butter.

The pungent paste is then dissolved with acid, until only the stardust grains remain. According to Heck:

It’s like burning down the haystack to find the needle.

Another scanning electron microscope image of some of the presolar grains, or stardust.

Image via Heck et al./ PNAS.

The researchers wanted to know how old the grains were, and what kinds of stars they originated from. Heck said:

We used exposure age data, which basically measures their exposure to cosmic rays, which are high-energy particles that fly through our galaxy and penetrate solid matter. Some of these cosmic rays interact with the matter and form new elements. And the longer they get exposed, the more those elements form.

I compare this with putting out a bucket in a rainstorm. Assuming the rainfall is constant, the amount of water that accumulates in the bucket tells you how long it was exposed. By measuring how many of these new cosmic-ray produced elements are present in a presolar grain, we can tell how long it was exposed to cosmic rays, which tells us how old it is.

So just how old are these grains? Some of them turned out to be the oldest found so far, and the oldest known material on Earth, older than Earth itself. Most of the grains are 4.6 to 4.9 billion years old, while some are as much as 5.5 billion years old or more. Earth itself is 4.5 billion years old and the sun is 4.6 billion years old. So these grains date from back to before the formation of our solar system.

In another significant finding, the researchers pointed out that there was apparently a “baby boom” of new stars forming about 7 billion years ago, and these grains may be left over from them. Heck said:

We have more young grains that we expected. Our hypothesis is that the majority of those grains, which are 4.9 to 4.6 billion years old, formed in an episode of enhanced star formation. There was a time before the start of the solar system when more stars formed than normal.

Gray rock with lighter speckles, sitting on a table.

The Murchison meteorite, which fell in Australia on September 28, 1969.

Image via Wikipedia.

In this way, the stardust can also provide clues about stellar evolution and the history of star formation, not just stellar death. It provides evidence for enhanced periods of star formation, when more stars than usual are born, a hypothesis that has been a matter of much debate among scientists. According to Heck:

Some people think that the star formation rate of the galaxy is constant. But thanks to these grains, we now have direct evidence for a period of enhanced star formation in our galaxy 7 billion years ago with samples from meteorites. This is one of the key findings of our study.

Another interesting result from the study was that stardust particles seem to often float through space stuck together in granola-like clusters. This was unexpected, Heck said:

No one thought this was possible at that scale.

Overall, the findings provide new insight into the life cycle of stars. As Heck noted:

With this study, we have directly determined the lifetimes of stardust. We hope this will be picked up and studied so that people can use this as input for models of the whole galactic life cycle.

I wish we had more people working on it to learn more about our home galaxy, the Milky Way.

I always wanted to do astronomy with geological samples I can hold in my hand. It’s so exciting to look at the history of our galaxy. Stardust is the oldest material to reach Earth, and from it, we can learn about our parent stars, the origin of the carbon in our bodies, the origin of the oxygen we breathe. With stardust, we can trace that material back to the time before the sun.

Greer summed it up this way:

Once learning about this, how do you want to study anything else? It’s awesome. It’s the most interesting thing in the world.

Man with blue latex gloves holding a granular rock.

Philipp Heck at the Field Museum in Chicago is lead author of the new paper on stardust grains in Australia’s Murchison meteorite. He commented: “Our hypothesis is that the majority of the grains we studied, which are 4.9 to 4.6 billion years old, formed in an episode of enhanced star formation.”

Image via Field Museum.

Bottom line: Scientists have discovered grains of stardust in a meteorite that are the oldest known material on Earth, even older than Earth and our solar system themselves.
Source: Lifetimes of interstellar dust from cosmic ray exposure ages of presolar silicon carbide
Via Field Museum

21-01-2020 om 23:02 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ASTRONOMIE / RUIMTEVAART

After an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs, volcanic eruption may have helped life flourish on Earth

An artist's depiction of the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs.

(Image: © NASA/Don Davis)

A massive meteorite impact and extreme volcanic activity occurred around the same time that Earth's large dinosaurs went extinct. But, did the volcanic activity play a role in the mass extinction, or did it actually help new life to flourish?

Sixty-six million years ago, an asteroid smashed into Earth, creating the Chicxulub crater, which is 124 miles (200 kilometers) wide and is now buried underneath the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. The aftereffects of the impact caused a mass extinction, decimating Earth's dinosaur population. Just around this same time (within less than a million years), about 310,685 miles (500,000 km) of lava erupted from the Deccan Traps, a large, igneous volcanic province, and flowed over most of India and into the ocean.

Researchers in a new study have taken a closer look at what actually caused the mass extinction event, and whether or not the volcanic activity at the Deccan Traps, which happened to occur at a similar time, could've helped to shape the future of life on our planet.

Related: Asteroid Impacts Bring Fire and Life (Video)

Asteroids and volcanoes

Scientists continue to debate and study the relationship between these two catastrophic events. Are the impact and volcanic activity actually related to each other? "The short answer is, it looks like an amazing coincidence," Pincelli Hull, an author on this new study, told Space.com, referring to the short amount of time between the two events. "But people keep trying to figure out if they're mechanistically linked, at least in part."

According to this new study, there is still no concrete consensus on how (or if) the two events might have been related, and it's possible that the volcanic activity might have also contributed to the mass extinction. It's likely, however, that the asteroid impact was the primary cause of the extinction.

Turning back the clock

To come to this conclusion, the team focused on outgassing from the volcanic event — the release of gases during a volcanic eruption. They were able to model and analyze the effects that the eruption's carbon dioxide and sulfur emissions had on global temperatures over time.

When the team members compared the results from their simulations and models with records of global temperatures throughout this time, they found that at least 50% of the outgassing from the Deccan Traps occurred well before the meteorite impact. So, only the asteroid impact happened at the same time as the mass extinction event.

Life after catastrophe

In addition to finding evidence to support the theory that the meteorite impact was the main cause of the mass extinction event, the team also found that volcanic gases from the Deccan traps could've supported the flourishing of different species after the mass extinction.

By figuring out the timing of this outgassing, the team found evidence to support the theory that "post-event volcanism suggests a role for volcanism in the delayed recovery of biodiversity," the authors said in the study.

The authors suggest that the volcanic activity and gases released from the activity would've caused changes in the carbon cycle, which would've allowed the ocean to absorb a lot of carbon dioxide. Being able to see a timeline of global temperatures throughout this time and compare them with their own simulations, they suggest that this could've limited global warming that would've otherwise occurred.

In limiting more extreme global warming, "Deccan volcanism might have contributed to shaping [the rise of Cenozoic species and communities] during the extinction aftermath," the study authors said in a press statement.

It's possible that there could be other explanations for how life on Earth developed following this mass extinction, Hull told Space.com. She said that it's possible that this volcanic activity was happening and causing these climate effects, but the activity didn't affect diversification of life on land or in the ocean. However, this new study does show how it could've been possible.

This work was published yesterday (Jan. 16) in the journal Science.

Follow Chelsea Gohd on Twitter @chelsea_gohd. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: community@space.com.

21-01-2020 om 22:34 geschreven door peter

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Alien life is out there. But our theories are steering us away from it.

By Peter Vickers

Expect the unexpected.

(Image: © Shutterstock)

If we discovered evidence of alien life, would we even realize it? Life on other planets could be so different from what we're used to that we might not recognize any biological signatures that it produces.

Recent years have seen changes to our theories about what counts as a biosignature and which planets might be habitable, and further turnarounds are inevitable. But the best we can really do is interpret the data we have with our current best theory, not with some future idea we haven't had yet.

This is a big issue for those involved in the search for extraterrestrial life. As Scott Gaudi of Nasa's Advisory Council has said: "One thing I am quite sure of, now having spent more than 20 years in this field of exoplanets … expect the unexpected."

But is it really possible to "expect the unexpected"? Plenty of breakthroughs happen by accident, from the discovery of penicillin to the discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation left over from the Big Bang. These often reflect a degree of luck on behalf of the researchers involved. When it comes to alien life, is it enough for scientists to assume "we'll know it when we see it"?

Many results seem to tell us that expecting the unexpected is extraordinarily difficult. "We often miss what we don't expect to see," according to cognitive psychologist Daniel Simons, famous for his work on inattentional blindness. His experiments have shown how people can miss a gorilla banging its chest in front of their eyes. Similar experiments also show how blind we are to non-standard playing cards such as a black four of hearts. In the former case, we miss the gorilla if our attention is sufficiently occupied. In the latter, we miss the anomaly because we have strong prior expectations.

There are also plenty of relevant examples in the history of science. Philosophers describe this sort of phenomenon as "theory-ladenness of observation". What we notice depends, quite heavily sometimes, on our theories, concepts, background beliefs and prior expectations. Even more commonly, what we take to be significant can be biased in this way.

For example, when scientists first found evidence of low amounts of ozone in the atmosphere above Antarctica, they initially dismissed it as bad data. With no prior theoretical reason to expect a hole, the scientists ruled it out in advance. Thankfully, they were minded to double check, and the discovery was made.

More than 200,000 stars captured in one small section of the sky by NASA's TESS mission.

(Image credit: NASA)

Could a similar thing happen in the search for extraterrestrial life? Scientists studying planets in other solar systems (exoplanets) are overwhelmed by the abundance of possible observation targets competing for their attention. In the last 10 years scientists have identified more than 3,650 planets - more than one a day. And with missions such as NASA's TESS exoplanet hunter this trend will continue.

Each and every new exoplanet is rich in physical and chemical complexity. It is all too easy to imagine a case where scientists do not double check a target that is flagged as "lacking significance", but whose great significance would be recognized on closer analysis or with a non-standard theoretical approach.

However, we shouldn't exaggerate the theory-ladenness of observation. In the Müller-Lyer illusion, a line ending in arrowheads pointing outwards appears shorter than an equally long line with arrowheads pointing inwards. Yet even when we know for sure that the two lines are the same length, our perception is unaffected and the illusion remains. Similarly, a sharp-eyed scientist might notice something in her data that her theory tells her she should not be seeing. And if just one scientist sees something important, pretty soon every scientist in the field will know about it.

History also shows that scientists are able to notice surprising phenomena, even biased scientists who have a pet theory that doesn't fit the phenomena. The 19th-century physicist David Brewster incorrectly believed that light is made up of particles traveling in a straight line. But this didn't affect his observations of numerous phenomena related to light, such as what's known as birefringence in bodies under stress. Sometimes observation is definitely not theory-laden, at least not in a way that seriously affects scientific discovery.

We need to be open-minded

Certainly, scientists can't proceed by just observing. Scientific observation needs to be directed somehow. But at the same time, if we are to "expect the unexpected", we can't allow theory to heavily influence what we observe, and what counts as significant. We need to remain open-minded, encouraging exploration of the phenomena in the style of Brewster and similar scholars of the past.

Studying the universe largely unshackled from theory is not only a legitimate scientific endeavor — it's a crucial one. The tendency to describe exploratory science disparagingly as "fishing expeditions" is likely to harm scientific progress. Under-explored areas need exploring, and we can't know in advance what we will find.

In the search for extraterrestrial life, scientists must be thoroughly open-minded. And this means a certain amount of encouragement for non-mainstream ideas and techniques. Examples from past science (including very recent ones) show that non-mainstream ideas can sometimes be strongly held back. Space agencies such as NASA must learn from such cases if they truly believe that, in the search for alien life, we should "expect the unexpected."

Peter Vickers, Associate Professor in Philosophy of Science, Durham University

This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

NASA Predicts Next Solar Cycle will be Lowest in 200 Years (Dalton Minimum Levels) + the Implications

21-01-2020 om 22:15 geschreven door peter

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Mysterieuze runensteen van de Vikingen waarschuwt voor nieuwe ijstijd. Wetenschappers kraken 1200 jaar oude code

Foto: Nicklas Sjölund Larsson CC BY-SA 4.0 Wikimedia Commons

Mysterieuze runensteen van de Vikingen waarschuwt voor nieuwe ijstijd. Wetenschappers kraken 1200 jaar oude code

Wetenschappers hebben een 1200 jaar oude code gekraakt. Het gaat om de mysterieuze inscriptie van een beroemde runensteen van de Vikingen.

De zogenoemde Röksteen, die dateert uit de negende eeuw, laat zien dat de Vikingen bang waren voor een nieuwe ijstijd.

In de zesde eeuw werd Scandinavië namelijk getroffen door de zogeheten ‘kleine ijstijd van de late oudheid’, waarbij meer dan de helft van de bevolking om het leven kwam.

Extreme kou

De steen verhaalt over de strijd tegen de extreme kou in die tijd.

Volgens professor Per Holmberg van de Universiteit van Göteborg gaat de tekst over licht en duisternis, warmte en kou en de angst voor een aanstaande klimaatramp.

“Het belangrijkste thema is de zon,” legde hij uit. “Van de negen raadsels op de steen, hebben vijf als antwoord ‘de zon’.”

De vier overige raadsels hebben betrekking op de god Odin.

Vulkaanuitbarstingen

Zo’n 300 jaar voordat de Röksteen werd geplaatst, kelderde de temperatuur, met name in Scandinavië.

In het noorden van Europa mislukten oogsten en verhongerden de mensen. Meer dan de helft van de bevolking stierf.

Tegelijkertijd vonden er zware vulkaanuitbarstingen plaats, waardoor er als gevolg van de aswolken minder zonlicht op het aardoppervlak viel en de temperatuur nog verder daalde.

“Voordat de Röksteen verrees, vonden er een aantal onheilspellende gebeurtenissen plaats,” legde professor Bo Graslund van de Universiteit van Uppsala uit.

Fimbulwinter

“Vanwege een krachtige zonnestorm kleurde de lucht rood, de zomer was buitengewoon koud en later was er ook nog een zonsverduistering,” zei hij.

De Vikingen waren bang voor een nieuwe zogeheten Fimbulwinter, een extreem strenge en koude winter.

Lees de studie hier in zijn geheel.

[Electroverse]

© Copyright (c) NineForNews.nl

21-01-2020 om 21:47 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:NineForNews. nl ( new ipv NIBURU.nl) (NL)

CHILLING 1200-YEAR-OLD VIKING STONE WARNS OF FUTURE LITTLE ICE AGES

CAP ALLON

A secret code unsolved for 1200 years has finally been cracked — the mysterious inscription on famed Viking relic the Rök stone (or Rökstenen) reveals the warrior nation feared the return of the deadly ‘Late Antique Little Ice Age’ which wiped out more than HALF of Scandinavia — the stone speaks of an enduring battle against extreme cold weather in the sixth century.

According to a study led by Per Holmberg, a professor of Swedish language at the University of Gothenburg, the text is telling a tale of light and darkness, warmth and cold, and it expresses a deep fear of a coming climate disaster.

“The main theme is apparently the Sun, or the rhythm of light”, Holmberg explained.

Of the nine riddles contained on the stone, five of them have the answer “the Sun.”

Experts have long been stumped by the writing on the 8.5ft tall stone, with most theories claiming it is a dedication to the legendary Ostrogoth king, Theodore the Great but now it is thought it alludes to fears of a repeat of the deadly Late Antique Little Ice Age.

According to new archaeological research, roughly 300 years before Rökstenen was erected, the world was struck by a climate catastrophe which saw global average temperatures plunge significantly. Scandinavia was one of the regions worst impacted by this shift, with crop failure, starvation, and mass death ripping through Northern Europe–more than 50% of the population was lost, along with many species.

Furthermore, a string of violent volcanic eruptions darkened the skies with ash at this time, adding to the cooling, and further amplifying the crop failure, famine, and wars.

The stone was erected in the late 800s near the lake Vattern in south central Sweden and makes mention to the Norse hero Theodoric

The stone was erected in the late 800s near the lake Vattern in south central Sweden.

“Before the Rök stone was erected, several ominous events occurred,” explained Bo Gräslund, a professor of archeology at Uppsala University. “A strong solar storm painted the sky in dramatic red colors, the harvests were hit by an extremely cold summer, and later a solar eclipse occurred just after the sunrise. It could have been enough of one of these events to trigger concerns about a new Fimbulwinter.”

Image result for rökstenen cold

This diagram of the runestone shows the individual elements of the encrypted text.

Why the runes were so deeply encrypted is anyone’s guess.

Perhaps whoever had the Rökstenen engraved didn’t want just anyone to read it.

It was a message of terror, after all.

It was a reminder of a cataclysmic past.

It was a warning of the terrible power of the Sun.

Per Holmberg and his team claim to have uncovered an ominous prophecy. The stone speaks of a “battle enduring for centuries,” but not a fight with man, but one with nature. For a full read of the researchers’ recently published study, click her e.

We at Electroverse are also forewarning of the terrible power of the Sun, and that these prophesied cold times are returning in earnest, in line with the historically low solar activity currently being experienced.

Even NASA agrees, in part at least, with their recent forecast revealing this next solar cycle (25) will be “the weakest of the past 200 years,” with the agency correlating previous solar shutdowns to prolonged periods of global cooling here.

With SC25 likely a just stop-off on the Sun’s descent into its next full-blown Grand Solar Minimum:

Social Media channels are restricting Electroverse’s reach — be sure to subscribe to receive new post notifications by email (the box is located in the sidebar >>> or scroll down if on mobile).

And/or become a Patron by clicking here: patreon.com/join/electroverse

The site receives ZERO funding, and never has.

So any way you can, help us spread the message so others can survive and thrive in the coming times.

Grand Solar Minimum + Pole Shift

NASA is effectively forecasting a return to the Dalton Minimum (1790-1830) but gives no mention of the brutal cold, crop loss, famine, war and powerful Volcanic eruptions associated with it…

{ https://electroverse.net/ }

21-01-2020 om 21:45 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:Diversen (Eng, NL en Fr)

DE AARDE KREUNT EN STEUNT ALS NOOIT TEVOREN

DE AARDE KREUNT EN STEUNT ALS NOOIT TEVOREN

Nog nooit in de ons bekende geschiedenis hebben er zoveel heftige aardveranderingen plaatsgevonden als op dit moment.

Zelfs in sommige mainstream kringen begint dit nu wel heel erg op te vallen en vraagt men zich af of dit alles misschien tot een soort crescendo zal leiden?

De wereld wordt permanent in een staat van afleiding gehouden, waardoor de gebeurtenissen die werkelijk belangrijk zijn niet of nauwelijks tot de grote massa weten door te dringen.

Als je bij ons de afgelopen weken de “headlines” een beetje hebt gevolgd dan zal je zijn opgevallen dat er iedere dag grote koppen staan over welk programma nu weer de meeste kijkers heeft getrokken in wat men noemt een soort talkshow oorlog.

Een aantal zorgvuldig geselecteerde “talking heads” die gezeten aan een tafel een gebalanceerde menig (aangestuurde mindcontrol) geven over van alles en nog wat en waar miljoenen mensen zich iedere dag door laten programmeren.

Ondertussen schijnt de wereld letterlijk naar de Filistijnen te gaan en wordt daar niet of nauwelijks aandacht aan besteed. Er wordt wel aandacht besteed aan individuele zaken zoals de bosbranden in Australië, maar nooit worden er bepaalde verbanden gelegd, waardoor je nogal een angstaanjagend beeld krijgt als je dit wel doet.

Iemand die dit nu heeft gedaan is de Amerikaanse advocaat Michael Snyder. Michael is een conservatieve, zeer mainstream christen die onlangs nog een mislukte poging heeft gedaan om als Republikein gekozen te worden in het Amerikaanse Congres.

Deze man schrijft nu onder ander het volgende:

Er is nooit eerder een tijd geweest in onze moderne geschiedenis dat onze planeet zo onderhavig is geweest aan allerlei snelle veranderingen als nu op dit moment. De zon gedraagt zich heel erg vreemd, op veel plaatsen ter wereld hebben we opeens heel erg koud weer, de temperaturen in de oceanen gaan omhoog, overal ter wereld barsten vulkanen uit, Australië heeft te maken met de ergste bosbranden ooit en de magnetische noordpool beweegt zich met een voor wetenschappers alarmerende snelheid. Is het mogelijk dat al deze bizarre activiteiten leiden naar een soort crescendo?

En daarna komt ook Michael tot de conclusie dat dit alles nauwelijks de aandacht krijgt die het verdient omdat de mainstreammedia druk bezig zijn met allerlei andere programma’s die zij klaarblijkelijk belangrijk(er) vinden.

Hij komt tot een lijst van 7 punten die hij ziet als tekenen dat er toch wel degelijk iets aan de hand is met de aarde en dat hier echt meer aandacht aan besteed zou moeten worden.

De zon

Dit is het eerste punt waar hij mee begint en dat er in 200 jaar niet zo’n lage activiteit van de zon waargenomen is.

We hebben hier uiteraard ook uitgebreid over geschreven en de verwachting van echte wetenschappers is dan ook dat we een periode tegemoet gaan met langdurig weinig of geen activiteit van de zon, met als mogelijk gevolg dat we condities tegemoet gaan die zijn te vergelijken met de mini ijstijd.

We hebben onlangs ook kunnen zien dat NASA nogal is geschrokken van al die berichtgeving en nu ineens met een boodschap komt dat alles helemaal goed zal komen en dat het niet zo erg zal worden als zij eerst hadden gedacht. Dat is het punt waarop je dan ook echt wantrouwig moet worden.

Heel erg koud in gebieden waar dit nooit voor komt

Dit is iets dat direct gerelateerd kan worden aan de lage zonneactiviteit en de verandering in de hoge luchtstromen zoals de Jetstream. Hierdoor krijgt je de bizarre situatie zoals sneeuw in Caïro, iets dat in 112 jaar niet is voorgekomen. Eveneens sneeuw in landen zoals Griekenland en Saoedi Arabië, iets dat ook sinds mensenheugenis niet is voor gekomen.

Oceanen worden warmer

Dit is iets dat ook wij niet wisten, maar klaarblijkelijk worden de oceanen van deze wereld steeds warmer. De temperaturen voor de kust van Californië van het zeewater zijn tot een recordhoogte gestegen.

Volgens Michael is dit bekend geworden door een onlangs gepubliceerd onderzoek dat aan zou tonen dat 2019 het warmste jaar ooit is geweest voor het water in de oceanen.

xxx

Uiteraard wordt dit, ook door Michael, toegeschreven aan de door de mens veroorzaakte opwarming van de aarde en hij vindt dit dan ook heel vreemd, gezien het gebrek aan totale zonneactiviteit en de daarbij behorende juist lagere temperaturen.

Uiteraard weten we niet hoe betrouwbaar dit onderzoek is, maar als het wel waar is, dan vertoont dit overeenkomsten met de ijslaag op de noordpool die in zijn totaliteit groeit, maar toch van onderen schijnt te smelten, alsof er iets is dat de aarde van binnenuit extreem opwarmt.

Bosbranden

Als vierde punt noemt Michael de bosbranden en hij vraagt zich af hoe het mogelijk is dat we nu bosbranden meemaken zoals we die nog nooit eerder hebben gezien. De branden in Australië waren dit jaar 46 procent omvangrijker dan die we eerder hebben gezien in het Amazonegebied.

Volgens NASA is de rookontwikkeling van al deze branden zo erg dat die rookwolken zich over de gehele aarde zullen verspreiden.

Uiteraard gaat Michael er niet van uit dat bosbranden ook bewust kunnen worden aangestoken en ziet hij ook dit als een onderdeel van de klimaatopwarming.

Vulkanen

Dan besteedt hij vervolgens aandacht aan de enorme toename van vulkaanuitbarstingen zoals wij dat ook onlangs hebben gedaan in een uitgebreid artikel.

Zoals ook vermeld in dat artikel, kan een zogenaamd Grand Solar Minimum ook zorgen voor een toename van het aantal vulkaanuitbarstingen, maar in het tempo waarin dit nu gebeurt, is het wel heel erg veel.

Magnetisch veld

Als laatste punt voert Michael aan de sterke vermindering van het aardmagnetisch veld en dat dit een aantal wetenschappers zorgen baart. Gemiddeld vermindert dit veld met ongeveer 5 procent per eeuw, maar ook in bepaalde gebieden gaat dit veel sneller. Zo is het magnetisch veld boven Noord-Amerika de afgelopen drie jaar met 3,5 procent afgenomen.

Daarnaast beweegt ook de magnetische noordpool zich sinds 1980 opeens veel sneller dan voorheen, zoals je op het volgende plaatje kunt zien.

xxx

Michael signaleert al deze gebeurtenissen en zegt het sterke gevoel te hebben dat dit alles zich opbouwt tot een bepaalde climax en zou graag zien dat hier veel meer aandacht aan wordt besteed.

Naast bovengenoemde zijn er nog meer heftige zaken die op geen enkele manier verklaard kunnen worden door de klimaatonzin zoals de door de mens veroorzaakte opwarming van de aarde.

Denk hierbij bijvoorbeeld aan de spectaculaire toename van het aantal aardbevingen sinds eind 2012.

xxx

Is het niet bizar dat veel van bovengenoemde punten totaal worden genegeerd en is het niet onvoorstelbaar dat niemand al die dingen met elkaar in verband brengt?

Daarmee kan je eigenlijk alleen maar concluderen dat de mensheid het niet mag weten, nog niet.

Ze mogen het pas weten als het te laat is en de elite genoeg tijd heeft gehad om haar voorbereidingen af te ronden.

Terwijl de wereld wordt afgeleid door talk shows en misdadige hoopporno ("de top van de cabal is nu echt in paniek en morgen wordt alles beter") steunt en kraakt de aarde in haar voegen en blijft het orkest op de Titanic tot op het laatste moment doorspelen.

xxx

Specific types of event can be displayed in the chart below by clicking on the category names at the top.

Above: Number of attribution studies by extreme weather event type and year.

Note: The total number of events dipped in 2017 because the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society special report for that year was published in early 2018 rather than late 2017.

{ https://niburu.co/ }

21-01-2020 om 20:12 geschreven door peter

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Crashed UFOs and secret operational bases in Antarctica Part 2

Part 2: Secret operational bases in Antarctica.

Crashed UFOs and secret operational bases in Antarctica is an ongoing project, which started several years ago, carried out by UFO researcher Frederick living in South Africa in collaboration with UFO Sightings Hotspot.

Many secret operational bases in Antarctica are camouflaged by snow and on Google Earth camouflaged by fake clouds, fake cloud vapor, fake snow, blurred and blacked-out images.

There are huge secret (extraterrestrial) bases under the ice or partly under the ice, but the structures are disguised as research stations.

To avoid a cover-up of the discoveries, we do not yet release the coordinates. More discoveries will follow soon in part 3.

See part 1:

Introduction and Part 1: Crashed UFOs, crashed ancient UFOs in Antarctica

Click images to enlarge.

21-01-2020 om 18:05 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:MYSTERIES ( Fr, Nl, E)

SpaceX explodes a rocket to show it's launch escape system is safe

SpaceX just took a giant leap forward in its quest to launch astronauts. The private spaceflight company intentionally destroyed one of its rockets on Sunday (Jan. 19) as part of a crucial test of its new Crew Dragon capsule's launch escape system.

The uncrewed test, known as an in-flight abort (IFA) test, is the last major hurdle SpaceX needed to clear before Crew Dragon can begin to carry astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS).

According to space.com The test resulted in a simulated rocket failure around 85 seconds into flight, then saw the Crew Dragon blasted free of its rocket ride less than 90 seconds after liftoff. deployed its drogue parachutes, and the four main chutes followed shortly thereafter.

The capsule splashed down softly about 20 miles (30 kilometers) off the Florida coast 9 minutes after launch.

While the booster tore itself apart in a fireball, the second stage falling 40km and crashing into the ocean at the speed of sound, making a huge explosion.

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

21-01-2020 om 17:53 geschreven door peter

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Bright UFO recorded over Scotland 20-Jan-2020

This 2020 UFO sighting was just submitted to me through Latest UFO Sightings Facebook page. It was filmed over Inverurie, a town in Aberdeenshire, Scotland on 20th January 2020.

Witness report:

Yesterday at 6pm Inverurie Aberdeenshire Scotland. I have seen satalites before and you can see them move. This didnt look like it moved. I watched for over half hour. Then left it for half an hour went to show my husband and it had completely vanished

21-01-2020 om 17:31 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

20-01-2020

Underground Wars: Something Strange Is Going On Under The Earth

High strangeness, deep underground military bases and the end times. I sat down with Darrin Geisinger, Author of Zero-G’s for this very special interview, find more about Darrin and his work at this link, https://darringeisinger.com/

Following a devastating global economic collapse, civilization struggles on. Christians everywhere proclaimed the Meltdown to be the Great Tribulation, but instead of a rescuing rapture, “they” came on the scene to save us. The Messengers turned the lights back on, cleaned up the radiation, stopped the pandemics.

But a handful of doubters suspect that these extraterrestrials might not be the benevolent benefactors they claim to be. Some even believe that they are a Great Deception: “And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie” (2nd Thess 2:11). Those who spoke out against the Messengers have mysteriously vanished. Earth’s foremost robotics scientist was one such believer and now he’s gone too.

To his only son, he leaves behind two things. The first is a way to fight back, in the form of an armored exo-suit—possibly humanity’s last and only hope. The second is a hastily scrawled message…

https://ufosightingshotspot.blogspot.com/

20-01-2020 om 21:21 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:MYSTERIES ( Fr, Nl, E)

Something Has Escaped Antarctica Secret Underground Base?

Google Earth images show a possible entrance leading to an underground secret base located at King George Island in Antarctica.

The following stands out when checking the timeline at that specific location:

Year 2005 – Something seems to break out of the snow/ice wall.
Year 2007 – A large cave or entrance of 75 x 75 meters has emerged and something seems to have moved into the ocean.
Year 2019 – The cave or entrance is again completely covered by snow and ice.

The image of 2005 clearly shows that something from inside the cave has pushed with an enormous force resulting in the huge opening of 75 x 75 meters.

The image of 2007 not only shows some sort of trail coming from the cave leading to the ocean but it also shows a weird anomaly of about 14 meters width floating in the ocean just in front of the cave.

The image of 2019 shows that everything is covered with snow and ice again.

We know that Antarctica has many secrets related to the UFO and aliens phenomena, could it be that the massive hole leads to a secret base built into a giant ice-cave and something broke out?

Coordinates: 62° 0’29.99″S 57°45’14.86″W

other videos ( peter2011 )

20-01-2020 om 21:13 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:MYSTERIES ( Fr, Nl, E)

Shock: NASA Interrupted by Red Object During Live Stream Feed

live feed shock NASA interrupted by Red Object during stream

live feed shock NASA interrupted by Red Object during stream. It was captured from the ISS Space Station and my first thought was some kind of reflection from the optics, a sun flare, or something.

other videos ( peter2011)

HTTP://WWW.WORLDUFOPHOTOS.ORG

20-01-2020 om 20:49 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

Photos of a UFO Buzzing a Commercial Jet Over the United Kingdom

JANUARY 19, 2020 …..NEWTON ABBOT DEVON ENGLAND

Hi Ken : The sky was clear and blue and I was watching a passenger plane pass over the area when I decided to take some photographs of it with my Nikon P900 camera. I was in the process of taking photographs when a white sphere of light just appeared out of no where and flew around the sky right in front of the passenger plane. I captured the white sphere of light in four of the photographs before I lost sight of it. I couldn’t believe it I wasn’t even trying to capture a UFO… It was just sheer luck that I just happened to be photographing the passenger plane at that precise moment. I often like to take photographs of passing passenger planes as they fly over the area and I would highly recommend it to anyone who is out there trying to spot UFOs as they are clearly drawn to commercial aircraft.

The question is where are these strange objects coming from and how do they just seem to appear out of thin air like that? I really would like to know. I believe that the government knows what these strange object really are and is purposely withholding this information from the public. There’s still time left for the government to come out and save face and tell the general public the truth. Why are they allowing these unidentified objects to freely fly around in the sky with complete impunity. I am calling the government out on their cowedly cover up of the whole situation. This cowedly cover up as gone on for far to long. Enough is enough It just isn’t right. The general public have the right to know the truth and need to be informed as to what is really going on in the skies above them! This truth embargo won’t last forever. The photographs where taken ‏‎at 11:58 AM on the ‎19th of ‎January ‎2020, at Newton Abbot Devon England. All the best John.

KEN PFEIFER WORLD UFO PHOTOS AND NEWS

HTTP://WWW.WORLDUFOPHOTOSANDNEWS.ORG

HTTP://WWW.KENPFEIFERDISCOVERIES.COM

THANKS TO JOHN MOONER, CHIEF INVESTIGATOR FOR WORLD UFO PHOTOS. https://ufologist.yolasite.com

Source:

http://worldufophotosandnews.org/?p=24939

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/}

20-01-2020 om 18:49 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:UFOs , UAPs , USOS

Top 10 UFO Sightings: Best Cases

Aliens are visiting us

I’ve asked a friend of mine to review this new book about UFOs that’s available on Amazon:

If you want to be sure of unusual things such as aliens or UFOs, then you must think about it from an unusual way of thinking.

This book not only gives you a proof of the sightings of UFO, but it changes the way of thinking and perception about them. UFO sightings are becoming more and more popular and no one can deny it.
Even the Pentagon has admitted that the aerial objects in the videos are simply unidentified, and for now, unexplained.

I never believed in aliens or UFOs. I always thought that this is something created by man himself to become popular or something but after reading the book ”top 10 UFO Sightings by Sebastian Privett’’ my whole perception has changed. This book gives me all the answers to my questions. And now I have started believing in these things.

After reading this book I ask myself how people can close their minds off to the size of the

After reading this book I ask myself how people can close their minds off to the size of the Universe. With billions of stars, millions of galaxies, and possibly a googol of planets, how can it be that human beings are the only thinking animal in creation?

This book unfolds a thrilling journey with a lot of information with proof, so I suggest everyone to read this book. Even if the aliens are short, dour, and sexually obsessed—if they’re here, I want to know about them.

It changes my perception maybe it changed yours.

Get your own copy of the book at this link: https://amzn.to/2R582th

Videos, selected by peter2011

20-01-2020 om 18:31 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

Disc-shaped UFO over Volcano Colima, Mexico 19-Jan-2020

volcano-ufo

Some kind of bright flying saucer was caught on tape over Volcano Colima, also known as Volcán de Fuego, part of the Colima Volcanic Complex. This happened on 19th January 2020.

20-01-2020 om 18:04 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

George Adamski Got Famous Sharing UFO Photos and Alien ‘Encounters’

He claimed to have conversed with Venusians using hand gestures and mental telepathy.

GREG DAUGHERTY

To some, he was a prophet. To others, a laughing stock. Even today, more than half a century after his death, George Adamski remains one of the most curious and controversial characters in UFO history.

Adamski had multiple claims to UFO fame. Starting in the late 1940s, he took countless photos of what he insisted were flying saucers. But experts, including J. Allen Hynek, scientific consultant to the Air Force’s Cold War-era UFO investigation team Project Blue Book, dismissed them as crude fakes.

Then, in 1952, Adamski reported that he had met and conversed with a visitor from Venus in a California desert, using a combination of hand gestures and mental telepathy.

His story would only get stranger from there.

READ MORE: UFO Stories

A star gazer is born

A cigar-shaped Venusian interplanetary carrier photographed through a 6" telescope over Palomar Gardens, California taken by Adamski.

Mary Evans Picture Library/Everett

Adamski chronicled his alleged adventures in several books. The first, Flying Saucers Have Landed (1953), coauthored with Desmond Leslie, recounted his chat with the Venusian. Widely read at the time, it later gained a new generation of fans in the trippy 1960s.

Adamski’s 1955 sequel, Inside the Space Ships, described further meetings, not only with the Venusian but also with emissaries from Mars and Saturn. In Adamski’s telling, every planet in our solar system was populated with human-like inhabitants, as was the dark side of the earth’s moon.

In the 1955 book, Adamski claimed that his new friends took him aboard one of their scout ships, flew him to an immense mother ship hovering over the earth, gave him a ride around the moon and treated him to a colorful travelogue about life on Venus.

Along the way, he was also tutored by a space man he called “the master.” The master, who was said to be nearly 1,000 years old, shared the secrets of the universe with Adamski, only some of which he was allowed to divulge back on earth.

Preposterous as his stories seemed, Adamski became an international celebrity and lectured widely. Queen Juliana of the Netherlands raised a public stir after inviting him to her palace in 1959 to discuss extraterrestrial doings. Adamski supposedly claimed a secret 1963 meeting with the pope, as well.

Adamski soon had followers all over the planet. But not everybody was on board. Arthur C. Clarke, the author of 2001: A Space Odyssey, not only denounced Adamski’s work but characterized his believers as “nitwits.”

READ MORE: How Betty and Barney Hill's Abduction Story Defined a Genre

Who was George Adamski?

George Adamski with a photograph of a Venusian Scout on February 18, 1959.

Norman Victor Herfort/Fairfax Media/Getty Images

George Adamski was reportedly born in Poland in 1891, came to the U.S. with his parents at as a young boy and grew up in far-northern New York state.

He seems to have had little formal education, though the press would later refer to him as “Professor Adamski”—a habit he appears to have encouraged.

Adamski enjoyed his first glimpse of glory in 1934 as the leader of a group calling itself the Royal Order of Tibet. The Los Angeles Times reported they had bought an old estate in Laguna Beach, California, and planned to establish the first Tibetan monastery in America on the site. The Times described “Prof. George Adamski” as being “as strange as the cult he sponsors.”

Somehow, Adamski convinced the reporter he had lived in the “ancient monasteries” of Tibet as a child. “I learned great truths up there on ‘the roof of the world,’” he was quoted as saying.

In 1936, he was back in the papers again, this time as the leader of a group called Universal Progressive Christianity, whose international headquarters, he said, would soon be established in Laguna Beach.

Aside from offering a tax plan to end the Great Depression in 1938, the “professor” stayed out of the news until after World War II. But when the postwar UFO craze took off, Adamski hopped right on.

READ MORE: Interactive Map: UFO Sightings Taken Seriously by the U.S. Government

Eyes on the skies

A Venusian 'scout craft' photographed by George Adamski, 1952.

Mary Evans Picture Library/Everett

In October 1946, he said, he spotted his first UFO—“a large black object, similar in shape to a gigantic dirigible, and apparently motionless.”

His next sighting came in August 1947. This time, it wasn’t just a single object but a procession of them—at least 184 by his count. Then, in late 1949, at what he said was the urging of the U.S. military, he attached a camera to his six-inch telescope and began scanning the skies at every opportunity. Soon he had what he considered two good UFO pictures.

“Since then, winter and summer, day and night, through heat and cold, wind, rains and fog, I have spent every moment possible outdoors, watching the skies,” he wrote.

By the end of 1952, the skies over his California home had become a sort of UFO shooting gallery. Adamski estimated he took another 500 flying saucer photos, from which he got a dozen good ones. He claimed to have provided prints to the Air Force, but he kept the negatives.

By now, newspapers and magazines were publishing Adamski’s photos, and he was giving lectures as an authority on UFOs. Because he happened to live near Mount Palomar, home of the famous observatory, he was often misidentified as a professional astronomer. But as the genuine astronomer Carl Sagan later noted, the truth was a little more mundane: Adamski “operated a tiny restaurant” in the vicinity and had “set up a small telescope out back.”

A close encounter of the Venusian kind

A painting depicting an encounter with a visitor from Venus at Desert Center, California, 1952.

Mary Evans Picture Library/Michael Buhler/Everett

It was in November 1952, in a remote patch of California desert, that Adamski came face to face with his supposed visitor from Venus. “The beauty of his form surpassed anything I had ever seen,” Adamski wrote. “And the pleasantness of his face freed me of all thought of my personal self. I felt like a little child in the presence of one with great wisdom and much love…”

The Venusian’s flesh was as soft as a baby’s, Adamski reported after they touched palms, while his “hair was sandy in color and hung in beautiful waves to his shoulders, glistening more beautifully than any woman’s I have ever seen.”

When the two finally got around to communicating, it became clear that the Venusian had come to deliver a message. Earthlings should stop messing around with atomic bombs, he told Adamski, before they destroyed their entire planet. To punctuate his point, and to show that he had picked up at least one word of English, the alien added, “Boom! Boom!”

Adamski wasn’t the first American to claim he’d met an alien, but he was the first to go public, and he quickly became the most famous “contactee.” Countless others would follow in the decades to come, telling their own tales of what Project Blue Book’s Hynek famously labeled “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.”

READ MORE: Meet J. Allen Hynek, The Astronomer Who First Classified UFO 'Close Encounters'

His new notoriety turned the humble restaurant where he worked into a tourist attraction. One visitor was Edward J. Ruppelt, then head of Project Blue Book, who dropped by, incognito, in 1953 to find Adamski holding court and hawking copies of his UFO pix. “To look at the man and to listen to his story, you had an immediate urge to believe him,” Ruppelt wrote in his 1956 book The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects, adding that he had “the most honest pair of eyes I’ve ever seen.”

While Ruppelt clearly didn’t believe him, he was impressed all the same. “As I left, he was graciously filling people in on more details and the cash register was merrily ringing up saucer picture sales.”

Hynek also paid a visit to Adamski’s eatery, along with some fellow astronomers. Although he tried to engage Adamski on more scientific matters, Hynek later recalled, “All he wanted to do was sell me photos.”

Con man, crackpot or cosmic messenger?

George Adamski stands in front of a painting by Gay Betts depicting the Venusian space pilot he met in the Mojave Desert, California.

Mary Evans Picture Library/Everett

Adamski published at least one more book, Flying Saucers Farewell (1961) and continued to lecture widely.

At a press conference in March 1965, he predicted that a large fleet of flying saucers would soon descend on Washington, D.C. Unfortunately, Adamski wouldn’t be there to greet them—had they actually arrived. He died that April at age 74.

Since his death, Adamski’s critics have tended to portray him as a harmless crackpot, small-time con artist or perhaps a bit of both.

Others, like J. Allen Hynek, took a somewhat dimmer view, accusing Adamski and others like him, of discrediting the entire field of UFO research.

Author Arthur C. Clarke had made the same point years earlier, saying that Adamski and coauthor Leslie did “a real disservice by obscuring the truth and scaring away serious researchers from a field that may be of great importance.”

But Adamski stuck to his story to the end—including the upbeat but somehow ominous message he’d delivered in Flying Saucers Have Landed:

“My most urgent message and plea to every person who reads it is: Let us be friendly. Let us recognize and welcome the men from other worlds! THEY ARE HERE AMONG US.”

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

20-01-2020 om 16:07 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )

SpaceX test met succes mislukte lancering - HLN.be

Bron: Belga

REUTERS

"De eerste gegevens geven aan dat de test perfect was", aldus Musk op een persconferentie.

RUIMTEVAART SpaceX, het ruimtevaartbedrijf van Tesla-oprichter Elon Musk, heeft vandaag met succes een mislukte lancering gesimuleerd waarbij astronauten zichzelf in veiligheid moesten brengen, enkele ogenblikken na de lancering in Florida. Bedoeling was na te gaan of alle reddingssystemen goed werken als de lancering echt zou mislukken. Bij de test waren geen astronauten aan boord. Alles is verlopen volgens plan.

Bekijk ook: Elon Musk presenteert zijn ruimteschip voor trip naar Mars

Bekijk ook: Zestig satellieten van SpaceX bij ons te zien

20-01-2020 om 15:33 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:HLN.be - Het Laatste Nieuws ( NL)

DE 28 DAGEN CYCLIS WAAR NIEMAND NAAR KIJKT...

DE 28 DAGEN CYCLIS WAAR NIEMAND NAAR KIJKT...

De meeste mensen zullen ervan op de hoogte zijn dat een menstruatiecyclus gemiddeld 28 dagen duurt, maar dat er nog een andere 28-daagse cyclus bestaat weten ze niet.

Een cyclus die er iedere 28 dagen voor zorgt dat we een toename zien van het aantal aardbevingen en vulkaanuitbarstingen en die steeds heftiger worden.

Naar aanleiding van ons eerdere artikel over de toenemende vulkaanuitbarstingen ontvingen wij een heel interessante reactie van een lezer (dank!) met een theorie die weleens de verklaring zou kunnen zijn voor wat er nu op aarde gebeurt.

ab 70

Terwijl je alleen maar de cijfers hoeft te kijken om vast te kunnen stellen dat zware aardbevingen wereldwijd fors zijn toegenomen de afgelopen jaren.

Wanneer we kijken naar aardbevingen met een kracht van zes of hoger op de Richterschaal dan zien we in de periode 1980 tot 1989 dat er gemiddeld op jaarbasis 108,5 van dit soort aardbevingen voorkwamen. In de 9 daarop volgende jaren, de periode 2000 tot 2009, maakten we gemiddeld 160,9 van dit soort aardbevingen mee, een stijging van 38,9 procent.

Wanneer we de bevingen met een kracht groter dan 7,5 nemen, zien we ook een spectaculaire stijging gedurende de laatste jaren

.Eenzelfde verschijnsel doet zich voor bij vulkanen en dan vooral de supervulkanen. Bijna alle actieve supervulkaansystemen beginnen nu tekenen van leven te vertonen wat als gevolg heeft dat de druk erin aan het opbouwen is.

Wanneer deze reuzen zullen exploderen is raden, maar ondertussen groeit de activiteit in Zuid Amerikaanse vulkanen zoals de Turrialba in Costa Rica.

Hij schrijft het volgende:

Gelukkig besteed er iemand aandacht aan wat er gebeurt ten aanzien van vulkanen en aardbevingen, waarvoor mijn dank.

Ik maak mij ernstige zorgen over de mensen die in risicogebieden wonen en het is uitermate belangrijk dat er wordt begrepen wat er hier aan de hand is. Dit is een fenomeen dat niet meer weggaat en waarschijnlijk alleen maar erger zal worden.

Misschien heeft u net als ik gemerkt dat er een verbazend regelmatig patroon is tussen perioden van kalmte en uitbarstingen. Zo zeker ben ik hiervan dat ik durf te stellen dat we nu na misschien nog wat naschokken een kalme periode krijgen betreffende aardbevingen en uitbarstingen tot zeker 23 januari, (waarschijnlijk tot eerste week februari).

Er is sinds geruime tijd een duidelijk aantoonbaar patroon van 28 dagen te herkennen in de cyclus van aardbevingen, deze cyclus-bevingen zijn nooit genoemd in de pers, zo ver ik weet geen enkele pers! Het patroon is steeds duidelijker geworden en de bevingen heftiger, sinds de laatste twee cycli zelfs 5.5 en erger.

Nu beginnen ook vulkanen onder hun druk te bezwijken. Opvallend is dat alle activiteit plaatsvindt enkele dagen nadat er heftige corona uitbarstingen waren welke later gevolgd door zonnewind (geladen deeltjes, geen”’wind’). Vanaf het moment dat de ‘vlammen’ de aarde raken duurt het nog 1 à 2 dagen voordat er weer activiteit komt in de vorm van bevingen en of vulkaanuitbarstingen.

Zoals ik u reeds zei dit is al een hele poos aan de gang maar het wordt steeds sterker. Het is te verklaren. Er draait een object om de zon in een cyclus van 28 dagen waarbij deze tweemaal per maand de zon dicht nadert, misschien wel minder dan een miljoen kilometer. Dit object kan zich niet in hetzelfde plat als ons bevinden anders zouden we constant last hebben van deze verre buur.

Waarom zien we het object dan niet?

Hier moet ik opmerken dat het waarschijnlijk wel is gezien en vaker dan eens ook. Stel de vraag waarom stereo-camera B (NASA) geen data meer doorstuurt en waarom er data vertraging is op de cruciale dagen van activiteit? Wanneer je nu wilt zien wat er gebeurt, geen probleem alle voorspellingen tot en met 22 januari en alle live feeds werken, wacht maar tot begin februari!

De afgelopen keer zijn de corona uitbarstingen op 7 januari geweest, ze raakten de aarde 11/12 januari, hierna volgden de aardbevingen en vulkaanuitbarstingen. Dus wanneer de volgende corona uitbarstingen te verwachten zijn rond 4/5 februari dan ben ik bang dat het de tweede week februari weer onrustig zal worden. Ik hoop dat ik er naast zit maar zo niet dan hebben we weer een kans gemist om mensen te waarschuwen!

Waarom zien we het object niet met het blote oog?

Wanneer het object inderdaad de zon zo dicht nadert als één miljoen kilometer dan is dat zoiets als een speldekop voor een bouw-lamp houden. En omdat stereo camera B niet meer werkt (komt dat even goed uit) kunnen we nooit iets zien aankomen en er is nauwelijks camera bereik voor de baan van vertrek. Nog een reden waarom we het object niet makkelijk zien is mogelijk de densiteit, het object zou zelfs zo’n hoge dichtheid kunnen hebben dat het licht opneemt en dus niet met het blote oog te zien is. Als dit alles waar blijkt te zijn dan is dit bedrog op wereldniveau, het zou de chemtrails verklaren (radiatiescherm creatie) al zou dat nooit werken. Het zou de klimaatsveranderingen verklaren en gekke Greetje zou haar jurk opeten!

Zolang het kan blijf ik de beelden volgen maar de NASA censureert nog erger dan youtube en facepuke.

Tot zover de lezer

Alhoewel hij dit niet met name noemt, denken wij dat het object dat draait om de zon de planeet Nibiru kan zijn, of beter gezegd het mini zonnestelsel Nibiru. De beschrijving van de loopbaan van het object past bij een ellipstische baan die ook wordt toegeschreven aan de planeet of het mini zonnestelsel.

In een toevoeging vraagt de lezer zich verder nog af of de Parker Solar Probe hier misschien ook iets mee te maken kan hebben en beveelt iedereen aan om ook zelf op onderzoek te gaan en geeft daarbij een aantal bronnen die hij zelf regelmatig gebruikt, zoals:

{ https://niburu.co/ }

20-01-2020 om 12:33 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:NineForNews. nl ( new ipv NIBURU.nl) (NL)

When the Government of the Soviet Union Faked a Crashed UFO

Nineteen-sixty-nine was the year in which an elaborate UFO-themed Soviet ruse was put into place. It was highly sophisticated and revolved around a crashed UFO and the autopsy of an alleged alien creature. There’s no doubt in my mind that this was the creation of Soviet intelligence, doing its best to try and convince the United States that Russia had alien technology in its hands – when it actually had nothing of the sort in its hands. The story itself is undeniably fascinating, though – which is what the Russians were surely counting on – as the “evidence” is an old piece of film-footage that reportedly chronicled the whole thing. While the crash of the UFO is said to have occurred in March 1969, the story – and the attendant film – did not surface until 1998, almost three decades later. That was the year in which a television production, The Secret KGB UFO Files, was broadcast in the United States and elsewhere. A great deal of money was put into the over-sensationalized production and it was hosted by the late Roger Moore, the star of seven of the phenomenally successful James Bond movies. The documentary covered a wide body of UFO-based data; however, there’s no doubt that it was specifically the film of the supposed crashed UFO and its deceased crew-member which caught the attention of most of those who bothered to watch it.

Certainly, a great deal of effort went into the production of the film: this was no amateur, halfhearted operation. The footage is grainy, appears old, and was filmed by someone with a hand-held camera. It shows around fifteen-to-twenty men wearing Russian uniforms, thick coats and hats; they are all armed and are guarding a small, circular-shaped craft which appears to have slammed into the ground in a wooded, frosty area. The location was said to have been Sverdlovsky, Russia. The trees are largely bereft of leaves and everything points to the incident having occurred in very cold, bleak weather. Only around a half of the saucer-shaped vehicle protrudes out of the soil, in an angled fashion. The inference is that the military unit found the craft shortly after it hit the ground and, at the time of the filming, were in the process of guarding the site from any and all onlookers that might have come along. To this day, we don’t know where the film came from, and how it reached the producers of The Secret KGB UFO Files. We’re told that the production company had to pay $10,000 U.S. dollars to secure it, after it was smuggled out of KGB archives. Supposedly.

It is worth noting the following from the National UFO Center: “The footage at the crash site does seem to be authentic at least on several points. The truck in the film is a circa 1950 model ZIS151, which has not been used by the military for quite some time, and the truck would have been difficult to find to stage a hoax with. Other elements of the film do not exhibit any obvious signs of a hoax.” It should be noted there are two other, old military vehicles in the film, too.

As for the remaining portion of the film, it very much mirrors the notorious “Alien Autopsy” film, which, in 1995, was foisted on the world by a man named Ray Santilli, and to wildly varying degrees of fanfare. Three men appear to be working on the autopsy of a small, humanoid creature, while a woman take notes. Numerous websites claim that the woman has been “identified” as a “KGB stenographer” named “O.A. Pshonikina.” This statement has been repeated time and again; yet, there is no evidence to prove the claim. Such is the reliability – or not – of the Internet.

20-01-2020 om 12:14 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )

Texas Size UFO Recorded In Earths Low Orbit, NASA Source, UFO Sighting News.

Texas Size UFO Recorded In Earths Low Orbit, NASA Source, UFO Sighting News.

Date of discovery: Jan 2020
Location of discovery: Earths orbit
NASA source:

https://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/SearchPhotos/photo.pl?mission=ISS006&roll=E&frame=51192

I found this giant UFO in a NASA photo this week. Its bigger than the state of Texas and is shaped like an ocean ship. It has a very deep hull area and has lots of long dark rectangular windows in the side. The top has a bridge area for the captain, which is raised up higher than the rest of he ship. Extraordinary that this is in a NASA photo. 100% proof that NASA has been taking photos of Alien ships all along, but probably didn't even know it.
Scott C. Waring-Taiwan

20-01-2020 om 11:47 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

Team builds the 1st living robots

Posted by Deborah Byrd in HUMAN WORLD

The scientists call them “xenobots.” They are tiny living robots assembled from the cells of frogs. Their creators promise advances from drug delivery to toxic waste clean-up.

Scientists from the University of Vermont (UVM) and Tufts University in Massachusetts said on January 13, 2020, that they’ve now assembled living cells into entirely new life-forms. They call them living robots, or xenobots for the frog species from whose cells the little robots sprang. The scientists describe them as tiny blobs, submillimeter in size (a millimeter is about 1/25th of an inch, so these little blobs are smaller than that). The blobs contain between 500 and 1,000 cells. They can heal themselves after being cut. The blobs have been able to scoot across a petri dish, self-organize, and even transport minute payloads. Maybe, eventually, they’ll be able to carry a medicine to a specific place inside a human body, scrape plaque from arteries, search out radioactive contamination, or gather plastic pollution in Earth’s oceans.

And, yes, the scientists do acknowledge possible ethical issues. More about that below.

Joshua Bongard, a computer scientist and robotics expert at the University of Vermont who co-led the new research, said in a statement:

These are novel living machines. They’re neither a traditional robot nor a known species of animal. It’s a new class of artifact: a living, programmable organism …

You look at the cells we’ve been building our xenobots with, and, genomically, they’re frogs. It’s 100% frog DNA — but these are not frogs. Then you ask, well, what else are these cells capable of building?

The results of the new research were published January 13 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

EarthSky 2020 lunar calendars are available! Only a few left. Order now!

A manufactured quadruped (4-footed) organism, 650-750 microns in diameter (a micron is a millionth of a meter). The scientists described this creature (if we can call it a creature) as “a bit smaller than a pinhead.”

Image via Douglas Blackiston/ Tufts University/ University of Vermont.

In their published paper, these scientists wrote:

Most technologies are made from steel, concrete, chemicals, and plastics, which degrade over time and can produce harmful ecological and health side effects. It would thus be useful to build technologies using self-renewing and biocompatible materials, of which the ideal candidates are living systems themselves. Thus, we here present a method that designs completely biological machines from the ground up: computers automatically design new machines in simulation, and the best designs are then built by combining together different biological tissues. This suggests others may use this approach to design a variety of living machines to safely deliver drugs inside the human body, help with environmental remediation, or further broaden our understanding of the diverse forms and functions life may adopt.

The new creatures were designed on a supercomputer at UVM, and then assembled and tested by biologists at Tufts University. The scientists’ statement described their process this way:

With months of processing time on the Deep Green supercomputer cluster at UVM’s Vermont Advanced Computing Core, the team – including lead author and doctoral student Sam Kriegman of UVM [@Kriegmerica on Twitter] — used an evolutionary algorithm to create thousands of candidate designs for the new life-forms. Attempting to achieve a task assigned by the scientists – like locomotion in one direction – the computer would, over and over, reassemble a few hundred simulated cells into myriad forms and body shapes. As the programs ran – driven by basic rules about the biophysics of what single frog skin and cardiac cells can do – the more successful simulated organisms were kept and refined, while failed designs were tossed out. After a hundred independent runs of the algorithm, the most promising designs were selected for testing.

Then the team at Tufts, led by Michael Levin and with key work by microsurgeon Douglas Blackiston — transferred the in-silico designs into life. First they gathered stem cells, harvested from embryos of African frogs, the species Xenopus laevis [African clawed frogs; hence the name “xenobots.”]

These were separated into single cells and left to incubate. Then, using tiny forceps and an even tinier electrode, the cells were cut and joined under a microscope into a close approximation of the designs specified by the computer.

Assembled into body forms never seen in nature, the cells began to work together. The skin cells formed a more passive architecture, while the once-random contractions of heart muscle cells were put to work creating ordered forward motion as guided by the computer’s design, and aided by spontaneous self-organizing patterns – allowing the robots to move on their own.

These reconfigurable organisms were shown to be able move in a coherent fashion – and explore their watery environment for days or weeks, powered by embryonic energy stores. Turned over, however, they failed, like beetles flipped on their backs.

Later tests showed that groups of xenobots would move around in circles, pushing pellets into a central location – spontaneously and collectively. Others were built with a hole through the center to reduce drag. In simulated versions of these, the scientists were able to repurpose this hole as a pouch to successfully carry an object.

Wow … yes?

The scientists said they see this work as part of a bigger picture. And they acknowledged that some may fear the implications of rapid technological change and complex biological manipulations.

AI methods automatically design diverse candidate lifeforms in simulation (top row) to perform some desired function, and transferable designs are then created using a cell-based construction toolkit to realize living systems (bottom row) with the predicted behaviors

Levin commented:

That fear is not unreasonable. When we start to mess around with complex systems that we don’t understand, we’re going to get unintended consequences.

However, he said:

If humanity is going to survive into the future, we need to better understand how complex properties, somehow, emerge from simple rules.

He said much of science is focused on:

… controlling the low-level rules. We also need to understand the high-level rules.

I think it’s an absolute necessity for society going forward to get a better handle on systems where the outcome is very complex. A first step towards doing that is to explore: how do living systems decide what an overall behavior should be and how do we manipulate the pieces to get the behaviors we want?

In other words, he said:

… this study is a direct contribution to getting a handle on what people are afraid of, which is unintended consequences.

Bongard added:

There’s all of this innate creativity in life. We want to understand that more deeply – and how we can direct and push it toward new forms.

Red and green blocks stacked into a partial cube and red and green cells in a blob.

Image via Sam Kriegman/ UVM.

Bottom line: Scientists said in early January 2020 that they’ve created the first living robots, or “xenobots,” assembled from the cells of frogs. Their creators promise advances from drug delivery to toxic waste clean-up.
Source: A scalable pipeline for designing reconfigurable organisms
Via UVM

20-01-2020 om 01:43 geschreven door peter

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NASA wants to probe deeper into Uranus than ever before

Thanks to the advancement in technology of today we hear a great deal about the planets Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars. In some cases, this has also gone as far as cruising around the surface of the planets. The planets further away from the Sun really have not got all that much attention, but this may be about to change as NASA are considering missions that will give people a much a better look at the planet Uranus.

Missions To Neptune And Uranus Would Be Scientifically Beneficial

Theoretical missions would mean that spacecraft from NASA could make their way to Neptune and Uranus, and they would be of great benefit scientifically. The idea behind it is for scientists to get a much better idea of just what the planets are made up of, to take many photographs and find out about the atmospheric composition of the planet.

The researchers are hoping that they will be able to study the weather and the overall climate of planets along with determining how they can fit into the makeup of the Solar System.

Both Uranus And Neptune Hold Many Undiscovered Secrets

Scientists have said that Neptune and Uranus are both holding a lot of secrets that have not yet been discovered and missions that have been proposed would include flybys along with using an orbiter to send an atmospheric probe up to Uranus so that the gasses can be sampled along with detection of elements.

It was said that something similar could be happening for Neptune, however, at the moment the details of the mission or missions, have not been fleshed out fully and they need to be before they reach the stage of a formal proposal.

Any missions to Uranus and Neptune are still a long way from becoming a reality both in regards to the time-frame and funding. NASA said that it may be feasible to take a trip to Uranus 2030 through to 2036 and a trip to Neptune could take place before 2030 or if not after 2040 and this would be down to the timing of gravity assisted boosting around the planet Jupiter.

So while it may be some time away yet, it does look as though NASA does have some clear plans for heading out to Uranus and Neptune at some point in the future.

{ https://www.disclose.tv/ }

20-01-2020 om 01:26 geschreven door peter

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NASA May Have Found the Goldilocks Planet of Goldilocks Planets: TOI 700 d

BY JEFFREY KLUGER

If you ask astronomers how many planets in the universe harbor life, they will likely say there are only two possible answers: one or infinity. We can rule out zero, thanks to the decidedly alive Earth, which means that so far one is the answer. But if we discover another, the answer jumps straight past two to infinity. The reason: You can posit a universe in which the confluence of factors that made life possible here are so complex that the right roll of the dice could statistically happen only once. But if it can happen more than once, why should there be any limit? (Actually, something could be so rare in nature that it happens only two or three times, but the overall zero-one-infinity idea originated with theologians debating atheism, monotheism and infinite polytheism, and planetary scientists just kind of liked it and claimed it as their own.)

Humans have always hoped for infinity, since it would be an awfully lonely universe if we’re the only planet with its porch light on. And with the recent explosion in the discovery of exoplanets (planets orbiting other stars), astronomers now believe that virtually every star in the Milky Way is circled by at least one planet. There are up to 250 billion stars in our galaxy and about 100 billion other galaxies out there—trillions upon trillions of places life could be thriving.

20-01-2020 om 01:18 geschreven door peter

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Are the aliens us? UFOs may be piloted by time-traveling humans, book argues

By Leonard David

The great distances covered by visiting "aliens" may be ones of time rather than space, a recent book argues.

Close encounters with our future selves?

(Image: © thortful.com)

Unidentified flying objects (UFOs) have captured the public's attention over the decades. As exoplanet detection is on the rise, why not consider that star-hopping visitors from afar might be buzzing through our friendly skies by taking an interstellar off-ramp to Earth?

On the other hand, could those piloting UFOs be us — our future progeny that have mastered the landscape of time and space? Perhaps those reports of people coming into contact with strange beings represent our distant human descendants, returning from the future to study us in their own evolutionary past.

The idea of us being them has been advanced before. But a recent book, "Identified Flying Objects: A Multidisciplinary Scientific Approach to the UFO Phenomenon" (Masters Creative LLC, 2019), takes a fresh look at this prospect, offering some thought-provoking proposals.

Related: UFO Watch: 8 Times the Government Looked for Flying Saucers

"Identified Flying Objects: A Multidisciplinary Scientific Approach to the UFO Phenomenon" (Masters Creative LLC, 2019) argues that UFOs may be piloted by time-traveling humans.

(Image credit: Masters Creative LLC, 2019)

Multidisciplinary approach

The book was written by Michael Masters, a professor of biological anthropology at Montana Technological University in Butte. Masters thinks that – given the accelerating pace of change in science, technology, and engineering – it is likely that humans of the distant future could develop the knowledge and machinery necessary to return to the past.

The objective of the book, Masters said, is to spur a new and more informed discussion among believers and skeptics alike.

"I took a multidisciplinary approach in order to try and understand the oddities of this phenomenon," Masters told Space.com. "Our job as scientists is to be asking big questions and try to find answers to unknown questions. There's something going on here, and we should be having a conversation about this. We should be at the forefront of trying to find out what it is."

Human evolution

Dubbing these purported visitors "extratempestrials," Masters notes that close-encounter accounts typically describe UFO tenants as bipedal, hairless, human-like beings with large brains, large eyes, small noses and small mouths. Further, the creatures are often said to have the ability to communicate with us in our own languages and possess technology advanced beyond, but clearly built upon, today's technological prowess.

Masters believes that through a comprehensive analysis of consistent patterns of long-term biocultural change throughout human evolution — as well as recent advances in our understanding of time and time travel — we may begin to consider this future possibility in the context of a currently unexplained phenomenon.

"The book ties together those known aspects of our evolutionary history with what is still an unproven, unverified aspect of UFOs and aliens," he said.

But why not argue that ET is actually a traveler from across the vastness of space, from a distant planet? Wouldn't that be a simpler answer?

"I would argue it's the opposite," Masters responded. "We know we're here. We know humans exist. We know that we've had a long evolutionary history on this planet. And we know our technology is going to be more advanced in the future. I think the simplest explanation, innately, is that it is us. I'm just trying to offer what is likely the most parsimonious explanation."

Related: 5 Bold Claims of Alien Life

Artist's view of an aerial encounter with an unidentified flying object.

(Image credit: MUFON)

Archaeological tourism

As an anthropologist who has worked on and directed numerous archaeological digs in Africa, France and throughout the United States, Masters observes that it is easy to conceptualize just how much more could be learned about our own evolutionary history if we currently possessed the technology to visit past periods of time.

"The alleged abduction accounts are mostly scientific in nature. It's probably future anthropologists, historians, linguists that are coming back to get information in a way that we currently can't without access to that technology," Masters said.

"That said, I do think that some component of it is also tourism," he added. "Undoubtedly in the future, there are those that will pay a lot of money to have the opportunity to go back and observe their favorite period in history. Some of the most popular tourist sites are the pyramids of Giza and Machu Picchu in Peru … old and prehistoric sites."

Masters calls his UFO research "an evolving project."

"There's certainly still missing pieces of the puzzle," he said. "There are aspects of time that we don't yet understand. Wanted is a theory of quantum gravity, and we can meld general relativity and quantum mechanics. I'm just trying to put forth the best model I can based on current scientific knowledge. Hopefully, over time, we can continue to build on this."

Solve this mystery

"Masters postulates that using a multidisciplinary scientific approach to the UFO phenomenon will be what it takes to solve this mystery once and for all, and I couldn't agree more," said Jan Harzan, executive director of the nonprofit Mutual UFO Network (MUFON).

"The premise that UFOs are us from the future is one of many possibilities that MUFON is exploring to explain the UFO phenomenon. All we know for sure is that we are not alone," Harzan added. "Now the question becomes, 'Who are they?' And Masters makes a great case for the time-traveler hypothesis."

Tic-Tac-shaped objects were recently reported zipping through the sky by jet-fighter pilots and radar operators. The Pentagon's Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) was created to research and investigate Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP), including numerous videos of reported encounters, three of which were released to the public in 2017.

(Image credit: U.S. Department of Defense/To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science)

'Highly dubious claim'

But not everybody is on board with the idea, as you might imagine.

"There is nothing in this book to take seriously, as it depends on the belief that 'time travel' is not only possible, but real," said Robert Sheaffer, a noted UFO skeptic.

Supposedly our distant descendants have mastered time travel, Sheaffer said, and have traveled back in time to visit us. "So, according to Masters, you just spin something fast enough and it will begin to warp space, and even send stuff backwards in time. This is a highly dubious claim," he said.

Moreover, Sheaffer said that Masters tries to deduce aliens' evolutionary history from witness descriptions, "suggesting that he takes such accounts far too literally."

Related: 7 Things Most Often Mistaken for UFOs

The problem of 'if'

David Darling is a British astronomer and science writer who has authored books on a sweeping array of topics – from gravity, Zen physics and astrobiology to teleportation and extraterrestrial life.

"I've often thought that if some UFOs are 'alien' craft, it's just as reasonable to suppose that they might be time machines from our own future than that they're spacecraft from other stars," Darling told Space.com. "The problem is the 'if.'

Darling said that, while some aerial phenomena have eluded easy identification, one of the least likely explanations, it seems to him, is that they're artificial and not of this world.

"Outside of the popular mythos of flying saucers and archetypal, big-brained aliens, there's precious little credible evidence that they exist," Darling said. "So, my issue with the book is not the ingenuity of its thesis, but the fact that there's really no need for such a thesis in the first place."

Reported UFOs take on all shapes and sizes.

(Image credit: U.K. National Archives sightings chart, circa 1969)

Exotic physics?

Larry Lemke, a retired NASA aerospace engineer with an interest in the UFO phenomenon, finds the prospect of time-travelling visitors from the future intriguing.

"The one thing that has become clear over the decades of sightings, if you believe the reports, is that these objects don't seem to be obeying the usual laws of aerodynamics and Newtonian mechanics," Lemke said, referring to the relationship, in the natural world, between force, mass and motion.

Toss in for good measure Einstein's theory of general relativity and its consequences, like wormholes and black holes, along with other exotic physics ideas such as the Alcubierre warp-drive bubble.

"There's a group of thinkers in the field of UFOs that point out that phenomena reported around some UFOs do, in fact, look exactly like general relativity effects," Lemke said. Missing time is a very common one."

Lemke said that the idea that somebody has figured out how to manipulate space-time, on a local scale with a low-energy approach, would explain a lot of things across the UFO phenomenon, including those baffling Tic-Tac-shaped objects recently reported by jet-fighter pilots and radar operators.

"No matter how much knowledge we have, how much we think we know, there's always some frontier beyond," he said. "And to understand that frontier is getting more and more esoteric."

Leonard David is the author of the recently released book, "Moon Rush: The New Space Race" published by National Geographic in May 2019. A longtime writer for Space.com, David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.

20-01-2020 om 00:00 geschreven door peter

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19-01-2020

SpaceX is about to destroy a rocket in a critical Crew Dragon test flight. Here's why.

By Amy Thompson

Liftoff is set for Saturday, Jan. 18, at 8 a.m. EST (1300 GMT).

Editor's note: SpaceX has delayed the launch of its Crew Dragon in-flight abort test flight to Sunday, Jan. 19, at 8 a.m. EST (1300 GMT). Read our full story.

Original story:

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — SpaceX will intentionally destroy one of its rockets in the name of safety this weekend.

This is the last major hurdle the company needs to clear before its Crew Dragon spacecraft can begin to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station. Scheduled for a 4-hour launch window opening at 8:00 a.m. EST (1300 GMT) Saturday (Jan. 18), the mission stars an unpiloted crew capsule that will blast off atop a Falcon 9 rocket from NASA's Kennedy Space Center here in Florida. (You can watch the flight here at Space.com, courtesy of SpaceX, or directly through the company's YouTube page.) Its goal: to test the spacecraft's emergency escape system.

When NASA's fleet of space shuttles was retired in 2011, the agency shifted its focus to the commercial sector, selecting SpaceX and Boeing as its future space taxi providers. These two companies have worked to build a spacecraft capable of safely carrying crew, under contracts worth a total of $6.8 billion. Once operational, their vehicles — SpaceX's Crew Dragon and Boeing's CST-100 Starliner — will be NASA's primary means of transporting astronauts to space.

Related: See the Evolution of SpaceX's Rockets in Pictures
More: How SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft works (infographic)

A SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule is perched on a Falcon 9 rocket in preparation for an in-flight abort test on Jan. 18, 2020.

(Image credit: SpaceX/Twitter)

But before that can happen, SpaceX has to prove that its Crew Dragon capsule has what it takes to keep astronauts safe during flight. One of the difficult lessons learned from the loss of the space shuttle Challenger in 1986 was that all future crewed vehicles would need emergency escape systems, which the shuttle did not have.

While in-flight anomalies are rare, they do happen. Most recently, October 2018, NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin were carried to safety by a similar abort system when their rocket failed during flight. NASA wants to ensure that, if one of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rockets were to have a similar anomaly, its astronauts would still be brought home safely; this is what the in-flight abort test is all about.

There are two approaches to such escape systems. The spacecraft of the Mercury and Apollo eras, as well as the Russian Soyuz capsule that astronauts ride in today, relied on a rocket that pulled the spacecraft away from its launch vehicle. In contrast, both the Crew Dragon and the Starliner use a built-in system to push the spacecraft to safety.

Related: Emergency Launch Abort Systems of SpaceX and Boeing Explained

Embedded within the outer hull of the Dragon capsule are eight engines called SuperDracos. If the vehicle's computer senses that something is amiss during flight, it will trigger these thrusters to fire. Then, the SuperDracos will push the Crew Dragon up and away from the rocket. Once the capsule is at a safe distance from the troubled rocket, the Crew Dragon will deploy its parachutes and land in the Atlantic Ocean, where recovery vessels will retrieve the capsule and the crew.

The company has conducted similar testing on the ground, but this is the first time the company is executing the entire escape process midflight. Here's the breakdown.

A used Falcon 9 rocket, stripped of its iconic landing legs and grid fins, will sit perched atop its launchpad at Kennedy Space Center's historic Launch Complex 39A. The rocket will roar to life at 8:00 a.m. EST (1300 GMT). About a minute and a half after liftoff, the Crew Dragon's SuperDraco engines will fire, separating the capsule from the rocket.

As the capsule is being pushed away, the rocket's main engines will cut off; the Falcon 9 will then fall back to Earth,, breaking apart during its descent. SpaceX will recover the rocket debris at the end of the test, according to a recent NASA statement.

Meanwhile, the capsule's parachutes will allow for a soft landing in the Atlantic Ocean, where recovery teams will be standing by to scoop the vehicle out of the ocean. It is currently unknown where precisely Crew Dragon will splash down in the Atlantic Ocean.

Weather conditions on launch day will impact how much of the action spectators on the Space Coast will see. But fireworks have been advertised: Following a successful test firing of the rocket on Jan. 11, SpaceX CEO and founder Elon Musk tweeted that the Falcon would be "destroyed in Dragon fire."

Saturday's mission will be the fourth and final trip for this booster. In 2018, it made three trips to space, lofting the first Bangladeshi satellite, an Indonesian communications satellite and then an epic rideshare mission that launched an eclectic stack of 64 satellites.

No one will be on board the Crew Dragon during this test, but SpaceX is treating the drill as if it were an actual emergency. To that end, SpaceX outfitted one of its boats with a helicopter landing pad designed to facilitate the recovery of the Crew Dragon during nominal and emergency landings alike.

Related: How Risky Spacecraft Launch Aborts Work (Infographic)

This test is the last major hurdle that SpaceX must clear before it can launch astronauts. As such, both NASA and SpaceX will be paying close attention to the test. In May 2015, the company conducted a ground-based version of this test, known as a pad abort, designed to mimic an emergency prior to launch. During that test, the system performed exactly as intended.

But not every test has gone according to plan. Last April, while the company was test-firing the Crew Dragon's SuperDraco engines following a brief sojourn at the International Space Station, the capsule exploded. An investigation revealed that a leaky valve caused the anomaly, and SpaceX modified the abort system. The company successfully test-fired the system in November 2019.

Once the Crew Dragon is cleared to carry humans, SpaceX will fly two NASA astronauts, Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley, to the space station for a two-week stay. If that flight goes smoothly, NASA will certify Dragon, and the vehicle will be able to begin regular crewed flights, even carrying international partners.

Follow Amy Thompson on Twitter @astrogingersnap.

Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.

Heavy metal diet: Meteorite-consuming microbes could offer clues on how life formed on Earth

19-01-2020 om 23:48 geschreven door peter

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Scientists Grew a Mysterious Life Form That Could Reveal The Origins of Complex Life

main article image

Scientists Grew a Mysterious Life Form That Could Reveal The Origins of Complex Life

MICHELLE STARR

When scientists ran DNA analysis on a sediment core taken from the floor of the Arctic ocean back in 2010, they found something surprising. A previously unknown organism belonging to the strange domain of microbes called Archaea appeared to have genomic characteristics associated with a totally different domain - Eukaryota.

The manned submersible Shinkai 6500 collected deep-sea mud from which researchers isolated microbes potentially key to the evolution of complex cells.

THE ASAHI SHIMBUN/GETTY IMAGES

They named their discovery Lokiarchaeota, after the Loki's Castle hydrothermal vent near Greenland where it was found; but doubt shadowed the finding. Could the sample have been contaminated by something else in the core?

Now, thanks to the work of Japanese scientists, those doubts can be put to rest. For the first time, they have isolated Lokiarchaeota, and grown it in a lab.

That means, for the first time, researchers can closely study and interact with living Lokiarchaeota, which could help us to find our very first ancestors on this incredible blue planet. Their research has been published on preprint server bioRxiv, and awaits peer review.

The tree of life, at its base, is divided into three domains. One of those is occupied by bacteria - single-celled microbes that don't have a nucleus or membrane-bound organelles, and get around by waving hair-like structures called flagella. Another is eukaryotes, organisms whose cells have nuclei and membranes. That domain includes us humans, animals, plants, and algae.

And then there are archaea. These are a lot like bacteria, in that they lack nuclei and membrane-bound organelles, and get around using flagella. But there are a few key differences. They divide differently. Their cell walls are made of slightly different stuff. And their RNA is different enough to separate them on the phylogenetic tree.

But then along came Lokiarchaeota - followed by other archaea specimens that had eukaryotic characteristics. These were named Thorarchaeota, Odinarchaeota and Heimdallarchaeota (to follow the same naming convention).

Collectively, they are called the Asgard archaea, and some scientists think they could be the origin of eukaryotic life - perhaps after an Asgard-like archaeon swallowed up a bacterium.

But it's hard to tell without studying the organisms in isolated detail. This is where the Japanese scientists come in. They retrieved a sediment core from the seabed in the Nankai Trough, 2,533 metres (8,310 feet) below sea level, in 2006.

This was before anyone knew about Asgard archaea. Only later, an RNA analysis of their rich sample revealed the presence of a Lokiarchaeota-like organism.

When the team started their work, they didn't know this yet. They carefully cultivated their samples for five years, in a methane-fed continuous-flow bioreactor system designed to mimic the conditions of a deep-sea methane vent. Very slowly, the microbes multiplied.

The next step was to place samples from the bioreactor in glass tubes with nutrients to keep them fed and growing. There they sat for another year, finally starting to develop a very faint population of Lokiarchaeota.

Then, the team invested even more time into isolating, cultivating and growing this slow-dividing population. Common bacteiral populations usually take about half an hour to double. Lokiarchaeota took 20 days.

"Repeated subcultures gradually enriched the archaeon with extremely slow growth rate and low cell yield," the researchers wrote in their paper.

"The culture consistently had 30-60 days of lag phase and required over 3 months to reach full growth [..] Variation of cultivation temperatures, and substrate combinations and concentrations did not significantly improve the lag phase, growth rate or cell yield."

Thijs J. G. Ettema @Ettema_lab

· Aug 6, 2019

Loki decloacked!

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/08/06/726976.full.pdf …

The amount of work described in manuscript represents a monumental effort, of which the importance cannot be understated! A thread.

David Quammen@DavidQuammen

Origin of complex life?: new insight from this Japanese lab, adjacent to work from @Ettema_lab. Very damn interesting. PacMan or octopus, grabbing the first endosymbiont, in the ocean trenches? pic.twitter.com/RJSwnvXvtd We'll stay tuned for the paper.

21

3:11 AM - Aug 7, 2019

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In all, the experiment took 12 years. The researchers named their cultivated microbe Prometheoarchaeum syntrophicum - after Prometheus, the ancient Greek mythological Titan who was credited with creating humans out of clay.

They made several curious findings. The first is that Prometheoarchaeum would only grow in the presence of one or two other microbes, the archaeon Methanogenium and the bacterium Halodesulfovibrio. When Prometheoarchaeum breaks down amino acids into food, it produces hydrogen, which the other microbes eat.

If the hydrogen was allowed to hang around, the experiments revealed, this could further hinder Prometheoarchaeum's already slow growth, indicating the archaea has a symbiotic relationship with other microbes, in this case syntrophic - meaning the growth of one species or both depends on what the other eats.

Then, when the organism was examined under an electron microscope, it revealed an unusual shape for an archaeon - long tentacles sprouting from its body, within which its partner microbes nestled. When oxygen started increasing on Earth, the researchers hypothesised, this organism could have switched to a relationship with bacteria that used oxygen, increasing its chances of survival, and setting out on the path to eukaryotic life.

And indeed, DNA sequencing revealed the eukaryotic characteristics seen in other Asgard archaea.

Obviously more work needs to be done. Prometheoarchaeum might be quite different from the archaea of billions of years ago. And it's far from definitive proof that eukaryotes evolved from archaea.

The study is so far available ahead of peer-review, so it will be interesting to see what the scientific community makes of it, in time. But no matter what happens now, we're going to learn a heck of a lot from this work.

"This is a monumental paper that reflects a tremendous amount of work and perseverance," evolutionary microbiologist Thijs Ettema of Wageningen University, who wasn't associated with the paper, told Nature.

"It's a major step forward in understanding this important lineage."

The research is available on bioRxiv.

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

19-01-2020 om 23:31 geschreven door peter

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'Monumental': Scientists successfully grow mysterious ancient organism that could be origin of life as we know it

A team of researchers has unravelled a scientific mystery by successfully growing an ancient life form in a lab, a breakthrough that brings us one step closer to discovering our very first ancestors on Earth.

The previously unknown organism was unearthed on the floor of the Arctic ocean in 2010. It was dubbed Lokiarchaeota in honor of the Loki’s Castle hydrothermal vent where it was found.

What made the finding significant was that the peculiar organism was a type of microbe, called an Archaea, but it appeared to have characteristics of a completely separate type of early life form, a eukaryote. Significantly, all animals, including humans, that have ever walked on Earth are eukaryotes.

Heavy metal diet: Meteorite-consuming microbes could offer clues on how life formed on Earth

ALSO ON RT.COM

However, doubt hung over the stunning discovery, with some claiming that it was the result of contamination. That doubt has finally been laid to rest after a team of Japanese scientists, who were already studying deep sea microbes, managed to isolate Lokiarchaeota and regrow it in a laboratory.

To achieve this the researchers collected deep sea sediment core from the Nankai Trough, 2,533 metres (8,310 feet) below sea level, off the coast of Japan in 2006. They then carefully cultivated the samples for five years in a methane-fed system, to mimic the conditions of a deep-sea methane vent.

The team then placed the samples in glass tubes, fed them with nutrients and watched to see what would develop. After a year the first faint signs of Lokiarchaeota started to develop.

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After several more years the patient scientists had developed a healthy population of the strange organism. They named their cultivated microbe Prometheoarchaeum syntrophicum - after Prometheus, who created humans out of clay in Greek mythology.

Further testing revealed that the organism only grew in conjunction with one or two other microbes and it had long tentacles sprouting from its body, under which the partner microbes nestled.

In their paper, published in Nature this week, the scientists hypothesized that the adaptable organism could have switched its partners to bacteria that used oxygen as that vital element started increasing on Earth. This crucial move would have increased its chances for survival and could have set the course for life as we know it.

“This is a monumental paper that reflects a tremendous amount of work and perseverance,” evolutionary microbiologist Thijs Ettema, who wasn't involved with the research, told Nature. “It's a major step forward in understanding this important lineage.”

ALSO ON RT.COM NASA discovers alien SUGAR on board two fallen meteorites indicating possible origin of LIFE on Earth

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

19-01-2020 om 23:17 geschreven door peter

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We're All Going to Live in Mushroom Houses on Mars

See why NASA thinks fungi are the future.

By Caroline Delbert

NASA/JPL-CALTECH/CORNELL/ARIZONA STATE

UNIVERSITY/BASKER_DHANDAPANI©

NASA thinks its fungus-based building technologies could be the feasible future of Mars habitats. Are we ready to live in mushroom houses on Mars?

Architectural fungus could be the secret to realistic Mars habitation plans.
The "turtle principle" means we'll have to carry everything we need to Mars, including furniture and all building materials.
Fungus grows fast, has versatile chemical properties, and can be used in a closed ecosystem in a Mars habitat.

NASA is sharing information about its myco-architecture program, in which experimental fungus-based building technologies could be the feasible future of Mars habitats. “Science fiction often imagines our future on Mars and other planets as run by machines, with metallic cities and flying cars rising above dunes of red sand,” NASA says. “But the reality may be even stranger.”

The myco-architecture (myco is the prefix meaning “fungus”) NASA is excited about isn’t only a new way to make furniture, although it can do that, the agency says. Mushroom House—not its real name—is an integrated habitat with layers. The tough, complex fibers made by fungal mycelia are building blocks of furniture, interior walls, and the innermost layer of the outer shell. After that comes a layer of cyanobacteria, which photosynthesize water and CO₂ into “oxygen and fungus food.” The outermost layer in the model is solid ice, which is both protective and nourishing to the cyanobacteria below.

Bricks produced using mycelium, yard waste, and wood chips as a part of the myco-architecture project. Similar materials could be used to build habitats on the Moon or Mars. -

NASA 2018 STANFORD-BROWN-RISD IGEM TEAM

Bricks and other structures made using myco-architecture are lightweight, easily blended with reused materials like wood chips to make something like plywood, but with mushrooms. NASA pithily says sci-fi relies on shiny metal and flying cars, but the idea of organically grown housing or even spaceships goes back decades. And NASA isn’t alone in suggesting that fast-growing natural fibers are the future: In Kim Stanley Robinson’s 2018 novel Red Moon, bamboo forms the backbone of an international moon station where thousands of people live and work. Characters marvel at how much the plants grow within even just a day.

On the food podcast Check the Pantry, an Alaska mushroom farmer said once his mushroom cave has taken root, so to speak, new mushrooms can be harvested about every three to five days for the whole growing season. Some fungi grow so fast that scientists are attempting to slow them in order to better study and prevent environmental harm. Different kinds feed on decaying organic material or have symbiotic relationships with plants. The relationship in the NASA myco-architectural model resembles naturally occurring lichen, which are composite organisms made of cyanobacteria and different kinds of fungi.

The lab running the myco-architectural experiments explains that any travel to Mars will follow the so-called “turtle model”: If we want to live there, we have to carry everything with us in order to do that. (Remember what Matt Damon has to do in order to make nutritious soil for growing potatoes in The Martian?)

On our planet, scientists would build and seed a full-scale fungal Chia Pet house. “On Earth, a flexible plastic shell produced to the final habitat dimensions would be seeded with mycelia and dried feedstock and the outside sterilized. [...] At destination, the mycelial and feedstock material would be moistened with water and heated, initiating fungal growth.”

Listen as NASA's InSight Lander Works on Mars

The Mars 2020 Rover Is Coming Together

Inside the Chia Mushroom House, myco-architecture research lead Lynn Rothschild says the fungi could be biologically tuned to make all kinds of other materials like bioplastics and latex. The fungal materials are insulating, self-repairing, fire-retardant, and with the right melanin levels, reflective of incoming radiation. Finally, science is catching up to what Mario and friends have known since 1988’s Super Mario Bros. 3: A Mushroom House bestows a valuable bonus.

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

19-01-2020 om 23:01 geschreven door peter

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These 2 outbound comets are likely from another solar system

Posted by Deborah Byrd in SPACE

Hyperbolic comets fly through our solar system at high speed before heading out to interstellar space, never to return. A new study from astronomers in Japan identifies 2 hyperbolic comets that likely originated outside our solar system.

View larger.

Researchers calculated the typical paths of long-orbit comets (blue) perturbed by a passing gas-giant-sized object (white) and objects of interstellar origin (red).

Image via NAOJ.

Astronomers at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) said on January 17, 2020, that – after an analysis of the paths of two comets heading out of our solar system forever – they’ve determined these comets likely originated from outside of the solar system. In other words, these astronomers said, these comets don’t come from our solar system’s own Oort Cloud. Arika Higuchi and Eiichiro Kokubo at NAOJ calculated the types of trajectories which would typically be expected in each scenario. The team then compared their calculations to observations of two other objects – 1I/’Oumuamua, discovered in 2017, and 2I/Borisov, discovered in 2019 – now categorized as the first and second-known interstellar objects.

They found that the interstellar origin scenario provides the better match for the paths of both of the comets they studied.

Their work appeared online in late 2019 in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society and will be printed in the journal’s February 2020 issue. Their statement explained:

Not all comets follow closed orbits around the sun. Some fly through the solar system at high speed before heading out to interstellar space, never to return. Although it is simple to calculate where these comets are going, determining where they came from is more difficult.

There are two possible scenarios. In the first scenario, a comet is originally in a stable orbit far from the sun, but gravitational interactions with a passing object pull the comet out of its orbit. The comet then falls into the inner solar system where it can be observed before being flung out into interstellar space.

In the second scenario, a comet originates someplace very far away, perhaps a different planetary system, and as it flies through interstellar space, by random chance it passes through the solar system once before continuing on its way.

Thus Higuchi and Kokubo are saying that the comets they studied are similar to the object 2I/Borisov, which has also been determined to be an interstellar comet.

The team also showed that it’s possible for gas-giant-sized objects passing close to our solar system to destabilize long-orbit comets and set them on paths similar to the paths of these two objects. Their statement said:

Survey observations have not uncovered any gas-giant-sized bodies which can be linked to these two outbound objects, but further study, both theoretical and observational, of small interstellar objects is needed to better determine the origins of these objects.

Bottom line: Astronomers in Japan calculated the orbits of two hyperbolic comets – that is, comets known to be on a path that will take them out of the solar system forever – and determined these comets likely originated outside of the solar system.
Source: Hyperbolic orbits in the solar system: interstellar origin or perturbed Oort cloud comets?
Via NAOJ

EarthSky 2020 lunar calendars are available! Nearly sold out. Order now!

19-01-2020 om 22:36 geschreven door peter

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The five biggest space failures of 2019

SpaceX recovers Dragon capsule

NASA / ISAAC WATSON

The five biggest space failures of 2019

Between NASA and SpaceX, Earth and Mars, there was plenty to groan about in 2019.

by Neel V. Patel

When it came to space, there were plenty of successes to celebrate in 2019. China landed a spacecraft on the far side of the moon for the first time in human history. NASA’s New Horizons probe did a fly-by of the most distant object a human-made spacecraft has ever visited. A Japanese spacecraft retrieved samples from an asteroid’s surface––twice. It even shot a bullet into the asteroid to make an artificial crater. SpaceX launched its new crew vehicle to the International Space Station … without a crew, sure, but still, a step in that direction. The company also debuted the first prototype of its Starship.

Yet for each major achievement, there was a major failure. Here are the five biggest space failures of 2019. Brace yourself.

1. Mars One goes bankrupt

The most positive spin to put on the failure of Mars One is that it was a naïve dream. A more realistic assessment might be that it was a scam. A Dutch group managed to convince a bunch of investors to pour tens of millions of dollars into a plan to send the first humans to Mars and have them establish a colony. This was going to be a one-way trip. In truth, the plans seemed outlandish and insufficiently funded. The PR push was impressive, but the organization was not developing its own spaceflight architecture and had simply assumed it would be able to get everything it needed from the commercial market. The timeline kept slipping. To no one’s real surprise, Mars One finally declared bankruptcy on January 15.

2. SpaceIL Beresheet crash-lands on the moon

last photo from Beresheet

SPACEIL

Israeli company SpaceIL was founded back in 2011 as a contestant for the $30 million Google Lunar X Prize, a competition for privately funded groups to launch a robotic mission to the surface of the moon. Although the contest ended without a winner, SpaceIL decided to forge ahead anyway, with support from the Israeli Space Agency itself. Its Beresheet lander almost made it before unfortunately crash-landing into the lunar surface on April 11. Beresheet was mourned, and SpaceIL was lauded for its efforts (and for its plans to attempt another lunar landing). Then the story got weird. In August, it was reported that the lander’s payload secretly included a capsule of tardigrades that may very well have survived the crash and could be sitting on the surface as we speak. So now there might accidentally be life on the moon. Oops.

3. SpaceX Crew Dragon explodes on the launchpad

After successfully launching its Crew Dragon vehicle to the International Space Station in March, SpaceX was feeling pretty good about itself. April 20 rolled around, and the company was preparing for a standard static test of the vehicle’s Super Draco Engines. Then something went very wrong, and the capsule went up in flames and was completely destroyed. The company later found out a leaky propellant valve was to blame. The explosion set back SpaceX’s Crew Dragon time line, and as a result, 2019 came and went without any NASA astronaut going up into space from US soil.

Donald Trump tweets Iran launch photos

4. Iran’s third failed launch in a row

Iran’s space program is still in its infancy, and its three launch failures in a single year only underscore that fact. The latest, this past August, was perhaps the most devastating. In unsuccessful missions conducted in January and February, the country’s rockets failed to reach orbit. In the latest one on August 29, however, the rocket didn’t even get off the ground. An explosion on the launchpad destroyed the small Safir rocket and its payload, likely because of an accident during launch preparation. President Trump tweeted about the explosion in what many interpreted as a taunt directed at Iran’s government.

5. India’s Vikram lunar lander crashes into the moon

India was looking forward to becoming the fourth nation in history to land a spacecraft on the moon. Its Chandrayaan-2 mission had reached lunar orbit a month earlier, and India’s space agency was ready to send its Vikram lander to the surface of the south pole and tell us more about the moon’s fabled reserves of water ice. Vikram never made it; on September 6, like Beresheet before it, the lander crashed and was lost forever. Space is hard, and that goes double for landing on the moon.

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

19-01-2020 om 22:25 geschreven door peter

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Wandering Supermassive Black Holes May Hide Alien Civilizations

De bronafbeelding bekijken

Wandering Supermassive Black Holes May Hide Alien Civilizations

Which concept is more believable (or unbelievable) … that the Milky Way galaxy has wandering supermassive black holes or that supermassive black holes (wandering or otherwise) could be hiding advanced alien civilizations? Both concepts have been seen in models and both could someday have an impact on Earth. Is it too soon to either run or put out a welcome mat … or both?

Supermassive black holes are the largest type of black hole and as such usually occupy the premier location in a galaxy – namely, smack dab in the middle. That’s the case with the Milky Way galaxy, whose supermassive black hole is at its center at Sagittarius A* (A-star), which is near the border of the constellations Sagittarius and Scorpius. While not yet proven, astronomers assume that every galaxy has a supermassive black hole at its center. It’s also likely that some may have two in that same center location. Now, a new study published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters proposes that some galaxies, including the Milky Way, have wandering supermassive black holes whose cause and possible effects are a concern for other stars.

Study lead author Michael Tremmel (who summarizes it in this video) reports that researchers from Yale, the University of Washington, Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris, and University College London used a new simulation model appropriately named Romulus (one of the twin founders of Rome) to predict the existence of these wandering supermassive black holes – appropriate because the secondary wandering holes are likely the result of the incomplete merging of two galaxies where the bigger SMBH didn’t assimilate the smaller one. The smaller SMBHs, being too far out to absorb gas and generate radiation, are invisible, but could still be deadly to a nearby star and its planets. Like us?

“It is extremely unlikely that any wandering supermassive black hole will come close enough to our Sun to have any impact on our solar system. We estimate that a close approach of one of these wanderers that is able to affect our solar system should occur every 100 billion years or so, or nearly 10 times the age of the universe.”

The amount of money wagered on lotteries shows how little humans respect long odds, but something far different that annihilation might also occur if our solar system is approached by a SMBH … alien contact. With the news of the wandering SMBHs, it’s worth revisiting an older report where Russian cosmologist Vyacheslav Vyacheslav Dokuchaev at Moscow’s Institute for Nuclear Research and the Russian Academy of Sciences proposed that supermassive black holes are so large, their centers may have enough space that their gravitational pull is less, allowing for planets to potentially exist. And not just planets, but also …

“We hypothesize that the advanced civilizations may live safely inside the supermassive black holes in the galactic nuclei being invisible from the outside.”

Really? Dokuchaev says supermassive black holes have two ‘point of no return’ event horizons with a space between them.

“The naked central singularity illuminates the orbiting internal planets and provides the energy supply for life supporting. This internal black hole domain, hidden by the two horizons from the whole external universe, is indeed a suitable place for safe inhabitation.”

REALLY? Dokuchaev admits that this advanced civilization would have to be advanced enough to deal with “huge tidal forces and massive energy densities … [and] causality violations, where the rules of space-time don’t apply.” If they’re so advanced, why don’t they move to a better galactic neighborhood?

So, a simulator shows that supermassive black holes are wandering the Milky Way, a Russian cosmologist says they may contain advanced life forms, and the odds of either getting close to us are worse than the lottery … but not impossible.

What do we know for sure? Supermassive Black Hole is already a great song and the Naked Singularities would be a great name for a band.

19-01-2020 om 21:44 geschreven door peter

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Wandering Predatory Black Holes Are Eating Their Way Through Some Dwarf Galaxies

With all of the bad news and tensions going on in the world, you’d think there would be one group looking beyond our globe and finding places that are safe and pleasant and wholesome – a group like astronomers. You would be wrong … at least about astronomers. A new paper published in The Astrophysical Journal reveals the discovery of a new class of supermassive black holes (isn’t that redundant?) that wander around dwarf galaxies (an oxymoron?) looking for planets, stars and space rocks instead of staying in their centers like other supermassive black holes. Can they wander out of their own galaxies and into others? Could this be the future of the Milky Way … and the demise of us?

“I was very surprised.”

That’s not what you want to hear from the astronomer who discovered these unusual pradatory wandering black holes, but that’s the comment given to Cosmos magazine by Amy Reines, an astrophysicist at Montana State University and lead author of the paper. In a press release, she describes how, like many other discoveries, this one came while she and fellow astronomers were using the National Science Foundation’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) to look for normal stationary supermassive black holes in the centers of dwarf galaxies – ancient galaxies so small that these black holes have been nearly impossible to detect. Instead, they were surprised to find predators.

Num-num … stars and planets.

“The new VLA observations revealed that 13 of these galaxies have strong evidence for a massive black hole that is actively consuming surrounding material. We were very surprised to find that, in roughly half of those 13 galaxies, the black hole is not at the center of the galaxy, unlike the case in larger galaxies.”

This is not the first time that wandering supermassive black holes have been observed, but this new study is the first to show that a dwarf galaxy’s only central black hole can not only move but actually consume its own galaxy from the inside. As always, when there’s one – or in this case, 13 – there’s bound to be more, so Reines and her fellow astronomers are using their new-found techniques to scan other dwarf galaxies with the intent of finding more predatory wandering black holes that may help explain how the earliest black holes were formed after the Big Bang.

Should we residents of the Milky Way be worried about wandering predatory supermassive black holes? No … and possibly yes. While the Milky Way is not a dwarf galaxy and its central black hole seems to being staying put, it does have some wandering black holes eating their way around the galaxy. Even more worrisome – a least a little more – is the fact that there are dwarf galaxies orbiting the Milky Way, including the Large Magellanic Cloud.

If any astronomers on the next wandering predatory supermassive black hole project are reading this, could you check the Large Magellanic Cloud first?

19-01-2020 om 21:25 geschreven door peter

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“M.I.B.” – You Want Weird? You’ve Got It!

Conspiracy

“M.I.B.” – You Want Weird? You’ve Got It!

If you are a regular to Mysterious Universe, you’ll know that one of my particular interests when it comes to UFOs and the paranormal is that of the Men in Black. I don’t think there’s a single MIB case out there that isn’t weird. But, some are really weird. Such as the one I’m going to share with you today. It comes from a source in British Columbia who provided the following story to me in 2013. It’s a case that is made notable by the fact that it predates the MIB phenomenon that has developed since 1947. In fact, it dates back to the 1930s. The source began: “Hello Nick; I have a MIB story that comes from a pretty good source. 1930s. MIB met at a prairie crossroads by a Ukrainian man. Very interesting outcome. It should be noted that the three brothers from Ukraine that were involved in this encounter also encountered incredible strange phenomena on their farm. If you would like to read about it I will relate it as told by one of the brothers. Of course, I asked for more information. And got it.

The source continued: “I was told this by a reliable source, a family friend that did not BS. He was one of the three brothers that immigrated to Saskatchewan from Ukraine in the 1930s. These people, I suspect brought with them some beliefs that resulted in very strange activity on their farm. They had no wives, just three brothers. Some mornings they would find the horses’ manes and tails ‘braided’ in a very impressive fashion, but so tight that the horses would not allow them to be undone due to pain from pulling, so they cut them off. One night the brothers awoke to their barn on fire. They fought the fire with water from buckets to no avail as the barn burned to the ground. As morning approached they went in very tired to wash the smoke and ash from their face and hands. With the smoking ruins of their barn on their minds they went for a well earned sleep. When they awoke later that same day, they gazed out at their barn…exactly as it was before it had burned. Or had it really burned? Who knows, but it was it had always been.

“One of the brothers was walking down the prairie dirt road when he came upon a very clean well dressed man at a ‘crossroads.’ The man wore a black high class suit with a tail and a fancy stove pipe hat, all black and no dust, but clean. The Farmer said to him, ‘What you doing out here all dressed up like that?’ As he spoke those words he was taking from his pocket his corn cob pipe to fill and talk a while. Upon seeing the corn cob pipe the MIB said ‘Oh, what a very nice pipe’ as he admired it. The MIB pulled from his pocket a very expensive looking silvery-looking pipe and offered to trade if the farmer would. The old Ukrainian said, ‘What, this old thing?’ and quickly traded. This seemed to end the conversation, as the farmer sped home to show everyone at home. When the MIB saw the farmer’s corn cob pipe, the MIB was transfixed by the pipe and appeared to be amazed by it; he wouldn’t take his eyes off it.

“Apparently there were other people over for a stay at the time, and they all marveled at the beautiful pipe that had been traded from the MIB. It was proudly put on the fireplace mantle and stayed there as they all went to bed for the night. When they awoke the next day, apparently the ‘spell’ had been broken because where the beautiful silver pipe had been proudly displayed on the mantle was instead a stick!! Yes, a stick. I am thinking that with the farmer came some hypnotic spell to allow them all to see the silver pipe. The brother’s name was Alex Delawski and he told me this happened. There were more strange things too but this is what he told me. A side occurrence: For the last week or so I have been falling asleep with YouTube videos playing about MIB. I was in the back bedroom of my mobile home and I heard a loud knocking on my door. It was quite a loud and unmistakable sound of a closed fist on the door. I was surprised to see no-one and continued to look through the widows. There were no tracks in the fresh snow!”

Another weird saga in the world of the MIB.

19-01-2020 om 21:12 geschreven door peter

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Shroom Rooms on the Moon?

Allison Jornlin

NASA scientists are testing fungus, pursuing the possibility of building a lunar base and other space habitats from natural, living materials, according to a recent press release. The concept is simple, but profound: What if life-sustaining environments could be grown instead of built? This idea could revolutionize current planetary exploration efforts. Growing on-site structures from mushrooms is a promising prospect, a real possibility that may dramatically reduce weight and energy costs when compared to other options.

“Right now, traditional habitat designs for Mars are like a turtle — carrying our homes with us on our backs – a reliable plan, but with huge energy costs,” said Lynn Rothschild, the principal investigator on the early-stage project. “Instead, we can harness mycelia to grow these habitats ourselves when we get there.

NASA began research and development on the idea in 2018, but in 2020 scientists are continuing the work, aiming to find out just how feasible the plan is for Martian colonization. Researchers are now seeking ways to help mushroom mycelium grow in Martian soil. If they are successful, explorers could establish viable colonies by growing off-world settlements without the need to transport bulky building materials. These natural environments present the ultimate sustainability model, providing strong, lightweight living space that is also flexible, insulated, flame-retardant, radiation-protected, and self-healing. Want to add an addition? No need to hire a contractor. Just add water (or something like that). Of course the structures would be non-toxic and, at the end of their life cycle, could be plowed under to become fertilizer for future space gardens.

Not actually the moon, but quite a simulacrum, a moon-shaped, giant puffball mushroom bigger than my head. Who’d have thought I could find a use for this mushroom selfie?

Dormant spores could be activated with water and the right conditions. Photosynthetic bacteria would serve as fungus food, triggering growth. The mushroom architects could be bio-engineered to extrude bioplastics, latex, and other materials. Perhaps they could even provide light through harnessing a natural property in some mushroom species, bioluminescence.

The myco-architecture prototypes are being developed by NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley is no stranger to mushroom fueled innovation, but this takes tech to new heights.

Ultimately, the project envisions a future where human explorers can bring a compact habitat built out of a lightweight material with dormant fungi that will last on long journeys to places like Mars. Upon arrival, by unfolding that basic structure and simply adding water, the fungi will be able to grow around that framework into a fully functional human habitat – all while being safely contained within the habitat to avoid contaminating the Martian environment.

This research is supported through the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program, known as NIAC, and is part of a field known as synthetic biology – the study of how we can use life itself as technology, in this case fungi. We’re a very long way from being able to grow useable habitats for Mars, but the early-stage research is well under way to prove the potential of these creative solutions. That work all starts with experimenting with fungi.

Science fiction often imagines a mechanized future, dominated by cold, dead metal environments and gigantic machines. But I’m rooting for a stranger, “greener” tomorrow, populated by adorable, glowing shroom rooms at home and throughout the galaxy. We could really use more sustainable building options on Earth right now. Hopefully, NASA won’t reserve these living technologies for other planets. Look for them popping up like fungal friends in a neighborhood near you.

19-01-2020 om 20:05 geschreven door peter

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Intelligence Expert Says Colorado Drones are Secret Military Aircraft

Why has the task force set up to investigate the cause and/or find the owners of the mysterious giant drones seen for weeks now flying in formation over parts of Colorado and Nebraska suddenly shut down … saying it’s not needed because it found ‘nothing criminal’? Could it be because the owner is our own military testing secret futuristic aircraft … aircraft that may be the same genre as those mysterious “Tic Tac” UFOs witnessed by US Navy pilots who have also never received an explanation of what they saw? That’s the theory proposed by a former military intelligence expert and investigative reporter after analyzing videos of the drones. Is he right? Is our own military testing secret technology on its own people (again)? Or is it trying to stir up UFO talk to hide real advanced technology (also again)?

“I’m guessing it’s Navy related. I’ve seen several videos that have gotten me into this. I’m a debunker and I’ve never jumped on the UFO bandwagon. But as I’m watching these videos, I’m seeing some objects that look a lot like a tic-tac would be. There’s one where an aircraft is zooming by at a ridiculous speed.”

Why can’t anyone identify the drones?

In an exclusive interview with the Daily Star Online, Mike Turber appears to be the first expert to link the mysterious Colorado drones to the mysterious USS Nimitz Tic Tac UFOs. Turber is a well-known investigative journalist and cybersecurity expert who served in the Air Force as an Electronic Operations Specialist. If his name sounds familiar, he was involved in the investigation of the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas. More recently, he has been touting the idea (along with a few other people) that the 2004 USS Nimitz “Tic Tac” UFOs are actually secret US military aircraft. Thus it may come as no surprise that he believes the Colorado drones are also military aircraft tests and possibly Tic Tac aircraft as well.

“As far as I know, they very well could be these tic-tacs but I have no inside knowledge of what these are and can’t really confirm anything.”

That’s not exactly a rousing endorsement of his own claim. Few if any eyewitness accounts of the Colorado drones, including those of local law enforcement, have stated anything unusual about their speed and, since all occurred at night, none seem to have reported a Tic Tac shape, just blinking lights. Unfortunately, Turber attracts skepticism with some of his other past claims, including that he himself has flown in a gravity-defying Tic Tac and … get ready … so has President Trump during his trip to North Korea as a way of impressing Kim Jong-Un.

Stranger things have happened.

OK, that seems kind of far-fetched, but so does the blanket denial by the government task force set up to investigate the fleets of giant drones flying in formation that they’re doing anything criminal and shutting things down without even identifying the owners or locating their base or even the alleged vehicles controlling them. That leaves the sightings open to a wide variety of conclusions and theories and the officials don’t seem to mind … which draws even MORE skepticism and theories.

Are the Colorado drones of the same technology as the Tic Tac UFOs? Until they’re positively identified by SOMEONE, anything is possible.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

19-01-2020 om 19:03 geschreven door peter

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“Two Men, Wearing All Black Military Fatigues”

As a follow-up to my “M.I.B.: You Want Weird? You’ve Got It!” article, I thought I would share another case with you. From a firsthand eyewitness we have a compelling story of Men in Black, thinly-veiled threats, and what may have been some form of secret, underground, military facility in Arizona. As the witness states: “The following event took place in the spring of 1998 around 2PM. The approximate location the event occurred is about 15 miles SE of the Bill Williams Wildlife Refuge, which is a remote desert area off the Colorado River with the closest town being Parker, Arizona. Growing up in Lake Havasu City, you are surrounded by hundreds of miles of open desert with mountain ranges and endless dirt roads that are great for off-roading. The area this event took place is dotted with abandoned mines which we often explored. I was driving my Jeep and my buddy was behind me in his Toyota Land Cruiser.

“The road we were on was a dirt road no different than any other dirt road in the area. The area was fairly flat with a lot of low brush and creosote bushes. I pulled off the right side of the road to look around. There were no signs, no marking, no dirt piles; nothing at all out of the ordinary. I got out of my truck and waked about 30 feet. I came across a hole about 15’ across, I don’t know how deep it was but there was no end in sight. This hole was not visible from the road at all because of the low bushes that are all over in this area. The hole went straight down. Since I have seen a lot of mines, I had come to know what the surrounding area of a mine looks like. The area surrounding the mine is always disturbed with dirt piles from the excavation, roads to the mine and often times warning or no trespassing signs and fences.

“This particular hole had no disturbances at all. I only found it because I stumbled upon it by accident. I was surprised that there were no signs or safety fences at all. Aside from the natural camouflage of the surrounding bushes there was no attempts made to hide this hole. The only camouflage to hide the hole was the fact that there was nothing at all such as sign or roads to lead you to believe there was a hole there. Within a minute or 2 of us seeing the hole, a black suburban with dark tinted windows rolled up on us. We saw it coming up the road but by the time we saw it, it was almost to our location. I have no idea how they knew we were there so quickly. Two men, wearing all black military fatigues, with black hats and black sunglasses, got out of the driver and passenger side. Both were Caucasians about 6’ tall carrying side arms. They shut their doors and simply said, ‘You need to leave.’

“Being a bit of a smart ass at times and with no fences or signs showing private property or no trespassing, I figured the desert is for everyone. I simply said, ‘I don’t see any signs saying no trespassing.’ I said it more as a joke because I really don’t like to be messed around with so I wanted to see how serious they were. With no emotion whatsoever the driver simply said: ‘I will ask you one more time to leave now.’ He never took his sunglasses off or made any other movements at all. I got the point and we drove off. I really did not think too much about it back then because there are a lot of mines out there. I am now 39 and looking back and looking into similar stories, I can now say it was likely not just a mine. If it were a mine, there would have been much more security to prevent injury.”

19-01-2020 om 18:28 geschreven door peter

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Elon Musk wil tegen 2050 een miljoen mensen naar Mars sturen - HLN.be

Bron: Business Insider

AFP

Een prototype van een Starship ruimtetuig, ontworpen door SpaceX, het ruimtevaartbedrijf van Elon Musk. Het schip zou tegen 2025 bemande missies kunnen uitvoeren naar Mars.

WETENSCHAP & PLANEET SpaceX-baas Elon Musk wil tegen 2050 een miljoen mensen naar Mars brengen. Daarvoor moet hij de komende tien jaar maar liefst honderd ruimteschepen per jaar bouwen.

De plannen van de ruimtevaartpionier om de rode planeet te koloniseren zijn niet nieuw. In september vorig jaar werd op de lanceerbasis van zijn ruimtevaartbedrijf SpaceX in Texas een prototype voorgesteld van een ruimteschip dat mensen en vracht op termijn naar Mars en de maan moet brengen. Met het tuig, dat de naam Starship kreeg, zouden mensen al vanaf 2025 naar Mars kunnen reizen. NASA zegt ten vroegste vanaf 2030 een bemande missie naar Mars te kunnen sturen.

Op Twitter deelde Musk donderdag wat meer details over dat plan. Hij hoopt de komende tien jaar maar liefst duizend Starships te bouwen. Daarmee wil Musk op termijn drie ruimteschepen per dag lanceren naar Mars, met aan boord telkens honderd man. Binnen dertig jaar moet de kolonie op Mars zo een bevolking van maar liefst een miljoen mensen hebben. Een verhuis naar een buitenaardse stad moet volgens de Teslabaas “mogelijk zijn voor iedereen die dat wil. Voor wie geen geld heeft, zullen er leningen beschikbaar zijn.” Hij voegde er nog aan toe dat er heel wat jobs zullen zijn op Mars.

Elon Musk

AFP

Elon Musk

19-01-2020 om 17:39 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:HLN.be - Het Laatste Nieuws ( NL)

Antarctica Black Project? Senator Privy to 'Intelligence Secrets' Once Visited South Pole

Lockheed’s Skunk Works is responsible for the development of stealth fighters and even more exotic projects. Steve Justice, former Director for Advanced Systems there, now serves as COO for Tom Delonge’s To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science. Justice suggested in an interview one objective of TTSA was to reverse-engineer technology recovered from UAPs, or UFOs.

When browsing through declassified CIA files: we found something interesting. One of the most “in-the-know” Senators (Allen Ellender) from the 1970s, who oversaw Senate appropriates to the intelligence community and special “secret projects” took a peculiar trip to Antarctica in 1971.

The CIA catalogued papers related to his trip in a half-dozen different documents. We reviewed Ellender’s entire file and only came across one formerly classified as top secret (now declassified). It occurred after he returned from Antarctica, discusses a [redacted] vehicle, and in the meeting, Ellender also warned about concealed intelligence expenditures. We don’t know if his trip to Antarctica is connected to his insider knowledge of secret projects.

But this is one of the first times there has been evidence in the public record suggesting a potential link. Or, we could just be reading too much into this. Let us know what you think in the comments.

19-01-2020 om 17:14 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:MYSTERIES , Complot Theories, ed ( EN, FR, NL )

Underground Alien Base Beneath Mount Hayes Alaska Discovered By An Intelligence Analyst

By the late 1980s, the Stargate Project was in full swing. Declassified files show the US government had used remote viewing, the ability to psychically see locations at a distance, for over a decade.

via https://ufosightingshotspot.blogspot.com/

When browsing through CIA archives, we found something that made us do a double take: the apparent discovery of three extraterrestrial bases by an intelligence analyst.

The obscure handwritten document, sub-classified “Sun Streak” under preview of the DoD’s Defense Intelligence Agency, describes secret, underground facilities.

One is reported beneath Mount Hayes, Alaska. Despite its status as the highest mountain in the state’s eastern range, Hayes is rarely climbed due to its remoteness and inaccessibility.

It’s also at the epicenter of what locals call the Alaska Triangle…a hot spot for reports of unexplained lights, vanishing hikers and even diminutive beings living in the wilderness.

So, what exactly did the U.S. government discover? And could a subterranean facility have anything to do with strange reports in the area dating back decades?

Description of Personnel Associated ET Bases:

https://www.cia.gov/library/readingro...

19-01-2020 om 16:38 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:MYSTERIES ( Fr, Nl, E)

Massive cloaked Flying Saucer caught on camera near Las Vegas

What appears to be a massive cloaked flying saucer-like UFO has been caught on camera hovering in the sky near Las Vegas.

The video recorded on January 15, 2020 by Rafa Torres who was on the way to Las Vegas came across the strange looking cloud and decided to film the phenomenon. Forward the video to when Rafa lowers the window to get a clear view of the UFO.

Often lenticular clouds have been mistaken for cloaked UFOs particularly in the shape of a "flying saucer", but in this case it is without a doubt a cloaked UFO since there are defined shapes, shadows as well as edges on top of the cloud indicating the upper part of the UFO.

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

19-01-2020 om 16:24 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

Hoag's Object Is a Galaxy Within a Galaxy Within a Galaxy (and Nobody Knows Why)

By Brandon Specktor

With a perfectly symmetrical ring circling a red sphere of stars, Hoag's object is one of the prettiest mysteries in the universe.

(Image credit: NASA/ESA, Processing: Benoit Blanco)

Look closely at the serpent constellation slithering through the northern sky, and you might see a galaxy within a galaxy within a galaxy.

This cosmic turducken is known as Hoag's object, and it has befuddled stargazers since astronomer Arthur Hoag discovered it in 1950.

The object in question is a rare, ring-shaped galaxy measuring some 100,000 light-years across (slightly larger than the Milky Way) and located 600 million light-years from Earth. In a recent image of the oddball object taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and processed by geophysicist Benoit Blanco, a bright ring of billions of blue stars forms a perfect circle around a much smaller and denser sphere of reddish stars. In the dark gap between the two stellar circles, another ring galaxy — much, much farther away from us — peeks out to say hello.

Related: The 15 Weirdest Galaxies in Our Universe

What's going on here, and what tore Hoag's object in two? Astronomers still aren't sure; ring galaxies account for less than 0.1% of all known galaxies, and so they aren't the easiest objects to study. Hoag himself suggested that the galaxy's peculiar ring formation was merely an optical illusion caused by gravitational lensing (an effect that occurs when extremely high-mass objects bend and magnify light). Later studies with better telescopes disproved this idea.

Another popular hypothesis suggests that Hoag's object was once a more common, disk-shaped galaxy but an ancient collision with a neighboring galaxy ripped a hole through the disk's belly and permanently warped its gravitational pull. If such a collision occurred in the last 3 billion years, then astronomers looking through radio telescopes should have been able to see some of the fallout from the accident. No such evidence has been found.

If there was a cosmic crash at the core of Hoag's object, it must have happened so long ago that all the evidence has been swept away. With only a handful of other known ring galaxies available to study (none of which shows the perfectly symmetrical characteristics found in this one), Hoag's object remains a mystery wrapped in a riddle inside an enigma — you know, like a turducken.

Originally published on Live Science.

19-01-2020 om 01:32 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ASTRONOMIE / RUIMTEVAART

“Hoeveel bomen denken jullie tegen te komen in de ruimte?”: camouflagepakken van Amerikaanse Space Force leiden tot hoongelach - HLN.be

Bron: Belga

Twitter

HET LEUKSTE VAN HET WEB Het internet maakt zich vrolijk over de uniformen van de Amerikaanse ruimtemacht die in december in het leven werd geroepen. Het gaat om pakken met een typische camouflageprint, maar in de ruimte valt nu eenmaal... weinig te camoufleren.

De Space Force plaatste een foto van de nieuwe uniformen op Twitter. En dat leidde tot een hele reeks opmerkingen rond de mismatch tussen camouflage-uniformen en de ruimte.

United States Space Force
✔@SpaceForceDoD

· 22h

The first #SpaceForce utility uniform nametapes have touched down in the
Pentagon. @EsperDoD @SecAFOfficial @SpaceForceCSO @GenDaveGoldfein @DeptofDefense @usairforce

JRehling@JRehling

I know this is hard to understand, but on the left there is a picture of camouflage and on the right there is a picture of space. Study these carefully until you can see the difference.

8,600

5:18 AM - Jan 18, 2020

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De volgende tweets passeerden alvast de revue. “Hoeveel bomen verwachten jullie tegen te komen in de ruimte?” Of nog: “In de ruimte kan niemand horen hoe belachelijk je bent. En: “Ruimtecamouflage, perfect om op te gaan in de uitgestrekte ruimteweiden.” Anderen stellen voor om een uniform in sterrenhemelstof te dragen of posten foto’s van hoe zwart de ruimte eruitziet.

De ruimtemacht reageerde met de boodschap dat de huidige militaire uniformen hergebruikt worden. “Op die manier hoeft er niet geïnvesteerd te worden in het ontwerp en de productie van nieuwe exemplaren”, klinkt het. “De leden zullen bovendien gelijken op hun collega’s als ze met hen samenwerken op de grond.”

Richard Chambers
✔@newschambers

Really disappointed with the green.

Surely a pattern like this would have given more camouflage in space.

https://twitter.com/SpaceForceDoD/status/1218335200964464650 …

United States Space Force
✔@SpaceForceDoD

The first #SpaceForce utility uniform nametapes have touched down in the
Pentagon. @EsperDoD @SecAFOfficial @SpaceForceCSO @GenDaveGoldfein @DeptofDefense@usairforce

129

9:50 AM - Jan 18, 2020

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De Space Force telt momenteel één lid, generaal en bevelhebber Jay Raymond. De ruimtemacht werd op 21 december officieel in het leven geroepen. Het is de eerste keer sinds 1947 -toen de luchtmacht een afzonderlijke eenheid werd- dat er een nieuw legeronderdeel bijkomt.

Jay Raymond (l) met president Trump.

Jay Raymond (l) met president Trump.

19-01-2020 om 01:06 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:HLN.be - Het Laatste Nieuws ( NL)

Toyota stelt vliegende taxi voor: “We kunnen revolutie ontketenen” - HLN.be

Bron: ANP/Belga

Toyota

De vliegende taxi van Toyota.

AUTO Toyota investeert 394 miljoen dollar (353 miljoen euro) in Joby Aviation, een Amerikaanse start-up die vliegende taxi’s wil maken.

“De luchtvaart is voor Toyota een doel op lange termijn”, zegt de grote baas Akio Toyoda. “Hiermee hebben we de mogelijkheid om een revolutie te ontketenen in de toekomstige levensstijl van mensen en hun manier van transport. We hopen mensen de vrijheid van mobiliteit en plezier te kunnen bezorgen, ook in de lucht.”

Joby heeft al een schets van zijn ‘vliegtuigje’ naar buiten gebracht. Eerder sloot het bedrijf een deal met Uber om in tenminste twee steden een luchttaxinetwerk op te zetten. Het duurt waarschijnlijk wel nog jaren voor de eerste taxi’s de lucht in kunnen. Daarvoor is ook toestemming nodig van luchtvaartautoriteiten.

Luchtvaart leeft de laatste tijd bij meer autobedrijven. Hyundai kondigde onlangs al aan dat het vliegende taxi’s wil gaan ontwikkelen voor Uber. De Zuid-Koreanen zijn al een tijdje bezig met een vliegende auto, de Personal Air Vehicle. Die is elektrisch aangedreven en kan verticaal opstijgen en dalen.

“Ook voor goederen”
Toyota meent dat het toestel niet alleen ingezet kan worden voor vervoer van personen, maar ook van goederen. Het zou een ideale oplossing zijn voor de verkeersdrukte en de luchtkwaliteit in binnensteden, maar ook voor het transport van mensen op het platteland.

De combinatie van de vliegtechniek van een klein vliegtuig en een helikopter leidt tot nul uitstoot, relatief hoge vliegsnelheden en weinig geluidsoverlast. Bovendien denkt Toyota dat de kosten van het gebruik en onderhoud beperkt zullen zijn.

VIDEO's, geselecteerd door peter2011

19-01-2020 om 00:49 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:HLN.be - Het Laatste Nieuws ( NL)

The Shroud of Turin Meets Science

What is The Shroud of Turin?

In this article we will be taking a look at the length of linen that for centuries was purported to be the burial garment of Jesus Christ – What is The Shroud of Turin, and was it really used to wrap the body of Jesus?

Let’s take a closer look…

The Holy Shroud

The Holy Shroud (or Santa Sindone as it’s known in Italy) has been held since 1578 in Turin’s royal chapel of the cathedral of San Giovanni Battista. It is 4.3 metres long and 1.1 metres wide.

The strange, haunting cloth seems to show a pair of faint images of the back and front of a man. This man has a very gaunt look to his facial appearance and is thought to have been about 5 foot 7 inches tall.

The material and these images give the appearance that a body had been laid lengthwise along one half of it, then the other half had been folded over so that it covered the front of the man’s body.

What’s really fascinating about the images is that they seem to show the same injuries that Christ would have had, when you consider the crucifixion – thorn marks on the head, lacerations (as if from flogging) on the back, and blood stains all over the shroud.

The Holy Shroud

Geoffroi de Charnay

The Holy Shroud first popped up in historic records when the famous knight, Geoffroi de Charnay, was spotted with it in his possession. From here it is then recorded as going on exhibition in 1389…but the local bishop of Troyes branded it a joke and a fake.

However, popes from Julius II onward have all taken it’s authenticity for granted.

In 1453 Geoffroi de Charnay’s granddaughter, Marguerite, handed the Holy relic over to the house of Savoy at Chambéry. It stayed here until it was unfortunately damaged by fire, then water in 1532.

The shroud was then taken to the new Savoyard capital of Turin in 1578, where it has been exhibited on rare occasions since. A replica usually takes it place for public viewing.

Geoffroi de Charnay

Authenticity

So, is it authentic or not?

Was this the cloth that Jesus’s body was wrapped in?

Very hard question to answer…

In the 1970’s, tests began to find out whether or not the images were the result of paints or other pigments, even fire or scorch marks. All the results came back inconclusive.

In 1988 the Vatican provided three laboratories in different countries with tiny samples of the shroud, so that they could carry out carbon-14 dating. All three labs concluded that the shroud was dated from between 1260 and 1390. Certain experts now believe that these tests were false, and their methods used were wrong.

The Vatican still recommends that Christians continue to worship the shroud as a holy relic.

If you have any thoughts or opinions on the subject we have covered here, please leave them in the comment section below.

https://realparanormalexperiences.com

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19-01-2020 om 00:27 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:MYSTERIES ( Fr, Nl, E)

Anunnaki Reptilian Tyrants & The Origins of Humankind

The Anunnaki are a group of deities who appear in the mythological traditions of the ancient Sumerians, Akkadians, Assyrians, and Babylonians. Descriptions of how many Anunnaki there were and what role they fulfilled are inconsistent and often contradictory. In the earliest Sumerian writings about them.

R. Scott Lemriel writes: “My work is entirely focused on direct experience-based presentations that assist the true individual being or Atma (the spherical energy form that is not nuclear in nature and not the body) or what people on Earth refer to as Soul without knowing what this actually is, what it looks like, or how to move it around the grand multi-dimensional creation.

So many mind-blowing and fascinating other-worldly topics are discussed in this very interesting episode of AGE OF TRUTH TV with guest R. SCOTT LEMRIEL, who calls himself a direct experience-based hidden truth revealing researcher. He is also a published author, and international guest presenter of deliberately hidden or subconsciously suppressed truth and a music producer. This is an eye-opening interview by Age Of Truth TV presenter, Lucas Alexander.

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19-01-2020 om 00:10 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )

18-01-2020

UFO Recorded By Space Station Camera Darting Around, UFO Sighting News.

UFO Recorded By Space Station Camera Darting Around, UFO Sighting News.

Date of discovery: Jan 17, 2020
Location of sighting: Earths orbit from space station
Source:

https://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/SearchPhotos/ShowQueryResults-Lightcycle.pl?results=Latest_ISS_Imagery

I was looking at the latest photos taken by the space station today and noticed a glowing oval UFO that was moving around in the distance. The UFO would go up and down and then move to the right and left. Its only seen in 7 photos, but when they are put together, you can see the erratic movement of this craft. This is incredible proof that the space station is being watched, visited and even scanned by alien craft.
Scott C. Waring

18-01-2020 om 23:51 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

Proof That NASA Is A Spy Agency Using The Space Station To Do Its Dirty Work, UFO Sighting News.

Proof That NASA Is A Spy Agency Using The Space Station To Do Its Dirty Work, UFO Sighting News.

Date of discovery: Jan 17, 2020
Location of discovery: Earths orbit from space station
Source: NASA ISS Camera

I was looking at some photos taken TODAY by the NASA camera on board the space station and noticed that it was really focusing on some places. For instance...this photo above looks a lot like a Chinese military base to me. Now a lot of people would say, Scott, perhaps they just took the photo by accident. One photo is an accident, but 30-40 photos is deliberate spying. The space station is suppose to be International...and yet they do not allow Chinese astronauts to participate on board the space station. They even gave the majority of control and ownership to Russia...which most people don't even know about. So...why is NASA participating in spying on foreign countries? I really don't think NASA would ever answer that one. This is 100% proof that NASA is a spy agency.
Scott C. Waring

18-01-2020 om 23:46 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:MYSTERIES , Complot Theories, ed ( EN, FR, NL )

Massive cloaked Flying Saucer caught on camera near Las Vegas

What appears to be a massive cloaked flying saucer-like UFO has been caught on camera hovering in the sky near Las Vegas.

Examples of lenticular clouds ( peter2011 )

Lenticular cloud over Mombacho Volcano

Lenticular Cloud over Harold's Cross Dublin Ireland taken at 11:30AM, 30th June 2015

Altocumulus lenticularis above King George Island

Looks like two UFOs hovering over Henryk Arctowski Polish Antarctic Station; it is a research station on King George Island, off the coast of Antarctica. Wasn’t Antarctica a big part of the film X-Files? Photo #37 by Acaro

Orange sunrise and UFO clouds over Sierra Nevada

Orange sunrise and UFO clouds over Sierra Nevada. Photo #41 by Juan Tello

Lenticular cloud amass around Mount Iwate, a stratovolcano in Japan

Lenticular Kind of Day. The photographer noted, “A huge group of lenticular cloud amass around Mount Iwate, a stratovolcano in Japan.” Photo #12 by jasohill

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

18-01-2020 om 23:20 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

VIDEO: UFO Orbs flying above Marcy, New York 12-Jan-2020

New 2020 UFO sighting recorded over Marcy, New York. This event happened on 12th January 2020 and it was just submitted to MUFON.

Witness report:

4 orbs on captured on video. They are not balloons they would stop & change direction.

The Complete History of UFO Sightings

18-01-2020 om 22:21 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

The Tale of the Tape: The Long, Bizarre Saga of the Navy's UFO Video - PART I

The Tale of the Tape: The Long, Bizarre Saga of the Navy's UFO Video - PART I

It was the video that ushered in the UFO renaissance: a grainy clip showing the Navy’s encounter with a mysterious aircraft in 2004. The Pentagon says the public was never supposed to see it. So who leaked it? How’d they do it? And what does the footage actually show?

By Tim McMillan

In November 2019, Popular Mechanics revealed previously unheard eyewitness accounts of the U.S. Navy’s encounters with UFOs while conducting training off the coast of San Diego in the fall of 2004. These are now known as the Nimitz encounters, so named for the fighter pilots of the USS Nimitz Carrier Strike Group who spotted the strange flying objects.

Some of the Nimitz witnesses told Popular Mechanics that the brief “Flir1” video—released for public viewing by the UFO research group To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science and included below—is merely a small piece of a much longer video that the government is keeping a secret. According to these Navy veterans, the video they saw showed many more details of an unknown aircraft seeming to defy the known laws of physics as it effortlessly evaded some of the world’s best fighter jets. In December 2019, Chad Underwood, the former F/A-18 pilot who originally filmed the UFO encounter, told New York magazine that Flir1 is indeed a “little video cut” of his original recording.

But retired U.S. Navy Commander David Fravor, who first observed the “Tic Tac” from the cockpit of his Super Hornet in 2004, has pushed back on all claims that a longer video exists. The same goes for the Department of Defense (DoD). The Navy’s Office of Naval Intelligence, meanwhile, responded to a recent Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for more Nimitz records by saying it had discovered “certain briefing slides” related to the encounter “that are classified TOP SECRET.” The Navy has determined that “the release of these materials would cause exceptionally grave damage to the National Security of the United States.”

Consistent with the entire Nimitz event, the bizarre history of this grainy black and white video seems to challenge logic and defy reality. The video has a peculiar and convoluted path that spans a decade and a half, covers thousands of miles, and includes shadowy characters known only by pseudonyms.

The saga is centered on a puzzle of contradictions, as the Navy has confirmed that the objects shown in Flir1 (as well as those seen in two other clips, "Gimbal" and "Go Fast," filmed in 2015), are genuinely “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena,” or UAP. But the service has also said these three widely circulated videos are “not cleared for public release.”

What follows is a thorough examination of the video’s convoluted history that, for the first time, sheds light on exactly how the clip—which we were never meant to see—made its way into the mainstream. This is the tale of the tape.

GETTY IMAGES

THE LEAK

On December 16, 2017, when To The Stars released the now-famous “Flir1” video, the organization did so with a caveat: “It is the only official footage that has been released.” Easily overlooked, this distinction by the UFO “public benefit” company from former blink-182 frontman Tom DeLonge was significant. That’s because it wasn’t actually the first time the video was in the public domain.

On February 3, 2007, a person using the pseudonym “thefinaltheory” posted a thread on Above Top Secret, an obscure message board site for discussions of conspiracy theories and paranormal events. The title: “Observations of an Actual UFO.”

The anonymous user shared details of a UFO encounter they said occurred while they were aboard a naval aircraft carrier off the coast of Mexico in 2005. After hearing rumors of the ship encountering a UFO, using their position, which they described as “working in the computer field,” thefinaltheory said they accessed the ship’s Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNET). To their surprise, on the ship’s secure server, thefinaltheory said they discovered many files confirming something strange was going on around the Navy fleet.

Describing what they found on SIPRNET, thefinaltheory said:

“I found many videos and powerpoint briefs (navy standard) and written reports and even message traffic that was being passed through our radio division. It was all there. I couldn’t believe it at first, but then our ship called in the Air Force because even the captain didn’t know what the hell was going on.”

thefinaltheory described one particular video they found amidst the many files (albeit using terrible spelling and grammar):

It was taken directly from the cockpit camera of one of our ships fighter pilot jets F-18 I believe but cant be sure. It was in black and white and showed the altitude, the pilots “nickname” and the tempurature and all those little critical stats.

The UFO was floating extremely still in mid air, this was 30,000 ft above ground level. It looked literally and i mean LITERALLY just like a disk, no stupid traingles or any gimicky things like Independence Day or whatever. It looks exactly how the goverment wants you to NOT think it looks like. It’s simply put, a disk.

So it was floating, the figher pilot tried to get numerous locks on the UFO but everytime the cross hairs tried to hone in the crosshairs scaled back and forth. I dont know how to put it into words well, but I know what i saw. Crosshairs move in and move back out, it couldnt get a lock whatsoever.

After about I say 10 seconds or so the UFO started to move. It moves in ways that we have never seen before, it spontaniously moved in a half circle upward and paused once again. Then it suddenly teleported about five times all over the pilots screen. The movement is instant and cannot be followed. It simply put, is amazing and so fast the eyes cant see it.

There was a bright light and suddenly it dissapeared, out of sight.

ABOVE TOP SECRET

When thefinaltheory said they’d sneaked files about the encounter off the SIPRNET, but forgotten where they’d put a disc with the material, he was met with extreme skepticism and criticism by others in the forum. A fellow user declared the claim “one of the worst thought out stories I have read here in forever.”

Like countless similar and seemingly dubious UFO witness accounts, thefinaltheory’s story would likely have faded away into internet oblivion … had it not been for his reemergence the next day on the forum.

Under a new post titled, “Fighter Jet UFO Footage: The Real Deal,” thefinaltheory posted a Navy Event Log of a UFO encounter that occurred on November 14, 2004, along with a link to a grainy black and white video clip titled “F4,” both of which they said had been smuggled off of the Navy’s SIPRNET back in 2004. [Editor’s note: The original clip has since been removed.]

By the date and details contained in the event summary, including the description of “Fast Eagle 110” (the squadron nickname and aircraft number of the plane flown by Fravor) and the sighting as “an airborne contact which appeared to be capsule shaped (wingless, mobile, white, oblong pill shaped, 25-20 feet in length, no visible markings and no glass),” thefinaltheory was indisputably describing the now-famous 2004 Nimitz UFO encounter.

More significantly, a full decade before its “first official release,” the “F4” video clip thefinaltheory shared by in 2007 was the exact same clip that’s become more popularly known as “Flir1.”

A side-by-side comparison and analysis of the two videos provided by Dave Beaty.

In contrast to the acclaim the “Flir1” video received when the New York Times published it in December 2017, most Above Top Secret users trashed thefinaltheory’s clip. “Sorry, it’s totally uninspiring video of a dot,” one user said.

One such critic was the UFO researcher and Above Top Secret administrator Isaac Koi (a pseudonym to protect the person’s identity for professional reasons), who believed at the time that thefinaltheory’s story and video were bogus. “Within a few hours of the video being posted online, I tracked the video back to a website run by a group called Vision Unlimited located in Germany,” Koi tells Popular Mechanics. “Since that group specialized in producing footage, including special effects, I originally tentatively concluded the footage was a hoax.”

But thefinaltheory defended the authenticity of the video, explaining it was uploaded on the German film server to try and avoid the implications associated with removing and leaking classified military materials. The excuse didn’t stick with most detractors.

Except for their two initial message threads, thefinaltheory hasn’t posted on Above Top Secret or otherwise publicly surfaced since February 2007. But when the “F4” video reemerged as “Flir1” in 2017 as an important piece of one of the most compelling UFO puzzles in modern history, the anonymous user was vindicated. Still, the world had many of the same questions about that grainy clip

How did the F4 video make it to the web in the first place?

After the UFO video’s more ceremonious release, rather quickly, savvy internet sleuths tracked down thefinaltheory’s original postings from over a decade prior. Thanks to the internet archive Wayback Machine, questions of why a seemingly classified video first appeared on the server of a German film company that specializes in CGI effects were reinvigorated.

With notions of government mistrust inherently intertwined with the UFO topic, the link between the freshly minted 2017’s “Flir1” and peculiar past of 2007’s “F4” video became red meat for the conspiracy zeitgeist.

While reporting this story, Popular Mechanics tracked down an individual claiming to be thefinaltheory. Still fearing reprisal, even under the assumed pseudonym, the individual did not wish to speak on the record. However, the equally enigmatic Koi agreed to assist by providing an overview of how the “F4” video made it to the web in the first place.

“IT WAS DETERMINED THAT THERE WAS NO WAY TO ACCURATELY DETERMINE WHO MIGHT HAVE RELEASED THE VIDEO.”

According to Koi, back in 2007, after thefinaltheory located the lost materials, he provided them to another Above Top Secret member with the username “Cometa,” who lived in Germany. Koi said friends of Cometa, who worked at Vision Unlimited, agreed to upload and host the video on their server.

Phillip Schneider, the owner of Vision Unlimited, Phillip Schneider, tells Popular Mechanics the company did not produce the video, and he and other employees were unaware of who uploaded the clip in 2007. “I talked to all my coworkers and former coworkers, and they said they don’t know [anything] about it,” Schneider says. Clips, logs and mails [were] stored on an old server, so we can’t check back anything.” The owner indicated a former colleague may have uploaded it without his knowledge.

Regarding the clip on the Wayback Machine, Schneider says, “The server link ‘extern’ means external, so this was the low security area of our ftp data exchange between customers, friends, and so on. Maybe someone used our FTP to post the video link.”

In a statement to Popular Mechanics, Susan Gough, the Senior Strategic Planner for the Secretary of Defense Public Affairs Office, confirmed the authenticity of the video uploaded to Vision Unlimited, saying Navy officials became aware that the video had been posted online in 2009.

“With respect to the 2004 sighting by aircraft from the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (CVN 68); that video was widely shared throughout the ship at that time,” Gough writes. “In 2007, one of those crewmembers posted the video onto the public web.”

But in terms of investigating the video leak, Gough writes, “Given the time since recording (approximately 5 years), the widespread distribution of the recording within the ship at the time of recording, and the size of the crew at the time (approximately 5,000), it was determined that there was no way to accurately determine who might have released the video.”

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Navy Won't Release Classified UFO Videos

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So how would thefinaltheory have been able to download materials off their ship’s secure server? Vincent Aiello, a former F/A-18 pilot and member of the VFA-94 “Mighty Shrikes” strike-fighter squadron aboard the USS Nimitz in 2004, tells Popular Mechanics that such a swipe is entirely possible.

“Once a recording of their tape was made in CVIC [the ship’s intelligence center], there was less control,” Aiello says. “Indeed, someone could have used a thumb drive to download something off the SIPRNet.”

The enlisted eye-witnesses Popular Mechanics previously spoke with all agreed, although unlawful, that it was equally possible for someone to have hooked up a CD/DVD drive and burned the files off the SIPRNET onto a disc.

Since no event summary has been officially released and is assumed to still carry a security classification, Aiello, who hosts the Fighter Pilot Podcast, declined to review the leaked summary provided by Thefinaltheory. Aiello did, however, confirm an event summary is completed after every flight. “Standard operating procedure was to pass through CVIC immediately after landing to debrief one of the squadron intelligence officers on duty,” he says. “They would ask a series of questions or have us fill out a simple form of what was experienced on that particular flight.”

So while there doesn’t appear to be any grand conspiracy with the 2007 leak of the UFO video, when it comes to the more fashionably released “Flir1,” clip, more confusion and contention eagerly fill in the blanks of ambiguity and the unknown.

U.S. AIR FORCE

THE RELEASE

Doubling down on a statement previously issued by the Navy, Gough tells Popular Mechanics that “Flir1,” “Gofast,” and “Gimbal,” all circulated by the To The Stars, were never cleared for public release.

“An internal review, not a formal investigation, determined that while a request had been submitted in August 2017 to the Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review (DOPSR) for release of the videos to government and industry partners for research purposes, DOPSR did not grant final approval for the videos to be released to the general public,” Gough writes.

In an interview with Popular Mechanics, the man who applied for the release of the videos, Luis Elizondo, staunchly defended against any accusations he’d deliberately tried to circumvent DoD policies or hadn’t followed proper procedures.

Luis Elizondo, the Director of Government Programs and Services for To the Stars Academy of Arts & Science.

TO THE STARS ACADEMY OF ARTS & SCIENCE

“I initially requested the videos be cleared for restricted release to industry partners, however, it was DOPSR, not me, who suggested the videos be released in an unrestricted manner,” Elizondo says. “The emails on this exchange are out there now. They’ve been made public, so people can see this for themselves, precisely how this occurred.”

A series of emails obtained by Popular Mechanics via FOIA offer a behind-the-scenes look at the release of the three videos.

Based on the released emails, on August 9, 2017, in an apparent follow-up with an official with DOPSR (the agency tasked with control and release of DoD materials), Elizondo stated, “I sent a larger e-mail earlier but it appears it was too large to send all at once. As such, I have sent three (3) separate emails to facilitate this review.” At the time, Elizondo was working out of the Special Programs Management Office with the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence (OUSD[I]).

On the same day as Elizondo’s follow-up, another email from an individual whose name has been redacted stated, “Just to be clear… we should consider these files to be SECRET//NOFORN until I am able to establish that they are to be considered U//FOUO [for official use only].”

Two weeks later, on August 23, Elizondo sent another follow-up email to DOPSR saying, “If it is easier for you or more streamline, then please consider our request for unrestricted release.” The following day, an employee with DOPSR replied, “If the service-level OCA verifies to me (simple one-sentence email is fine) that removing the metadata from the videos makes them UNCLASSIFIED, please feel free to move forward with release.” Two other individuals, one from OUSD(I) and the Navy, were CC’d in the email response.

Through the same FOIA request, Popular Mechanics obtained a copy of the form used to request the release of the videos. Dated August 24, 2017, the form contains a DOPSR stamp, which indicates “Cleared For Open Publication.”

A copy of the form Elizondo used to request the release of the videos. Dated August 24, 2017, the form contains a DOPSR stamp, which indicates “Cleared For Open Publication.”

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

What isn’t explicitly clear from the chain of internal emails is Elizondo’s claim that it was DOPSR that suggested the release be amended for unrestricted release. In an effort to investigate Elizondo’s claims, Popular Mechanics was able to locate and verify the identity of an individual who was involved in the release of the videos back in 2017. The person agreed to provide their recollection of the events, provided a guarantee of anonymity.

According to the individual, their specific job would not have included the investigation of UAP or UFOs. However, they were involved with the process of releasing the videos. Not shown in the series of emails, the person recalled, in their coordination with DOPSR, it was suggested it would be easier if the request was amended to “unrestricted.” Subsequently, the person said this information would have been passed along to Elizondo.

In a follow-up, Elizondo declined to discuss any details regarding the individual with whom Popular Mechanics had spoken. However, Elizondo says his email to DOPSR changing the status to unrestricted was confirmation of a suggestion made by them to another individual, and not simply an out-of-the-blue request made on his part.

Speaking on behalf of the Secretary of Defense’s Office, Gough elaborates, “The videos were not cleared for general public release because DOPSR did not receive final approval from Navy. Navy’s approval would have included PA review from Navy’s PA office (Public Affairs).” After the videos appeared in the New York Times in 2017, Gough indicates that an investigation was conducted to determine if the videos were considered classified. “The investigation determined the videos were not classified.”

In October 2017, former Blink-182 frontman Tom DeLonge announced the launch of To the Stars Academy of Arts & Science, which would soon leak Flir1 to the world—and hire Elizondo.

YOUTUBE/MANIFESTA PROD

Ever since the DoD came out and said the videos were “not cleared for general public release” last fall, it’s been widely assumed that Elizondo—who now works as Director of Global Security and Special Programs at To the Stars, the very organization that released the clips to YouTube—was ultimately responsible for circumventing the final approval by the Navy. However, when asked who was responsible for the misstep in not getting the videos cleared for general public release, Gough points the blame elsewhere: “DOPSR, in this specific case.”

Given he’d ultimately go to work with To the Stars a little over a month after the leak, some have been understandably suspicious of Elizondo’s intentions in applying for the release of the three UFO videos.

Did Elizondo plan to use his government position for the benefit of his future private employer?

“Absolutely not!” he says. “I never even met Tom [DeLonge, founder of To the Stars] until long after the request was initiated. I resigned only after multiple attempts to brief the Secretary [of Defense] failed. It had nothing to do with the release of the videos!”

In a live broadcast on October 11, 2017, DeLonge excitedly announced the launch of To the Stars, his new UFO consortium. Appearing to confirm what Elizondo now says, during his introduction, the visibly giddy DeLonge describes how he’d heard of the existence of a mysterious government insider, however, only days prior did he actually get the chance to meet this person and discover it was Elizondo. “Days ago! Days ago! This person finished his career at the Department of Defense, as one of the senior covert intelligence officers in the Office of the Secretary of Defense,” DeLonge says breathlessly.

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

18-01-2020 om 16:46 geschreven door peter

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The Tale of the Tape: The Long, Bizarre Saga of the Navy's UFO Video - PART II

The Tale of the Tape: The Long, Bizarre Saga of the Navy's UFO Video - PART II

By Tim McMillan

THE WAKE

Since the original July 2017 request was limited to “industry partners,” and was only changed to “unrestricted release” at the suggestion of DOPSR, Elizondo explains, “[To the Stars] was not initially considered an industry partner at the time the release was being initiated, but it was also not being deliberately excluded either.”

By Elizondo’s account, it appears he at least peripherally knew DeLonge was working toward forming a collective of professionals to tackle the UFO mystery. However, if the request was made in expectation of To the Stars’ later establishment, based on Elizondo’s initial July request, it would seem the videos may not have not initially be intended to made public.

A copy of Elizondo’s resignation letter.

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

Regardless, the career intelligence agent is firm in saying the decision to walk away from over two decades of government service wasn’t an easy choice to make, and it was something he didn’t ultimately decide to do until early October 2017. An unverified letter addressed to the Secretary of Defense, which was leaked on social media, appears to show Elizondo’s resigning from the DoD on October 4.

Elizondo’s final straw wasn’t an event, but a “realization that the boss was never going to receive his briefing unless something drastic happened,” he says. “I knew by resigning, he would eventually see my resignation letter. Resigning in DoD is usually done as a measure of professional protest while refraining from disruptive action that might hurt the DoD. Let’s not forget that only a year later, Mattis did the same thing.”

The “boss” Elizondo references was then-Secretary of Defense, retired Marine General James Mattis. During his conversation with Popular Mechanics, Elizondo reiterated something he’s frequently mentioned in the past, which was the tremendous respect and admiration he has for General Mattis.

In December 2018, General Mattis resigned as Secretary of Defense after failing to convince President Donald Trump to reconsider the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria and Afghanistan.

By acknowledging it was DOPSR that made a procedural error, the Pentagon has absolved Elizondo of any wrongdoing when it comes to the video’s public release. However, Elizondo has still faced past scrutiny about other aspects of his release request. Namely, some have questioned why he described the subject area of the videos on the release form as “UAV, Balloons, and UAS” instead of “UFOs” or the government’s new buzz word, “UAP.” (By DoD established definition, “UAV” and “UAS” represent “Unmanned Aerial Vehicle” and “Unmanned Aerial System,” respectively. Not “unidentified.”)

“Look, the idea that the government, or someone in government, might have an interest or be investigating UFOs is sensitive information in the sense that there were very few people in the building that knew about our program and the [DD 1910 form] is supposed to be an unclassified document that anyone can read,” says Elizondo. “I can’t simply write the word ‘UFO’ in the request to people who were not cleared for it. However, rest assured the OCA was always included in this request so the right people always knew what this request was about ” said Elizondo.

“I DOUBT THEY WANTED TO BRING A UFO CASE INTO COURT AND SO IT WAS BETTER TO JUST LET SLEEPING DOGS LIE.”

By “OCA,” Elizondo is referring to the “Original Classification Authority,” which in this case was the Navy. To Elizondo’s point, on the request for release form, the OCA point of contact is listed as a Navy official. Additionally, someone whose name and information is redacted is CC’d throughout the chain of emails. And in the final email from DOPSR saying if the “service-level OCA” verifies the videos are unclassified to “please feel free to move forward with release,” someone with a Navy email address is also CC’d. In a statement, the Pentagon tells Popular Mechanics, “The U.S. Navy retains custody of the source videos for the 2004 and 2015 sightings.”

To illustrate the unpopular nature of the topic of UFOs, as it relates to the Pentagon, Elizondo points to the fact the Navy never took any real action to hold the person accountable for leaking the “F4” video in 2007. “Just my opinion, but I doubt they wanted to bring a UFO case into court and so it was better to just let sleeping dogs lie,” he says.

Over the last two years, the Pentagon has definitely had a difficult time being consistent or concise when it comes to UFOs and UAPs. So far, the Pentagon has gone back and forth, and seems unable to decide if anyone, much less Elizondo, ever officially investigated UFOs for the DoD.

At the same time, the one thing all parties continue to agree on is what the objects shown in the videos represent: “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena.” But what, exactly, are those?

An artist’s 3D rendering of the USS Nimitz 2004 "Tic Tac" UFO, shown hovering over a sea surface disturbance while approached by an F/A-18 hornet.

JMK (CC BY-SA)

For some, the Pentagon’s stance that object in the film is yet still “unidentified” means that whatever it is, it’s “exotic,” and even possibly extraterrestrial. Meanwhile skeptics say, “unidentified” means just that, and thus there could easily be a prosaic explanation, such as an error with the Advanced Targeting Forward Looking Infrared (ATFLIR) system or even a misidentified flock of birds.

In an effort to try and clear up the debate, Popular Mechanics sought the help of a digital forensics expert to analyze the video. Having processed over 1,000 cases, including high-profile investigations like U.S. vs Zimmerman, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, and the shooting death of Laquan McDonald, Primeau Forensics is regarded as one of the nation’s leading digital forensics experts. Provided copies of both the “F4” and “Flir1,” clips, Michael Primeau, the co-owner of the business, agreed to take a look and see what information could be gleaned from the videos.

After analyzing the clips, Primeau indicated in order to provide an accurate professional opinion, the digital chain of custody would have to be determined, which would include examining the digital video equipment that originally captured the recording.

“Some components could be estimated,” Primeau says, however, based solely on the information contained in the released videos, “the error rate would simply be too high, and conclusions would not be based on an accurate confidence level.”

The Air Force's Project Blue Book, 50 Years Later

All Our UFO Covers from Over the Years

When asked if there was enough with just the video to meet the threshold of legally admissible evidence or make a definitive conclusion, Primeau says, “Based on preliminary forensic video analysis, it is my opinion that the FLIR video recordings provided cannot be relied upon as true and accurate, and therefore should not be admissible as evidence in a court of law.”

While Primeau says no definitive conclusion can be reached based solely on the publicly available video evidence, one intriguing element still remains: The U.S. Navy clearly should have had access to all of the necessary equipment and information that would have allowed it to arrive at a more definite conclusion.

Speaking generally, Gough confirms investigations into reported sightings of unidentified aerial phenomena are performed, and with incidents involving UAP encounters by the Navy, any investigation would include the Navy reaching out to other services to determine whether they might have aerospace craft in the vicinity at the time of the sighting. In light of this, when asked again, Gough once again sticks to the company line—but it’s just as intriguing as ever.

“The Navy designates the objects contained in these videos as unidentified aerial phenomena.”

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

18-01-2020 om 16:43 geschreven door peter

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New Hubble Data Helps Reveal Ring Nebula’s True Form

New Hubble Image Reveals Ring Nebulas True Shape

In this composite image, visible-light observations by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope are combined with infrared data from the ground-based Large Binocular Telescope in Arizona to assemble a dramatic view of the well-known Ring Nebula. Credit: NASA, ESA, C.R. Robert O’Dell (Vanderbilt University), G.J. Ferland (University of Kentucky), W.J. Henney and M. Peimbert (National Autonomous University of Mexico)

Credit for Large Binocular Telescope data: David Thompson (University of Arizona)

By using data from the Hubble Space Telescope combined with infrared data from ground-based telescopes, researchers were able to view the Ring Nebula’s true shape and construct a precise 3D model of the nebula.

The Ring Nebula’s distinctive shape makes it a popular illustration for astronomy books. But new observations by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope of the glowing gas shroud around an old, dying, sun-like star reveal a new twist.

“The nebula is not like a bagel, but rather, it’s like a jelly doughnut, because it’s filled with material in the middle,” said C. Robert O’Dell of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. He leads a research team that used Hubble and several ground-based telescopes to obtain the best view yet of the iconic nebula. The images show a more complex structure than astronomers once thought and have allowed them to construct the most precise 3-D model of the nebula.

“With Hubble’s detail, we see a completely different shape than what’s been thought about historically for this classic nebula,” O’Dell said. “The new Hubble observations show the nebula in much clearer detail, and we see things are not as simple as we previously thought.”

The Ring Nebula is about 2,000 light-years from Earth and measures roughly 1 light-year across. Located in the constellation Lyra, the nebula is a popular target for amateur astronomers.

Hubble Discovers the True Shape of the Ring Nebula

This planetary nebula’s simple, graceful appearance is thought to be due to perspective: our view from Earth looking straight into what is actually a barrel-shaped cloud of gas shrugged off by a dying central star. Hot blue gas near the energizing central star gives way to progressively cooler green and yellow gas at greater distances with the coolest red gas along the outer boundary.

Credit: NASA/Hubble Heritage Team

Previous observations by several telescopes had detected the gaseous material in the ring’s central region. But the new view by Hubble’s sharp-eyed Wide Field Camera 3 shows the nebula’s structure in more detail. O’Dell’s team suggests the ring wraps around a blue, football-shaped structure. Each end of the structure protrudes out of opposite sides of the ring.

The nebula is tilted toward Earth so that astronomers see the ring face-on. In the Hubble image, the blue structure is the glow of helium. Radiation from the white dwarf star, the white dot in the center of the ring, is exciting the helium to glow. The white dwarf is the stellar remnant of a sun-like star that has exhausted its hydrogen fuel and has shed its outer layers of gas to gravitationally collapse to a compact object.

O’Dell’s team was surprised at the detailed Hubble views of the dark, irregular knots of dense gas embedded along the inner rim of the ring, which look like spokes in a bicycle wheel. These gaseous tentacles formed when expanding hot gas pushed into cool gas ejected previously by the doomed star. The knots are more resistant to erosion by the wave of ultraviolet light unleashed by the star. The Hubble images have allowed the team to match up the knots with the spikes of light around the bright, main ring, which are a shadow effect. Astronomers have found similar knots in other planetary nebulae.

All of this gas was expelled by the central star about 4,000 years ago. The original star was several times more massive than our sun. After billions of years converting hydrogen to helium in its core, the star began to run out of fuel. It then ballooned in size, becoming a red giant. During this phase, the star shed its outer gaseous layers into space and began to collapse as fusion reactions began to die out. A gusher of ultraviolet light from the dying star energized the gas, making it glow.

The outer rings were formed when faster-moving gas slammed into slower-moving material. The nebula is expanding at more than 43,000 miles an hour, but the center is moving faster than the expansion of the main ring. O’Dell’s team measured the nebula’s expansion by comparing the new Hubble observations with Hubble studies made in 1998.

The Ring Nebula will continue to expand for another 10,000 years, a short phase in the lifetime of the star. The nebula will become fainter and fainter until it merges with the interstellar medium.

Studying the Ring Nebula’s fate will provide insight into the sun’s demise in another 6 billion years. The sun is less massive than the Ring Nebula’s progenitor star, so it will not have an opulent ending.

“When the sun becomes a white dwarf, it will heat more slowly after it ejects its outer gaseous layers,” O’Dell said. “The material will be farther away once it becomes hot enough to illuminate the gas. This larger distance means the sun’s nebula will be fainter because it is more extended.”

In the analysis, the research team also obtained images from the Large Binocular Telescope at the Mount Graham International Observatory in Arizona and spectroscopic data from the San Pedro Martir Observatory in Baja California, Mexico.

Related Studies:

Images: NASA, ESA, C.R. Robert O’Dell (Vanderbilt University), G.J. Ferland (University of Kentucky), W.J. Henney and M. Peimbert (National Autonomous University of Mexico) Credit for Large Binocular Telescope data: David Thompson (University of Arizona); NASA/Hubble Heritage Team

{

18-01-2020 om 16:05 geschreven door peter

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THE SOUL ENTERS THE FETUS AT 49 DAYS BY THE PINEAL GLAND, ACCORDING TO A SCIENTIST

Dr. Rick Strassman finds fascinating coincidences between the development of the human fetus and the descriptions of the Tibetan Book of Death: does the soul enter the human body through the pineal gland?

Dr. Rick Strassman suggests in his book DMT: The Spirit Molecule , a fascinating hypothesis: that the human soul incarnates in the body in the seventh week after conception, using the pineal gland as a spiritual channel and the molecule dimethyltryptamine (DMT) as a catalyst. Strassman is an American doctor specialized in psychiatry with a research grant in clinical psychopharmacology.

DMT is a powerful psychedelic substance that occurs naturally in the pineal gland – something that has recently been proven – and could also be linked to near-death experiences (NDE) . Indeed, research published in the journal Biomedical Chromatography documents the presence of DMT in the pineal glands of living rats. According to the researchers, the discovery of the pineal gland as a source of DMT “reinforces the idea of the role of this enigmatic gland in unusual states of consciousness”. Dimethyltryptamine has been linked to the generation of images in dreams, with the states of consciousness that generate near-death experiences and all kinds of mystical experiences.

The curious thing is that the pineal gland becomes visible in the human fetus at 49 days, which is the number of days in which a soul takes to reincarnate according to the Bardo Thodol ( Tibetan Book of the Dead). These coincidences have led Strassman to affirm that the soul incarnates in the body at the seventh week of pregnancy.

Following the reports of near-death experiences in which moments of awareness outside the body are described, Strassman theorizes that it is the DMT that makes these states of consciousness accessible. In your opinion, the pineal gland could act as an antenna or lightning rod for the soul.

Although many people do not believe in the existence of the soul, others consider that it is immaterial – Plato and the Neoplatonists believe, for example, that the body is created by the soul. And there are those who have managed to photograph it. Rene Descartes, located the seat of the soul, in the pineal gland, something that could now be proven. Anyway, the coincidence found by Strassman amazes us.

{ http://www.mysterious-times.com/ }

18-01-2020 om 15:43 geschreven door peter

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Former Navy Admiral Says UFO Analyses 'Inconclusive'

15 Jan 2020

Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Fla. | By Billy Cox

SARASOTA -- America's former Chief of Naval Operations stated on Thursday that the unidentified flying objects that appeared to have outperformed Navy fighter pilots on videos recorded in 2004 and 2015 remain a mystery.

"I've seen the videos and, at least in my time, most of the assessments were inconclusive as to what it was," said retired Admiral Gary Roughead, following a speaking engagement in Sarasota. "But the whole issue of defense against autonomous vehicles is one that the department is taking pretty darned seriously."

Three sets of gun-camera videos -- one taken from an F-18 assigned to the USS Nimitz operating off southern California in November 2004, and two more from Super Hornets attached to the USS Roosevelt during maneuvers off Jacksonville in January 2015 -- were authenticated as official government footage by the Defense Department last year.

The target of the 2004 footage, dubbed the "Tic Tac" for its oblong shape, reportedly plunged from 80,000 feet to 20,000 feet in less than a second, a speed that would have easily destroyed a conventional aircraft. The New York Times broke the story in 2017 and, last summer, in an unprecedented move, the Navy publicly announced it had issued new guidelines for its pilots to report "unidentified aircraft."

Roughead commanded both the Atlantic and Pacific Fleets before serving as CNO from 2007 through 2011. Booked for a Sarasota Institute of Lifetime Learning lecture on China's 21st century military strategy, the Admiral said "there weren't that many" such events on his watch, but that developing "unmanned autonomous aircraft" remains a priority.

"I think we're going to continue to see new technology in the form of unmanned systems that will begin to interfere with military capability. And we're not alone. There's no question that China and Russia want to plan.

"Without knowing what they may be -- are they phenomena or are they vehicles that someone was able to get into place? -- I think one of the great challenges that more people looked at is, where would these have come from? And quite frankly, I haven't spent a lot of time on that issue."

Retired Navy Cmdr. David Fravor, who chased the Tic Tac UFO and recounted that experience for the Times, also reported a related mystery occurring simultaneously underwater, beneath the Tic Tac. Roughead said underwater weapons systems pose the next great evolutionary hurdle.

"I remember there was one (UFO), and it may have been after I retired, that seemed to go underwater," he said. "If in fact it was a real vehicle, how did it launch and recover? Because as you know, it's not an easy thing to get something that can perform extraordinarily well in the air and dive into the water and become something else. What that phenomenon was, I can't help you out there."

In fact, Roughead recalled how, in public speeches to defense contractors, he announced the next "game-changing" breakthrough will be submersible military assets, whose power-sourcing could be "more transformative than the autonomous stuff in the air." He compared the scale of such ambitions to the Apollo moon shots, which will demand "a triad of business, government, and academia coming together."

"The aerodynamics and the hydrodynamics and the strength that's required to be able to fly and operate at depths, and the power you need to move at high speeds in the air, then how do you convert that power to something under the water -- those are huge technological challenges," he said. "There's no question in my mind that in the future of warfare, probably long after I'm gone, we'll see that type of thing beginning to occur."

Imagine, Roughead said, being able to park military technology at the bottom of the ocean, virtually undetected, at a strategic location, "tell it to go to sleep" indefinitely, and then activate it when needed.

But with a little foresight, he added, investigations into these mind-bending scenarios could be used to build bridges with rivals such as China.

"We have to look for opportunities, we have to look for venues where we can bring caring people together to say, OK, there's a technological issue here, how do we bring the bright minds together," Roughead said.

"How do we protect our legitimate national security technologies and intellectual property, but still get after some of the hard problems? I think that's a way for closing some of the gaps down the road and bringing trust between the two.

"The first step for me is, how do you define what it is that we can work on together (to) remove some of the sensitivities and suspicions? Until you have that discussion, you're not going to make any progress. The journey begins with the first step."

This article is written by Billy Cox from Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Fla. and was legally licensed via the Tribune Content Agency through the NewsCred publisher network. Please direct all licensing questions to legal@newscred.com.

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

18-01-2020 om 15:10 geschreven door peter

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It’s probably nothing: Gravitational wave burst detected near Betelgeuse

Posted by Deborah Byrd in HUMAN WORLD | SPACE

Betelgeuse has dimmed recently, prompting some to wonder if it’s about to explode. An explosion might trigger a gravitational wave burst. Betelgeuse is still there. The nearby gravitational wave burst probably means nothing for this star. Still …

Gravitational waves are “ripples” in space-time caused by some of the most violent and energetic processes in the universe.

Image via LIGO.

The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and Virgo detectors recorded a “burst” of gravitational waves this week, from an area of sky near the red supergiant Betelgeuse. This unanticipated burst has been dubbed, for now, S200114f. It’s prompting some interesting chatter on Twitter because Betelgeuse has undergone an unusual dimming in recent weeks, and some astronomy enthusiasts have wondered if it were about to explode. Betelgeuse has not exploded. It’s still there. Still, a supernova explosion of Betelgeuse might be linked with a gravitational wave burst.

As Jackson Ryan explained on CNET last night (January 14, 2020):

The gravitational waves we’ve detected so far usually relate to extreme cosmic events, like two black holes colliding or neutron stars finally merging after being caught in a death spiral. Burst gravitational waves have not been detected before and scientists hypothesize they may be linked to phenomena such as supernova or gamma ray bursts, producing a tiny ‘pop’ when detected by the observatories.

Astronomer Andy Howell at Las Cumbres Observatory leads a group that studies supernovae and dark energy. He posted some especially informative tweets about Betelgeuse last night.

Andy Howell
✔@d_a_howell

TFW you walk outside to check if Betelgeuse is still there (I just did, it is). https://twitter.com/cplberry/status/1216917328841117696 …

Christopher Berry@cplberry

New gravitational-wave candidate?https://gracedb.ligo.org/superevents/S200114f/view/ …#S20014 was found by an unmodelled burst search, I'm always skeptical of these, as they are easily confused with glitches
False alarm rate: 1 per 25 yr
Rating:

236

4:15 AM - Jan 14, 2020

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54 people are talking about this

Andy Howell
✔@d_a_howell

· Jan 14, 2020

Replying to @d_a_howell

For the record, I do know that it can take hours for the shock to reach the surface. I didn't point that out initially because I didn't want people staying up all night to watch Betelgeuse. I was mostly joking (but I did walk outside because I couldn't resist).

Andy Howell
✔@d_a_howell

It isn't Betelgeuse blowing up because:
- It is outside the GW localization region.
- The burst might not even be real.
- The burst was probably too short.
- No neutrinos were detected
- Betelgeuse's dimming is well explained.
Me walking outside to check = buying a lottery ticket

129

7:19 AM - Jan 14, 2020

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26 people are talking about this

As Andy said in one of the tweets above, gravitational wave detectors do sometimes detect false positives, about once every 25 years. So that is something to keep in mind.

The most important thing to keep in mind is that Betelgeuse has not exploded. Estimates suggest it won’t explode in our lifetimes … probably.

What’s so great here is the way that astronomers – some of Earth’s most curious people – have reacted, turning their attention and their telescopes toward Betelgeuse and toward the region of the sky from which the gravitational waves apparently originated. What is going on? The verdict isn’t in yet. Probably nothing. Still, many on Twitter last night spoke of going outside to look at Betelgeuse. Their enthusiasm and excitement are contagious!

A bright red star on the left. A slightly dimmer red star on the right.

View at EarthSky Community Photos. |

Brian Ottum kindly provided this direct comparison of Betelgeuse a few years ago, and Betelgeuse in recent weeks. You can see that the star has dimmed noticeably. Brian wrote: “Left is February, 2016. Right is December 31, 2019. Note that the brightness/appearance of all background stars are identical left versus right, but Betelgeuse is definitely fainter on the right.” Thank you, Brian!

Bottom line: The LIGO and Virgo detectors this week recorded a “burst” of gravitational waves, from an area of sky near the red supergiant Betelgeuse, which has recently undergone a mysterious dimming. Hmmmmmm.
Read more about the recent dimming of the star Betelgeuse

18-01-2020 om 14:50 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ASTRONOMIE / RUIMTEVAART

An Airliner, a UFO, and Mysterious Lost Documents

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An Airliner, a UFO, and Mysterious Lost Documents

Try This Ancient Device and You'll Never Have High Monthly Electric Bills Again! (VIDEO)

UFOs have been sighted by pilots and aircraft for decades, yet some of these truly stand out as something special. What has become known as being one of the earliest official UFO reports from a commercial airline crew began as a normal flight. On July 23, 1948, chief pilot Clarence Chiles and co-pilot John Whitted took off for a routine 7-hour flight from Houston, Texas to Atlanta, Georgia, aboard their Eastern Air Lines Douglas DC-3 passenger plane along with twenty passengers. The weather was clear and calm, and both pilots were very experienced, with distinguished flying careers during World War II, so there would have been no reason to think that this would be anything more than a typical, uneventful flight, but this would soon prove not to be the case at all, and it would propel itself into the realm of great UFO mysteries.

At approximately 2:45 AM on July 24, the plane was in the skies near Montgomery, Alabama, at an altitude of 5,000 feet when Chiles’ attention was drawn to what he would describe as “a dull red glow above and ahead of the aircraft,” and he mentioned it to Whitted, who also saw it. They at first took to be a military plane, but it would soon prove to be anything but, as it rapidly closed in on their position with astonishing speed in a horizontal path and silently whizzed by before shooting straight up into the sky while belching forth “a tremendous burst of flame out of its rear.” The proximity of the strange craft had been such that they had been forced to bank in an evasive maneuver, and Chiles would say of the encounter:

We veered to the left and it veered to its left, and passed us about 700 feet to our right and about 700 feet above us. Then, as if the pilot had seen us and wanted to avoid us, it pulled up with a tremendous burst of flame out of its rear and zoomed up into the clouds.

Both men would get a good look at it, describing it as having been a cigar-shaped metallic object 100 feet long and 25-30 feet in diameter, with no noticeable wings or tail section, and they would explain that they had seen two rows of brightly lit windows along its side. It would turn out that only one of the passengers, most of who had slept through it all, had seen anything usual, saying that he had seen an eerie red glow pass the plane. Other witnesses would later turn out to be personnel from Robbins Air Base, near Macon, Georgia, who would claim to have seen the same object shoot through the sky a half an hour before Chiles and Whitted’s encounter.

The plane made it to its destination on schedule, and the pilots wasted no time in reporting what they had seen to the US Air Force, who in turn called in investigators from Project Sign, which was an early Air Force group for studying UFO sightings and sort of a precursor to the more famous Project Blue Book. The pilots were extensively interviewed and they provided sketches of what they had observed, and it was found that their descriptions were remarkably similar except that Chiles claimed to have seen an actual cockpit on the craft, whereas Whitted had observed no such feature. Project Sign also meticulously mapped every known aircraft in the air for the entire southeastern United States in an effort to see if the object could have perhaps been another plane, but there was nothing else officially in the air at the time that could really explain the bizarre sighting. This, combined with the fact that the two pilot witnesses were seasoned professionals and had gotten a good, close look at the anomalous object, made this a very exciting, albeit alarming incident.

The idea that some large, unidentified flying object of this type had invaded U.S. airspace was a sensitive issue at the time, and so the Air Force was scrambling for answers. It was suggested that this could have possibly been some sort of advanced aircraft from a foreign nation, but this was problematic because the technology was seen as far beyond what anyone was capable at the time and nothing like it had been seen before. The detail of the flame shooting out of the rear of the craft was important in this regard, because in those days few aircraft had afterburners, and none of that magnitude. This was more like a rocket, but there was thought to be no conceivable way that such a massive low flying, horizontal rocket had been traveling through the area with the technology available at the time and with no discernible launching point.

Sketches of the craft

Other ideas were suggested at the time as well, such as that the pilots had simply misidentified a particularly brilliant meteor, but this does not explain the object’s ability to make a sudden vertical ascent, nor details like the double rows of windows. Project Sign also briefly entertained the idea that this could have been a brush with a Navy plane called the RV6 Constitution, which could have been on a classified mission and was top-of-the-line cutting edge stuff at the time, and also just happened to be cigar shaped, with the characteristic feature of two rows of windows, but it did not spew long jets of flame and certainly could not perform the radical vertical maneuver that was observed. The Navy, for its part, would also deny that this sort of plane had been anywhere near the area at the time.

By all accounts Project Sign was utterly meticulous and thorough with every aspect of the investigation, leaving no stone unturned and at every turn seeking to exhaust every possible option. In the end they had completely ruled out the meteor theory and had considered the notion that this had been some experimental aircraft highly improbable. In light of this, the Air Technical Intelligence Center (ATIC) compiled all of their findings into an “Estimate of the Situation” report, which allegedly came to the conclusion that the Chiles-Whitted object was an “interplanetary spaceship.” The top secret and highly classified report itself has become almost legendary, partly because it would have been the first time a government had ever conceded that UFOs were actually aliens, but also partly because it would shortly after disappear off the face of the earth and into history and the annals of great conspiracies.

The first head of The Air Force’s famous Project Blue Book study of UFO phenomena, Edward J. Ruppelt, would insist that the report did in fact exist, that it was sent all the way up through the chain of command, to land on the desk of General Hoyt S. Vandenberg, the chief of staff. The result? Well, Vandenberg apparently was skeptical of the estimate that the UFO was of alien origin, and doubted the evidence used to back that case up. Rather, he was a proponent of the idea held by another faction within the Air Force that believed that the object, and indeed UFOs in general, were the result of top secret aircraft being developed by the Soviet Union, which fit in perfectly with the Cold War paranoia at the time. According to Ruppelt, the report would then be totally dismissed and destroyed, saying:

The general wouldn’t buy interplanetary vehicles. A group from ATIC went to the Pentagon to bolster their position but had no luck, the Chief of Staff couldn’t be convinced. The estimate died a quick death. Some months later it was completely declassified and relegated to the incinerator.

The mysterious report has gone onto become the stuff of legend in UFOlogy, with occasional witnesses saying that they have seen a copy, but no concrete evidence that it ever even existed at all. There are no photographs of it, no known pages remaining from it, it is a specter lost to the mists of time, only reports of purported having seen the report up close. In the aftermath of this, the official Air Force verdict was and has remained that what Chiles and Whitted saw was a meteor. Case closed. Of course, in light of the other evidence of Project Sign’s findings on the case this explanation has been scoffed at and accused of being a weak attempt to obfuscate and blur the real truth, as has the fact that the actual report was apparently disposed of to leave us with nothing.

For their part, Chiles and Whitted would always stand by their account, never once faltering from what they believed was a truly anomalous situation and some sort of unknown craft. To this day the case is discussed heavily, and it remains a very credible one considering the pedigree of its pilots and the very thorough investigation that came to the conclusion that this might actually be something not of this earth. Yet not everyone obviously agrees, and so we are left with questions. If this wasn’t extraterrestrial in origin then what was it? A meteor, an experimental aircraft, what? Why would this remarkable and mysterious report make it all the way up through the upper echelons of the Air Force brass to merely be brushed aside and destroyed? Doesn’t incinerating it suggest they were merely trying to get rid of it? In the end we don’t know what it was, and it is all an intriguing mystery that we very well may never have the true answer to.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

18-01-2020 om 01:30 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:UFOs , UAPs , USOS

Astronomers discover class of strange objects near our galaxy’s enormous black hole

Astronomy image

Anna Ciurlo, Tuan Do/UCLA Galactic Center Group

Image shows orbits of the G objects at the center of our galaxy, with the supermassive black hole indicated with a white cross. Stars, gas and dust are in the background.

Stuart Wolpert

Astronomers from UCLA’s Galactic Center Orbits Initiative have discovered a new class of bizarre objects at the center of our galaxy, not far from the supermassive black hole called Sagittarius A*. They published their research in the Jan. 16 issue of the journal Nature.

“These objects look like gas and behave like stars,” said co-author Andrea Ghez, UCLA’s Lauren B. Leichtman and Arthur E. Levine Professor of Astrophysics and director of the UCLA Galactic Center Group.

The new objects look compact most of the time and stretch out when their orbits bring them closest to the black hole. Their orbits range from about 100 to 1,000 years, said lead author Anna Ciurlo, a UCLA postdoctoral researcher.

Ghez’s research group identified an unusual object at the center of our galaxy in 2005, which was later named G1. In 2012, astronomers in Germany made a puzzling discovery of a bizarre object named G2 in the center of the Milky Way that made a close approach to the supermassive black hole in 2014. Ghez and her research team believe that G2 is most likely two stars that had been orbiting the black hole in tandem and merged into an extremely large star, cloaked in unusually thick gas and dust.

“At the time of closest approach, G2 had a really strange signature,” Ghez said. “We had seen it before, but it didn’t look too peculiar until it got close to the black hole and became elongated, and much of its gas was torn apart. It went from being a pretty innocuous object when it was far from the black hole to one that was really stretched out and distorted at its closest approach and lost its outer shell, and now it’s getting more compact again.”

“One of the things that has gotten everyone excited about the G objects is that the stuff that gets pulled off of them by tidal forces as they sweep by the central black hole must inevitably fall into the black hole,” said co-author Mark Morris, UCLA professor of physics and astronomy. “When that happens, it might be able to produce an impressive fireworks show since the material eaten by the black hole will heat up and emit copious radiation before it disappears across the event horizon.”

But are G2 and G1 outliers, or are they part of a larger class of objects? In answer to that question, Ghez’s research group reports the existence of four more objects they are calling G3, G4, G5 and G6. The researchers have determined each of their orbits. While G1 and G2 have similar orbits, the four new objects have very different orbits.

Ghez believes all six objects were binary stars — a system of two stars orbiting each other — that merged because of the strong gravitational force of the supermassive black hole. The merging of two stars takes more than 1 million years to complete, Ghez said.

“Mergers of stars may be happening in the universe more often than we thought, and likely are quite common,” Ghez said. “Black holes may be driving binary stars to merge. It’s possible that many of the stars we’ve been watching and not understanding may be the end product of mergers that are calm now. We are learning how galaxies and black holes evolve. The way binary stars interact with each other and with the black hole is very different from how single stars interact with other single stars and with the black hole.”

Ciurlo noted that while the gas from G2’s outer shell got stretched dramatically, its dust inside the gas did not get stretched much. “Something must have kept it compact and enabled it to survive its encounter with the black hole,” Ciurlo said. “This is evidence for a stellar object inside G2.”

“The unique dataset that Professor Ghez’s group has gathered during more than 20 years is what allowed us to make this discovery,” Ciurlo said. “We now have a population of ‘G’ objects, so it is not a matter of explaining a ‘one-time event’ like G2.”

The researchers made observations from the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii and used a powerful technology that Ghez helped pioneer, called adaptive optics, which corrects the distorting effects of the Earth’s atmosphere in real time. They conducted a new analysis of 13 years of their UCLA Galactic Center Orbits Initiative data.

In September 2019, Ghez’s team reported that the black hole is getting hungrier and it is unclear why. The stretching of G2 in 2014 appeared to pull off gas that may recently have been swallowed by the black hole, said co-author Tuan Do, a UCLA research scientist and deputy director of the Galactic Center Group. The mergers of stars could feed the black hole.

The team has already identified a few other candidates that may be part of this new class of objects, and are continuing to analyze them.

Ghez noted the center of the Milky Way galaxy is an extreme environment, unlike our less hectic corner of the universe.

“The Earth is in the suburbs compared to the center of the galaxy, which is some 26,000 light-years away,” Ghez said. “The center of our galaxy has a density of stars 1 billion times higher than our part of the galaxy. The gravitational pull is so much stronger. The magnetic fields are more extreme. The center of the galaxy is where extreme astrophysics occurs — the X-sports of astrophysics.”

Ghez said this research will help to teach us what is happening in the majority of galaxies.

Other co-authors include Randall Campbell, an astronomer with the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii; Aurelien Hees, a former UCLA postdoctoral scholar, now a researcher at the Paris Observatory in France; and Smadar Naoz, a UCLA assistant professor of physics and astronomy.

The research is funded by the National Science Foundation, W.M. Keck Foundation and Keck Visiting Scholars Program, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the Heising-Simons Foundation, Lauren Leichtman and Arthur Levine, Jim and Lori Keir, and Howard and Astrid Preston.

In July 2019, Ghez’s research team reported on the most comprehensive test of Einstein’s iconic general theory of relativity near the black hole. They concluded that Einstein’s theory passed the test and is correct, at least for now.

► Watch a four-minute film about Ghez’s research
►View an animation below of the orbits of the G objects, together with the orbits of stars near the supermassive black hole. Credit: Advanced Visualization Lab, National Center for Supercomputing Applications, University of Illinois

{ https://www.ucla.edu/ }

18-01-2020 om 00:55 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ASTRONOMIE / RUIMTEVAART

Er gebeurt iets heel raars in het centrum van de Melkweg

Er gebeurt iets heel raars in het centrum van de Melkweg. Astronomen hebben zes objecten ontdekt rond Sagittarius A* die ze niet thuis kunnen brengen.

Ze gedragen zich zo vreemd dat ze zijn ingedeeld in een geheel nieuwe categorie: G-objecten.

De eerste twee objecten, G1 en G2, trokken bijna 20 jaar geleden voor het eerst de aandacht van astronomen.

Sterren

Het leek in eerste instantie te gaan om reusachtige gaswolken met een doorsnee van 100 astronomische eenheden.

Maar G1 en G2 gedroegen zich niet als gaswolken.

“Deze objecten zien eruit als gaswolken, maar gedragen zich als sterren,” zei astronoom Andrea Ghez van de Universiteit van Californië – Los Angeles.

Onduidelijk

Ghez en haar collega’s bestuderen het centrum van de Melkweg al meer dan 20 jaar.

Een team onder leiding van Anna Ciurlo heeft nu vier andere vreemde objecten ontdekt: G3, G4, G5 en G6.

Deze G-objecten draaien in 170 tot 1600 jaar om het zwarte gat.

Het is onduidelijk waar we hier mee te maken hebben.

Samensmelting

Ghez vermoedt dat de zes objecten oorspronkelijk dubbelsterren zijn geweest en onder invloed van de zwaartekracht van Sagittarius A* met elkaar zijn versmolten.

“Het samensmelten van sterren gebeurt mogelijk veel vaker in het universum dan we denken,” zei ze.

Het is mogelijk dat veel van de sterren die we volgen en niet begrijpen, het eindproduct zijn van een samensmelting, aldus Ghez.

Het onderzoek is verschenen in Nature.

[ScienceAlert via UCLA]

© Copyright (c) NineForNews.nl

18-01-2020 om 00:31 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:NineForNews. nl ( new ipv NIBURU.nl) (NL)

Police Officers Close Encounter In Indiana

DECEMBER 26, 2003 …… HUNTINGTON INDIANA

At around 2:30 pm on 26^th December 2003 in Huntington, Indiana, an off-duty police officer with the Huntington Police Department had just turned the key in the ignition of his car. He was warming up the engine against the cold afternoon winter environment of the American Midwest when he noticed something strange in the skies overhead.

The officer would later state how he at first believed the object to be a “parachute that you can steer. (It was) black and curved”. However, he soon noticed there was no pilot attached to it. Then, it began to roll, “a slow roll” before turning upside down and resembling a “giant set of bird wings”. Following more rolls, the object appeared much “oblong and orange”.

The officer would immediately reach for the police radio. He would request that any other available officers attempt to locate the mysterious object also. Within moments, two other Huntington police officers had confirmed the object overhead.

One of the officers to respond would later claim it looked like a “tire in the sky”. The third officer, who was leaving the police station when he heard the call for attempts to locate the mysterious object. He would claim that “it was so big” that he no problem at all locating it. He would further state that it would “glide, (and) rotate the wide way around” before hovering and turning a bright orange color.

All three of the officers would later state their belief that the orange color was more likely a reflection of the afternoon sun as opposed to a physical glow of the craft itself. Furthermore, all three would agree that the object made no noise whatsoever.

A Distinct (And Strange) Lack Of Public Reports!

By the time the object had come to rest and hovered at would ultimately be its lowest point, the first police officer believed it was “going to get hung up on the steeple of the church”.

What he would also remark was extremely strange was the fact that no calls came into the 911 switchboard from the public. The officer would remark that such an incident would have normally “lit up the emergency lines”. However, not one single report came into their station or any others, including the state police. At least, that is, as a caveat of our own, none that are available to the public.

It would appear that the three police officers, the first of which just happened to look up at the “right moment” would prove to be the only witnesses to such a public sighting, at low altitude in the middle of the day, no less. In fact, so strange was the apparent lack of response that all three of the witnesses would stop speaking of the sighting altogether due to feat that “people would think we were crazy”.

The first officer would lose sight of the strange craft after it made its way behind the church steeple. The two remaining officers would keep the object in their sights, each from slightly different locations (although, in reality, only separated by around 40 feet).

After around 30 to 45 seconds, the object disappeared from all of the officer’s view. Despite their initial promise to remain quiet, however, they would soon change their minds and make an official report of the incident several days later. A public account of the incident would appear in the Huntington Herald newspaper shortly after.

Witnesses And Details Of Reports Appear Credible!

It is certainly an interesting sighting. And one that all three of the officers have no doubt was of a machine that wasn’t “anything (they) could relate to”. Another of the officers would state that they were “never really afraid, just in total amazement”.

Whether the three officers were the only witnesses or whether there was a quick suppression of information is perhaps open to debate, although admittedly, unlikely in this instance.

Even the pastor of the church the object hovered over for several moments would claim, when asked for comment this was “the first (they) had heard of it” and that they hadn’t noticed anything unusual at all on the afternoon in question. Furthermore, much like the police department, he had received no reports from parishioners of any unusual aerial activity.

Initial investigations at the time of the reporting of the incident suggested not only credibility on the part of the witnesses, but also in the details they gave. Such things as the movement of the craft, the rolling and tumbling, as well as the bizarrely slow movement for such a large craft. Not to mention the complete lack of any sound whatsoever.

Two local airfields who might have managed to capture the object on their respective radars, Huntington Municipal Airport and Fort Wayne Smith’s Field, would both claim to have no reports or data to show any “out-of-the-ordinary” aerial vehicles for the afternoon of the 26^th December.

What is also interesting, despite the three police officers being the only witnesses to this particular sighting, there were several other similar reports around Indiana during the Christmas and New Year period of 2003. NOTE: The above image is CGI.

KEN PFEIFER WORLD UFO PHOTOS AND NEWS
HTTP://WWW.WORLDUFOPHOTOS.ORG
HTTP://WWW.WORLDUFOPHOTOSANDNEWS.ORG
HTTP://WWW.KENPFEIFERDISCOVERIES.COM
THANKS TO MARCUS LOWTH AND https://www.ufoinsight.com

Source:

http://worldufophotosandnews.org/?p=24881

18-01-2020 om 00:25 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:UFOs , UAPs , USOS

17-01-2020

‘PigeonBot’ brings flying robots closer to real birds

Try as they might, even the most advanced roboticists on Earth struggle to recreate the effortless elegance and efficiency with which birds fly through the air. The “PigeonBot” from Stanford researchers takes a step towards changing that by investigating and demonstrating the unique qualities of feathered flight.

On a superficial level, PigeonBot looks a bit, shall we say, like a school project. But a lot of thought went into this rather haphazard looking contraption. Turns out the way birds fly is really not very well understood, as the relationship between the dynamic wing shape and positions of individual feathers are super complex.

Mechanical engineering professor David Lentink challenged some of his graduate students to “dissect the biomechanics of the avian wing morphing mechanism and embody these insights in a morphing biohybrid robot that features real flight feathers,” taking as their model the common pigeon — the resilience of which Lentink admires.

As he explains in an interview with the journal Science:

The first Ph.D.student, Amanda Stowers, analyzed the skeletal motion and determined we only needed to emulate the wrist and finger motion in our robot to actuate all 20 primary and 20 secondary flight feathers. The second student, Laura Matloff,uncovered how the feathers moved via a simple linear response to skeletal movement. The robotic insight here is that a bird wing is a gigantic underactuated system in which a bird doesn’t have to constantly actuate each feather individually. Instead, all the feathers follow wrist and finger motion automatically via the elastic ligament that connects the feathers to the skeleton. It’s an ingenious system that greatly simplifies feather position control.

In addition to finding that the individual control of feathers is more automatic than manual, the team found that tiny microstructures on the feathers form a sort of one-way Velcro-type material that keeps them forming a continuous surface rather than a bunch of disconnected ones. These and other findings were published in Science, while the robot itself, devised by “the third student,” Eric Chang, is described in Science Robotics.

Using 40 actual pigeon feathers and a super-light frame, Chang and the team made a simple flying machine that doesn’t derive lift from its feathers — it has a propeller on the front — but uses them to steer and maneuver using the same type of flexion and morphing as the birds themselves do when gliding.

Studying the biology of the wing itself, then observing and adjusting the PigeonBot systems, the team found that the bird (and bot) used its “wrist” when the wing was partly retracted, and “fingers” when extended, to control flight. But it’s done in a highly elegant fashion that minimizes the thought and the mechanisms required.

PigeonBot’s wing. You can see that the feathers are joined by elastic connections so moving one moves others.

It’s the kind of thing that could inform improved wing design for aircraft, which currently rely in many ways on principles established more than a century ago. Passenger jets, of course, don’t need to dive or roll on short notice, but drones and other small craft might find the ability extremely useful.

“The underactuated morphing wing principles presented here may inspire more economical and simpler morphing wing designs for aircraft and robots with more degrees of freedom than previously considered,” write the researchers in the Science Robotics paper.

Up next for the team is observation of more bird species to see if these techniques are shared with others. Lentink is working on a tail to match the wings, and separately on a new bio-inspired robot inspired by falcons, which could potentially have legs and claws as well. “I have many ideas,” he admitted.

Bat Bot is the biomimetic flying soft robot we deserve

Source:

https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/16/pigeonbot-brings-flying-robots-closer-to-real-birds/

17-01-2020 om 23:44 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:SF-snufjes }, Robotics and A.I. Artificiel Intelligence ( E, F en NL )

Montauk Project Whistleblower Exposes Time Travel, Mind Control and Aliens

COAST TO COAST AM

Independent filmmaker Christopher Garetano, whose film about the Montauk mystery inspired the hit show “Stranger Things,” has spent a lifetime searching for the truth behind some of America’s most unusual stories.

In the first half, he joined Richard Syrett to continue their recent conversation (his phone connection was mysteriously lost on the 11/29 show), on the secretive Montauk Project.

A media phenomenon, Coast to Coast AM deals with UFOs, strange occurrences, life after death, and other unexplained (and often inexplicable) phenomena.

The Montauk Project is a conspiracy theory that alleges there were a series of secret United States government projects conducted at Camp Hero or Montauk Air Force Station in Montauk, New York, for the purpose of developing psychological warfare techniques and exotic research including time travel.

17-01-2020 om 22:34 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:MYSTERIES , Complot Theories, ed ( EN, FR, NL )

The Moon Is Hollow Says Former NASA Rocket Scientist David Adair

COAST TO COAST AM -

During some of the Apollo missions, modules were fired into the lunar surface, and the moon rang like a bell, in one case for around four hours. Because of this, Adair has concluded that the moon is hollow, and he also noted that its perfectly symmetrical shape is highly unusual compared to more lumpy satellites such as Deimos and Phobos that orbit around Mars.

The moon is simply too big to have been captured in Earth’s orbit, he remarked, so it would seem to have been flown in and placed here.

A media phenomenon, Coast to Coast AM deals with UFOs, strange occurrences, life after death, and other unexplained (and often inexplicable) phenomena.

Other videos, selected by peter2011

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

17-01-2020 om 21:58 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:MYSTERIES ( Fr, Nl, E)

Proof That NASA Is A Spy Agency Using The Space Station To Do Its Dirty Work, UFO Sighting News.

Proof That NASA Is A Spy Agency Using The Space Station To Do Its Dirty Work, UFO Sighting News.

17-01-2020 om 21:04 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ASTRONOMIE / RUIMTEVAART

UFO Or Black Knight Satellite Seen In NASA Archive Photo Near Space Shuttle, UFO Sighting News.

UFO Or Black Knight Satellite Seen In NASA Archive Photo Near Space Shuttle, UFO Sighting News.

Date of discovery: Jan 16, 2020
Location of discovery: Earths orbit
NASA Source:

https://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/SearchPhotos/photo.pl?mission=STS104&roll=719&frame=55

Now I checked the before and after photo and there was no UFO there. So that means its not something stuck to the lens, window or anything that moves slow. This object is moving really fast to be in only one photo. As you see, the space shuttle is turned with an open payload bay, but this isn't a satellite, because satellites don't move that fast. So...that leaves only one option...its an alien craft.

This alien craft might not be a UFO but could however be one of the famous Black Knight satellites. Thats a satellite object, black non reflective and cannot be destroyed, but it will attack when provoked. Its said to be placed by Planet X, Nibiru so that they can constantly monitor Earth. Sadly, the Black Knight satellites also have the weaponry to destroy all life on earth instantly. Sterilizing the planet of life.
Scott C. Waring

17-01-2020 om 20:49 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

DoD won't release certain "top secret" UFO files

The US Navy has warned that the release of certain "TOP SECRET" UFO files requested under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) could “gravely damage” US national security.

According to Vice, in response to a recent Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, a spokesperson from the Navy's Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) confirmed that the agency possesses several top-secret documents and at least one classified video pertaining to the 2004 UFO encounter.

The ONI spokesperson said that these documents were either labeled "SECRET" or "TOP SECRET" by the agencies that provided them, and that sharing the information with the public "would cause exceptionally grave damage to the National Security of the United States."

RT America’s Natasha Sweatte reports. Then former NASA astronaut Leroy Chiao joins Scottie Nell Hughes to weigh in on the case and the controversy surrounding UFOs and what they might be.

17-01-2020 om 20:14 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

Astronaut Story Musgrave talks about UFOs

Astronaut Story Musgrave talks about UFOs and his appearance at MUFON’s conference.

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

17-01-2020 om 18:09 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

Top-secret UFO files could 'gravely damage' US national security if released, Navy says

By Brandon Specktor

The truth is out there… but you're still not allowed to see it.

In 2017, a video of the Nimitz UFO encounter was publicly released.

This infamous video of the USS Nimitz UFO encounter may not be the only one out there...

(Image: © To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science)

In November 2004, several U.S. Navy pilots stationed aboard the USS Nimitz encountered a Tic-Tac-shaped UFO darting and dashing over the Pacific Ocean in apparent defiance of the laws of physics. Navy officials dubbed the strange craft an "unidentified aerial phenomenon," but they have remained mum on what, exactly, that phenomenon could've been. Now, unsurprisingly to anyone who's ever considered making a hat out of tinfoil, the military has confirmed they know more than they're letting on.

In response to a recent Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, a spokesperson from the Navy's Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) confirmed that the agency possesses several top-secret documents and at least one classified video pertaining to the 2004 UFO encounter, Vice reported.

According to the ONI spokesperson, these documents were either labeled "SECRET" or "TOP SECRET" by the agencies that provided them, and that sharing the information with the public "would cause exceptionally grave damage to the National Security of the United States."

Related: 7 Things Most Often Mistaken for UFOs

These top-secret files included several "briefing slides" about the incident, provided to the ONI by an unnamed agency. (Because ONI officials did not classify the slides personally, they are unable to declassify them, the spokesperson added).

The ONI also admitted to possessing at least one video of unknown length, classified as "secret" by the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR). ONI didn't reveal whether this footage is the same 1-minute video that was leaked online in 2007 and widely released by The New York Times in 2017. However, in November 2019, several naval officers who witnessed the incident aboard the Nimitz told Popular Mechanics that they had seen a much longer video of the encounter that was between 8 and 10 minutes long. These original recordings were promptly collected and erased by "unknown individuals" who arrived on the ship by helicopter shortly after the incident, one officer said.

Luis Elizondo, a former Pentagon staffer who helped make the Navy video public, told Vice that "people should not be surprised by the revelation that other videos exist and at greater length."

The FOIA request, submitted in October 2019 by an independent researcher, asked for access to any nonclassified records or portions of records regarding the 2004 UFO encounter. No additional documents were mentioned in the ONI's response besides the classified briefing and video.

Originally published on Live Science.

17-01-2020 om 01:50 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:UFOs , UAPs , USOS

A second planet might orbit the closest star to the sun, and astronomers think it’s a super-Earth

Morgan McFall-Johnsen

Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the sun, might have a second planet in its orbit, according to a new study.
Astronomers think the planet, called Proxima c, is a super-Earth that formed far from the icy region where scientists think such worlds are born.
But Proxima c might not exist at all. The researchers are looking for more clues in photos and waiting for additional data from space telescopes.
Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

The closest star to the sun might have a second planet in its orbit.

Proxima Centauri is our nearest neighboring star; it’s just 4.2 light-years away. It has one planet that astronomers know of, a potentially habitable world called Proxima b.

But in a new study, researchers from Italy’s National Institute for Astrophysics report that they have observed changes in the star’s activity that indicate it could have another planet. They dubbed the world Proxima c in their paper, which was published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances.

The potential new planet seems to be a super-Earth – the term for a planet with a mass larger than Earth but significantly smaller than the ice giant Neptune.

“Proxima Centauri is the nearest star to the sun, and this detection would make it the closest planetary system to us,” astronomer Mario Damasso, the paper’s lead author, told Business Insider in an email.

Proxima c (if it exists) is probably not habitable – given its distance from its star, the planet is probably freezing or shrouded in a suffocating hydrogen-helium atmosphere. But its proximity to us could offer a unique opportunity to study another star system.

Proxima c could be a super-Earth in an unexpected place

exoplanets extrasolar earth like planets illustration spitzer_ssc2008 05a_2000

Foto: An artist’s illustration of Earth-sized planets.

sourceNASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt (SSC-Caltech)

If it’s real, Proxima c should not exist where it is.

Astronomers think super-Earths form around the “snowline”: the closest distance to a star where water can become ice. That’s because icy solids accumulate in that region when a star system is in its infancy, helping to form planets.

Proxima c is far beyond that snowline, though, so its existence could challenge that theory.

snowline star planetary system

Foto: An artist’s impression of the water snowline around a young star.

source A. Angelich (NRAO/AUI/NSF)/ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)

Then again, researchers still aren’t sure whether planet exists at all.

The team discovered Proxima c using a technique called radial velocity. It works like this: Planets tug slightly on their stars as they orbit. When the star’s position moves, even in this small way, it changes the colors of its light. If those changes are cyclical, that suggests the cause is an orbiting planet.

radial velocity exoplanet detection method

Foto: The radial velocity technique involves watching stars for changes in the color of their light. That could indicate a star is moving slightly as a planet orbits it.

source NASA

Damasso’s team identified this type of cyclical change in Proxima Centauri’s light, and determined that it is unrelated to the movements of the planet Proxima b.

That suggested the presence of another planet, though Damasso said the researchers still “cannot discard the possibility that the signal is actually due to the activity of the star.”

So the team hopes to find more clues in data from the Gaia space telescope.

Help from Gaia and James Webb

Gaia mapping the stars of the Milky Way

Foto: An artist’s illustration of the Gaia space telescope observing the Milky Way.

source ESA

The Gaia telescope launched in December 2013 with the ambitious goal of making a 3D map of the galaxy.

“Gaia is still observing, and we calculated in its final data release there will be enough data to confirm or disprove the existence of Proxima c,” Fabio Del Sordo, a co-author of the paper and an astrophysicist at the University of Crete in Greece, told Business Insider via email.

The next release of Gaia’s data is planned for this summer, followed by another in 2021. The timeline for the full data release has not yet been announced.

While Damasso and Del Sordo wait for that, they’re working with another team to scan photos of Proxima Centauri in search of signs of a second orbiting planet.

“Direct imaging may give results in a shorter time, but it cannot give a definitive answer,” Del Sordo said. “In other words, if we will not see anything in the image, it doesn’t necessarily mean Proxima c does not exist.”

Another telescope, NASA’s upcoming James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), could help researchers answer these questions, too.

James Webb telescope

Foto: The primary mirror of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, consisting of 18 hexagonal mirrors, in the clean room of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, October 28, 2016.

source NASA/Chris Gunn

The telescope is slated to launch in March 2021, equipped with a 21-foot-wide beryllium mirror and new infrared technology to make it sensitive to longer wavelengths of infrared light.

That could help astronomers study nearby stars and, specifically, Proxima c, in great detail.

“It will surely be a target for JWST, but since the planet is likely very cold, we do not know if JWST will be able to detect it,” Del Sordo said.

Even if James Webb can’t spot Proxima c, its neighboring planet, Proxima b, will be a prime target.

{ https://www.businessinsider.nl/ }

17-01-2020 om 01:37 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ASTRONOMIE / RUIMTEVAART

A second planet may orbit Proxima Centauri

The star closest to the sun appears to host another world much colder than Earth

The star Proxima Centauri (illustrated) may host two planets — one confirmed, possibly habitable world (left), and another newly discovered potential planet (right) more massive than Earth.

LORENZO SANTINELLI

By Christopher Crockett

The planet orbiting the star closest to the sun may have a neighbor.

Proxima Centauri, a dim red star just 4.2 light-years away, is already known to host one potentially habitable planet, Proxima b, that’s a bit more massive than Earth (SN: 8/24/16). Now, astronomers see hints of a second planet, this one much larger and farther from the star.

If it exists, Proxima c appears to be at least 5.8 times as massive as Earth and orbits its star about once every five Earth years, researchers report January 15 in Science Advances. Given its distance from Proxima Centauri, the planet is also much too cold to have liquid water, a key test for habitability.

Clues to the planet’s existence showed up in spectroscopic data of Proxima Centauri from two telescopes in Chile, Mario Damasso, an astrophysicist at the Astrophysical Observatory of Turin in Italy, and colleagues report. The data, which span 17 years, record the star’s back-and-forth motion relative to Earth. After accounting for the known planet, the researchers found hints of an additional unexplained wobble, likely caused by a second planet gravitationally tugging on the star.

Damasso’s team emphasizes that additional data are needed to confirm the planet’s existence. Given its proximity to Earth, Proxima c could be a prime candidate for direct imaging with next-generation supersized telescopes, the scientists say.

{ https://www.sciencenews.org/}

17-01-2020 om 00:39 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ASTRONOMIE / RUIMTEVAART

16-01-2020

Could invisible aliens exist among us?

Posted by Eleanor Imster in EARTH | HUMAN WORLD

The Earth might be crawling with undiscovered alien creatures whose biochemistry is very different from life as we know it. An astrobiologist explains.

Spooky big-headed human-like silhouettes in shadowy forest.

They probably won’t look anything like this.

Image via Martina Badini/ Shutterstock/ The Conversation.

By Samantha Rolfe, University of Hertfordshire

Life is pretty easy to recognize. It moves, it grows, it eats, it excretes, it reproduces. Simple. In biology, researchers often use the acronym MRSGREN to describe it. It stands for movement, respiration, sensitivity, growth, reproduction, excretion and nutrition.

But Helen Sharman, Britain’s first astronaut and a chemist at Imperial College London, recently said that alien lifeforms that are impossible to spot may be living among us. How could that be possible?

While life may be easy to recognize, it’s actually notoriously difficult to define and has had scientists and philosophers in debate for centuries – if not millennia. For example, a 3D printer can reproduce itself, but we wouldn’t call it alive. On the other hand, a mule is famously sterile, but we would never say it doesn’t live.

As nobody can agree, there are more than 100 definitions of what life is. An alternative (but imperfect) approach is describing life as a self-sustaining chemical system capable of Darwinian evolution, which works for many cases we want to describe.

The lack of definition is a huge problem when it comes to searching for life in space. Not being able to define life other than we’ll know it when we see it means we are truly limiting ourselves to geocentric, possibly even anthropocentric, ideas of what life looks like. When we think about aliens, we often picture a humanoid creature. But the intelligent life we are searching for doesn’t have to be humanoid.

Life, but not as we know it

Sharman says she believes aliens exist and

… there’s no two ways about it.

Furthermore, she wonders:

Will they be like you and me, made up of carbon and nitrogen? Maybe not. It’s possible they’re here right now and we simply can’t see them.

Such life would exist in a shadow biosphere. By that, I don’t mean a ghost realm, but undiscovered creatures probably with a different biochemistry. This means we can’t study or even notice them because they are outside of our comprehension. Assuming it exists, such a shadow biosphere would probably be microscopic.

So why haven’t we found it? We have limited ways of studying the microscopic world as only a small percentage of microbes can be cultured in a lab. This may mean that there could indeed be many lifeforms we haven’t yet spotted. We do now have the ability to sequence the DNA of unculturable strains of microbes, but this can only detect life as we know it – that contain DNA.

If we find such a biosphere, however, it is unclear whether we should call it alien. That depends on whether we mean of extraterrestrial origin or simply unfamiliar.

Silicon-based life

A popular suggestion for an alternative biochemistry is one based on silicon rather than carbon. It makes sense, even from a geocentric point of view. Around 90% of the Earth is made up of silicon, iron, magnesium and oxygen, which means there’s lots to go around for building potential life.

The 2020 lunar calendars are nearly sold out! Order yours before they’re gone.

$Purple and yellow fractal-type crystal patterns.$

Artist’s impression of a silicon-based life form.

Image via Shutterstock/ Zita.

Silicon is similar to carbon; it has four electrons available for creating bonds with other atoms. But silicon is heavier, with 14 protons (protons make up the atomic nucleus with neutrons) compared to the six in the carbon nucleus. While carbon can create strong double and triple bonds to form long chains useful for many functions, such as building cell walls, it is much harder for silicon. It struggles to create strong bonds, so long-chain molecules are much less stable.

What’s more, common silicon compounds, such as silicon dioxide (or silica), are generally solid at terrestrial temperatures and insoluble in water. Compare this to highly soluble carbon dioxide, for example, and we see that carbon is more flexible and provides many more molecular possibilities.

Life on Earth is fundamentally different from the bulk composition of the Earth. Another argument against a silicon-based shadow biosphere is that too much silicon is locked up in rocks. In fact, the chemical composition of life on Earth has an approximate correlation with the chemical composition of the sun, with 98% of atoms in biology consisting of hydrogen, oxygen and carbon. So if there were viable silicon lifeforms here, they may have evolved elsewhere.

That said, there are arguments in favor of silicon-based life on Earth. Nature is adaptable. A few years ago, scientists at Caltech managed to breed a bacterial protein that created bonds with silicon – essentially bringing silicon to life. So even though silicon is inflexible compared with carbon, it could perhaps find ways to assemble into living organisms, potentially including carbon.

And when it comes to other places in space, such as Saturn’s moon Titan or planets orbiting other stars, we certainly can’t rule out the possibility of silicon-based life.

To find it, we have to somehow think outside of the terrestrial biology box and figure out ways of recognizing lifeforms that are fundamentally different from the carbon-based form. There are plenty of experiments testing out these alternative biochemistries, such as the one from Caltech.

Regardless of the belief held by many that life exists elsewhere in the universe, we have no evidence for that. So it is important to consider all life as precious, no matter its size, quantity or location. The Earth supports the only known life in the universe. So no matter what form life elsewhere in the solar system or universe may take, we have to make sure we protect it from harmful contamination – whether it is terrestrial life or alien lifeforms.

So could aliens be among us? I don’t believe that we have been visited by a life form with the technology to travel across the vast distances of space. But we do have evidence for life-forming, carbon-based molecules having arrived on Earth on meteorites, so the evidence certainly doesn’t rule out the same possibility for more unfamiliar life forms.

Samantha Rolfe, Lecturer in Astrobiology and Principal Technical Officer at Bayfordbury Observatory, University of Hertfordshire

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Bottom line: An astrobiologist suggests that Earth may be crawling with undiscovered creatures with a different biochemistry from life as we know it.µ

16-01-2020 om 23:39 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )

Even ‘the most indestructible animals in the world’ cannot survive global warming, as experts find the Achilles' heel of Tardigrades is long-term exposure to high temperatures

Tardigrades can survive some of Earth's harshest environments
A new study found their weakness is long-term exposure to high temperatures
Tests showed they have a 50% chance of surviving temperatures above 98.78F
Experts now question how these creatures will survive global warming

By STACY LIBERATORE FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

Researchers have uncovered the Achilles’ heel Earth’s most indestructible animal – global warming.

Tardigrades can survive the vacuum of space, being frozen or exposure to radiation, but are unable to endure long-term exposure to high temperatures.

A study showed that specimens that were not acclimate to heat had a 50 percent mortality rate of surviving temperatures above 98.78 degrees Fahrenheit over a 24 hour period.

The specimens were collected in Denmark, which officials warn will suffer from warmer summers and longer heatwaves as a result of climate change, leaving experts to question the fate of these creatures in a warmer world.

Scroll down for video

Researchers have uncovered the Achilles’ heel Earth’s most indestructible animal – global warming. Tardigrades can survive the vacuum of space, being frozen or exposure to radiation, but are unable to endure long-term exposure to high temperatures.

‘Global warming is already having harmful effects on habitats worldwide and it is therefore important to gain an understanding of how rising temperatures may affect extant animals,’ the researchers from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark wrote in the study published in Scientific Report.

‘Here, we investigate the tolerance to high temperatures of Ramazzottius varieornatus, a tardigrade frequently found in transient freshwater habitats.’

‘Using logistic modelling on activity we evaluate the effect of 24 hour temperature exposures on active tardigrades, with or without a short acclimation period, compared to exposures of desiccated tardigrades.’

The team collected a sediment sample from a roof gutter in Denmark that contained adult tardigrades.

Postdoc Ricardo Neves, who i involved in the research, said: ‘The specimens used in this study were obtained from roof gutters of a house located in Nivå, Denmark.’

‘We evaluated the effect of exposures to high temperature in active and desiccated tardigrades, and we also investigated the effect of a brief acclimation period on active animals’

They found that about 50 percent of tardigrades in the active state died when the temperature was put up to 98.78 degrees Fahrenheit.

A study showed that specimens that were not acclimate to heat had a 50 percent mortality rate of surviving temperatures above 98.78 degrees Fahrenheit over a 24 hour period

If they were given time to acclimatize, they made it to 99.68 degrees.

However, the team observed specimens while in a cryptobiosis state, when they adapt to environmental stress, they could survive temperatures of up to 108.86 degrees for one hour.

And if exposed for 24 hours, the maximum temperature was 145.58 degrees Fahrenheit.

According to Climate Change Adaptation, a website run by Denmark's Ministry of the Environment and Food of Denmark and the Environmental Protection Agency, climate change will result in the country having warmer summers, longer heatwaves and more periods of drought.

‘The fact that the median lethal temperature for active R. varieornatus is so close to the median maximum temperature in Denmark—where the specimens used in this study have been sampled—is quite worrying in our opinion,’ Neves told Newsweek.

‘Before our study tardigrades were regarded as the only organism on Earth to survive a cataclysmic event, but now we know this is not true.’

‘[While tardigrades are] among the most resilient organisms inhabiting our planet, it is now clear that they are vulnerable to high temperatures. Therefore, it seems that even tardigrades will have a hard time handling rising temperatures due to global warming.’

WHAT ARE TARDIGRADES?

Tardigrades, also known as water bears, are said to be the most indestructible animals in the world.

These small, segmented creatures come in many forms - there are more than 900 species of them - and they're found everywhere in the world, from the highest mountains to the deepest oceans.

Tardigrades, also known as water bears, are said to be the most indestructible animals in the world.

They have eight legs (four pairs) and each leg has four to eight claws that resemble the claws of a bear.

Boil the 1mm creatures, freeze them, dry them, expose them to radiation and they're so resilient they'll still be alive 200 years later.

An illustration of a tardigrade (water bear) is pictured

Water bears can live through temperatures as low as -457 degrees, heat as high as 357 degrees, and 5,700 grays of radiation, when 10-20 grays would kill humans and most other animals.

Tardigrades have been around for 530 million years and outlived the dinosaurs.

The animals can also live for a decade without water and even survive in space.

Read more:

Tardigrades, the Toughest Creatures on Earth, Have an Achilles' Heel—Global Warming

16-01-2020 om 23:18 geschreven door peter

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Climate change is killing one of nature's most famous survivalists

**Tardigrades can survive outer space, but they are no match for global warming.**

By Nina Pullano

Filed Under Animals & Environment

Tardigrades are a lesson in survival skills. These tiny creatures can withstand extreme conditions — from space radiation to being frozen for decades.

Their hardiness inspires hope for post-apocalyptic life and the future of space travel. But new research suggests all is not well for the microscopic invertebrates here on Earth. Space radiation and freezing might not kill them, but our warming planet might be too hot to handle.

In a new study, researchers found that Ramazzottius varieornatus, a species of tardigrade found in transient freshwater habitats, are highly vulnerable to high temperatures over the long term. The water bears are so sensitive, in fact, that the negative effects of warming can be seen with just a slight temperature increase.

The results were published this week in the journal Scientific Reports.

dissected tardigrade microscope image

Tardigrades are vulnerable to high temperatures over the long term, new research shows.

For the study, researchers gathered tardigrade specimens from gutters on the roof of a house in Nivå, Denmark. They then exposed both active and desiccated (dehydrated) tardigrades to high temperatures for 24 hours. They did the same with tardigrades that had been allowed to become accustomed to higher temperatures, too.

Among non-acclimated active tardigrades, a temperature of 37.1 degrees Celsius tended to prove lethal. For acclimated tardigrades, the fatal temperature was slightly higher, at 37.6 degrees Celsius. Denmark’s current maximum temperature is just 36.4 degrees Celsius — that’s not much of a difference to the lethal temperature, suggesting tardigrades may be especially vulnerable to a warming Earth.

Surprisingly, the desiccated specimens were more resilient than their active study mates. Among the dried-out tardigrades, exposure to the burning heat of 82.7 degrees Celsius for an hour led to a 50 percent mortality rate. But over the course of 24 hours, a lower temperature — 63.1 degrees Celsius — was enough to trigger the same number of deaths, the study finds.

There’s evidence that some tardigrade species can tolerate temperatures as high as 151 degrees Celsius, according to the study. But those exposures lasted just 30 minutes — perhaps not long enough for the deadly effects of heat to take hold.

The study spotlights a harsh truth: When it comes to surviving and thriving in a changing climate, every creature — no matter how hardy — has its limits. Hopefully studies like this can encourage us not to test those boundaries.

Abstract:

Global warming is already having harmful effects on habitats worldwide and it is therefore important to gain an understanding of how rising temperatures may affect extant animals. Here, we investigate the tolerance to high temperatures of Ramazzottius varieornatus, a tardigrade frequently found in transient freshwater habitats. Using logistic modelling on activity we evaluate the effect of 24 hour temperature exposures on active tardigrades, with or without a short acclimation period, compared to exposures of desiccated tardigrades. We estimate that the 50% mortality temperature for non-acclimated active tardigrades is 37.1 °C, with a small but significant increase to 37.6 °C following acclimation. Desiccated specimens tolerate much higher temperatures, with an estimated 50% mortality temperature of 82.7 °C following 1 hour exposures, but with a significant decrease to 63.1 °C following 24 hour exposures. Our results show that metabolically active tardigrades are vulnerable to high temperatures, yet acclimatization could provide a tolerance increase. Desiccated specimens show a much higher resilience—exposure-time is, however, a limiting factor giving tardigrades a restricted window of high temperature tolerance. Tardigrades are renowned for their ability to tolerate extreme conditions, but their endurance towards high temperatures clearly has an upper limit—high temperatures thus seem to be their Achilles heel.

Media via Ricardo Neves, Sebastian Kaulitzki/Shutterstock

16-01-2020 om 22:41 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:Diversen (Eng, NL en Fr)

Green Snow Falls on Meteor City of Chelyabinsk

One of the classics of Fortean phenomena is things falling mysteriously from the sky. Whether it’s bright balls of fire, creatures living or dead, rocks or inappropriately colored precipitation, they’re the kind of events that occupied a sizable chuck of The Book of the Damned, the compendium of all things strange complied by Charles Fort. Most places are fortunate enough to only be listed once as victims of Fortean events. If the author were still compiling stories today, the latest edition would have the Russian city of Chelyabinsk in it twice – once for the famous meteor that blasted over the city on February 15, 2013, (and whose chunk allegedly has mystical lifting powers) and the other for the mysterious green snow which fell this week and has some who remember the falling superbolide wondering if they’re related. Are they?

“Precipitation with a pronounced green tint fell on the section of the Ural road near the entrance to Chelyabinsk, between the gardens and the village of Slavino. Atypical type of snow lies directly along the highway, in fact, 400 meters from the border of the city, and a kilometer from the Kashtak Bor.”

The Kurs Dela Russian media site posted a video of the green snow (see it here) on January 12 and it was immediately picked up by other sites and Twitter feeds. As usual, the tweets are more interesting.

“Green snow in the Chelyabinsk region appeared to cheer up Chelyabinsk residents who showed signs of depression due to a long winter.”

“Why not cosmic dust? Or seaweed? Or is it just an optical illusion? Someone sees green snow, and someone – snow is the color of money sawn on the “installation” of filters. (Google translation)”

Is it green meteor dust?

And some see a logical and typically Russian explanation.

“The regional Ministry of Ecology explained the green snow in Chelyabinsk. A strange color rainfall at the entrance to the city from the side of Yekaterinburg was recently discovered by citizens. On Monday, January 13, department specialists left the site and came to the conclusion that the snow turned green due to dust from a nearby granite quarry.”

And, like any good Russian government agency, the Ministry of Ecology points out that the green snow is not just safe, it’s all-natural.

“This dust does not pose a threat to public health. These are particles of natural materials and rocks.”

Perhaps Chelyabinsk would get an honorable mention, or at least an asterisk, in an updated Book of the Damned. In 2017, the snow in the city also turned green. That time, the cause was also somewhat ‘natural’ – a green food coloring that leaked from a collector at a paper mill which uses it to make … remember, this is Siberia … green toilet paper.

The Great 2020 Green Snowfall of Chelyabinsk appears to be due to dust caused by blasting at the local granite quarry. Green dust from granite? It’s no wonder the locals who have lived through the mysterious dome-lifting meteor and a previous green snow are skeptical.

Fortunately, they can console themselves with a fresh roll of green toilet paper.

16-01-2020 om 21:50 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:MYSTERIES ( Fr, Nl, E)

The Chupacabra: A Cryptozoological Animal? No!

Today’s article is the final installment of my 3-part feature concerning why I believe that many cryptozoological creatures – such as Bigfoot, lake monsters, the Dogman, and the Alien Big Cats of the U.K. – are actually supernatural in nature and should not be a part of Cryptozoology. Today, I’m focusing on the Chupacabra of Puerto Rico. It was in the mid-1990s that the phenomenon of the chupacabra exploded all across Puerto Rico. So far as can be determined, the menacing creature first surfaced in March 1995. That was when numerous animals were found slaughtered in the towns of Morovis (located in central Puerto Rico) and Orocovis, which is situated within the aforementioned La Cordillera Central mountain range. Locals were plunged into states of near-hysteria by the attacks, which reportedly left animals dead, with strange marks on their necks, and a distinct lack of blood in their corpses. Since many of the early attacks were on goats, the term, “chupacabra,” was created. It means, in Spanish, goat-sucker.

Vampires were on the loose; monstrous vampires. Reports of strange killings soon began to surface from other parts of the island. The creatures were clearly on the move. The death-rate increased even more. The population was on edge and the media had something new and sensational to report on. It was a turbulent and strange time. But, what, exactly, was responsible for all the killings? Yes, there were plenty of dead animals but, unfortunately, there was no solid, eyewitness testimony relative to the killers themselves. That is, until August 1995, when a woman named Madelyne Tolentino – who lived in Canovanas, which is close to the northeast coast of Puerto Rico – changed everything. Tolentino’s description of the creature she encountered, close to her mother’s home, was disturbing, to say the very least. It was a description eagerly embraced by the island’s media and by investigators of monsters and mysteries.

Artist’s depiction of a chupacabra (wikipedia)

Tolentino told journalists and researchers that the creature was around three feet in height, bipedal, ran in a weird, hopping fashion, had large black eyes, bony fingers on each hand, overly long arms and legs, and a kind of feathery line running down its back. Or, it appeared to Tolentino to be a feathery line: a young boy employed by Tolentino’s husband claimed that he saw the beast up close and personal and maintained that the feathers were, in reality, sharp spines. The boy also said that the creature possessed a mouthful of vicious-looking fangs. Not only did the people know of the chupacabra and its predations, they also now knew what it looked like: something straight out of their worst nightmares. As the years progressed, so did the attacks. And so did the weird cases, that suggest the chupacabra are supernatural beasts.

Here are a couple of examples from my many trips to Puerto Rico. There is a longstanding story of a UFO crashing in the heart of Puerto Rico’s El Yunque rain-forest in February 1984. I know that, because the basics of the account have reached me on three occasions over the past decade. It was early one morning when a large, circular-shaped object slammed into the ground, immediately after flying over the rain forest in a decidedly erratic fashion. To prevent people from learning the truth of the matter, a diversionary tactic was put into place that the UFO was a meteorite. Personnel from NASA, the U.S. Air Force, and the CIA were soon on the scene – in part, to scoop up the pummeled body-p arts of a couple of dead chupacabras, whose lives came to sudden and bloody ends when the alien craft hurtled violently into the forest at high speed. That’s how the story goes, anyway.

There is another reason why I am so intrigued by the potential UFO link to the chupacabra controversy. It’s because of something that happened back in 2004. Shortly after my Proof Positive shoot was completed for the SyFy Channel, I spoke with a woman who had her own encounter with a UFO, but in a location where a chupacabra was seen only days later. As Rosario told me, it was early March 2000, and she was working in a grove near the foot of El Yunque where she picked plantains. Her attention was suddenly drawn to a deep, resonating hum, one that was coming from directly above her. Looking up, Rosario was startled to see a black, triangular-shaped object – about 25 to 35 feet in length – that was hovering overhead at a height estimated to be around 90 to 120 feet, and which had a glossy, shiny surface. Surprise and amazement turned to shock when a pencil-thin beam of light shot out of the base of the craft, fanned out, and enveloped Rosario in a pink glow.

For what almost seemed like an eternity, Rosario was rooted to the spot, while her mind was flooded with images of widespread nuclear destruction and environmental collapse in the Earth’s near-future. The final image was of a large, bald head with huge, black eyes and that closely resembled the alien face on the cover of Whitley Strieber’s 1987 best-selling book, Communion – which Rosario was inexplicably drawn to read in the immediate aftermath. Suddenly, the light retracted and the flying triangle rose into the sky, heading slowly towards the heart of the rain forest. Interestingly, in the wake of the encounter, Rosario developed an overwhelming interest in environmental issues, and quite literally overnight – after a lifetime of eating meat – became a staunch advocate of vegetarianism.

That was not all: three days later, and only a couple of hundred feet from where Rosario was working on that fateful day, two girls spotted a chupacabra of the bipedal, spiked and decidedly menacing kind. The beast spotted them, too. Evidently, however, it was a monster on a mission, since, after peering at them for a few moments it fell down on all-fours and bounded away into the heavy undergrowth. It was an event that – due to both the time-frame and the proximity – led Rosario to conclude the chupacabra was somehow linked to the UFO phenomenon. Me, too.

16-01-2020 om 21:38 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:MYSTERIES ( Fr, Nl, E)

Scientists Identify 7-Billion-Year-Old Stardust As Oldest Material On Earth

Telescope image of a faraway galaxy with a rainbow distortion around it and several bright stars

Dust-rich outflows of evolved stars similar to the pictured Egg Nebula are plausible sources of the large grains discovered in fallen Australian meteorites, thought to be the oldest known to date.

Image courtesy NASA/ESA and The Hubble Heritage Team STScI/AURA

Scientists Identify 7-Billion-Year-Old Stardust As Oldest Material On Earth

In a new analysis of an old meteorite, scientists were able to identify the oldest material that’s ever been found on Earth. They discovered stardust that’s been dated back to 7 billion years ago.

On September 28, 1969, near Murchison, Victoria, Australia, a huge 220 pound (100 kilograms) meteorite struck the Earth. Scientists discovered that the meteorite contained interstellar dust that was made from presolar grains (dust grains that are much older than our sun) created by dying stars. In fact, the presolar grains ranged in age from around 4 million years older than our sun to 3 billion years older. Our sun was created 4.6 billion years ago.

Murchison meteorite

black and white image, close-up of crystalline dust fragment

Scientists took electron microscope photos to be able to see the grains—this one is eight microns across, about the size of a single red blood cell.

Image courtesy of Janaína N. Ávila

Philipp Heck, who is the Robert A. Pritzker Associate Curator of Meteoritics and Polar Studies at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, as well as the lead author of the study (which can be read in full here), said that this is the first time ever that presolar grains have been found on Earth and it’s because volcanism and plate tectonics as well as other Earthly processes heated up and modified any presolar dust that would have already been here during the early stages of when our planet was forming.

He told Live Science that the large asteroid that produced the Murchison meteorite is “an almost-inert piece of rock that formed from the solar nebula and hasn’t changed since then.” While the majority of presolar grains are approximately 1 micron in length, the ones that were found on the Murchison meteorite were between 2 and 30 microns in length. “We call them ‘boulders’,” Heck stated, adding, “We can see them with an optical microscope.”

Murchison meteorite

In their study, Heck and his colleagues looked at 40 “boulders” by grinding up parts of the meteorite and added acid which caused minerals and silicates to dissolve, leaving the presolar grains which are resistant to acid. The team then measured how much cosmic rays were exposed to the grains while they were in space for billions of years in order to find out how old they were. They found that around 60% of the grains date back to between 4.6 billion and 4.9 billion years ago and could have been the result of a “little baby boom” from stars being born approximately 7 billion years ago in our galaxy. In fact, many astronomers have found evidence supporting a large spike in star formations around 7 billion years ago.

“And then it took about two to two-and-a-half billion years for those stars to become dust producing,” Heck said, adding, “When a star forms, it doesn’t produce dust. During most of its life, the star doesn’t produce dust. The stars only produce dust at the end of their lives.”

Magnetic north just changed. Here's what that means ...

16-01-2020 om 21:17 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ASTRONOMIE / RUIMTEVAART

Magnetic north just changed. Here's what that means.

Afbeeldingsresultaten voor Magnetic north just changed. Here's what that means.

While magnetic north has always wandered, its routine plod has shifted into high gear, sending it galloping across the Northern Hemisphere—and no one can entirely explain why.

PHOTOGRAPH BY NASA/JSC

Magnetic north just changed. Here's what that means.

The foundation of many navigation systems, the World Magnetic Model finally got a much-needed update with the end of the U.S. government shutdown.

BY MAYA WEI-HAAS

Magnetic north has never sat still. In the last hundred years or so, the direction in which our compasses steadfastly point has lumbered ever northward, driven by Earth's churning liquid outer core some 1,800 miles beneath the surface. Yet in recent years, scientists noticed something unusual: Magnetic north's routine plod has shifted into high gear, sending it galloping across the Northern Hemisphere—and no one can entirely explain why.

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The changes have been so large that scientists began working on an emergency update for the World Magnetic Model, the mathematical system that lays the foundations for navigation, from cell phones and ships to commercial airlines. But then the U.S. government shut down, placing the model's official release on hold, as Nature News first reported earlier this year.

Now, the wait for a new north is over. The World Magnetic Model update was officially released on Monday, and magnetic north can again be precisely located for people around the world.

Questions still likely abound: Why is magnetic north changing so fast? What were the impacts of the update's delay? Was there really a geologic reason Google maps sent me off course? We've got you covered.

What is magnetic north?

Magnetic north is one of three “north poles” on our globe. First, there's true north, which is the northern end of the axis on which our planet turns.

But our planet's protective magnetic bubble, or magnetosphere, isn't perfectly aligned with this spin. Instead, the dynamo of Earth's core creates a magnetic field that is slightly tilted from the planet's rotational axis. The northern end of this planet-size bar magnet is what's known as geomagnetic north—a point sitting off the northwest coast of Greenland that's changed position little over the last century.

Then there's magnetic north, what your compass locates, which is defined as the point at which magnetic field lines point vertically down. Unlike geomagnetic north, this position is more susceptible to the surges and flows in the swirl of liquid iron in the core. These currents tug on the magnetic field, sending magnetic north hopping across the globe.

“The north magnetic pole is quite a sensitive place,” says Phil Livermore, a geophysicist at the University of Leeds.

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What is the World Magnetic Model?

James Clark Ross first located magnetic north in 1831 in the scattered islands of Canada's Nunavut territory. Since then, the pole has largely marched north, traversing hundreds of miles over the last several decades. (Curiously, its polar opposite, magnetic south, has moved little during this time.)

To keep up with all these changes, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the British Geological Survey developed what eventually became known as the World Magnetic Model, “so they would all be on the same map, essentially,” says Ciaran Beggan, a geophysicist with the BGS.

The model is updated every five years, with the last update in 2015. Between each update, scientists check the model's accuracy against data from ground magnetic observatories and the European Space Agency's Swarm mission—a trio of magnetic-field mapping satellites that zip around Earth 15 to 16 times each day. Until now, this seemed sufficient to keep up with magnetic north's march toward Siberia.

In the mid 1900s, the north magnetic pole was lumbering along at less than a hundred feet each day, adding up to less than seven miles of difference each year. But in the '90s, this started to change. By the early aughts, magnetic north was chugging along at some 34 miles each year.

“Things are acting very strangely at high latitude,” says Livermore, who notes that this increase seemed to coincide with a strengthening jet in the planet's liquid outer core. Though the events could be linked, it's not yet possible to say for sure.

By early 2018, scientists realized that the model would soon exceed the acceptable limits for magnetic-based navigation. Something had to be done before the model's next regular update, slated for 2020.

Did the government shutdown upset navigation?

To correct the model, NOAA and BGS scientists tweaked it using three years' worth of recent data. This updated version was pre-released online in October 2018. As Beggan explains, these include the model's primary users in defense and military—the U.S. Department of Defense, the U.K. Ministry of Defense, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

“Things are acting very strangely at high latitude."

PHIL LIVERMORE , UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS

The government shutdown delayed the comprehensive public release of the information, which includes online calculators, software, and a technical note describing the changes. In principal, everyone who uses magnetic navigation could benefit from this update, says Arnaud Chulliat, a geomagnetist at the University of Colorado in Boulder and a NOAA affiliate who worked on the update.

The model has found its way into many of our modern mapping systems, including Google and Apple, Beggan adds. But the difference is minor for most civilian purposes, and the changes are mainly limited to latitudes above 55 degrees.

“The average user is not going to be overly affected by this unless they happened to be trekking around the high Arctic,” Beggan says.

What caused all this weirdness?

Interest in these unexpected jolts is about more than mapping. The dance of Earth's magnetic field lines presents one of the few windows scientists have to processes that happen thousands of miles below your feet.

At the 2018 American Geophysical Union fall meeting, Livermore presented what he calls a magnetic field “tug-of-war” that may offer an explanation for the recent odd behavior. The north magnetic pole seems to be controlled by two patches of magnetic field, he explains, one under northern Canada and one under Siberia. Historically, the one under northern Canada seems to have been stronger, keeping the magnetic pole in its clutches. But recently, that seems to have changed.

“The Siberian patch looks like it's winning the battle,” he says. “It's sort of pulling the magnetic field all the way across to its side of the geographic pole.”

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This may be a result of a jet within the core smearing and thus weakening the magnetic field under Canada, he says. The jet's increase in speed seems to have coincided with the last few decades of the magnetic pole zipping north. But he cautions about jumping to any definite conclusions.

“There may well be a link there,” he says. “It's not certain, but it could be.”

What's next for magnetic north?

It's tough to predict what will happen to the magnetic north pole—or whether it's even going to maintain its speed as it staggers toward Siberia, notes Robyn Fiori, a research scientist with Natural Resources Canada. The only thing that seems certain about magnetic north is its unpredictability.

Rocks hold geologic maps of even weirder movements of the magnetic poles, suggesting that in the last 20 million years, magnetic north and south have flipped places multiple times. This seems to happen roughly every 200,000 to 300,000 years. The exact causes behind these reversals remains uncertain. But the latest movement shouldn't have you in knots about an imminent flip.

“There's no indication that there's a reversal,” Beggan says. “And even if there was a reversal, geological records show these things tend to take a few thousand years, at the very least.” (What really happens when the magnetic field flips? Here's what we know.)

Models of magnetic north suggest that this latest leap isn't even the strangest thing the pole has done in more recent history, Fiori adds. Before 1900, its wanderings likely once had a lot more wiggle and may include several hairpin turns in northern Canada that could have sent the pole on a brief southward stint.

“It all has to do with changes in the fluid motion of that outer core,” she says. It's therefore hard to say if magnetic north's newfound speed is the new normal.

“We know that the pole now is moving faster than it has for decades, but how often does that happen in the long historical record?” inquires Geoff Reeves, a space scientist at Los Alamos National Lab.

“We don't have any idea. What we know is what it's doing now is different, and that's always exciting scientifically.”

Editor’s Note: This article originally included a misstated quote from Robyn Fiori that has been updated.The types of navigation that can benefit from the new model have also been updated, and the spelling of Arnaud Chulliat's name has been corrected.

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

16-01-2020 om 20:52 geschreven door peter

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Pole Shift Major Earth Changes, Influx of Magnetic Waves, North Pole Shifting Fast, EMF Damage & Protection

Major Earth Changes, Influx of Magnetic Waves, North Pole Shifting Fast, EMF Damage & Protection

Unknown Burst of Gravitational Waves Just Lit Up Earths Detectors Observatory (LIGO) and Virgo detectors recorded an unknown or unanticipated “burst” of gravitational waves on Jan. 14. Gravitational waves we’ve detected so far usually relate to extreme cosmic events, like two black holes colliding or neutron stars finally merging after being caught in a death spiral.

Burst gravitational waves have not been detected before and scientists hypothesize they may be linked to phenomena such as supernova or gamma ray bursts, producing a tiny “pop” when detected by the observatories.

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/v3/ }

16-01-2020 om 20:01 geschreven door peter

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Two UFOs Near Module Carrying Supplies To Space Station, Video, UFO Sighting News.

Two UFOs Near Module Carrying Supplies To Space Station, Video, UFO Sighting News.

Date of discovery: Jan 16, 2020

Location of discovery: Earth orbit

Nasa Source:

https://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/station/crew-3/html/iss003e8203.html

I found a glowing UFO near the module that brings supplies to the space station. The UFO seems very close and has a second UFO below it, but further away. I think this UFO may be one of the rare sightings of the light being ships we have all heard about. Of all the species in this universe who visit us...light beings are so advanced that there is little about humanity that catches their interest. This photo was taken back in Nov 28, 2001. This is absolute proof that the space station is being constantly observed by advanced alien species.

Scott C. Waring

16-01-2020 om 19:35 geschreven door peter

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Long Green UFO Near Space Station In NASA Photo, UFO Sighting News.

Long Green UFO Near Space Station In NASA Photo, UFO Sighting News.

Date of discovery: Jan 16, 2020
Location of sighting: Earths orbit at ISS
Source Photo:

https://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/station/crew-9/html/iss009e22157.html

Now I found this glowing green UFO in a photo within the NASA archives, so since it was in the gov archives, we can trust the camera to be unbiased and uncaring of anything but detail. This UFO is very close to a module on the space station and it almost directly over a hurricane. I am wondering if this is part of the continuation of the top secret HAARP program. So maybe this glowing green object is an array that creates weather manipulation? A project which China and Russia have both been using to cause hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes and other natural disasters in order to punish through economics of destruction and rebuilding. Anyway, this UFO is very clear and not transparent. Its a solid glowing object and its very close to part of the space station.
Scott C. Waring

16-01-2020 om 19:24 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

Mystery as chicken lays egg with numbers and symbols depicted on shell

The region of Quixadá in Brazil is known for its many UFO sightings and abduction cases and now something strange has occurred again.

In December 2019, a chicken has laid an egg with numbers and symbols depicted on the shell. Farmer, Raimundo Aluceno, owner of the animal speaks of an egg that has numbers and letters, as if it were "registered" by the chicken.

The news has gone viral and many residents of the region wonder what it could mean. People try to decipher the numbers and symbols and suggest that it points to extraterrestrial life and the connection with beings who visit the region frequently. Others say, the egg shows a date of the apocalypse.

Can you decipher the numbers and symbols depicted on the eggshell?

16-01-2020 om 18:46 geschreven door peter

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Huge UFO filmed over Aleppo Twp, Pennsylvania 13-Jan-2020

This was taken over Aleppo Township, a township in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States on 13th January 2020.

Witness report:

I make it a habit of reviewing my security camera footage for the previous night, and on this occasion my camera picked up a large UFO slowly silently moving from the south west to the northeast in view of my camera. The glow didn’t alarm me as with night vision, any lights will glow bright. However, there are two things that make this different from other aircraft in the sky that my camera catches;

1) My camera microphones picked up NO sound,

2) I researched the flight history from historical radar which shows any aircraft in the sky back 30 days, and there is no flights at all over my area at that time. 5:59am – 6:02am. The was however at 6:20am to the Northeast approx 20 miles out of my camera view helicopter traffic, and west of my position at 6:20am commercial aircraft landing at the airport. None of which were close to being in my area. I took a screen shot of the radar as proof of my area at the time and there was NO traffic until 19 minutes after the sighting. I am not trying to pass this off as an extraterrestrial vehicle, only that what My camera videoed is “unidentified”.

16-01-2020 om 17:52 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

Top-Secret UFO Files Could 'Gravely Damage' US National Security if Released, Navy Says

By Brandon Specktor - Senior Writer

The truth is out there… but you're still not allowed to see it.

This infamous video of the USS Nimitz UFO encounter may not be the only one out there...

(Image: © To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science)

Related: 7 Things Most Often Mistaken for UFOs

Luis Elizondo, a former Pentagon staffer who helped make the Navy video public, told Vice that "people should not be surprised by the revelation that other videos exist and at greater length."

Originally published on Live Science.

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

16-01-2020 om 01:33 geschreven door peter

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Super-Indestructible Tardigrades Have a Kryptonite

Everyone knows that Superman is indestructible … except when exposed to green kryptonite from his home planet of Krypton. Everyone knows that tardigrades – those eight-legged micro-animals found living in the most hostile locations, including outer space – are indestructible too. Well, now these little super-beings have their own kryptonite … and, like Superman’s, this deadly and destructive force comes from their own home planet. What … or who … wants to kill these cute little water bears?

“A research group from Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen has just shown that tardigrades are very vulnerable to long-term high temperature exposures.”

Wait a minute, you tardigrade experts shout. Tardigrades have been found living in hot springs and near hot vents on the ocean floor. That’s true, and Ricardo Neves and Nadja Møbjerg, researchers at the University of Copenhagen and authors of a new study published in the journal Scientific Reports, point out that desiccated tardigrades (which have their water removed but can still be revived) can survive temperatures up to 151°C (300°F) for up to half an hour. Not surprisingly, active tardigrades require lower temperatures, but how low?

“Rather surprisingly the researchers estimated that for non-acclimated active tardigrades the median lethal temperature is 37.1°C (98.78 F), though a short acclimation periods leads to a small but significant increase of the median lethal temperature to 37.6°C (99.68 F).”

That’s not much higher that the human normal temperature of 98.6 F. According to the university press release on the study, it’s also not much higher than the currently measured maximum temperature in Denmark of 36.4°C (97.52 F). Why are tardigrade researchers in Copenhagen so interested in the maximum temperature of Denmark? You can see where this is heading.

“Global warming, a major aspect of climate change, is already causing a wide range of negative impacts on many habitats of our planet. It is thus of the utmost importance to understand how rising temperatures may affect animal health and welfare.”

What better animal to subject to rising temperatures than the most indestructible creature on the planet, the tardigrade? The research was done on tardigrades found in roof gutters in Nivå, Denmark – in other words, living right alongside humans, not in some hot spring. NASA reports that the average surface temperature for the year 2017 was 58.62 F (14.9 C) and, unless you live in a nice, cool cave where you don’t get any news reports, it’s been rising steadily for years.

Wait a minute, you desperately shout one more time. Didn’t the study find that tardigrades can acclimate themselves to tolerating higher temperatures for longer periods? That’s true, says Neves, but “exposure-time is clearly a limiting factor that constrains their tolerance to high temperatures.” That’s why the study concludes that climate change, and global warming in particular, is the tardigrade’s kryptonite.

It bother me too.

“Indeed, although tardigrades are able to tolerate a diverse set of severe environmental conditions, their endurance to high temperatures is noticeably limited and this might actually be the Achilles heel of these otherwise super-resistant animals.”

Are we doomed? If the tardigrades are, you already know the answer. If only they could fly like Superman and reverse the spin of the Earth to take us back to a time when climate change was not a problem … or at least to a time where we could make better decisions on how humans affect their planet.

16-01-2020 om 01:13 geschreven door peter

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UFOs & Russia: “He Should Not Ask Questions”

Of the severalthousand pages on UFOs that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has declassified into the public domain, very few make any kind of deep reference to encounters with a U.K. connection attached to them. There is, however, one case in particular that really stands out. It is dated November 18, 1976. The one-page-long report is titled “Aerial Observation of Intense Source of Light.” An interesting title, to say the very least. It is a document that was prepared by the CIA’s Domestic Collection Division. The report starts as follows: “An unusual incident was observed during a 10 September 1976 British European Airways (BEA) flight (number 831) Moscow to London. Between 1800 and 1900 hours, the aircraft was cruising at an altitude of approximately 33 thousand feet (9,900 meters), apparently inside the border of Lithuania, when a blinding light was observed off the starboard flight path of the aircraft.”

The CIA continued: “The light’s distance was estimated to be approximately 10 to 15 miles (16 to 24 kilometers) off of the aircraft’s path and approximately five to six thousand feet (1,500 to 1,800 meters) below the aircraft, somewhat above a lower cloud layer. The light, which resembled a sodium vapor lamp (yellowish in color), and which was too intense to view directly for any period of time, completely lit the top of the lower cloud layer, giving it a glowing cast.”

The CIA writer of the once-classified report had more to report: “The light was of such interest that the BEA pilot came onto the aircraft’s intercom network, stated that he was somewhat concerned over its presence, and said he had asked the Soviet authorities for an identification of its source. The Soviet authorities came back with a negative identification response, suggesting that he should not ask questions. The light was observed for approximately 10 to 15 minutes, until the aircraft had flown past and left the light source behind.”

And, that’s where the report ends. So, what was the source of the strange light? The fact that the details of the encounter were logged in the CIA’s UFO files makes sense. It is important to note, though, that just because the report was filed under “UFOs,” doesn’t mean that the crew of Flight 831 encountered something extraterrestrial. I would suggest that the most important line in the whole document is the one that reads like this: “The Soviet authorities came back with a negative identification response, suggesting that he should not ask questions [italics mine].” This suggests – to me, at least – that while the crew of the British European Airways plane were baffled by what they had seen, the Russians may have known exactly what they had seen. Now, let’s move onto something that may have relevance to that 1976 incident.

Don’t ask questions.

In 1999, Gerald K. Haines – in his position as the historian of the National Reconnaissance Office – wrote a paper titled “CIA’s Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947-90.” It’s now in the public domain, thanks to the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act. It can be read at the CIA’s website. Haines’ paper detailed the history of how, and why, the CIA became interested and involved in the phenomenon of UFOs. Although Haines covered a period of more than forty years, I will bring your attention to one particular section of his paper, which is focused on the 1970s-1980s. Haines wrote: “During the late 1970s and 1980s, the Agency continued its low-key interest in UFOs and UFO sightings. While most scientists now dismissed flying saucers reports as a quaint part of the 1950s and 1960s, some in the Agency and in the Intelligence Community shifted their interest to studying parapsychology and psychic phenomena associated with UFO sightings. 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 [italics mine].” Perhaps that mysterious “light” was some kind of Russian device, the very kind that fell into the category Gerald Haines referred to. Namely, something that was perceived as a UFO, but which was actually a secret Soviet vehicle.

16-01-2020 om 00:31 geschreven door peter

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15-01-2020

The Time UFOs Buzzed Washington D.C. and the White House

UFOs are seen all over the world, by people from all walks of life, and some of these cases have managed to cement themselves into the annals of great unsolved cases. Such incidents are especially intriguing when they take place over well-monitored airspace or internationally recognized landmarks, and one of these cases is the time that a fleet of UFOs blatantly invaded airspace over Washington D.C., mocking all attempts to catch them and parking over the White House.

At 11:40 PM on July 19, 1952, an air-traffic controller by the name of Edward Nugent was on duty at Washington National Airport at Washington D.C. on an otherwise uneventlful night when his attention was drawn to something rather strange and alarming popping up on his radar screen. There, only about 15 miles south-southwest of the city were seven anomalous blips, in an area where there was no scheduled traffic at the time. As Nugent watched he soon became aware that whatever these objects were, they were not following established flight paths, and this was alarming enough that he called his superior, Harry Barnes, who was also startled by the radar images.

It was so odd that they reportedly checked to see that the radar was even functioning properly, and when there turned out to be nothing wrong with it they called air control towers at both their own airport and nearby Andrews Air Force Base to learn that air-traffic controllers there in both locations were also registering the anomalous blips. In addition, a controller at National Airport’s radar-equipped control tower claimed to have made actual visual confirmation of a bright light in the distance that suddenly shot away at “incredible speed.” A controller at Andrews AFB also spotted what he called an “orange ball of fire trailing a tail,” and airline pilot Captain S.C. “Casey” Pierman was waiting for takeoff at one of National Airport’s runways when he would claim to have seen a series of fast-moving lights in the sky that looked “white, tailless, fast-moving lights like falling stars without tails.” Staff Sgt. Charles Davenport at Andrews AFB also saw an orange-red light to the south, of which he said “it would appear to stand still, then make an abrupt change in direction and altitude . . . this happened several times.” Nugent and Barnes did not actually see the objects, but with the radar blips and sightings reports knew that something very weird was going on, with Barnes later saying of these radar blips:

We knew immediately that a very strange situation existed . . . their movements were completely radical compared to those of ordinary aircraft. They acted like a bunch of small kids out playing. It was helter-skelter, as if directed by some innate curiosity. At times, they moved as a group or cluster, at other times as individuals.

As several independent radar operators looked on, two of the blips could clearly be seen to approach the White House, where they appeared to hover for some time before moving off again, while another one did the same over the Capitol and yet another hovered over a radio beacon. The mysterious objects then simultaneously vanished from radar for a time, before appearing once again to orchestrate a series of impressive aerial maneuvers that were far beyond what any known aircraft was capable of, making 90 degree turns, speeding up and slowing down with amazing speed and precision, and even abruptly going in reverse.

All of this strangeness over the U.S. capital was enough to cause quite a panic, and two United States Air Force F-94 Starfire jet fighters were scrambled and sent from New Castle Air Force Base in Delaware to investigate. However, as soon as the jets entered Washington D.C. air space the objects vanished once again. The confused jets circled around until they ran low on fuel and had to head back, and rather oddly as soon as they were gone the strange phenomena started right back up again, almost as if they had been waiting for the jets to leave. The anomalies proceeded to lurk in the area before vanishing for good at approximately 5:30 AM. The incident would soon be slashed all over the front page of newspapers nationwide with sensational headlines like “SAUCERS SWARM OVER CAPITAL!” and “Jets Chase D.C. Sky Ghosts!” and considering that this was in the midst of a major flap of UFO sightings all over the country people were in a bit of a mass hysteria over it, with talk of an alien invasion being seriously discussed among the populace.

It was one of these papers that alerted USAF Captain Edward J. Ruppelt to what was going on, which is odd considering that he was the supervisor of the Air Force’s Project Blue Book official investigation into UFO sightings and also just so happened to have been in Washington at the time. It was very strange that he would not have been told about the incident, and things got even weirder when he tried to get out to the scene of it all, but was refused permission to use a staff car, instead told to take a taxi cab on his own dime. Frustrated and not a little irritated by the military bureaucracy he was facing, Ruppelt gave up and flew back to his headquarters at Dayton, Ohio without gaining any further information. However, it would soon become apparent that the UFOs of Washington D.C. were not gone after all.

The following week, at around 8 PM on July 26, 1952, the crew of a National Airlines flight into Washington radioed in that they had observed some anomalous lights in the sky above their plane, and right after this report was made mystery blips began showing up on radar at Nation Airport and Andrew AFB, and they had apparently brought friends. This time there were reportedly at least a dozen objects, and there were once again sightings of something strange in the sky, such as that made by USAF master sergeant Charles E. Cummings, who said of them, “these lights did not have the characteristics of shooting stars. There was [sic] no trails . . . they traveled faster than any shooting star I have ever seen.”

These lights once again began a series of insane maneuvers, slowing down to a stop, blasting off to speeds of up to 7,000 mph, performing sharp turns, and reversing, and considering the reports of visual confirmation of the objects coming in aircraft were scrambled again. At around 11:30 PM, two F-94 jets were once again sent to engage the targets, this time guided in by radar operators, but the blips seemed to be very evasive and then vanished again. As they headed back the blips reappeared and the jets turned back around to engage. One of the pilots was unable to get a visual on the mystery objects, but the other, Lieutenant William Patterson, did see two of the objects and gave chase but was unable to match their speed, of which he has said:

I tried to make contact with the bogies below 1,000 feet. I saw several bright lights. I was at maximum speed, but even then I had no closing speed. I ceased chasing them because I saw no chance of overtaking them.

At the same time this was going on there were several reports of aircraft in the area also seeing anomalous darting or streaking lights. These reports of what seemed to be physical solid objects was contrary to a theory that had been going around, which was that the radar blips were being caused by a temperature inversion, which basically entails a layer of warm air forming in the low atmosphere, which traps cooler air beneath and can bounce radar signals back towards the source. However, although there had apparently been a slight temperature inversion recorded that evening, it was doubted that it was strong enough to produce such strong radar returns to fool experienced operators, and with the visual sightings involved air-traffic control were convinced that they were dealing with physical, solid objects. Eerily, one of the objects would once again hover directly over the White House at an altitude of 1,700 feet before vanishing off of radar. The objects eventually left and did not return.

Once again the strange incident hit the news in a major way, and people were now starting to demand answers. The Air Force, still apparently not really sure what was going on themselves, struggled to come up with something to tell an increasingly nervous public living in a climate of a mass UFO mania going on at the time and Cold War anxiety, even as President Harry Truman himself demanded that the Air Force figure out what was happening. Pressed for time and needing to come up with something fast, the Air Force hastily assembled a press conference at the Pentagon on July 29, 1952, during which they remained extremely and frustratingly vague and obtuse about the situation, and force fed reporters the idea that this was all due to the temperature inversion weather phenomenon even as professionals watching groaned at this theory. UFO researcher Alejandro Rojas has said:

The investigators had ruled out the inversion. They had examined that situation. The radar operators said, ‘Inversions happen. We know what inversions look like. This is not an inversion. This is not the same thing at all.’

In other words, the Air Force was being deliberately evasive and just trying to get the press off their back and allay public fears to avoid a mass panic by giving everyone a nice, pat, easily understandable and digestable explanation. And it worked. Before long the public had fully accepted the weather theory, despite the fact that the Air Force itself knew that something very strange was going on, although what that was could not be determined. In the absence of any solid answers, the case was officially labelled as the result of radar reflections caused by temperature inversion, and the visual sightings that were made caused by nothing more mysterious than misidentified meteors, stars, city lights, flocks of birds, weather balloons, and Venus.

For his part, Project Bluebook’s Captain Edward J. Ruppelt was very skeptical of the temperature inversion theory, and when he was finally able to adequately interview the numerous witnesses, pilots, and air-traffic controllers involved he found that no one at all bought the official Air Force explanation. However, this investigation process would get a bit strange when some of the witnesses began to retract statements they had made, even when it didn’t make sense. For instance, one air-traffic control crew who claimed that they had seen “a huge fiery-orange sphere” suddenly changed their tune to say that it had just been a star, even though astronomical information showed that no star in the sky on that night would have been bright enough to account for what they said they had observed in their original report. Ruppelt also began to hear rumors that Air Force higher ups were intentionally approaching the witnesses and persuading them to not contradict the official explanation in the name of national security. In the end, he had the very strong impression that something was not quite right, and was more convinced than ever before that what had been experienced over Washington was no radar mirages and that it was perhaps being covered up.

Not long after the Washington D.C. incident, in January of 1953 the Air Force and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) would launch the Robertson Panel, which included top officials and scientists and went about trying to debunk UFO cases in the interest of stemming mass public panic and hysteria. The panel would recommend that Project Blue Book basically keep its mouth shut on truly inexplicable cases and spend more time publicly debunking UFO cases and stripping them of their mystique, and after this genuine unsolved cases were rarely discussed. However, the Washington UFO incident certainly ranks among these truly compelling cases in that it has never really had all aspects of it satisfactorily explained.

Here is a case that really checks off a lot of the boxes of a great UFO case surrounded by dark conspiracy. We have these objects being tracked on radar from several sources and also being visually observed by reliable, trained witnesses. We have these objects witnessed displaying very unusual behavior and properties not consistent with conventional aircraft. Then there is the hasty official attempt to explain it all away with a wave of the hand and what has been seen by most researchers as a flimsy hypothesis that doesn’t really fit all of the features ad evidence of the incident, as well as the specter lurking in the background of possible government intimidation of witnesses, and the Air Force’s clear desire to just sort of sweep it all away. Yet, although the official report still stands there are plenty of mysteries and unanswered questions orbiting the incident, and this has made the case very tenacious in the world of UFOlogy. What happened over Washington D.C. in July of 1952? Was this just a bunch of well-timed misidentifications and radar mirages or something else? The true answer has remained elusive and what has come to be known as the Washington flap, the Washington National Airport Sightings, or the Invasion of Washington remains mysterious.

15-01-2020 om 23:13 geschreven door peter

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The Harrowing UFO Encounter of Robert Taylor

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The Harrowing UFO Encounter of Robert Taylor

The year was 1979, and a man by the name of Robert Taylor was a forestry worker for the Livingston Development Corporation, in Livingston, West Lothian, Scotland. He was a respected war hero, was known as a good, honest worker, and was not prone to spinning wild yarns or getting into trouble, so when on November 8, 1979 he stumbled back from a trip to a hill called Dechmont Law looking disheveled, with cuts on his face, torn clothes, and looking somewhat the worse for wear, people were very concerned. When the visibly shaken man had gotten his head together, he would begin spinning a spectacular tale of bizarreness that has gone on to become a well-known and much discussed piece of UFO lore.

According to Taylor, he had gone out with his dog to do a routine check on the fences, gates, and a sampling project going on in the area. Since there were no direct roads to the remote location, he parked his truck on the nearby M8 expressway and he and the dog made their way into the woods of Dechmont Law on foot. As they progressed through the forest, Taylor says he was startled to see the startling sight of a dark grey metallic “flying dome” around 20 feet in diameter and 30 feet high hovering in the air of a clearing just above the forest floor, apparently kept aloft by an array of “small propellers” around its outer rim. As he looked on in wonder at this bizarre sight, he would claim that the air was pervaded by a smell like “burning brakes.” Very strange indeed, but it was about to get even stranger still.

Taylor claimed that before he had even had time to really process the sheer bizarreness of what he was witnessing, two small spheres detached from the larger craft, which were described as having protrusions and nodules all over them and as looking like “sea mines,” and which started rapidly rolling along the ground to approach the frightened man as they issued a “plopping, sucking sound.” These mysterious spheres reportedly then “grabbed” him with sets of protruding spikes and began pulling him towards the large dome as he struggled against them. He would claim that he believed they had been emanating some sort of toxic gas, as the acidic smell of burning rubber got unbearable and he felt the strength leaving his limbs. The whole time his dog was barking ferociously at the objects.

At this point Taylor apparently lost consciousness, and when he awoke he was lying face down in the clearing, which was now empty and with no sign of the otherworldly dome or its malevolent spheres. He found that his clothes had been shredded and that he had cuts and abrasions on his face and body, whether due to his struggle with the spheres or inflicted directly on him he did not know. Taylor had then made his way back to his truck, but was unable to start it, the engine completely dead, and so had stumbled all the way home on foot. Whatever those objects had done to him was still in his system at the time, because he did not seem to have full control of his body and had trouble speaking. When he came staggering to his home in this rambling, dazed, barely coherent state his wife immediately called the police and an investigation would ensue.

Police at first treated this as a common assault, and wrote up Taylor’s mutterings of UFOs and spiked killer spheres as just the rantings of his stressed mind, but they nevertheless went to the scene to investigate and see if they could get some information about the perpetrator. The area where the dome had allegedly appeared was found to have flattened grass, and to contain 32 anomalous holes in the ground, which were about 3.5 inches in diameter each and formed a strange semi-circular pattern, as well as ladder-like marks that looked like the treads of a bulldozer, which were confined to just the clearing and did not come from or lead to anywhere. Authorities tried to find out what could have made the marks by contacting the Livingston Development Corporation, and one investigator would say of this:

After examining every piece of machinery they had up there, we did not find anything to match. These marks just arrived. They did not come from anywhere or go anywhere. They just arrived as though a helicopter or something had landed from the sky. An object of several tons had stood there but there was nothing to show that it had been driven or towed away. There appeared to be no rational explanation for these marks.

Robert Taylor in the clearing

In the meantime, Taylor’s ripped clothing was examined by forensics experts, who came to the conclusion that they had been torn by something hooking into them and pulling sharply upward, which when taken with the tread marks made the story of domes and spiked discs sounding less and less far fetched by the minute. Police would ultimately log the incident officially as an assault, but there was nothing more they could do except ponder the strange clues surrounding it all. For his part, Taylor would adamantly insist that his story was true all the way up to his death in 2007, and considering what an upstanding citizen he was many people believed him. What has come to be known as the Robert Taylor Incident, Livingston Incident, or Dechmont Woods Encounter, has since gone on to become a much discussed and highly regarded possibly genuine UFO incident, and UFO researcher and author Malcolm Robinson has said of it:

This case stands head and shoulders above any other Scottish case and has the prestigious hallmark of being the only case officially investigated by the police and forensic science laboratories in Great Britain. Most, if not all, British UFO researchers would say that this one case provides the best evidence that something, not of this Earth, occurred in that lonely wood and which today, stands the test of time as being one of the biggest UFO cases in the annals of British UFOlogy.

Of course there are skeptics of the whole thing, and other possibilities have been offered above and beyond that Taylor was attacked by aliens. For instance the strange markings in the ground have been speculated to have been left by the water company that had been laying a cable duct through the area and had been storing a large collection of PVC pipes near the clearing. Taylor’s story of the dome, the spheres, and the physical effects he experienced have been suggested as being the result of him suffering an isolated attack of temporal lobe epilepsy, which can cause the physical symptoms described and cause hallucinations, which could have all been exacerbated by a case of meningitis Taylor had struggled with not long before the ordeal. It could have also been that he had mistaken a nearby water tower for being an alien craft in this disoriented state. Other theories are that he had consumed hallucinogenic berries, that he had suffered a stroke, that he had seen a mirage of the planet Venus, or simply that he just made the whole thing up. There has never been any definitive answer, and considering that the sole witness has passed away we will probably never know for sure, but the legacy of this case lingers on today and probably will for some time to come.

15-01-2020 om 23:00 geschreven door peter

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New Studies: Antarctica Stable, Temps Falling, Ice Mass Growing!

Penguins Emperor Antarctic

By Kalte Sonne (German text translated/edited by P. Gosselin)

The ice in Antarctica, how is it doing? Is it melting, is it growing? In the following, we present the latest literature on the subject. There is a lot to report.

Let’s start with the temperature development because along with snowfall, this is the most important control factor for Antarctic inland ice.

At NoTricksZone, Kirye shows ten coastal stations of Antarctica. None have been warming over the past 10 years. An example follows:

And here’s the temperature development of the entire Antarctic according to UAH and RSS satellite measurements (from Climate4You, via NoTricksZone):

According to Clem et al. 2018, East Antarctica has cooled over the last 60 years, while West Antarctica has warmed.

The authors establish a connection with the SAM ocean cycle, the Southern Annular Mode. Euan Mearns also deals with the temperature development of Antarctica during the last decades.

Increased ice

Based on height and gravity field measurements by satellite and GPS measurements on the ground, Martin-Español et al. 2017 determined an increase in ice mass in the East Antarctic and a reduction in ice mass in the (much smaller) West Antarctic for the interval 2003-2013.

NASA researcher Jay Zwally also interprets an increase in the East Antarctic ice mass. However, a paper announced in mid-2018 still seems to be stuck in review…

Will the ice of East Antarctica be dragged along by the melting West Antarctic at some point in the melting vortex? No, this will not happen, Indiana University said in a press release of 2017:

New study validates East Antarctic ice sheet should remain stable even if western ice sheet melts

A new study from Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis validates that the central core of the East Antarctic ice sheet should remain stable even if the West Antarctic ice sheet melts. The study’s findings are significant, given that some predict the West Antarctic ice sheet could melt quickly due to global warming.

If the East Antarctic ice sheet, which is 10 times larger than the western ice sheet, melted completely, it would cause sea levels worldwide to rise almost 200 feet, according to Kathy Licht, an associate professor in the Department of Earth Sciences in the School of Science at IUPUI. Licht led a research team into the Transarctic Mountains in search of physical evidence that would verify whether a long-standing idea was still true: The East Antarctic ice sheet is stable.

The East Antarctic ice sheet has long been considered relatively stable because most of the ice sheet was thought to rest on bedrock above sea level, making it less susceptible to changes in climate. However, recent studies show widespread water beneath it and higher melt potential from impinging ocean water. The West Antarctic ice sheet is a marine-based ice sheet that is mostly grounded below sea level, which makes it much more susceptible to changes in sea level and variations in ocean temperature. „Some people have recently found that the East Antarctic ice sheet isn’t as stable as once thought, particularly near some parts of the coast,“ Licht said.

Recent studies have determined that the perimeter of the East Antarctic ice sheet is potentially more sensitive and that the ice may have retreated and advanced much more dynamically than was thought, Licht said. „We believed this was a good time to look to the interior of the ice sheet. We didn’t really know what had happened there,“ Licht said. The research team found the evidence confirming the stability of the East Antarctic ice sheet at an altitude of 6,200 feet, about 400 miles from the South Pole at the edge of what’s called the polar plateau, a flat, high surface of the ice sheet covering much of East Antarctica.

To understand how an ice sheet changes through time, a continuous historical record of those changes is needed, according to Licht. The team found layers of sediment and rocks that built up over time, recording the flow of the ice sheet and reflecting climate change. Finding that record was a challenge because glaciers moving on land tend to wipe out and cover up previous movements of the glacier, Licht said.

The big question the team wanted to answer was how sensitive the East Antarctic sheet might be to climate change. „There are models that predict that the interior of the East Antarctic ice sheet wouldn’t change very much, even if the West Antarctic ice sheet was taken away,“ Licht said. According to these models, even if the ice sheet’s perimeter retreats, its core remains stable. „It turns out that our data supports those models,“ she said. „It’s nice to have that validation.“

The team’s research findings are presented in a paper, “Middle to Late Pleistocene stability of the central East Antarctic Ice Sheet at the head of Law Glacier,” that was published today online in the journal Geology. The research presented is in collaboration with Mike Kaplan, Gisela Winckler, Joerg Schaefer and Roseanne Schwartz at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in New York.”

A Nature Editorial also dealt with the current growth of the East Antarctic ice in January 2018. Of course, the ice in this region has also been worse at times, so it continues to heat up.

However, one would have to go back to the warm Pliocene (5.3-2.6 million years before today):

A history of instability

The East Antarctic ice sheet may be gaining mass in the current, warming climate. The palaeoclimate record shows, however, that it has retreated during previous episodes of prolonged warmth.

The phrase “at a glacial pace” once invoked a sense of slow and unchangeable movement, an almost imperceptible motion. But decades of remote sensing and seafloor observations have shown that glaciers and ice sheets can respond to disturbances much more dynamically than once thought. But as satellites captured the surges and retreat of Greenland’s maritime glaciers in the past decades the Antarctic ice sheets — east and west of the Trans-Antarctic mountains — were at least assumed to be stable. But this, too, turned out to be wrong. First came sediment¹ and model² evidence that the West Antarctic ice sheet collapsed during previous interglacial periods and under Pliocene warmth. Then came erosional data showing that several regions of the East Antarctic ice sheet also retreated and advanced throughout the Pliocene³. An extended record⁴ of ice-sheet extent from elsewhere on the East Antarctic coast now paints a more complicated picture of the sensitivity of this ice sheet to warming.”

Curiously enough, half a year later, the tide turned when a paper by Shakun et al. 2018, also in Nature, saw no major problems for the Antarctic ice in the Pliocene:

Minimal East Antarctic Ice Sheet retreat onto land during the past eight million years

The East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) is the largest potential contributor to sea-level rise. However, efforts to predict the future evolution of the EAIS are hindered by uncertainty in how it responded to past warm periods, for example, during the Pliocene epoch (5.3 to 2.6 million years ago), when atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations were last higher than 400 parts per million.

Geological evidence indicates that some marine-based portions of the EAIS and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet retreated during parts of the Pliocene^1,2, but it remains unclear whether ice grounded above sea level also experienced retreat. This uncertainty persists because global sea-level estimates for the Pliocene have large uncertainties and cannot be used to rule out substantial terrestrial ice loss³, and also because direct geological evidence bearing on past ice retreat on land is lacking.

Here we show that land-based sectors of the EAIS that drain into the Ross Sea have been stable throughout the past eight million years. We base this conclusion on the extremely low concentrations of cosmogenic Be and Al isotopes found in quartz sand extracted from a land-proximal marine sediment core.

This sediment had been eroded from the continent, and its low levels of cosmogenic nuclides indicate that it experienced only minimal exposure to cosmic radiation, suggesting that the sediment source regions were covered in ice. These findings indicate that atmospheric warming during the past eight million years was insufficient to cause widespread or long-lasting meltback of the EAIS margin onto land. We suggest that variations in Antarctic ice volume in response to the range of global temperatures experienced over this period—up to 2–3 degrees Celsius above preindustrial temperatures⁴, corresponding to future scenarios involving carbon dioxide concentrations of between 400 and 500 parts per million—were instead driven mostly by the retreat of marine ice margins, in agreement with the latest models^5,6.”

Also, read more at cato.org.

Antarctica stable

Eight million years ago, the earth’s atmosphere had similar CO2 content as today. Investigations now show that the Antarctic ice sheet had hardly retreated at that time.

The ice is apparently more stable than expected. Click here for the press release from the National Science Foundation. You can also read an article in Popular Mechanics.

University of Edinburgh press release from 2017::

Central parts of Antarctica’s ice sheet have been stable for millions of years, from a time when conditions were considerably warmer than now, research suggests.

The study of mountains in West Antarctica will help scientists improve their predictions of how the region might respond to continuing climate change. Its findings could also show how ice loss might contribute to sea level rise.

Although the discovery demonstrates the long-term stability of some parts of Antarctica’s ice sheet, scientists remain concerned that ice at its coastline is vulnerable to rising temperatures. Researchers from the Universities of Edinburgh and Northumbria studied rocks on slopes of the Ellsworth Mountains, whose peaks protrude through the ice sheet. By mapping and analysing surface rocks — including measuring their exposure to cosmic rays — researchers calculated that the mountains have been shaped by an ice sheet over a million-year period, beginning in a climate some 20C warmer than at present.

The last time such climates existed in the mountains of Antarctica was 14 million years ago when vegetation grew in the mountains and beetles thrived. Antarctica’s climate at the time would be similar to that of modern day Patagonia or Greenland. This time marked the start of a period of cooling and the growth of a large ice sheet that extended offshore around the Antarctic continent. Glaciers have subsequently cut deep into the landscape, leaving a high-tide mark — known as a trimline — in the exposed peaks of the Ellsworth range.

The extended ice sheet cooled the oceans and atmosphere, helping form the world of today, researchers say. Their study is among the first to find evidence for this period in West Antarctica. The research, published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, was done in collaboration with the Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre. It was funded by the UK Natural Environment Research Council and supported by British Antarctic Survey.

Professor David Sugden, of the University of Edinburgh’s School of GeoSciences, said: „These findings help us understand how the Antarctic Ice Sheet has evolved, and to fine-tune our models and predict its future. The preservation of old rock surfaces is testimony to the stability of at least the central parts of the Antarctic Ice Sheet — but we are still very concerned over other parts of Antarctica amid climate change.“

As the ice in West Antarctica melts, it rises isostatically, which in turn stabilizes the overlying ice, found a research team from Denmark and Colorado.

Again and again, there are the climate stories about the Totten Glacier in the East-Arctic Wilkesland. Gwyther et al. 2018 were able to show that the basal melting of the glacier is subject to strong natural fluctuations (press release of the NSIDC here). There is no long-term melting trend.

Melting from volcanoes

Glaciers in the western Ross Sea are also stable (Fountain et al. 2017, press release here). The rapidly melting Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica has a hot secret that has now been revealed: Beneath the glacier lies a previously unknown volcanic heat source. University of Rhode Island press release from June 2018 (via EurekAlert!):

Researchers discover volcanic heat source under glacier plays critical role in movement, melting

A researcher from the University of Rhode Island’s Graduate School of Oceanography and five other scientists have discovered an active volcanic heat source beneath the Pine Island Glacier in Antarctica. The discovery and other findings, which are critical to understanding the stability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, of which the Pine Island Glacier is a part, are published in the paper, „Evidence of an active volcanic heat source beneath the Pine Island Glacier,“ in the latest edition of Nature Communications.

Assistant Professor Brice Loose of Newport, a chemical oceanographer at GSO and the lead author, said the paper is based on research conducted during a major expedition in 2014 to Antarctica led by scientists from the United Kingdom. They worked aboard an icebreaker, the RRS James Clark Ross, from January to March, Antarctica’s summer. „We were looking to better understand the role of the ocean in melting the ice shelf,“ Loose said. „I was sampling the water for five different noble gases, including helium and xenon. I use these noble gases to trace ice melt as well as heat transport. Helium-3, the gas that indicates volcanism, is one of the suite of gases that we obtain from this tracing method. „We weren’t looking for volcanism, we were using these gases to trace other actions,“ he said. „When we first started seeing high concentrations of helium-3, we thought we had a cluster of bad or suspicious data.“

The West Antarctic Ice Sheet lies atop a major volcanic rift system, but there had been no evidence of current magmatic activity, the URI scientist said. The last such activity was 2,200 years ago, Loose said. And while volcanic heat can be traced to dormant volcanoes, what the scientists found at Pine Island was new. In the paper, Loose said that the volcanic rift system makes it difficult to measure heat flow to the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. „You can’t directly measure normal indicators of volcanism — heat and smoke — because the volcanic rift is below many kilometers of ice,“ Loose said

But as the team conducted its research, it found high quantities of an isotope of helium, which comes almost exclusively from mantle, Loose said. „When you find helium-3, it’s like a fingerprint for volcanism. We found that it is relatively abundant in the seawater at the Pine Island shelf. „The volcanic heat sources were found beneath the fastest moving and the fastest melting glacier in Antarctica, the Pine Island Glacier,“ Loose said. „It is losing mass the fastest.“ He said the amount of ice sliding into the ocean is measured in gigatons. A gigaton equals 1 billion metric tons.

However, Loose cautions, this does not imply that volcanism is the major source of mass loss from Pine Island. On the contrary, „there are several decades of research documenting the heat from ocean currents is destabilizing Pine Island Glacier, which in turn appears to be related to a change in the climatological winds around Antarctica,“ Loose said. Instead, this evidence of volcanism is a new factor to consider when monitoring the stability of the ice sheet.

The scientists report in the paper that „helium isotope and noble gas measurements provide geochemical evidence of sub-glacial meltwater production that is subsequently transported to the cavity of the Pine Island Ice Shelf.“ They say that heat energy released by the volcanoes and hydrothermal vents suggests that the heat source beneath Pine Island is about 25 times greater than the bulk of heat flux from an individual dormant volcano.

Professor Karen Heywood, from the University of East Anglia in Norwich, the United Kingdom, and chief scientist for the expedition, said: ‘The discovery of volcanoes beneath the Antarctic ice sheet means that there is an additional source of heat to melt the ice, lubricate its passage toward the sea, and add to the melting from warm ocean waters. It will be important to include this in our efforts to estimate whether the Antarctic ice sheet might become unstable and further increase sea level rise.’

Does that mean that global climate change is not a factor in the stability of the Pine Island Glacier? No, said Loose. ‘Climate change is causing the bulk of glacial melt that we observe, and this newly discovered source of heat is having an as-yet undetermined effect, because we do not know how this heat is distributed beneath the ice sheet.’

He said other studies have shown that melting caused by climate change is reducing the size and weight of the glacier, which reduces the pressure on the mantle, allowing greater heat from the volcanic source to escape and then warm the ocean water. ‘Predicting the rate of sea level rise is going to be a key role for science over the next 100 years, and we are doing that. We are monitoring and modeling these glaciers,’ Loose said.

The scientists conclude by writing: ‘The magnitude and the variations in the rate of the volcanic heat supplied to the Pine Island Glacier, either by internal magma migration, or by an increase in volcanism as a consequence of ice sheet thinning, may impact the future dynamics of the Pine Island Glacier, during the contemporary period of climate-driven glacial retreat.’

In addition to Heywood, Loose worked with Alberto C. Naveira Garabato, of the National Oceanography Centre at the University of Southampton, United Kingdom; Peter Schlosser of Arizona State University’s School of Earth and Space Exploration and the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University; William Jenkins of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts; and David Vaughn of the British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, United Kingdom.”

The University of California in Santa Cruz 2015:

Study finds surprisingly high geothermal heating beneath West Antarctic Ice Sheet

UC Santa Cruz team reports first direct measurement of heat flow from deep within the Earth to the bottom of the West Antarctic ice sheet

Read more here.

Article at Spiegel.de 2017:

Researchers discover 91 volcanoes under the ice

Surprise in Antarctica: hidden under kilometres of ice, researchers have found dozens of previously unknown volcanoes. Eruptions threaten a strong melt – sea levels could rise.”

Read more at Spiegel.de (press release from the University of Edinburgh here).

The West Antarctic Kamb Ice Stream has always puzzled the researchers because here the ice thickened, in contrast to the general melting trend in West Antarctica.

What could be the cause? Another volcano, as reported by the University of Washington in 2018: University of Washington 2018:

Volcano under ice sheet suggests thickening of West Antarctic ice is short-term

A region of West Antarctica is behaving differently from most of the continent’s ice: A large patch of ice there is thickening, unlike other parts of West Antarctica that are losing ice. Whether this thickening trend will continue affects the overall amount that melting or collapsing glaciers could raise the level of the world’s oceans.

A study led by the University of Washington has discovered a new clue to this region’s behavior: A volcano under the ice sheet has left an almost 6,000-year record of the glacier’s motion. The track hidden in the middle of the ice sheet suggests that the current thickening is just a short-term feature that may not affect the glacier over the long term. It also suggests that similar clues to the past may be hiding deep inside the ice sheet itself. ‘What’s exciting about this study is that we show how the structure of the ice sheet acts as a powerful record of what has happened in the past,’ said Nicholas Holschuh, a UW postdoctoral researcher in Earth and space sciences. He is first author of the paper published Sept. 4 in The Cryosphere.

The data come from the ice above Mount Resnik, a 1.6-kilometer (mile-high) inactive volcano that currently sits under 300 meters (0.19 miles) of ice. The volcano lies just upstream of the thickening Kamb Ice Stream, part of a dynamic coastal region of ice that drains into Antarctica’s Ross Sea. Studies show Kamb Ice Stream has flowed quickly in the past but stalled more than a century ago, leaving the region’s ice to drain via the four other major ice streams, a switch that glaciologists think happens every few hundred years. Meanwhile the ice inland of Kamb Ice Stream is beginning to bulge, and it is unclear what will happen next. ‘The shutdown of Kamb Ice Stream started long before the satellite era,’ Holschuh said. ‘We need some longer-term indicators for its behavior to understand how important this shutdown is for the future of the region’s ice.’

The paper analyzes two radar surveys of the area’s ice. One was collected in 2002 by co-authors Robert Jacobel and Brian Welch, using the ice-penetrating radar system at St. Olaf College in Minnesota, and the other in 2004 by co-author Howard Conway, a UW research professor of Earth and space sciences. Conway noticed the missing layers and asked his colleagues to investigate. “It wasn’t until we had spent probably six months with this data set that we started to piece together the fact that this thing that we could see within the ice sheet was forming in response to the subglacial volcano,” Holschuh said.

The study shows that the mysterious feature originates at the ice covering Mount Resnik. The authors believe that the volcano’s height pushes the relatively thin ice sheet up so much that it changes the local wind fields, and affects depositing of snow. So as the ice sheet passes over the volcano a section missed out on a few annual layers of snow. “These missing layers are common in East Antarctica, where there is less precipitation and strong winds can strip away the surface snow,” Holschuh said. “But this is really one of the first times we’ve seen these missing layers in West Antarctica. It’s also the first time an unconformity has been used to reconstruct ice sheet motion of the past.”

Over time, the glacial record shows that this feature followed a straight path toward the sea. During the 5,700-year record, the five major coastal ice streams are thought to have sped up and slowed down several times, as water on the base lubricates the glacier’s flow and then periodically gets diverted, stalling one of the ice streams. “Despite the fact that there are all these dramatic changes at the coast, the ice flowing in the interior was not really affected,” Holschuh said.

What the feature does show is that a change occurred a few thousand years ago. Previous UW research shows rapid retreat at the edge of the ice sheet until about 3,400 years ago, part of the recovery from the most recent ice age. The volcano track also shows a thinning of the ice at about this time. “It means that the interior of the ice sheet is responding to the large-scale climate forcing from the last glacial maximum to today,” Holschuh said. “So the long-timescale climatic forcing is very consistent between the interior and the coast, but the shorter-timescale processes are really apparent in the coastal record but aren’t visible in the interior.”

Holschuh cautions that this is only a single data point and needs confirmation from other observations. He is part of an international team of Antarctic scientists looking at combining the hundreds of radar scans of Antarctic and Greenland glaciers that were originally done to measure ice thickness. Those data may also contain unique details of the glacier’s internal structure that can be used to recreate the history of the ice sheet’s motion.

“These persistent tracers of historic ice flow are probably all over the place,” Holschuh said. “The more we can tease apart the stories of past motion told by the structure of the ice sheet, the more realistic we can be in our predictions of how it will respond to future climate change.” The research was funded by the National Science Foundation and NASA. The other co-author is Knut Christianson, a UW assistant professor of Earth and space sciences.

Blown soot apparently has no influence on the Antarctic glaciers in the McMurdo dry valleys, Khan et al. 2018 (press release).

Medley & Thomas 2019 documented an increase in snowfall in the Antarctic, which benefited the ice sheet (NASA press release here). The authors establish a connection with the SAM ocean cycle, the Southern Annular Mode.

The University of Colorado in Boulder, however, blames the increase in snowfall on the ozone hole (press release, paper by Lenaerts et al. 2018).

Jenkins et al. 2018 pointed to decadal cycles in the melting of the West Antarctic ice sheet at the edge of the Amundsen Sea. The relationship between melting and ocean temperature is nonlinear:

West Antarctic Ice Sheet retreat in the Amundsen Sea driven by decadal oceanic variability

Mass loss from the Amundsen Sea sector of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has increased in recent decades, suggestive of sustained ocean forcing or an ongoing, possibly unstable, response to a past climate anomaly. Lengthening satellite records appear to be incompatible with either process, however, revealing both periodic hiatuses in acceleration and intermittent episodes of thinning. Here we use ocean temperature, salinity, dissolved-oxygen and current measurements taken from 2000 to 2016 near the Dotson Ice Shelf to determine temporal changes in net basal melting. A decadal cycle dominates the ocean record, with melt changing by a factor of about four between cool and warm extremes via a nonlinear relationship with ocean temperature. A warm phase that peaked around 2009 coincided with ice-shelf thinning and retreat of the grounding line, which re-advanced during a post-2011 cool phase. These observations demonstrate how discontinuous ice retreat is linked with ocean variability, and that the strength and timing of decadal extremes is more influential than changes in the longer-term mean state. The nonlinear response of melting to temperature change heightens the sensitivity of Amundsen Sea ice shelves to such variability, possibly explaining the vulnerability of the ice sheet in that sector, where subsurface ocean temperatures are relatively high.

And here are even more temporally variable relationships. Wang et al. 2019: reported on temporally variable relationships of the surface ice mass balance in West Antarctica with the SAM cycle and ENSO:

A New 200‐Year Spatial Reconstruction of West Antarctic Surface Mass Balance

High‐spatial resolution surface mass balance (SMB) over the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) spanning 1800–2010 is reconstructed by means of ice core records combined with the outputs of the European Centre for Medium‐Range Weather Forecasts “Interim” reanalysis (ERA‐Interim) and the latest polar version of the Regional Atmospheric Climate Model (RACMO2.3p2). The reconstruction reveals a significant negative trend (−1.9 ± 2.2 Gt/year·per decade) in the SMB over the entire WAIS during the nineteenth century, but a statistically significant positive trend of 5.4 ± 2.9 Gt/year·per decade between 1900 and 2010, in contrast to insignificant WAIS SMB changes during the twentieth century reported earlier. At regional scales, the Antarctic Peninsula and western WAIS show opposite SMB trends, with different signs in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The annual resolution reconstruction allows us to examine the relationships between SMB and large‐scale atmospheric oscillations. Although SMB over the Antarctic Peninsula and western WAIS correlates significantly with the Southern Annular Mode due to the influence of the Amundsen Sea Low, and El Niño/Southern Oscillation during 1800–2010, the significant correlations are temporally unstable, associated with the phase of Southern Annular Mode, El Niño/Southern Oscillation and the Pacific decadal oscillation. In addition, the two climate modes seem to contribute little to variability in SMB over the whole WAIS on decadal‐centennial time scales. This new reconstruction also serves to identify unreliable precipitation trends in ERA‐Interim and thus has potential for assessing the skill of other reanalyses or climate models to capture precipitation trends and variability.”

Read more at No Tricks Zone

Source: https://climatechangedispatch.com/studies-antarctica-stable-ice-growing/

15-01-2020 om 22:26 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:Diversen (Eng, NL en Fr)

Er is nieuws over het ijs op Antarctica. Dit gaan de klimaatalarmisten niet leuk vinden

Hoe is het gesteld met het ijs op Antarctica? Smelt het? Groeit het? Laten we eens kijken naar de wetenschappelijke onderzoeken die hier in de afgelopen jaren over zijn verschenen.

In 2017 publiceerden Alba Martin-Espanol en haar collega’s een studie in Geophysical Research Letters waaruit blijkt dat het ijs op Oost-Antarctica groeit en het ijs op – het veel kleinere – West-Antarctica krimpt.

NASA-onderzoeker Jay Zwally merkt ook op dat de ijsmassa op Oost-Antarctica groeit.

Stabiel

Heeft het smeltende ijs op West-Antarctica nog gevolgen voor het oostelijke deel van het continent?

Nee. De Indiana University liet in 2017 in een persverklaring weten dat de ijskap van Oost-Antarctica stabiel zal blijven, ook als het ijs op West-Antarctica smelt.

In januari 2018 werd ook in een redactioneel stuk in vakblad Nature ingegaan op de groei van het ijs.

Verder blijkt uit onderzoek in Nature dat de Antarctische ijskap zich in de afgelopen acht miljoen jaar nauwelijks heeft teruggetrokken.

antarctica

Aanzienlijk warmer

Merk daarbij op dat de CO2-concentratie in het Plioceen (5,3 tot 2,6 miljoen jaar geleden) hoger was dan 400 ppm.

De ijsmassa op het continent is kennelijk stabieler dan verwacht.

De Universiteit van Edinburgh schreef hier in 2017 over: “Het centrale deel van de Antarctische ijskap is al miljoenen jaren stabiel, zelfs in tijden dat het aanzienlijk warmer was dan nu.”

Laten we dan eens kijken naar West-Antarctica.

91 vulkanen

De gletsjers in de westelijke Rosszee zijn stabiel, laat onderzoek in tijdschrift Geology zien.

Het klopt dat één gletsjer, de Pine Island Glacier, in rap tempo smelt, maar dat heeft te maken met een vulkaan die men onlangs onder de gletsjer heeft ontdekt.

De University of Rhode Island schreef hierover in juni 2018 in een persbericht: “Onderzoekers ontdekken vulkanische warmtebron onder gletsjer die een belangrijke rol speelt bij het smelten van ijs.”

Het Duitse weekblad Der Spiegel schreef in 2017 over de ontdekking van liefst 91 vulkanen onder het ijs van Antarctica.

antarctica

Oceaancyclus

NASA-wetenschappers Brooke Medley en Elizabeth Thomas schreven eind 2018 in Nature Climate Change dat er meer sneeuw is gevallen op Antarctica, wat de ijskap ten goede is gekomen.

Ze leggen een link met de Southern Annular Mode, een oceaancyclus.

De Universiteit van Colorado te Boulder legt echter een verband tussen de sneeuwval en de ozonlaag.

Adrian Jenkins en zijn collega’s schreven in augustus 2018 in Nature Geoscience dat de terugtrekking van de ijskap van West-Antarctica richting de Amundsenzee te maken heeft met een tienjaarlijkse cyclus, en niet met de temperatuur van het zeewater.

Resumerend: ijskap Antarctica is in de afgelopen acht miljoen jaar nauwelijks veranderd, oostelijke deel groeit, (veel kleinere) westelijke deel smelt als gevolg van vulkanen en cycli.

© Copyright (c) NineForNews.nl

15-01-2020 om 21:01 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:NineForNews. nl ( new ipv NIBURU.nl) (NL)

This Week's Top Space Stories!

MOGELIJKE VERKLARING VAN HET BLAUWE LICHT ( VIDEO ) + UPDATE 15-01

We lieten gisteren beelden zien van een bizar blauw licht dat zich over een spoorbaan bewoog en vervolgens explodeerde.

Er werd gesuggereerd dat het misschien een soort bliksem zou kunnen zijn, maar nu komt er een heel andere verklaring.

Hierna nog even een klein stukje uit een artikel van gisteren over een vreemd blauw licht:

Een tenslotte een vreemd fenomeen uit een onbekend land, maar waarschijnlijk Rusland, omdat degene die de video heeft geplaatst op Facebook, de mooie naam Vladimir heeft.

Je ziet een blauwe orb links verschijnen in beeld, het beweegt zich vervolgens over de spoorlijnen, je hoort op een gegeven het knetteren van elektriciteit en vervolgens explodeert de orb helemaal rechts in beeld.

Wat het is, weet voor zover ons bekend op dit moment niemand. Er wordt gesuggereerd dat het een vorm van bolbliksem kan zijn, weer anderen noemen het een geest of een alien.

Kijk en oordeel zelf.

Wij kregen naar aanleiding van dat artikel een aantal reacties, waaronder de volgende (dank!):

Dat filmpje daar zie je een plasma bol. Deze zijn blauw van kleur en ontstaan op een natte ondergrond, vocht en een stroomdraad waar iets niet helemaal lekker zit en dat zal hier dan wel de bovenleiding zijn Hierdoor krijg je een plasma en deze plasma onttrekt energie uit de omgeving. Als je dit met een infrarood camera bekijkt dan zie je onder infrarood ineens allemaal bollen erom heen die wij met ons normaal oog niet kunnen zien. Ik denk dat dit ook iets soortgelijks is als de oranje vuurbollen maar die zijn oranje en niet blauw.

Klinkt logisch, maar dan komt een andere lezer met de volgende mogelijke verklaring:

De laatste video in jullie stuk boeide mij nogal, omdat ik het vreemd vond dat naast het blauwe licht ook een klein blauw stipje het overal volgende op verschillende snelheden. het verdwijnt even in de grote en komt dan weer tevoorschijn.

Ik weet niet of jullie dat ook was opgevallen, maar dat betekend dat het iets intelligents is. Nu mij dit zo aantrok ben ik gaan zoeken en jawel de door jullie genoemde naam Vladimir is Vladimiir Kartsovnik en inderdaad Russisch.

Op een Russische site vond ik een analyse van de video. De teksten zijn Russisch, maar de foto's spreken boekdelen. Precies wat ik verwachtte.

PS Dat laatste wat een ontploffing lijkt in de video, lijkt mij eerder een dimensiepoort!!!

xxx

Is het inderdaad meer dan bolbliksem en zien we hier een kleine dimensiepoort?

UPDATE 15-01

Update: 15 januari 2020

Het raadsel van het vreemde blauwe licht bij een spoorlijn lijkt opgelost.

Wij ontvingen de volgende, niet zo vriendelijke mail:

De lichtbol waar u ondertussen al 2 artikels aan verspild hebt, is gewoon een computeranimatie, dus CGI, gemaakt door Andrei Trukhonovets

Wedden dat u dit niet rechtzet?

Ik heb zelf nog bij een visual effects bedrijf gewerkt, dus als er VFX of CGI in de titel staat dan weet je hoe laat het is.

Wat deze niet zo aardige man niet vertelt is dat de video zoals die viraal ging niet op Youtube stond, maar op Facebook waar voor zover wij kunnen zien geen CGI bij staat.

De Youtube video zoals hij die aanlevert is volledig met Russische tekst dus ook niet gemakkelijk te vinden als je geen Russisch spreekt en aangezien deze uit mei 2019 dateert en er inderdaad 2019 in de titel staat en uit de commentaren in het Engels inderdaad blijkt dat het hier om CGI gaat, verklaren wij hierbij het raadsel opgelost.

Wat dit alles wel weer duidelijk maakt is dat dankzij dit soort neppers er niet één video meer te vertrouwen is zonder deze aan een grondige analyse door een expert te laten onderwerpen. Hetgeen dan ook uiteraard weer betekent dat er veel wel echte video's nooit meer gepubliceerd zullen worden, omdat niemand meer kan bepalen wat wel en niet echt is.

Origineel artikel: 15 januari 2020

Hierna nog even een klein stukje uit een artikel van gisteren over een vreemd blauw licht:

Een tenslotte een vreemd fenomeen uit een onbekend land, maar waarschijnlijk Rusland, omdat degene die de video heeft geplaatst op Facebook, de mooie naam Vladimir heeft.

Je ziet een blauwe orb links verschijnen in beeld, het beweegt zich vervolgens over de spoorlijnen, je hoort op een gegeven het knetteren van elektriciteit en vervolgens explodeert de orb helemaal rechts in beeld.

Wat het is, weet voor zover ons bekend op dit moment niemand. Er wordt gesuggereerd dat het een vorm van bolbliksem kan zijn, weer anderen noemen het een geest of een alien.

Kijk en oordeel zelf.

Wij kregen naar aanleiding van dat artikel een aantal reacties, waaronder de volgende (dank!):

Klinkt logisch, maar dan komt een andere lezer met de volgende mogelijke verklaring:

De laatste video in jullie stuk boeide mij nogal, omdat ik het vreemd vond dat naast het blauwe licht ook een klein blauw stipje het overal volgende op verschillende snelheden. het verdwijnt even in de grote en komt dan weer tevoorschijn.
Ik weet niet of jullie dat ook was opgevallen, maar dat betekend dat het iets intelligents is. Nu mij dit zo aantrok ben ik gaan zoeken en jawel de door jullie genoemde naam Vladimir is Vladimiir Kartsovnik en inderdaad Russisch.
Op een Russische site vond ik een analyse van de video. De teksten zijn Russisch, maar de foto's spreken boekdelen. Precies wat ik verwachtte.
PS Dat laatste wat een ontploffing lijkt in de video, lijkt mij eerder een dimensiepoort!!!

xxx

Is het inderdaad meer dan bolbliksem en zien we hier een kleine dimensiepoort?

{ https://niburu.co/ }

15-01-2020 om 20:48 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:NineForNews. nl ( new ipv NIBURU.nl) (NL)

Locust Army: Reptilian, Nordic & Greys - A Biblical Perspective

An alien invasion has been planned for years, sadly. Project blue beam and huge craft are very real, giant sized. UFOs are seen everywhere now, nothing is normal, the US military admits having no defense against them. Pray always, without ceasing, the hour is late. Always good to see you here as you have a biblical view and references. C1955

Omg Leeland!! Yesterday I was in prayer and I saw a blonde woman monitoring me and following me. I testified of this to my friend and told her that a Nordic alien was monitoring me in the spirit. Unbelievable timing. Manifesting Jesus Christ

The consummation is when Almighty God ‘AGAIN’ did bring His Firstborn into the inhabited earth as foretold in Hebrews 1:6. It was at the time the woman gave birth to a Son a Male who is to shepherd the earth with an iron rod that Satan and his Demons were cast down out of heaven knowing they have a short time left as foretold in Revelation 12:7-17. That woman was instructed to find witnesses to the fact that the Son of God has ‘again’ been brought into the inhabited earth in fulfilment of all prophesy. J.M.

{https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

15-01-2020 om 19:53 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:MYSTERIES ( Fr, Nl, E)

Large Asteroid Impact Simulation

Large Asteroid Impact Simulation

Earth was born as a result of repeated asteroid collisions, the moon was created by a single giant impact event. Then, Earth's size attracted huge meteorites, which slammed into it, causing super-high-temperature rock vapour to cover the entire surface and evaporate all ocean water. The earliest life-forms survived such infernal events by escaping deep into the ground, miraculously emerging again and again. The Earth has gone through innumerable catastrophic events, and life has survived by acquiring new abilities to live through each crisis. Humans are part of the grand history of life's evolution, which has been closely intertwined with repeated cataclysmic events.

Learn what would happen if an asteroid hit the Earth with this detailed "Large Asteroid Impact Simulation".

An asteroid with a diameter of 500 km. Destination: The Pacific Ocean. The impact peels the 10 km crust off the surface. The shockwave travels at hypersonic speeds. Debris is blasted across into low Earth orbit, and returns to destroy the surface of the Earth. The firestorm encircles the Earth, vaporizing all life in its way. Within one day, the surface of the Earth is uninhabitable. The evidence shows that this has happened at least six times in Earth's history.

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

15-01-2020 om 19:20 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ASTRONOMIE / RUIMTEVAART

White Orb UFO Seen Over Perth, Australia, Video, UFO Sighting News.

White Orb UFO Seen Over Perth, Australia, Video, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: Dec 25, 2019
Location of sighting: Perth, Australia

This object was recorded by an eyewitness in Australia. The object is similar to the so called drone lights seen across the globe and in Nebraska and Colorado. However this is daytime footage of the same type of UFO. Its round and white and almost blends into the environment. I wonder how much longer the American news can call these things drones? When we all know the truth...they are 100% alien craft.

Why is the UFO there? Probably to monitor the wildfire that is ravaging Australia and its poor animals. The aliens are recording, the fire, the effects, and the actions of the humans helping the animals and fighting the fires. How a person reacts to a stressful and hopeless situation is of high interest to aliens...for its may be the same stress that occurs upon first contact.
Scott C. Waring

other videos, selected by peter2011

15-01-2020 om 18:42 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

Mars Discovery: Woman Figure In Transparent Dress, Google Map, UFO Sighting News.

Mars Discovery: Woman Figure In Transparent Dress, Google Map, UFO Sighting News.

Date of discovery: Jan 15, 2019

Location of discovery: Mars

Google Mars coordinates: 43°16'1.06"N 71°54'15.61"W

Wow, just looking at this now as I'm writing...I notice the woman feet through round protrusions at the bottom of the dress. I found this woman figure on Mars Google Map. The woman is viewed from behind, as many artists do. I made the head and arms green, but missed the tips of the feet at the bottom of the dress. The dress is transparent because we can see her the small indent of her lower back, buttocks and upper legs. This is alien art. Absolute proof that aliens not only exist, but feel love, passion and try to express those feelings through art. In the end, art speaks where words are unable to explain.

Scott C. Waring

15-01-2020 om 18:22 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:Ruins, strange artifacts on other planets, moons, ed ( Fr, EN, NL )

Alien Abductee Tells All: Inside UFO, Secret Bases On Earth, and more!

Alien abductee Steve Boucher shares 2 incredible stories of close encounters with aliens he had as a child and as a teenager:

1. A UFO stopped Steve and his father on the road one night and one of the beings took his father on-board the ship while another alien sat with Steve in the car for about 20 minutes keeping him company until his father returned.

Steve was about 4 years old at the time. His father confirmed the story in later years when Steve asked him about it, saying he "thought it was a dream."

2. Steve and his band are abducted when driving home from a gig. Four of them are taken on the craft, told to take off all their clothes, and are given a series of tests.

Before taking off, the aliens told Steve he would forget this whole incident, which he soon did, but later remembered it in full detail through hypnosis.

15-01-2020 om 18:08 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )

The Mysterious Genius Who Patented the UFO

Alexander Weygers, a Renaissance man in the mold of the tech industry’s stated ideal, inspired an art dealer to become an acolyte. In this Hello World short, Ashlee Vance visits the dealer whose curiosity about Weygers has evolved into an obsession.

15-01-2020 om 17:27 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

Daytime UFO video – cigar-shaped object over Suffolk, UK – 2020

This amazing daytime UFO video was just submitted through our Facebook page. It was filmed over Suffolk, United Kingdom on Friday, 10th January 2020.

Witness report:

There was 2 of them not moving at all. When I run to grab my camera there was only 1 left

Stay tuned for more 2020 UFO sightings!

15-01-2020 om 17:07 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

Team Builds the First Living Robots

Tiny 'xenobots' assembled from cells promise advances from drug delivery to toxic waste clean-up

xenobot-organism-pair-800x400.jpg

Computer-designed organisms. Left is simulated design, right is deployed physical green and red organism.

(Credit: Sam Kriegman, UVM)

A book is made of wood. But it is not a tree. The dead cells have been repurposed to serve another need.

Now a team of scientists has repurposed living cells—scraped from frog embryos—and assembled them into entirely new life-forms. These millimeter-wide "xenobots" can move toward a target, perhaps pick up a payload (like a medicine that needs to be carried to a specific place inside a patient)—and heal themselves after being cut.

"These are novel living machines," says Joshua Bongard, a computer scientist and robotics expert at the University of Vermont who co-led the new research. "They're neither a traditional robot nor a known species of animal. It's a new class of artifact: a living, programmable organism."

The new creatures were designed on a supercomputer at UVM—and then assembled and tested by biologists at Tufts University. "We can imagine many useful applications of these living robots that other machines can't do," says co-leader Michael Levin who directs the Center for Regenerative and Developmental Biology at Tufts, "like searching out nasty compounds or radioactive contamination, gathering microplastic in the oceans, traveling in arteries to scrape out plaque."

The results of the new research were published January 13 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Bespoke living systems

People have been manipulating organisms for human benefit since at least the dawn of agriculture, genetic editing is becoming widespread, and a few artificial organisms have been manually assembled in the past few years—copying the body forms of known animals.

But this research, for the first time ever, "designs completely biological machines from the ground up," the team writes in their new study.

With months of processing time on the Deep Green supercomputer cluster at UVM's Vermont Advanced Computing Core, the team—including lead author and doctoral student Sam Kriegman—used an evolutionary algorithm to create thousands of candidate designs for the new life-forms. Attempting to achieve a task assigned by the scientists—like locomotion in one direction—the computer would, over and over, reassemble a few hundred simulated cells into myriad forms and body shapes. As the programs ran—driven by basic rules about the biophysics of what single frog skin and cardiac cells can do—the more successful simulated organisms were kept and refined, while failed designs were tossed out. After a hundred independent runs of the algorithm, the most promising designs were selected for testing.

Then the team at Tufts, led by Levin and with key work by microsurgeon Douglas Blackiston—transferred the in silico designs into life. First they gathered stem cells, harvested from the embryos of African frogs, the species Xenopus laevis. (Hence the name "xenobots.") These were separated into single cells and left to incubate. Then, using tiny forceps and an even tinier electrode, the cells were cut and joined under a microscope into a close approximation of the designs specified by the computer.

Assembled into body forms never seen in nature, the cells began to work together. The skin cells formed a more passive architecture, while the once-random contractions of heart muscle cells were put to work creating ordered forward motion as guided by the computer's design, and aided by spontaneous self-organizing patterns—allowing the robots to move on their own.

These reconfigurable organisms were shown to be able move in a coherent fashion—and explore their watery environment for days or weeks, powered by embryonic energy stores. Turned over, however, they failed, like beetles flipped on their backs.

Later tests showed that groups of xenobots would move around in circles, pushing pellets into a central location—spontaneously and collectively. Others were built with a hole through the center to reduce drag. In simulated versions of these, the scientists were able to repurpose this hole as a pouch to successfully carry an object. "It's a step toward using computer-designed organisms for intelligent drug delivery," says Bongard, a professor in UVM's Department of Computer Science and Complex Systems Center.

Quadruped organism built from amphibian stem cells

A manufactured quadruped organism, 650-750 microns in diameter—a bit smaller than a pinhead.

(Credit: Douglas Blackiston, Tufts University.)

Living technologies

Many technologies are made of steel, concrete or plastic. That can make them strong or flexible. But they also can create ecological and human health problems, like the growing scourge of plastic pollution in the oceans and the toxicity of many synthetic materials and electronics. "The downside of living tissue is that it's weak and it degrades," say Bongard. "That's why we use steel. But organisms have 4.5 billion years of practice at regenerating themselves and going on for decades." And when they stop working—death—they usually fall apart harmlessly. "These xenobots are fully biodegradable," say Bongard, "when they're done with their job after seven days, they're just dead skin cells."

Your laptop is a powerful technology. But try cutting it in half. Doesn't work so well. In the new experiments, the scientists cut the xenobots and watched what happened. "We sliced the robot almost in half and it stitches itself back up and keeps going," says Bongard. "And this is something you can't do with typical machines."

Professor Josh Bongard

University of Vermont professor Josh Bongard.

(Photo: Joshua Brown)

Cracking the Code

Both Levin and Bongard say the potential of what they've been learning about how cells communicate and connect extends deep into both computational science and our understanding of life. "The big question in biology is to understand the algorithms that determine form and function," says Levin. "The genome encodes proteins, but transformative applications await our discovery of how that hardware enables cells to cooperate toward making functional anatomies under very different conditions."

To make an organism develop and function, there is a lot of information sharing and cooperation—organic computation—going on in and between cells all the time, not just within neurons. These emergent and geometric properties are shaped by bioelectric, biochemical, and biomechanical processes, "that run on DNA-specified hardware," Levin says, "and these processes are reconfigurable, enabling novel living forms."

The scientists see the work presented in their new PNAS study—"A scalable pipeline for designing reconfigurable organisms,"—as one step in applying insights about this bioelectric code to both biology and computer science. "What actually determines the anatomy towards which cells cooperate?" Levin asks. "You look at the cells we've been building our xenobots with, and, genomically, they're frogs. It's 100% frog DNA—but these are not frogs. Then you ask, well, what else are these cells capable of building?"

"As we've shown, these frog cells can be coaxed to make interesting living forms that are completely different from what their default anatomy would be," says Levin. He and the other scientists in the UVM and Tufts team—with support from DARPA's Lifelong Learning Machines program and the National Science Foundation—believe that building the xenobots is a small step toward cracking what he calls the "morphogenetic code," providing a deeper view of the overall way organisms are organized—and how they compute and store information based on their histories and environment.

Future Shocks

Many people worry about the implications of rapid technological change and complex biological manipulations. "That fear is not unreasonable," Levin says. "When we start to mess around with complex systems that we don't understand, we're going to get unintended consequences." A lot of complex systems, like an ant colony, begin with a simple unit—an ant—from which it would be impossible to predict the shape of their colony or how they can build bridges over water with their interlinked bodies.

"If humanity is going to survive into the future, we need to better understand how complex properties, somehow, emerge from simple rules," says Levin. Much of science is focused on "controlling the low-level rules. We also need to understand the high-level rules," he says. "If you wanted an anthill with two chimneys instead of one, how do you modify the ants? We'd have no idea."

"I think it's an absolute necessity for society going forward to get a better handle on systems where the outcome is very complex," Levin says. "A first step towards doing that is to explore: how do living systems decide what an overall behavior should be and how do we manipulate the pieces to get the behaviors we want?"

In other words, "this study is a direct contribution to getting a handle on what people are afraid of, which is unintended consequences," Levin says—whether in the rapid arrival of self-driving cars, changing gene drives to wipe out whole lineages of viruses, or the many other complex and autonomous systems that will increasingly shape the human experience.

"There's all of this innate creativity in life," says UVM's Josh Bongard. "We want to understand that more deeply—and how we can direct and push it toward new forms."

{ https://www.uvm.edu/ }

15-01-2020 om 01:01 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:SF-snufjes }, Robotics and A.I. Artificiel Intelligence ( E, F en NL )

Wetenschappers ontwikkelen nieuwe levensvorm: kikker wordt ‘levende robot’ - HLN.be

Bron: The University of Vermont

WETENSCHAP Wetenschappers zijn er naar eigen zeggen in geslaagd om een nieuwe levensvorm te creëren. Het gaat om een levend, programmeerbaar organisme. Ze vertrokken van cellen van een kikkerembryo en wijzigden die zodat ze een controleerbare machine werden. “Het is geen bestaande diersoort en ook geen traditionele robot”, aldus een van de ontwikkelaars, Josh Bongard van de universiteit van Vermont in de Verenigde Staten. “Wel de allereerste ‘xenobot’ of ‘levende robot’.”

Het zou de allereerste keer zijn dat de mens erin slaagt om van scratch een volledig biologische machine te maken. Dat schrijven de ontdekkers alvast in een nieuwe paper, die maandag gepubliceerd werd in het wetenschappelijk tijdschrift Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Supercomputer

De nieuwe organismen werden ontworpen door een supercomputer en gebouwd door biologen. De supercomputer creëerde duizenden mogelijke ontwerpen voor de nieuwe levensvorm, door middel van een virtuele versie van de evolutie. De computer werd bijvoorbeeld gevraagd om iets te creëren dat in een bepaalde richting bewoog en dan probeerde hij op ontelbare manieren cellen te combineren tot die precies deden wat er gevraagd werd. Dat resulteerde in een theoretisch ontwerp.

Vervolgens ging een microchirurg aan de slag om het ontwerp in de praktijk te brengen. Hij nam stamcellen van de embryo’s van Afrikaanse kikkers, maakte er kweken van en sneed die met ultra-kleine toestellen in stukken, om die vervolgens opnieuw in elkaar te zetten op de manier die de supercomputer had aangegeven. Zo werd een compleet nieuwe levensvorm gecreëerd, die daarvóór niet bestond in de natuur. (lees hieronder verder)

Sam Kriegman, UVM Links de blauwdruk van de supercomputer, rechts het organisme dat gemaakt werd uit huidcellen (groen) en hartcellen (rood) van kikkers.

Met succes, zo bleek. De ‘levende robots’ werkten zoals verwacht. Ze konden uit zichzelf bewegen, deden dat op een coherente manier en begonnen hun omgeving te verkennen. Volgens de onderzoekers slaagden de xenobots er ook in om spontaan samen korrels rond te duwen.

Ze zouden zichzelf ook kunnen ‘genezen’ als ze beschadigd zijn. En als ze sterven, zouden ze volledig biologisch afbreekbaar zijn.

Toepassingen

De toepassingen zijn heel divers, zo klinkt het in de paper. De xenobots zouden geneesmiddelen door het lichaam van een patiënt kunnen transporteren of aders kunnen vrijmaken, maar evengoed radioactieve besmetting kunnen opsporen of de oceanen kunnen opruimen. (lees hieronder verder)

Sam Kriegman, UVM

Ze zijn ontwikkeld in het Center for Regenerative and Developmental Biology aan de Tufts University bij Boston. De wetenschap verandert al langer de manier waarop organismen werken, maar het is pas de jongste jaren dat er op dat vlak grote sprongen gemaakt werden.

Ethische vragen

De wetenschappers denken overigens dat ze nog complexere xenobots kunnen maken. Zo zouden ze hen kunnen uitrusten met een buidel, zodat ze iets kunnen transporteren.

Er rijzen echter al meteen ethische vragen bij het onderzoek. De wetenschappers geven overigens zelf toe dat er gevaar schuilt in de ontdekking. Als de systemen zodanig complex zouden worden dat de mens niet meer zou kunnen voorspellen hoe de nieuwe organismen zich zouden gaan gedragen. Om maar te zwijgen over de mogelijkheid dat de technologie gebruikt zou worden voor slechte doeleinden.

Joshua Bongard van de universiteit van Vermont in de Verenigde Staten.

Josh Brown Joshua Bongard van de universiteit van Vermont in de Verenigde Staten.

Andere videos over robots , geselecteerd door peter2011

15-01-2020 om 00:53 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:HLN.be - Het Laatste Nieuws ( NL)

Astronomen pikken mysterieus radiosignaal op in naburig sterrenstelsel - HLN.be

Bron: Belga, Orbiter.ch Spacenews

Shutterstock

WETENSCHAP In een naburig sterrenstelsel hebben astronomen een mysterieus radiosignaal ontdekt, zo heeft de gezaghebbende blog Orbiter.ch Spacenews vandaag op gezag van het wetenschappelijke vakblad Nature gemeld.

Astronomen van de University of British Columbia in Vancouver hebben met de Canadese CHIME-radiotelescoop acht repetitieve radiosignalen opgepikt. Ze ontdekten de signalen in een spiraalvormig sterrenstelsel dat nauwelijks 500 miljoen lichtjaar van ons verwijderd is. Deze ontdekking werd vorige week voorgesteld tijdens een bijeenkomst van het American Astronomical Society in Seattle.

Meer energie dan vijfhonderd miljoen zonnen

De bewuste radiosignalen, in het jargon “Fast Radio Burst” (FRB), zijn volgens de Zwitserse blog één van de vreemdste fenomenen in het universum. Het zijn snelle uitbarstingen die slechts enkele milliseconden duren maar meer energie opwekken dan vijfhonderd miljoen zonnen. Ze werden voor het eerst ontdekt in 2007. Vanwaar ze afkomstig zijn is tot op vandaag een mysterie, schrijft de Zwitserse blog.

Hoewel FRB’s al herhaaldelijk zijn waargenomen, is dit nog maar de tweede keer dat een repetitief signaal werd waargenomen. Bovendien werden dergelijke radiogolven nooit eerder waargenomen zo dicht bij ons. De vorige waarneming dateert van 2012 en kwam van een sterrenstelsel op twee en een half miljard lichtjaar van ons.

15-01-2020 om 00:09 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:HLN.be - Het Laatste Nieuws ( NL)

14-01-2020

Government Radically Alters ‘Tic Tac’ UFO Intel Blames “Exceptionally Grave Damage” to National Security!

Here’s the Video with the full story! Don’t forget to subscribe and share!

It was on board the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group in November of 2004 that this story began. Some of the crew watched as a live feed came in from one of two F/A-18F Super Hornet locked onto what appeared to be “an elongated egg or a ‘Tic Tac’ shape” rocketing from 60,000 feet down to approximately 50 feet in a matter of seconds. The unidentified flying object has the pilot scream out in excitement as his Fast forward a few years to 2017 and a New York Times article titled: Glowing Auras and ‘Black Money’: The Pentagon’s Mysterious U.F.O. Program…the video was now made public and the world had the strongest evidence of UFO’s it had ever seen. Well, that was then, today it appears we weren’t told the entire story…there’s more information and they just confirmed its existence and denied its release. Here what we know and why it begs the question…what are they hiding!?

Watch the broadcast for all the information and thank you again for helping to spread the word! As always, PLEASE HELP SHARE wherever you can; this broadcast truly deserves the awareness you help to assure it gets! Your thumbs up and comments are always appreciated!!

source : https://justusaknight.com/

14-01-2020 om 23:33 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:UFOs , UAPs , USOS

The Robots Are Coming! They Are Going to Take Over Millions of Jobs!

By Michael Synder / Economic Collapse

When we get to a point where literally just about everything can be done more cheaply and more efficiently by robots, the elite won’t have any use for the rest of us at all. For most of human history, the wealthy have needed the poor to do the work that is necessary to run their businesses and make them even wealthier. In this day and age we like to call ourselves “employees”, but in reality we are their servants. Some of us may be more well paid than others, but the vast majority of us are expending our best years serving their enterprises so that we can pay the bills. Unfortunately, that paradigm is rapidly changing, and many of the jobs that humans are doing today will be done by robots in the not too distant future. In fact, millions of human workers have already been displaced, and as you will see below experts are warning that the job losses are likely to greatly accelerate in the years to come.

Competition with technology is one of the reasons why wage growth has been so stagnant over the past couple of decades. The only way it makes sense for an employer to hire you is if you can do a job less expensively than some form of technology can do it.

As a result, close to two-thirds of the jobs that have been created in the United States over the past couple of decades have been low wage jobs, and the middle class is being steadily hollowed out.

But as robots continue to become cheaper and more efficient, even our lowest paying jobs will be vanishing in enormous numbers.

For example, it is being reported that executives at Walmart plan to greatly increase the size of their “robot army”…

Walmart Inc.’s robot army is growing. The world’s largest retailer will add shelf-scanning robots to 650 more U.S. stores by the end of the summer, bringing its fleet to 1,000. The six-foot-tall Bossa Nova devices, equipped with 15 cameras each, roam aisles and send alerts to store employees’ handheld devices when items are out of stock, helping to solve a vexing problem that costs retailers nearly a trillion dollars annually, according to researcher IHL Group.

In addition to scanning shelves, Walmart already has a whole host of robots doing such things as scrubbing floors, unloading trucks and gathering grocery orders…

The new robots, designed by San Francisco-based Bossa Nova Robotics Inc., join the ranks of Walmart’s increasingly automated workforce which also includes devices to scrub floors, unload trucks and gather online-grocery orders.

Meanwhile, Walmart has been testing “a new employee structure” which is intended to “cut down the size of its store management staff”…

Walmart is testing out a new employee structure within its stores in an attempt to cut down the size of its store management staff.

The nation’s biggest employer is looking to see if it can have fewer midlevel store managers overseeing workers, with these managers seeing both their responsibilities and their pay increase.

So the employees that survive will get a “pay increase” to go with a huge increase in responsibility, but what about all the others that are having their jobs eliminated?

Don’t worry, because in an interview about this new initiative one Walmart executive assured us that their employees “like smaller teams”…

“Associates like smaller teams, and they like having a connection with a leader. They want something they can own and to know if they are winning or losing every day. And today that does not always happen,” Drew Holler, U.S. senior vice president of associate experience, said in an interview.

Today, Wal-Mart is the largest employer in the United States by a wide margin.

But these coming changes will ultimately mean a lot more robot workers and a lot less human workers.

Of course countless other heartless corporations are implementing similar measures. And considering the fact that one recent survey found that 97 percent of U.S. CFOs believe that a recession is coming in 2020, we are likely to see a “thinning of the ranks” in company after company as this year rolls along.

Sadly, even if there was no economic downturn coming we would continue to lose jobs to robots. According to one study, a whopping 45 percent of our current jobs “can be automated”…

Here’s the truth: Robots are already starting to take jobs from hourly human workers, and it’s going to continue. Research from McKinsey found that 45% of current jobs can be automated. We need to stop avoiding the situation and create real solutions to help displaced workers.

In this day and age, no worker is safe.

I know someone that gave his heart and soul to a big corporation for many years, and then one day he was called into the office when he arrived for work and he was out of a job by lunch.

He hadn’t done anything wrong at all. It is just that his heartless corporate bosses had decided to eliminate his position throughout the entire company.

If you think that they actually care about you, then you are just fooling yourself.

Unfortunately, the job losses are just going to keep accelerating. In fact, it is being projected that approximately 20 million manufacturing jobs around the globe could be taken over by robots by the year 2030…

Robots could take over 20 million manufacturing jobs around the world by 2030, economists claimed Wednesday.

According to a new study from Oxford Economics, within the next 11 years there could be 14 million robots put to work in China alone.

And as wealthy executives lay off low wage workers in staggering numbers, that will make the growing gap between the rich and the poor even worse…

“As a result of robotization, tens of millions of jobs will be lost, especially in poorer local economies that rely on lower-skilled workers. This will therefore translate to an increase in income inequality,” the study’s authors said.

The good news is that the full extent of this ominous scenario is not likely to completely play out. The bad news is that this is because our society is rapidly moving toward complete and utter collapse.

I wish that there was an easy solution to this growing problem.

In a free market system, should anyone be trying to mandate that employers must hire human workers?

But if millions upon millions of men and women can’t feed their families because they don’t have jobs, that will create the sort of social nightmare that we cannot even imagine right now.

This is something that all of the 2020 presidential candidates should be talking about, because this is a crisis that is spinning out of control, and it is getting worse with each passing day.

About the Author: I am a voice crying out for change in a society that generally seems content to stay asleep. My name is Michael Snyder and I am the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. I have written four books that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned) By purchasing those books you help to support my work. I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but due to government regulations I need those that republish my articles to include this “About the Author” section with each article. In order to comply with those government regulations, I need to tell you that the controversial opinions in this article are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the websites where my work is republished. This article may contain opinions on political matters, but it is not intended to promote the candidacy of any particular political candidate. The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions. Those responding to this article by making comments are solely responsible for their viewpoints, and those viewpoints do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of Michael Snyder or the operators of the websites where my work is republished. I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/the-robots-are-coming-and-they-are-going-to-take-over-millions-of-jobs

14-01-2020 om 23:24 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:SF-snufjes }, Robotics and A.I. Artificiel Intelligence ( E, F en NL )

America's Stonehenge - The Stone Ruins That Are Still a Mystery to Everyone

COAST TO COAST AM -

Former airline pilot Dennis Stone, detailed the mystery of America’s Stonehenge, odd stone ruins in Southern New Hampshire, on the 110-acre plot of land his father, Robert Stone, bought back in the 1950s.

Some of the ruins serve a similar astronomical purpose as Stonehenge in the UK, and other megalithic sites in Europe, acting as a kind of calendar/clock, he explained. Formerly known as “Mystery Hill,” the main site of America’s Stonehenge is about one acre of stone ruins, which align with the horizon, and are open for public viewing.

America’s Stonehenge is an archaeological site consisting of a number of large rocks and stone structures scattered around roughly 30 acres within the town of Salem, New Hampshire, in the United States.

14-01-2020 om 23:07 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ARCHEOLOGIE ( E, Nl, Fr )

The 20 big questions in science

From the nature of the universe (that's if there is only one) to the purpose of dreams, there are lots of things we still don't know – but we might do soon. A new book seeks some answers

Hayley Birch, Colin Stuart and Mun Keat Looi

What's at the bottom of a black hole? See question 17.

Photograph: Alamy

1. What is the universe made of?

Astronomers face an embarrassing conundrum: they don’t know what 95% of the universe is made of. Atoms, which form everything we see around us, only account for a measly 5%. Over the past 80 years it has become clear that the substantial remainder is comprised of two shadowy entities – dark matter and dark energy. The former, first discovered in 1933, acts as an invisible glue, binding galaxies and galaxy clusters together. Unveiled in 1998, the latter is pushing the universe’s expansion to ever greater speeds. Astronomers are closing in on the true identities of these unseen interlopers.

2. How did life begin?

Four billion years ago, something started stirring in the primordial soup. A few simple chemicals got together and made biology – the first molecules capable of replicating themselves appeared. We humans are linked by evolution to those early biological molecules. But how did the basic chemicals present on early Earth spontaneously arrange themselves into something resembling life? How did we get DNA? What did the first cells look like? More than half a century after the chemist Stanley Miller proposed his “primordial soup” theory, we still can’t agree about what happened. Some say life began in hot pools near volcanoes, others that it was kick-started by meteorites hitting the sea.

3. Are we alone in the universe?

Perhaps not. Astronomers have been scouring the universe for places where water worlds might have given rise to life, from Europa and Mars in our solar system to planets many light years away. Radio telescopes have been eavesdropping on the heavens and in 1977 a signal bearing the potential hallmarks of an alien message was heard. Astronomers are now able to scan the atmospheres of alien worlds for oxygen and water. The next few decades will be an exciting time to be an alien hunter with up to 60bn potentially habitable planets in our Milky Way alone.

4. What makes us human?

Just looking at your DNA won’t tell you – the human genome is 99% identical to a chimpanzee’s and, for that matter, 50% to a banana’s. We do, however, have bigger brains than most animals – not the biggest, but packed with three times as many neurons as a gorilla (86bn to be exact). A lot of the things we once thought distinguishing about us – language, tool-use, recognising yourself in the mirror – are seen in other animals. Perhaps it’s our culture – and its subsequent effect on our genes (and vice versa) – that makes the difference. Scientists think that cooking and our mastery of fire may have helped us gain big brains. But it’s possible that our capacity for co-operation and skills trade is what really makes this a planet of humans and not apes.

5. What is consciousness?

We’re still not really sure. We do know that it’s to do with different brain regions networked together rather than a single part of the brain. The thinking goes that if we figure out which bits of the brain are involved and how the neural circuitry works, we’ll figure out how consciousness emerges, something that artificial intelligence and attempts to build a brain neuron by neuron may help with. The harder, more philosophical, question is why anything should be conscious in the first place. A good suggestion is that by integrating and processing lots of information, as well as focusing and blocking out rather than reacting to the sensory inputs bombarding us, we can distinguish between what’s real and what’s not and imagine multiple future scenarios that help us adapt and survive.

6. Why do we dream?

We spend around a third of our lives sleeping. Considering how much time we spend doing it, you might think we’d know everything about it. But scientists are still searching for a complete explanation of why we sleep and dream. Subscribers to Sigmund Freud’s views believed dreams were expressions of unfulfilled wishes – often sexual – while others wonder whether dreams are anything but the random firings of a sleeping brain. Animal studies and advances in brain imaging have led us to a more complex understanding that suggests dreaming could play a role in memory, learning and emotions. Rats, for example, have been shown to replay their waking experiences in dreams, apparently helping them to solve complex tasks such as navigating mazes.

7. Why is there stuff?

You really shouldn’t be here. The “stuff” you’re made of is matter, which has a counterpart called antimatter differing only in electrical charge. When they meet, both disappear in a flash of energy. Our best theories suggest that the big bang created equal amounts of the two, meaning all matter should have since encountered its antimatter counterpart, scuppering them both and leaving the universe awash with only energy. Clearly nature has a subtle bias for matter otherwise you wouldn’t exist. Researchers are sifting data from experiments like the Large Hadron Collider trying to understand why, with supersymmetry and neutrinos the two leading contenders.

8. Are there other universes?

Our universe is a very unlikely place. Alter some of its settings even slightly and life as we know it becomes impossible. In an attempt to unravel this “fine-tuning” problem, physicists are increasingly turning to the notion of other universes. If there is an infinite number of them in a “multiverse” then every combination of settings would be played out somewhere and, of course, you find yourself in the universe where you are able to exist. It may sound crazy, but evidence from cosmology and quantum physics is pointing in that direction.

9. Where do we put all the carbon?

For the past couple of hundred years, we’ve been filling the atmosphere with carbon dioxide – unleashing it by burning fossil fuels that once locked away carbon below the Earth’s surface. Now we have to put all that carbon back, or risk the consequences of a warming climate. But how do we do it? One idea is to bury it in old oil and gas fields. Another is to hide it away at the bottom of the sea. But we don’t know how long it will stay there, or what the risks might be. Meanwhile, we have to protect natural, long-lasting stores of carbon, such as forests and peat bogs, and start making energy in a way that doesn’t belch out even more.

10. How do we get more energy from the sun?

Dwindling supplies of fossil fuels mean we’re in need of a new way to power our planet. Our nearest star offers more than one possible solution. We’re already harnessing the sun’s energy to produce solar power. Another idea is to use the energy in sunlight to split water into its component parts: oxygen, and hydrogen, which could provide a clean fuel for cars of the future. Scientists are also working on an energy solution that depends on recreating the processes going on inside stars themselves – they’re building a nuclear fusion machine. The hope is that these solutions can meet our energy needs.

11. What’s so weird about prime numbers?

The fact you can shop safely on the internet is thanks to prime numbers – those digits that can only be divided by themselves and one. Public key encryption – the heartbeat of internet commerce – uses prime numbers to fashion keys capable of locking away your sensitive information from prying eyes. And yet, despite their fundamental importance to our everyday lives, the primes remain an enigma. An apparent pattern within them – the Riemann hypothesis – has tantalised some of the brightest minds in mathematics for centuries. However, as yet, no one has been able to tame their weirdness. Doing so might just break the internet.

12. How do we beat bacteria?

science 12

Antibiotics are one of the miracles of modern medicine. Sir Alexander Fleming’s Nobel prize-winning discovery led to medicines that fought some of the deadliest diseases and made surgery, transplants and chemotherapy possible. Yet this legacy is in danger – in Europe around 25,000 people die each year of multidrug-resistant bacteria. Our drug pipeline has been sputtering for decades and we’ve been making the problem worse through overprescription and misuse of antibiotics – an estimated 80% of US antibiotics goes to boosting farm animal growth. Thankfully, the advent of DNA sequencing is helping us discover antibiotics we never knew bacteria could produce. Alongside innovative, if gross-sounding, methods such as transplanting “good” bacteria from fecal matter, and the search for new bacteria deep in the oceans, we may yet keep abreast in this arms race with organisms 3bn years our senior.

13. Can computers keep getting faster?

Our tablets and smartphones are mini-computers that contain more computing power than astronauts took to the moon in 1969. But if we want to keep on increasing the amount of computing power we carry around in our pockets, how are we going to do it? There are only so many components you can cram on to a computer chip. Has the limit been reached, or is there another way to make a computer? Scientists are considering new materials, such as atomically thin carbon – graphene – as well as new systems, such as quantum computing.

14. Will we ever cure cancer?

The short answer is no. Not a single disease, but a loose group of many hundreds of diseases, cancer has been around since the dinosaurs and, being caused by haywire genes, the risk is hardwired into all of us. The longer we live, the more likely something might go wrong, in any number of ways. For cancer is a living thing – ever-evolving to survive. Yet though incredibly complicated, through genetics we’re learning more and more about what causes it, how it spreads and getting better at treating and preventing it. And know this: up to half of all cancers – 3.7m a year – are preventable; quit smoking, drink and eat moderately, stay active, and avoid prolonged exposure to the midday sun.

15. When can I have a robot butler?

science 15

Robots can already serve drinks and carry suitcases. Modern robotics can offer us a “staff” of individually specialised robots: they ready your Amazon orders for delivery, milk your cows, sort your email and ferry you between airport terminals. But a truly “intelligent” robot requires us to crack artificial intelligence. The real question is whether you’d leave a robotic butler alone in the house with your granny. And with Japan aiming to have robotic aides caring for its elderly by 2025, we’re thinking hard about it now.

16. What’s at the bottom of the ocean?

Ninety-five per cent of the ocean is unexplored. What’s down there? In 1960, Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard travelled seven miles down, to the deepest part of the ocean, in search of answers. Their voyage pushed the boundaries of human endeavour but gave them only a glimpse of life on the seafloor. It’s so difficult getting to the bottom of the ocean that for the most part we have to resort to sending unmanned vehicles as scouts. The discoveries we’ve made so far – from bizarre fish such as the barreleye, with its transparent head, to a potential treatment for Alzheimer’s made by crustaceans – are a tiny fraction of the strange world hidden below the waves.

17. What’s at the bottom of a black hole?

science 17

It’s a question we don’t yet have the tools to answer. Einstein’s general relativity says that when a black hole is created by a dying, collapsing massive star, it continues caving in until it forms an infinitely small, infinitely dense point called a singularity. But on such scales quantum physics probably has something to say too. Except that general relativity and quantum physics have never been the happiest of bedfellows – for decades they have withstood all attempts to unify them. However, a recent idea – called M-Theory – may one day explain the unseen centre of one of the universe’s most extreme creations.

18. Can we live for ever?

We live in an amazing time: we’re starting to think of “ageing” not as a fact of life, but a disease that can be treated and possibly prevented, or at least put off for a very long time. Our knowledge of what causes us to age – and what allows some animals to live longer than others – is expanding rapidly. And though we haven’t quite worked out all the details, the clues we are gathering about DNA damage, the balance of ageing, metabolism and reproductive fitness, plus the genes that regulate this, are filling out a bigger picture, potentially leading to drug treatments. But the real question is not how we’re going to live longer but how we are going to live well longer. And since many diseases, such as diabetes and cancer, are diseases of ageing, treating ageing itself could be the key.

19. How do we solve the population problem?

The number of people on our planet has doubled to more than 7 billion since the 1960s and it is expected that by 2050 there will be at least 9 billion of us. Where are we all going to live and how are we going to make enough food and fuel for our ever-growing population? Maybe we can ship everyone off to Mars or start building apartment blocks underground. We could even start feeding ourselves with lab-grown meat. These may sound like sci-fi solutions, but we might have to start taking them more seriously.

20. Is time travel possible?

Time travellers already walk among us. Thanks to Einstein’s theory of special relativity, astronauts orbiting on the International Space Station experience time ticking more slowly. At that speed the effect is minuscule, but ramp up the velocity and the effect means that one day humans might travel thousands of years into the future. Nature seems to be less fond of people going the other way and returning to the past, however some physicists have concocted an elaborate blueprint for a way to do it using wormholes and spaceships. It could even be used to hand yourself a present on Christmas Day, or answer some of the many questions that surround the universe’s great unknowns.

The Big Questions in Science: The Quest to Solve the Great Unknowns is published by Andre Deutsch. To buy a copy for £11.99 with free UK p&p, go to guardianbookshop.co.uk.

{ https://www.theguardian.com/international }

14-01-2020 om 22:36 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:Diversen (Eng, NL en Fr)

Alien Face Solves Greatest Question Known To Science, UFO Sighting News.

Alien Face Solves Greatest Question Known To Science, UFO Sighting News.

Date of discovery: Jan 14, 2019

Location of discovery: Mars

Source photo:

http://www.gigapan.com/gigapans/181617

I found this amazing side view of a face in a Mars gigapan photo today. The detail is fantastic and the ear, nose, eye and forehead all have great detail to the carving. Placing such an important facial sculpture on the side of a hill makes me think this might be some diety or god of theirs. That this person is suppose to be over looking a long distance from the top of the hill to watch over everyone. However it looks like it has fallen due to time, earthquakes and wind.

Why search for faces? It shows us who they were, what they looked like, who they admired, if there is male/female of the species...and much more. Its the deepest most complex unanswered question of science. One carving in stone of an alien face solves this greatest question of science.

As Mangnus Saint Albertus states: “Do there exist many worlds, or is there but a single world? This is one of the most noble and exalted questions in the study of Nature.”

Scott C. Waring

14-01-2020 om 21:52 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )

Alien creature clearly visible inside Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon

Aproject from UAPLeaks.

The 1979 Kaikoura UAP encounter probably is the most documented one.

The Argossy airplane was followed by multiple UAP (5 to be exact!) but what Mr. Crocket, the cameraman did not know is that each time he filmed a UAP it was a different one that approached the airplane.

In this video we will show you the second UAP which we have named the Kaikoura Apple.

Why we named this UAP "apple" will become clear once you have seen this presentation but ... that is not all as for the first time in human history we not only managed to enhance a UAP but also clearly revealed the "ALIEN" in the UAP.

The UAP is surrounded by a layer, completely indiscernible to human eyesight but visible after utilizing the Lucis algorithm. Vertical lines of which we assume they belong to some kind of electro-magnetic field (Note: scanlines are horizontal and never vertical!) run entirely over the UAP but they stop exactly at the edges.

This field scatters light coming from the craft and it makes everything inside look distorted and hazy. We pulled the original image through two proprietary techniques capable of analyzing- and visualizing gravitational effects (not gravity itself) and we did not see one controller inside the UAP but we saw left and right, of the controller in the center, multiple copies of the same controller. We strongly believe that this is caused by gravitational lensing.

We have created hundreds of images and only those of the highest quality were stacked and used for further analysis and post-processing.

We were always careful during processing but could not prevent loss in detail. Due to the nature of the algorithms it was impossible to maintain the very fine structure of the original image and simultaneously retrieve full color.

The processed image therefore may give the viewer the impression of a less natural appearance. Perhaps that one day we shall find a better or different way to penetrate this layer but for the moment and in view of currently available technology this was the best if not the only solution.

After three years of testing we finally succeeded in fully revealing the alien controller and what we all witnessed knocked our socks off.

The first part of this video "briefly" describes the major technological challenges we faced trying to enhance this UAP.

The second part contains the first enhancements revealing the controller and the last part shows the final result.

UAPLeaks advises:

We must warn you! We strongly advise viewer discretion!

The ALIEN is "clearly visible "but for some of you it may take some time to recognize it. This creature is something you have never seen before and your brain therefore will not immediately be able to identify the shape.

When you watch the images try not to think of an alien as you may have seen it in the movies.
Take at least 100 cm distance from the monitor as putting your nose against the screen will have a negative effect because of the noise.
By stepping back from the monitor your brain will filter the noise in the image and the entire picture will become clearer and also gamut, borders between colors will be more distinct
Look at the colors, follow contours and see where they connect.
Try to find any shapes which may look familiar.

14-01-2020 om 21:33 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

VIDEO: Daytime UFO over Perth, Australia

This daytime footage of a bright unidentified flying saucer in the sky above Perth in Australia. This was taken on 25th December 2019.

Witness report:

My friend tells me she spotted 4 light balls evenly spaced heading directly West which is leaving the land here and heading out over the ocean. The light balls were spotted about a week ago.

I got home after lunch the same day and noticed a right angle cloud in the sky above my house. It was interesting. At that moment i could here a plane coming from over the ocean towards my house heading East. It began spraying a substance. The thick and nasty trail was sprayed at low altitude.

The plane had passed and that is when i could see what appeared to be a round ball object floating above. To the naked eye it appeared shiny and round. It would change from black to shiny in appearance.

I ran inside and grabbed my Samsung phone.

This object was definitely under control or in control. I feel it could see that i was recording and came over to show off to the camera before slowly moving West back over the ocean.

The main reason for this sighting was to allow the truth to grow. We have ideas of things we learn but until we witness them for ourselves we will not usually believe in.

The day has come. I share with you all.

14-01-2020 om 21:13 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

Green Circular UFO Spotted Over Soviet Union

soviet-ufo

A recently released CIA report provides light on an apparent UFO encounter that occurred at the height of the Cold War in 1973 in Kazakhstan, back when the country was part of the Soviet Union.

The redacted version of the document was first made public in 1978 and has now been released on The Black Vault website. The declassified report mentions how the witness, identified as “Source” in the paper, stepped outside for some air and noticed a bright green circular UFO hovering above the cloud level.

Citing the witness’ observations, the document states that within 10 to 15 seconds of observation, the circle widened, and within a short time, several green concentric circles formed around the object or mass. The coloring vanished within minutes. There was no sound associated with the strange event.

According to Black Vault, the sighting happened around the Sary Shagan Weapons Testing Range that was reportedly used by the USSR back then to secretly test experimental missiles and laser weapon systems using powerful antennas.

ufo-sightings-missile-cia-documents

A parade of missiles passes a Lenin poster in Moscow's Red Square in November 1978 druing the 61st anniversary celebration of the Russian Revolution.

PHOTO BY KEYSTONE/GETTY IMAGES

John Greenewald, the founder of the Black Vault, compared the encounter with the USS Nimitz UFO incident that took place in 2004. He said that it is very much the same as the context today with threats to military facilities. The American Navy has gone on record saying it is a concern whatever this is.

14-01-2020 om 20:57 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

A Mars sample-return mission is coming. Scientists want the public to know what to expect.

By Mike Wall

Getting people used to the idea may take a while.

Artist's illustration of NASA's planned Mars Ascent Vehicle launching samples off the surface of the Red Planet.

(Image: © NASA/JPL-Caltch)

The first pristine pieces of Mars won't be coming down to Earth for at least another decade, but the time to start preparing society for the epic arrival is now, scientists say.

NASA's 2020 Mars rover is scheduled to launch in July of this year and land inside the Red Planet's 28-mile-wide (45 kilometers) Jezero Crater next February. The six-wheeled robot will do a variety of work once it gets there, but its headline task is hunting for signs of ancient Mars life.

Mars 2020 will do this on the ground in Jezero, which hosted a lake and a river delta billions of years ago. The rover will also collect and cache promising samples for eventual return to Earth, where scientists in well-equipped labs around the world can scrutinize them in exacting detail for any evidence of Martian organisms.

The Search for Life on Mars (A Photo Timeline)

NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) will work together to get those samples here. The current plan, which is not yet official, envisions two key launches in 2026. These will send ESA's Earth Return Orbiter (ERO) and NASA's Sample Retrieval Lander (SRL) mission toward the Red Planet.

ERO will make its way to Mars orbit, whereas SRL will drop a stationary lander, the ESA-provided Sample Fetch Rover (SFR), and a small rocket called the Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV) near the Mars 2020 landing site.

The SFR will pick up the cached Mars 2020 samples, which will be encased in sealed tubes, and haul them back to the MAV. Mars 2020 may store some of its samples on its body; if that's the case, the NASA rover could roll over to the MAV and make a deposit as well.

The MAV will then launch into Mars orbit, where it will deploy the container harboring the samples. The ERO will pluck this precious cargo out of the void and haul it back toward Earth, jettisoning the container once our planet is in the crosshairs. The samples will land here in 2031, if all goes according to this preliminary plan.

This touchdown will be a momentous occasion. Engineers will glory in the tremendous technological achievement — we've returned samples from the moon, but that's quite a bit closer to Earth — and scientists will revel in the chance to learn a great deal about ancient Mars and, perhaps, find out whether Earth life is alone in the universe.

(Researchers have examined Mars material before: meteorites blasted off the Red Planet by asteroid or comet strikes that ended up landing here on Earth. But those Mars rocks aren't pristine — they endured trips through two planetary atmospheres and lots of time in deep space — and they weren't specially chosen for their potential to host evidence of life.)

The public will doubtless be excited, too. But if the arrival catches folks off guard, there will probably be considerable fear, anxiety and confusion as well, said Sheri Klug Boonstra of Arizona State University's Mars Space Flight Facility. So, the members of the international Mars sample-return team need to start educating and engaging laypeople about the effort now, said Klug Boonstra, a science-education specialist who's the principal investigator of NASA's Lucy Student Pipeline and Competency Enabler Program.

Related: The Boldest Mars Missions in History

"The public has to be a major part of the equation," she told Space.com last month at the annual fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, where she gave a presentation on this very topic.

For example, some people will likely worry that the samples could harbor some sort of infectious microbe that could get loose and unleash a deadly plague on humanity. The sample-return team has thought about this remote possibility, of course, and is doing its best to ensure it could never come to pass.

After arriving on Earth, the Mars material will first be vetted at a specially constructed Sample Receiving Facility, which will be designed to prevent contamination in both directions: Nothing unwanted can get in to taint the samples, and nothing from the samples can get out into the wider world. The SRF hasn't been built; indeed, a site for it hasn't even been chosen yet. But the sample-return project can use existing Biosafety Level 4 labs — the most secure ones, which keep nasty viruses such as Ebola from spilling out — as a baseline, team member Tim Haltigin of the Canadian Space Agency told Space.com at the AGU meeting.

The public needs to know that such safety measures will be taken, Klug Boonstra said. And it's also important to get across the potential scientific bounty represented by those little tubes of Mars material, she added.

The sample-return team is still working out what engagement strategies to employ. Klug Boonstra said the project would like to organize some opt-in focus groups to learn which tacks to take — for example, if activities in schools would be particularly useful in getting the word out.

And that needs to start happening soon, she stressed. It could well take a decade to get Mars sample return fully socialized, especially since our society seems to be getting less science-literate and more sound-bite-driven.

"We don't want to be in the position where we're just getting the information out when the public hears that the rocks are coming back," Klug Boonstra said.

Mike Wall's book about the search for alien life, "Out There" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), is out now. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.

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

14-01-2020 om 01:35 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ASTRONOMIE / RUIMTEVAART

NASA cameras capture ‘soundwaves from mystery spacecraft’ hurtling across Earth

The images taken from the International Space Station have sparked a fierce debate online, with some believing it was proof of the US government controlling the weather. Others claimed the “craft” was actually a top-secret sonic weapon

By Simon Green - Video News Editor

NASA cameras on the International Space Station have captured soundwaves travelling across Earth from a new form of “space technology”, conspiracy theorists have claimed.

The collection of baffling photos appear to show something cutting through the clouds to send miles upon miles of “ripples” trailing off behind it.

YouTube conspiracists Blake and Brett Cousins – of thirdphaseofmoon – noticed the images on NASA’s website and posted footage giving their thoughts earlier today.

“These are some of the best images I’ve seen from NASA, this is blowing me away,” Brett says.

“What we’re seeing is something ripping through the clouds that is creating a pattern that we haven’t seen before.

The 'soundwaves' caught by NASA cameras on the ISS

The 'soundwaves' caught by NASA cameras on the ISS

(Image: NASA/THIRDPHASEOFMOON)

“What kind of craft is zipping through the clouds to cut clouds and make this ripple effect?

p:nth-of-type(6)","type":"performPlaceholder","relativePos":"after"}" data-placeholder-placeholder="" data-response-start="2192.9949996992946" data-type="placeholder" style="text-align: justify;">“Whatever it is, it’s massive.”

Blake then likens the patterns to those created by soundwaves and claims the fact the ISS was over the Earth at the exact spot to capture the images was no coincidence.

“What’s amazing to me is that NASA and the ISS were in the exact spot at the right time to capture this, I think this was an experiment,” he continues.

“The ISS wanted to get some good images of this – they are super hi-res.

“Is this some sort of secret sonic weapon that we’re not aware of?”

His brother agrees, suggesting that the agency was showcasing “new space technology”.

The footage has sparked fierce debate since surfacing on YouTube.

Some viewers suggested the “craft” could be alien in origin, while others believed it looked like a “cloaked military mother ship”.

Another bizarrely claimed: “Sonic blast, just like they use to control weather.”

But others were less convinced, saying it could have been a meteor entering the Earth’s atmosphere.

Daily Star Online has previously revealed claims that the US government has forced NASA to cut its live feed in the past when UFOs appear, for the sake of "national security".

{ https://www.dailystar.co.uk/ }

14-01-2020 om 00:53 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

13-01-2020

Scientists Create

Scientists Create "Lifelike" Motile Material That's Powered By Its Own Metabolism

Cornell professor of biological and environmental engineering Dan Luo and research associate Shogo Hamada have created a DNA material capable of metabolism, in addition to self-assembly and organization.

A group of engineers at Cornell University have constructed a new type of biomaterial using artificial DNA as its base. Their approach has given the material a number of lifelike properties, such as a metabolism and the ability to self-assemble and self-organize.

The artificial metabolism is particularly interesting. The material was programmed to move and this was powered by its metabolism. As reported in Science Robotics, the material can autonomously grow and decay. It was created using DASH (DNA-based Assembly and Synthesis of Hierarchical) materials.

“We are introducing a brand-new, lifelike material concept powered by its very own artificial metabolism," senior author Dan Luo, professor of biological and environmental engineering, said in a statement. "We are not making something that’s alive, but we are creating materials that are much more lifelike than have ever been seen before.”

The material is equipped with DNA instructions that give it its metabolism and allow it to regenerate autonomously. The material began its life as nanoscale building blocks in a reaction solution. It then arranged itself into polymer strands which then formed shapes measuring just a few millimeters in length. The reaction solution was then injected with a microfluidic device, which provided a liquid flow of energy and the right building blocks for biosynthesis (the production of complex molecules in living things) to occur.

At that point, the researchers witnessed the material growing at the end facing the flow of energy and degrading at the other. This growth and degradation allowed the material to move forward against the flow in a way reminiscent of how slime molds move. The team was then able to make different sets of the material compete against each other in a race. The winners and losers were decided by the randomness of the system rather than by intrinsic advantages of particular shapes.

“The designs are still primitive, but they showed a new route to create dynamic machines from biomolecules. We are at a first step of building lifelike robots by artificial metabolism,” lead author Shogo Hamada, lecturer and research associate in Cornell's Luo lab, explained. “Even from a simple design, we were able to create sophisticated behaviors like racing. Artificial metabolism could open a new frontier in robotics.”

The team is now interested in creating a material that can respond to stimuli like light and perhaps even detect danger. The use of synthetic DNA means there's a possibility that the material will self-evolve, creating better and better versions of itself. The approach could be employed to detect pathogens, create new nanomaterials, produce proteins, and maybe even act as a base for biocomputers.

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

13-01-2020 om 23:35 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:SF-snufjes }, Robotics and A.I. Artificiel Intelligence ( E, F en NL )

Wetenschappers ontwikkelen nieuwe levensvorm: de ‘levende robot’ - HLN.be

Bron: The University of Vermont

Het zou de allereerste keer zijn dat de mens erin slaagt om van scratch een volledig biologische machine te maken. Dat schrijven de ontdekkers alvast in een nieuwe paper, die gepubliceerd werd in het wetenschappelijk tijdschrift Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Supercomputer

Links de blauwdruk van de supercomputer, rechts het organisme dat gemaakt werd uit huidcellen (groen) en hartcellen (rood) van kikkers.

Sam Kriegman, UVM Links de blauwdruk van de supercomputer, rechts het organisme dat gemaakt werd uit huidcellen (groen) en hartcellen (rood) van kikkers.

Ze zouden zichzelf ook kunnen ‘genezen’ als ze beschadigd zijn. En als ze sterven, zouden ze volledig biologisch afbreekbaar zijn.

Toepassingen

Sam Kriegman, UVM

Ethische vragen

De wetenschappers denken overigens dat ze nog complexere xenobots kunnen maken. Zo zouden ze hen kunnen uitrusten met een buidel, zodat ze iets kunnen transporteren.

Joshua Bongard van de universiteit van Vermont in de Verenigde Staten.

Josh Brown Joshua Bongard van de universiteit van Vermont in de Verenigde Staten.

13-01-2020 om 23:07 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:HLN.be - Het Laatste Nieuws ( NL)

ER GEBEUREN VREEMDE DINGEN OM ONS HEEN ( VIDEO )

ER GEBEUREN VREEMDE DINGEN OM ONS HEEN ( VIDEO )

Iedere week opnieuw gebeuren er dingen op onze aarde waar eigenlijk niemand een verklaring voor heeft.

Van ruimteschepen die aankomen en vertrekken bij vulkanen, twee zonnen en onverklaarbare lichtverschijnselen.

Er gebeuren de laatste tijd vreemde dingen met UFO onderzoekers. Zo was er onlangs Tyler van Secureteam die aan alle kanten werd bedreigd, gearresteerd en er vervolgens nog in slaagde een laatste video kort online te plaatsen, waarna hij tot op de dag van vandaag van het toneel lijkt te zijn verdwenen.

Een tweede bekende UFO onderzoeker, Scott Waring, komt nu ook met berichten dat zijn Youtubekanaal wordt aangevallen door Google, het moederbedrijf van Youtube. Misschien betreft het een technische storing, maar Scott is er heilig van overtuigd dat Google/Youtube een oorlog tegen hem is begonnen omdat ze niet willen dat de waarheid over UFO's naar buiten komt.

Er gebeuren vreemde dingen met zijn account wat hij al sinds 2007 heeft. Zo zijn alle geplaatste commentaren onder alle video's plotsklaps volledig verdwenen.

Het lijkt wederom op een signaal dat men toch hoe dan ook niet wil dat er dingen naar buiten komen over buitenaardse zaken.

Iets dat zeker ook bestempeld kan worden als buitenaards, is een zon naast onze eigen, oftewel een tweede zon. Wij hebben eerder deze week een artikel geschreven over de programmering van de bevolking waarbij op allerlei subtiele manieren deze wordt voorbereid op een tweede zon aan de hemel.

In dat kader kan je ook het volgende screenshot zien van een Nederlands televisiescherm dat wij ontvingen via een lezer (dank!) waar duidelijk een tweede zon is waar te nemen. Er wordt verder niets over gezegd voor zover wij hebben begrepen, maar ondertussen registreert het wel in de hersenen van de kijkers. Dit noemt men subliminale programmering.

xxx

En in datzelfde kader ook een hilarisch bericht van NASA waar een stagiair een nieuwe planeet ontdekt.

Een 17-jarige jongen die stage liep bij NASA heeft al op zijn derde stagedag een nieuwe planeet ontdekt. Dat heeft de Amerikaanse ruimtevaartorganisatie deze week bekendgemaakt. De planeet is TOI 1338b genoemd.

En je verzint het niet, maar deze planeet draait toevalligerwijze om twee zonnen:

xxx

Vorige maand hebben wij een uitgebreid artikel geschreven over een ondergrondse buitenaardse basis bij de Popocatepetl vulkaan in Mexico. Iets dergelijks doet zich ook voor bij een andere vulkaan in dat land, de Colima.

Daar werd afgelopen week via de webcam een onbekend vliegend object waargenomen rond deze vulkaan.

xxx

Het schijnt een object te zijn ter grootte van een auto, maar wat het is en wat het daar doet is onbekend.

Hier volgen de beelden van de webcam.

Een tenslotte een vreemd fenomeen uit een onbekend land, maar waarschijnlijk Rusland, omdat degene die de video heeft geplaatst op Facebook, de mooie naam Vladimir heeft.

Je ziet een blauwe orb links verschijnen in beeld, het beweegt zich vervolgens over de spoorlijnen, je hoort op een gegeven het knetteren van elektriciteit en vervolgens explodeert de orb helemaal rechts in beeld.

Wat het is, weet voor zover ons bekend op dit moment niemand. Er wordt gesuggereerd dat het een vorm van bolbliksem kan zijn, weer anderen noemen het een geest of een alien.

Kijk en oordeel zelf.

{ https://niburu.co/ }

13-01-2020 om 22:38 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:NineForNews. nl ( new ipv NIBURU.nl) (NL)

Bad News, Space Colonists — Martian Water May Be Gone When You Get There

If you’re planning a trip to Mars, you may want to wait until Elon Musk develops a spaceship big enough to take a load of water to the Red Planet … a LOT Of water. All of those scientific studies showing the existence of water on Mars may be negated by a new one which shows water escaping from the planet faster than expected. And no, you can’t keep filtering and drinking your own sweat and urine … no matter how big your bladder is.

“We use the Atmospheric Chemistry Suite on the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter to characterize the water distribution by altitude. Water profiles during the 2018–2019 southern spring and summer stormy seasons show that high-altitude water is preferentially supplied close to perihelion, and supersaturation occurs even when clouds are present. This implies that the potential for water to escape from Mars is higher than previously thought.”

“Implies” … that means it’s not for certain, right? That’s a good question to ask Franck Montmessin, a planetary scientist at the University of Paris-Saclay in France and co-author of the study published in the journal Science. He explains to Space.com what he and fellow researchers found using the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, which is taking atmospheric samples for a wide variety of scientific projects. Montmessin was most interested in how water was distributed at various altitudes of the Martian atmosphere during a two-year period. His team was shocked to find far more water vapor in the upper atmosphere – 10 to 100 times – than it should, based on cold temperatures.

“Unconstrained by saturation, the water vapor globally penetrates through the cloud level, regardless of the dust distribution, facilitating the loss of water to space. Because supersaturation is observed concomitantly with dust or ice particles, we conclude that condensation does not efficiently prevent water vapor from becoming supersaturated, even when seeds for condensation exist. We speculate that this may be due to rapid drops in temperature and/or rises in water concentration, which occur faster than condensation can keep up with.”

With the weak gravity of Mars, it’s no surprise that the planet has a tough time keeping evaporating water close to the surface. While condensation accumulation in the lower cloud levels was expected, the clouds can’t absorb the water vapor at the levels Mars is releasing, and that vapor is reaching the upper atmosphere unimpeded, where’s it’s broken down by ultraviolet radiation and the hydrogen and oxygen atoms take off into space. The team found the loss is particularly acute during the Martian perihelion, when the planet is closest to the sun.

That sounds a lot stronger than “implies,” doesn’t it? Unfortunately, the study doesn’t offer any alternatives, just the promise of more studies. This could help Elon Musk sell his idea of terraforming Mars by nuking the polar ice caps to put more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere that would help keep more water vapor from disappearing into space. There’s just that little matter of residual radiation for Mars colonists to deal with.

Maybe we should stay here for a while and fix Earth instead?

13-01-2020 om 22:03 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ASTRONOMIE / RUIMTEVAART

Bad News, Space Colonists — Martian Water May Be Gone When You Get There

“We use the Atmospheric Chemistry Suite on the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter to characterize the water distribution by altitude. Water profiles during the 2018–2019 southern spring and summer stormy seasons show that high-altitude water is preferentially supplied close to perihelion, and supersaturation occurs even when clouds are present. This implies that the potential for water to escape from Mars is higher than previously thought.”

“Unconstrained by saturation, the water vapor globally penetrates through the cloud level, regardless of the dust distribution, facilitating the loss of water to space. Because supersaturation is observed concomitantly with dust or ice particles, we conclude that condensation does not efficiently prevent water vapor from becoming supersaturated, even when seeds for condensation exist. We speculate that this may be due to rapid drops in temperature and/or rises in water concentration, which occur faster than condensation can keep up with.”

Maybe we should stay here for a while and fix Earth instead?

13-01-2020 om 22:03 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ASTRONOMIE / RUIMTEVAART

Jupiter Is Throwing Comets At Earth

When it comes to bullies, they’re generally the biggest kid in the neighborhood, and they often bully under the guise of “providing protection.” “Biggest” becomes “richest” or “most powerful” when considering adult bullies. Does this hold true for planetary bullies? We now have an answer as a famous planetary physicist knocked down the so-called “Jupiter Shield Theory,” which proposes that the giant planet protects Earth from space rocks, with new models showing that Jupiter is actually a powerful sniper shooting comets at us. That doesn’t sound very jovial, Jupiter!

“Our simulations show that Jupiter is just as likely to send comets at Earth as deflect them away, and we’ve seen that in the real solar system.”

In a recent interview with Gizmodo, Kevin R. Grazier, whose name you may be familiar with as a science consultant for Battlestar Galactica and the films “Gravity” and “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales” or as an author and lecturer on planetary science, astrobiology, and spacecraft operations, backed up his 2018 and 2019 papers on Jupiter’s effect on centaurs (icy bodies between Jupiter and Neptune) and the Jupiter Family Comets (JFCs are comets within Jupiter’s gravitational influence) with models and simulations showing the giant planet’s solar system bullying tactics.

“This research was equal parts planetary dynamics and computer science or, arguably, data science. In our simulations, a large fraction of the objects that become JFCs are first grabbed by Jupiter into what are called temporary capture orbits, or TSCs—orbits that circle Jupiter a few times, then leave Jupiter, often on a very different orbit. We know that TSCs happen. The comet P/111 Helin-Roman-Crockett spent over 11 years in orbit around Jupiter in the 70s and 80s, and will be captured again in the 2070s. The exit geometry from these events is what determines if the object is on a JFC orbit or not.”

The models show how Jupiter pulls ice balls from the scattered disc between it and Neptune and then flings them in the direction of Earth. While this was a good thing in our planet’s early days when it may haven the source of minerals, water and even life, it’s a danger today – as people in Siberia will attest and those watching for Near Earth Objects warn.

“On the flip side, though, it takes things that come nowhere near Earth and flings them our way, meaning it is also a threat. To find out which side is more important—to determine whether Jupiter is truly friend or foe—you need to look at the story in some detail.”

Jonti Horner, co-author with Grazier on the two papers and an astronomer at the University of Southern Queensland, thinks it’s time to focus on the objects between Jupiter and Saturn, along with smaller clusters amongst Neptune and Uranus, to search for future sniper attacks by our formerly close friend. NASA is considering a pair of missions in the mid-2020s to study Jupiter’s Centaurs up-close using two spacecraft.
Will they be able to stop the sniping and bullying? Perhaps they need to take a robot psychologist.

13-01-2020 om 21:46 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ASTRONOMIE / RUIMTEVAART

The Mysterious Case of the Kinross UFO Incident

Some of the most spectacular UFO reports are those that involve actual contact or engagement with the craft in question, and cases such as these abound. Among these some of the more intriguing have been the various airborne UFO encounters in the records, and one of the most well-known and documented of these is a compelling case from 1953. It is an account that was widely witnessed, surrounded by oddness, and which resulted in the disappearance of two men and remains mired in questions and conspiracies right up to the present.

It was the evening of November 23, 1953, and what had started out as a routine, quiet night for Air Defense Command Ground Intercept radar operators at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, was about to get very weird very fast. It started with an unusual radar signature that was picked up over the Soo Locks area of Lake Superior, near the border with Canada. It was particularly odd, as the area in question was restricted airspace, no one should have been there at all, yet here was this anomalous target just flying through as if it had every business in the world to be there. The nearby Kinross Air Force Base was notified, and they began scrambling a fighter to take to the air and intercept the mystery aircraft. An F-89C Scorpion was prepped for take off and roared up into the sky towards the unknown, carrying within pilot First Lieutenant Felix Moncla and radar operator Second Lieutenant Robert L. Wilson. Little did anyone know that they were about to fly out into one of the greatest UFO mysteries in history, or that they would not be coming back at all.

Felix Moncla

Once in the air, Wilson went about trying to track the mysterious object, but this would prove to be easier said than done, as he had trouble getting a lock on it. Instead, ground radar operators kept constant radio contact, guiding the plane towards its target, yet as they descended from a higher altitude to engage, the object reportedly made a sudden sharp turn and evaded them. The F-89 panned around to continue to the pursuit, and the object managed to match their movements and remain elusive, almost as it was toying with them. Meanwhile, ground radar was watching this cat and mouse game unfold as two blips on a radar screen, and at one point at an altitude of 8,000 feet and around 70 miles from Keweenaw Point the two blips seemed to merge on the screen. This was not necessarily completely shocking in and of itself, as there was no distress signal issued and it was just thought that the two aircraft were passing over or under each other, yet when the expected separation of the single blip into two did not happen, and radio contact with the F-89 was lost as that blip just continued off as one signature things got more worrying. It was thought that this meant the two objects had collided, yet the single blip continued its journey on its original course with no sign of having any problems, until it left the radar range altogether.

There were panicked attempts to recover radio contact with Moncla, but there was nothing but silence in return, and so it was assumed that their plane had crashed and a rescue mission was immediately launched, involving both the American and Canadian Air Forces, as well as numerous ships. The area where the blips had become one was then scoured for any sign of the men or their plane, but not a single sign of any wreckage was found, as if they had just flown off the face of the earth. Neither was any sign found of the mysterious aircraft that had started all of this, and it too seemed to have just vanished.

In the meantime, the USAF got off to an unsteady start trying to explain all of this to the public, at first saying that the F-89 had crashed after chasing a mysterious unidentified object, but they soon backpedaled away from this and completely changed their story. The official report was now that the object that was being chased was actually a Canadian C-47 Skytrain, later oddly changed to a DC-3 airliner, that had flown off course and that the F-89 had crashed due to pilot difficulties on the way back from successfully guiding the Canadian aircraft back on course, speculated as likely caused by Moncla experiencing vertigo, combined with the poor weather at the time. Yet, this doesn’t really jibe with the fact that two radar blips had gone in, merged, and only one had come out. The Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) also changed their story, at first saying that the DC-3 pilot had not been aware of the American jet at all, yet they later claimed that there had been no Canadian aircraft in the area at all at the time of the incident. Either way, according to the RCAF the incident had never happened at all.

Curious, and it would get even curiouser when ex-Marine and UFO researcher Donald Keyhoe found in leaked Air Force documents that far from considering this an open and shut case, the government in fact considered it to be a very anomalous occurrence that they could not explain. Keyhoe also found that there had been wildly conflicting stories from Air Force officials when informing the families of the victims, with some saying the plane had come in low to crash into Lake Superior and others saying that the plane had exploded and disintegrated in midair. This last one is strange, because does vertigo cause a plane to explode in midair? Without any wreckage to examine it is hard to say, but what is for certain is that the USAF and RCAF couldn’t keep their stories straight. Making it a bit more ominous and conspiratorial is the fact that investigators from the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) who looked into it were surprised to find that Moncla’s mission had apparently been struck from the official record altogether. They would write:

There is no record in the Air Force files of sighting at Kinross AFB on 23 November 1953… There is no case in the files which even closely parallels these circumstances.

There were other odd things that would pop up related to the case. One is that UFO researcher John Tenney would claim to have spoken to a member of the USAF who claimed that there had been a faint radio transmission from Moncla hours after his plane was said to have gone down, which seems weird and is hard to know what to make of. There would also be a possible clue in the report of some railway workers along the Canadian Algoma Central Railway, who claimed that they had heard a huge explosion on the night of the incident. These incoming leads have done little to solve the mystery, and indeed had only served to sprinkle it with more oddness.

The whole Kinross incident actually received relatively little coverage and remained fairly obscure to the general public at the time, perhaps to the relief of the governments involved, and it flew under the radar for quite a few years until it was sort of resurrected again in 1968. In October of that year, some wreckage was found near the eastern shore of Lake Superior that looked very much like that of a USAF fighter plane, but the only confirmation forthcoming was an Air Force officer admitting that they seemed to be from one of their planes, but the report was ever officially recognized and the identity of the parts remains unknown. In 2006 interest in the case was piqued again when it was claimed that a group of Michigan divers from the “Great Lakes Dive Company” had discovered Moncla’s F-89 at the bottom of Lake Superior, even providing sonar and photographic evidence. However, efforts to contact the company all led to a man calling himself “Adam Jimenez,” who was very vague about it all. It would later be found that the Great Lakes Dive Company didn’t even really exist, and that the claims were a part of an elaborate hoax, and Jimenez soon completely disappeared.

With so many mysteries and so much conspiracy surrounding it theories have flown about what happened to the plane and the two men. Maybe it was a crash just as the military has said, but maybe it was something more. The idea has been put forward that this could have involed some top-secret experimental aircraft, possibly from a foreign power, that was engaged out there. There is also the notion that this was a genuine UFO encounter with something beyond our understanding, an otherworldly craft that either collided with the F-89, shot it down, or even abducted the entire plane to whisk it off to places unknown. In the end we are left with a case that officially remains a simple crash, but which is far from satisfactorily explained. With all of the changing stories and obfuscation, there are only a few things we know for sure. We know that Moncla and Wilson took off in that plane to never return. We know that two radar blips converged and only one left. And we know that there has never been any other trace found of the missing plane or crew. Other than that, there is nothing concrete to go on, the government has been very opaque on the whole incident, and we will probably never get the answers we seek, even as that plane and its two crew remain missing.

13-01-2020 om 21:21 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:UFOs , UAPs , USOS

The UFO Phenomenon: A Close Encounter and a Very Credible Witness

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The UFO Phenomenon: A Close Encounter and a Very Credible Witness

My previous article was titled “The Strange Radar-Based Saga of the ‘Ring Angels.'” As I said, it was a story that most people have probably no awareness of. Certainly, it has largely been forgotten. As I also noted in the article, a down to earth explanation was found for the weird, radar-based affair that ran from 1958 to 1959 at the Marconi Research Center in Essex, U.K. With this affair still in my mind, I thought why not share with you another largely forgotten saga from decades long gone. This one, however, most assuredly does not have a down to earth explanation. Arguably, it’s out of this world – which will give you an idea of the subject matter! We’re talking about a fascinating UFO encounter that occurred less than two months after pilot Kenneth Arnold had his encounter that led to the dawning of the age of the Flying Saucer. The whole thing went down on August 12, 1947. The following affidavit on the case was prepared by the eyewitness – a military officer, Captain John Paul Strapp – at Flight Test, Muroc Army Air Field, Muroc, California. That same affidavit was witnessed by a Counter Intelligence Corps agent, Thomas A. McMillan. It reads as follows:

“At 11:50 hours, 8 July 1947, while the undersigned was sitting in an observation truck located in Area # 3, Rogers Dry Lake, for the purpose of observing a P-82 ejection seat experiment, the following unfamiliarity was observed. The undersigned was gazing upward toward a formation of two (2) P-82’s and an A-26 aircraft flying at 20,000 feet, preparing to carry out a seat ejection experiment, when I observed a rounded object, white aluminum in color, which at first resembled a parachute canopy. The first impression was that a premature ejection of the seat and dummy had occurred. This body was ejected at a determined height lower than 20,000 feet, and was falling at three (3) times the rate observed for the parachute which ejected thirty minutes later. As it fell it drifted slowly north of due west against the prevailing wind, toward Mount Wilson. The speed, horizontal motion could not be determined, but appeared slower than the maximum velocity 50-80 aircraft.

“As this object descended through a low enough level to permit observation of its lateral silhouette, it presented a distinct ovular outline, with two (2) projections on the upper surface which might have been thick fins or nobs. These crossed each other at intervals, suggesting either rotation or oscillation of slow type. No smoke flames, propeller arks, engine noise, or other plausible or visible means of propulsion were noted. The color was silvery, resembling aluminum painted fabric, and did not appear as dense as a parachute canopy. When the object dropped to a level such that comes into line of vision of the mountain tops, it was lost to the vision of the observer.

“The following is my own personal opinions about this subject:

1. I think it was a man-made object, as evidenced distinctly by the the outline and functional appearance.

2. It’s size was not far from 25 feet with a parachute canopy.

3. The path followed by this object appeared as though it might have been dropped from a great height. Seeing this was not a hallucination or other fancies of a sense. This statement was given freely and voluntarily without any threats or promises under duress. This statement consists of two (2) pages, and is the truth to the best of my knowledge and belief. I have initialed all corrections deemed necessary.”

So, what we have here is the testimony of a highly credible individual. Not only that, the witness was able to get a good look at the craft and calculated that it was around twenty-five-feet in diameter and similar to a “parachute canopy” in shape. A classic from decades long gone? Yep!

13-01-2020 om 21:04 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:UFOs , UAPs , USOS

The Strange Radar-Based Saga of the “Ring Angels”

Now and again, I will dig into a weird story that most people may be completely unaware of. And, that is very much the case today. It’s time to head back to 1959 and a strange radar-based affair that went down in England. It was revealed by the media on July 27, 1959 that for almost a year an unusual phenomenon had been perplexing radar specialists at the Marconi Research Center at Great Baddow, near Chelmsford, Essex, England. The mystery all began early one morning in mid-1958. That was when a number of scientists at the center noticed the appearance of a strange point of light on their radar screens. It appeared to spread out into a ring, then faded and finally completely vanished. This was repeated several times, and the effect was very much likened to the spreading ripples of water on a pond. The rings lasted for two and a half to six minutes. An identical event occurred several days later, but on this particular occasion, the phenomenon had moved from its original position to a different location.

The puzzled scientists began to investigate the strange “ring angels,” as they soon dubbed them, and over the following twelve months or thereabouts recorded ‘ring angel” activity at no less than seventy sites throughout the south-east of England. Despite this, there were no corresponding visual sightings – not a single one. The rings began to appear all over the south and east of the country: reports surfaced from Ipswich, Reading, Canterbury and Tunbridge Wells. Nor were the “ring angels” hindered by changing weather patterns, as evidenced by the fact that a number of positive radar tracking were made in areas that, at the time, were engulfed in thick fog.

Was it possible that the culprits were nothing more mysterious than flocks of birds? This particular theory was carefully scrutinized by a Dr. E. Eastwood, who, at the time, was the Director of Research at the center. Eastwood found that several of the rings had been reported in areas which were regular roosting for starlings. This speculation was weakened, however, when it was noticed that some of the speeds of movement displayed by the “ring angels” were greater than those normally expected of birds. Dr. Eastwood elaborated on this particular theory and said the following: “Another problem is that if these are bird roosts, the birds don’t use them every night. Our once a week observations don’t show the same centers each time by any means.”

Another theory put forward was that they originated as a result of changing patterns in the air itself. “This makes it a very attractive theory,” said Dr. Eastwood, “except that no-one has satisfactorily explained why the air should produce a radar echo.” Despite a lack of a conclusive answer, the rings presented no long-term interference to the practical use of the radar sets, nor to the mystified operators. Finally, however, an answer was found. As the British Society for the History of Science (BSHS) reveal: “A copse of trees covered with starlings revealed the cause of the strange rings of Angels: successions of waves of birds, separated by three minute intervals, took off from the roost moving in expanding circles to feeding grounds.”

On this particular subject, Dr. David Clarke says, in an article titled “Radar Angels”: “Throughout its early history, radar was dogged with technical problems that often led to spectacular misinterpretations of ‘angels’ as enemy aircraft and flying saucers. It is a popular misconception that radar – like the camera – cannot lie and that UFOs ‘confirmed’ by radar must by definition be solid, mechanical objects possibly from outer space.” Sometimes a mystery proves to be not so mysterious, after all. But, we are still left with a fascinating tale!

13-01-2020 om 20:47 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:Diversen (Eng, NL en Fr)

Alien Face Seen In Australian Bush Fires Jan 2020, UFO Sighting News.

Alien Face Seen In Australian Bush Fires Jan 2020, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: Jan 2020

Location of sighting: Australia wild fires

Now this is something that just blows my mind. A person was taking photos of the horrendous wildfires in Australia and caught a face poking up from the ground. It looks like a devil. But I believe its an alien that is in an underground base about 6km below the surface who is really seen here. His thoughts...and concerns are visible in his face. You see, aliens can use the power of the mind to see whats going on at the surface. His thoughts accidentally caused the smoke to take form of his face while he was in his meditative state. Smoke is the lightest and easiest form of matter for a telepathic to manipulate. The alien didn't mean to create it. Its just that his thoughts are so powerful that the clouds molded around his telepathic projection unintentionally. Absolutely amazing find by Youtuber UFOvni2012.

Scott C. Waring

13-01-2020 om 19:26 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:Diversen (Eng, NL en Fr)

Fleet Of UFOs Move Over Los Angeles, California On Jan 2020, Video, UFO Sighting News.

Fleet Of UFOs Move Over Los Angeles, California On Jan 2020, Video, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: Jan 2020
Location of sighting: Los Angeles, California, USA
Source: MUFON

Here is the most common type of UFO...the orb. Orb UFOs come in all sizes from a baseball to a 747 size. Orbs also often fly in a fleet as you see in the video below. UFOs have been visiting the Los Angeles area for a long time. I was born in Los Angeles and remember relatives telling me about the Battle of Los Angeles and how the US Army tried and failed to shoot down slow moving silver orbs over the LA area. Its a common thing...aliens like humans, they have an incredible thirst for knowledge about us. They probably even envy us in some ways.
Scott C. Waring

Eyewitness report:

13-01-2020 om 18:57 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

Dark UFO Moves Over Yorkshire, England In Jan 12, 2020, Video, UFO Sighting News.

Dark UFO Moves Over Yorkshire, England In Jan 12, 2020, Video, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: Jan 12, 2020
Location of sighting: Harrogate, North Yorkshire, England

This is a strange one. England is known for having a lot of UFO sightings and that really makes sense because last time I was in England last year I saw clouds like I have never before seen around the world and I even took a photo of a fleet of UFOs darting into the clouds. Clearly these UFOs move from cloud to cloud watching the humans below. Since England is a small area surrounded by ocean, it also makes sense to assume that there is one or more alien bases off the coast of England. Those clouds...I will never forget those strange clouds.
Scott C. Waring

Eyewitness states:

My eyes were on the sky because this had happened already, this was the second one a couple of minutes later, it looked identical and was on the same path. I would have stood up and continued filming but there's houses that it went behind and it would have looked like I was filming into somebody's house!

13-01-2020 om 18:52 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

Alien Orb Fleet Over McDonalds In Dubai, Jan 9, 2020, Video, UFO Sighting News.

Alien Orb Fleet Over McDonalds In Dubai, Jan 9, 2020, Video, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: Jan 9, 2020

Location of sighting: Dubai

Source: Facebook https://www.facebook.com/LilWinstonn/

The eyewitness states that the UFOs were visible at 4:15pm. Many UFOs sightings occur just before or during sunset and this looks like a setting sun to me. Dubai has strict rule in that country and I highly doubt that they would allow festive balloons or hot air balloons to pass above them. Those black spheres really stand out in the distance against the crimson sky. I think these are UFOs passing over Dubai and I think they wanted to be seen. I deduced that by the hight off the ground, the color, the lighting and they are hovering over a McDonalds...a very public and busy area.

Scott C. Waring

Eyewitness states:

AWESOME UFO sighting in Dubai (real video, no joke). This video recorded it on January 9th approximately at 4:15 pm.

13-01-2020 om 18:45 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

Flying Person Seen Over Ancient Temple In Saudi Arabia, Dec 2019, Video, UFO Sighting News.

Flying Person Seen Over Ancient Temple In Saudi Arabia, Dec 2019, Video, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: December 30, 2019
Location of sighting: Masjid Nabawi, Saudi Arabia

This UFO was seen a few weeks ago over the holy temple of Masjid Nabawi. It looks like a man standing with his arms out in front of him, no head visible but thats because of the angle its turned...photo above show the back of the person. Is this Muhammad himself? Well, it does look like a person, but could be an alien ship.

Why would aliens be interested in such a place? Its of incredible religious significants. Al-Masjid an-Nabawī is a mosque established and built by the Islamic prophet Muhammad, situated in the city of Medina in the Hejaz region of Saudi Arabia. It was one of the first mosques built by Muhammad, and is now one of the largest mosques in the world.

Aliens are interested in human nature, our beliefs, our traditions and especially those that carry on for thousands of years. Especially since thousands of years ago, aliens were often mistaken for angels and gods. Perhaps Muhammad himself is such an god like alien and is still alive on his home planet, but came to earth to install his wisdom on humanity. And this ship...might be his own coming back for some unknown reason.

Scott C. Waring

13-01-2020 om 18:38 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

UFO researcher unveils crashed UFOs and secret operational bases in Antarctica Part 1

Crashed UFOs and secret operational bases in Antarctica is an ongoing project, which started several years ago, carried out by UFO researcher Frederick living in South Africa in collaboration with UFO Sightings Hotspot.

Crashed UFO or ancient technology/object under the ice.

Frederick who has been investigating the 3rd Reich theory for about 40 years, spoke to researchers including an ex Nazi in his town who was an electrical engineer. This man told Fredrick that there was a WW2 3rd Reich base and he told about their highly classified flying disc space program but that the world is looking in the wrong place in Antarctica.

Crashed UFO or ancient technology/object under the ice.

Frederick uses Google Earth to confirm the secret bases, crashed UFOs, ancient objects, etc. as well as he collects data from his sources in the Antarctic to confirm certain classified access information, such as protected zones, no-fly zones, secret bases.

Crashed UFO.

Many secret operational bases in Antarctica are camouflaged by snow and on Google Earth camouflaged by fake clouds, fake cloud vapor, fake snow, blurred and blacked-out images.

There are huge secret (extraterrestrial) bases under the ice or partly under the ice, but the structures are disguised as research stations.

Discoveries made by Frederick match the statement of Emery Smith who talks about suppressed technology and secret projects in Antarctica during a recent interview with Leak Project.

WW2 submarine or vessel with UFO-like object stored at the back of the submarine/vessel coming out of the melting ice. Submarine/vessel: 190 meters long - UFO-like object: 40 meters width/18 meters high.

Emery Smith states: We know that the government is covering up many things in Antarctica but now the ice melts it is really hard for them to cover it up anymore.

One of the reasons is that persons who have enough money buying their own private box satellite which is equipped with infrared X-ray, HD cameras and these amateurs can sneak across Antarctica at one point and can take some amazing photographs with their satellite.

Crashed disc-shaped UFO with open hatch coming out of the melting ice.

Despite there is dis-information campaign of what really happening there in Antarctica, there is a breaking point now and the government have to answer on what is really going on in Antarctica. Therefore they have to release something for example they found some artifacts from an ancient civilization or extraterrestrial race.

The fact is that there are huge extraterrestrial crafts down there that coming out of the melting ice.

Crashed saucer-shaped UFO under the ice.

Another fact is that there are huge underground facilities, facilities under the ice and under the water that they and probably together with aliens are operating and these (ancient) facilities are there for quit some time.

They have mapped all these facilities already with underground penetration radar and they have also maps of the extraterrestrial crafts down there.

Crashed ancient UFO near top of mountain coming out of the melting snow.

They have 3D images of these crafts and the huge hangars, so when they go down in there then they already know how to go and where to go to the craft, they have trained for this already for many years for actually go into these crafts. Watch the interview here.

Note: To avoid a cover-up of the discoveries, we do not yet release the coordinates
(Above some of the crashed UFOs. (More crashed UFOs, secret operational bases, underwater bases, ancient underground bases, ancient cities and statues, etc will follow soon).

VIDEOS, selected by peter2011

13-01-2020 om 18:26 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:UFOs , UAPs , USOS

'Hand of God' appears in the sky over Brazil

Acloud in the shape of a hand was seen by many people in the night of Thursday (01/09) in the cities of Asunción and Juazeirinho, region of Paraíba Cariri in Brazil.

The rare sky phenomenon was photographed by residents just before the 'hand' fell apart.

The curious image was posted on social networks by many residents, whereby one resident said " Look how beautiful, the hand of God is always stretched out for us" reports midiasalouis.

Deze 5 apps MOET je hebben in 2020

13-01-2020 om 17:29 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

Navy admits it still has never before released video of infamous USS Nimitz ‘Tic Tac’ UFO encounter

Lottie Tiplady-Bishop

THE US Navy has admitted it has top secret footage from a UFO sighting - but say it can't be released as it would cause "grave damage" to national security.

The incident, pictured, was never explained

Chad Underwood, pictured, who shot the now infamous footage

Credit: Chad Underwood

Crew aboard the Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser USS Princeton had been spending the past two weeks tracking mysterious aircraft on and off.

The incident unfolded during carrier group exercises in the Pacific, off the coast of Mexico.

It was spotted by six pilots in total.

“But there was no method of propulsion that was keeping it airborne: no wings, no heat, keeping it airborne or aloft.”

Video of the 2004 encounter was revealed to public in 2017 and the Navy finally admitted the videos were real last November.

The discovery was made by researcher Christian Lambright who enquired with a Freedom of Information Request.

In a letter to the researcher, Coordinator Camille V’Estres, wrote: "Our review of our records and systems reveal that ONI has no releasable records related to your request.

{ https://www.thesun.co.uk/ }

13-01-2020 om 01:29 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:UFOs , UAPs , USOS

Could invisible aliens really exist among us? An astrobiologist explains

They probably won’t look anything like this.

Martina Badini/Shutterstock

Could invisible aliens really exist among us? An astrobiologist explains

Life is pretty easy to recognise. It moves, it grows, it eats, it excretes, it reproduces. Simple. In biology, researchers often use the acronym “MRSGREN” to describe it. It stands for movement, respiration, sensitivity, growth, reproduction, excretion and nutrition.

While life may be easy to recognise, it’s actually notoriously difficult to define and has had scientists and philosophers in debate for centuries – if not millennia. For example, a 3D printer can reproduce itself, but we wouldn’t call it alive. On the other hand, a mule is famously sterile, but we would never say it doesn’t live.

As nobody can agree, there are more than 100 definitions of what life is. An alternative (but imperfect) approach is describing life as “a self-sustaining chemical system capable of Darwinian evolution”, which works for many cases we want to describe.

The lack of definition is a huge problem when it comes to searching for life in space. Not being able to define life other than “we’ll know it when we see it” means we are truly limiting ourselves to geocentric, possibly even anthropocentric, ideas of what life looks like. When we think about aliens, we often picture a humanoid creature. But the intelligent life we are searching for doesn’t have to be humanoid.

Life, but not as we know it

Sharman says she believes aliens exist and “there’s no two ways about it”. Furthermore, she wonders: “Will they be like you and me, made up of carbon and nitrogen? Maybe not. It’s possible they’re here right now and we simply can’t see them.”

Such life would exist in a “shadow biosphere”. By that, I don’t mean a ghost realm, but undiscovered creatures probably with a different biochemistry. This means we can’t study or even notice them because they are outside of our comprehension. Assuming it exists, such a shadow biosphere would probably be microscopic.

If we find such a biosphere, however, it is unclear whether we should call it alien. That depends on whether we mean “of extraterrestrial origin” or simply “unfamiliar”.

Silicon-based life

Artist’s impression of a silicon-based life form.

Zita

Silicon is similar to carbon, it has four electrons available for creating bonds with other atoms. But silicon is heavier, with 14 protons (protons make up the atomic nucleus with neutrons) compared to the six in the carbon nucleus. While carbon can create strong double and triple bonds to form long chains useful for many functions, such as building cell walls, it is much harder for silicon. It struggles to create strong bonds, so long-chain molecules are much less stable.

That said, there are arguments in favour of silicon-based life on Earth. Nature is adaptable. A few years ago, scientists at Caltech managed to breed a bacterial protein that created bonds with silicon – essentially bringing silicon to life. So even though silicon is inflexible compared with carbon, it could perhaps find ways to assemble into living organisms, potentially including carbon.

And when it comes to other places in space, such as Saturn’s moon Titan or planets orbiting other stars, we certainly can’t rule out the possibility of silicon-based life.

To find it, we have to somehow think outside of the terrestrial biology box and figure out ways of recognising lifeforms that are fundamentally different from the carbon-based form. There are plenty of experiments testing out these alternative biochemistries, such as the one from Caltech.

Read more: Elon Musk’s Starship may be more moral catastrophe than bold step in space exploration

{ https://theconversation.com/uk }

13-01-2020 om 00:47 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )

12-01-2020

A big wake-up call': ‘Giant UFO’ over California reportedly seen ‘by more than 100 witnesses’

The object could have been taken for a drone or a skydiving vehicle, if not for a combination of facts: it didn’t move and emitted no sound whatsoever.

The internet has of late been in a frenzy over a weird object hovering above the small California town of Menifee. Footage that first emerged on YouTube on 3 December, despite originally being shot on 19 October, sported a vast amount of lights, with the glow leading viewers to think it could be a drone lurking in the clouds.

The assumption, however, was instantly dismissed taking into account the above average height it flew at, equal to “2,000ft in the air”.

On top of that, the object seemed to be silent, stuck on the horizon without changing its position, making conspiracy theorists likewise rule out skydivers.

In the caption to the video, the uploader claims the object, which many deemed to be some stealth craft, had seen by “over 100 witnesses".

“Whatever it is it's Not a CGI hoax. Difficult to tell if All the lights are connected to one object", another suggested.

“At one point, the huge UFO was just hovering in the same spot for over five minutes before it speeds off into the night sky", uploader UFOS & Aliens Santana wrote, while another suggested that if so, “then that is impressive footage".

Users appear to be taking the perfectly realistic craft video seriously:

“I’m sharing this!.. Ufo activity is increasing so fast! The world is gonna get a big wake up call!” one exclaimed, whereas a second left some room for a bit of irony:

“Another floating broken light bulb that needs to be replaced! New ladder almost ready! Lol”

(Source: sputniknews.com; December 9, 2019; http://tinyurl.com/yx28adjy)

{ https://nexusnewsfeed.com/ }

12-01-2020 om 23:51 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

Astronomers find wandering black holes in dwarf galaxies

Posted by Eleanor Imster in SPACE

They found massive black holes in 13 dwarf galaxies, which are now among the smallest galaxies known to host such massive black holes. In roughly half the galaxies, the black hole isn’t at the galactic center, but instead is “wandering.”

Galaxy with inset illustration of a green spiral with jets coming out top and bottom.

Artist’s concept of a dwarf galaxy, its shape distorted, most likely by a past interaction with another galaxy, and a massive black hole in its outskirts (bright spot, far right).

Image via Sophia Dagnello/ NRAO/ AUI/ NSF.

It’s an amazing aspect of our knowledge of the modern universe that – everywhere we look – large galaxies have supermassive black holes at their centers. Now a team of astronomers has spotted 13 massive black holes in dwarf galaxies, located less than a billion light-years from Earth. All 13 galaxies are more than 100 times less massive than our own Milky Way. That makes them among the smallest galaxies known to host massive black holes. The astronomers announced the discovery at the American Astronomical Society’s recent meeting in Honolulu, Hawaii (January 4-8, 2020).

The astronomers estimate that the black holes in these smaller galaxies average about 400,000 times the mass of our sun. That’s in contrast to the supermassive black hole at our galaxy’s center, which is about 4 million times the sun’s mass.

Amy Reines of Montana State University led the new study, which was published January 3 in the peer-reviewed Astrophysical Journal. She said in a statement:

The new … observations revealed that 13 of these galaxies have strong evidence for a massive black hole that is actively consuming surrounding material.

We were very surprised to find that, in roughly half of those 13 galaxies, the black hole is not at the center of the galaxy, unlike the case in larger galaxies.

EarthSky 2020 lunar calendars are available! Only a few left. Order now!

Photos of 12 small mostly irregular glowing smudges and big black hole picture in the middle.

Visible-light images of dwarf galaxies now shown to have massive black holes. Center illustration is an artist’s concept of the rotating disk of material falling into such a black hole, and the jets of material propelled outward.

Image via Sophia Dagnello/ NRAO/ AUI/ NSF/ DECaLS survey/ CTIO.

The astronomers used the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) – on the Plains of San Agustin in central New Mexico – to make the discovery.

They said their finding suggests that these dwarf galaxies likely merged with other galaxies earlier in their history. The theory is consistent with computer simulations predicting that roughly half of the massive black holes in dwarf galaxies will be found wandering in the outskirts of their galaxies. Reines said:

This work has taught us that we must broaden our searches for massive black holes in dwarf galaxies beyond their centers to get a more complete understanding of the population and learn what mechanisms helped form the first massive black holes in the early universe.

Reines added:

We hope that studying them and their galaxies will give us insights into how similar black holes in the early universe formed and then grew, through galactic mergers over billions of years, producing the supermassive black holes we see in larger galaxies today, with masses of many millions or billions of times that of the sun.

Read more about how the astronomers made the discovery

A smiling young woman with long dark hair.

Astrophysicist Amy Reines.

Image via Montana State University.

Bottom line: Astronomers discovered 13 massive black holes in dwarf galaxies. Roughly half of them are not in their galaxy’s center, but instead “wandering” elsewhere in the galaxy.
Source: A New Sample of (Wandering) Massive Black Holes in Dwarf Galaxies from High-resolution Radio Observations
Via National Radio Astronomy Observatory.

12-01-2020 om 23:34 geschreven door peter

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Ancient Scythian “Amazon” Women Discovered In Russia Buried Alongside Their Weaponry

A troupe of ancient warrior women buried 2,000 years ago alongside dozens of weapons has been discovered in a Russian cemetery known as Devitsa V, illuminating how Scythian women lived, died, and were celebrated in the afterlife.

Archaeologists with Russia’s RAS Institute of Archaeology have been studying the site since 2010, gradually working toward excavating the 19 massive archaeological mounds that throughout the years have been slowly plowed over for agricultural purposes. It is under one of these mounds – measuring 1 meter high by 40 meters wide (3.3 feet high by 130 feet wide) – that the Don excavation team discovered a narrow entrance leading to the remains of a tomb made of crisscrossing oak blocks and surrounded by earthen clay.

Buried below the mound were four women of differing ages: a young girl around the age of 12 or 13, a woman in her 20s, another between the ages of 25 and 35, and a woman 45-50 years old. The entrance to the tomb was sealed, leading archaeologists to believe that all four individuals were buried at the same time.

Two untouched skeletons were laid to rest on a wooden bed covered by grass, one of whom was a young woman placed in the “position of a horseman”, which required the tendons of her legs to be cut in order to position her. Under her left shoulder were a bronze mirror and two nearby spears. On her left hand was a bracelet made of glass beads.

The remains date back to the second half of the 4th century BCE. www.archaeolog.

Nearby, a middle-aged woman between 45 and 50 years old – a “respectable age” considering the average lifespan was between 30 and 35 – was buried in a ceremonial headdress called a calathos. The jewelry was made mostly of gold with traces of copper, silver, and iron, the rim of which was decorated with pendants in the shape of amphorae, ancient containers used to hold coveted goods. The unique headdress is the first of its kind to be found in this state and of this quality from the region.

This is the first well-preserved ceremonial headdress found in the Middle Don river belonging to a wealthy Scythian woman. www.archaeolog.

"Such head dresses have been found a bit more than two dozen [times] and they all were in 'tzar' or not very rich barrows of the steppe zone of Scythia. We first found such headdress in the barrows of the forest-steppe zone and what is more interesting the headdress was first found in the burial of an Amazon," said Valerii Guliaev, head of the Don archaeological expedition, in a statement.

An iron knife wrapped in fabric and a uniquely forked arrowhead were also placed near the woman, suggesting she was an Amazon – Scythian women-warriors who rode along the nomadic horse-people of Iran and Eastern Europe.

Also found in the tomb were more than 30 iron arrowheads, an iron hook made in the shape of a bird, a horse harness and hook to hang it, iron knives, fragments of pottery vessels, and animal bones.

A reconstruction of the calathos headdress (left) depicts what the headdress may have looked like atop the woman's head. The remains are shown on the right. www.archaeolog.

A general view of the cemetery.

Institute of Archaeology RAS

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

12-01-2020 om 22:35 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ARCHEOLOGIE ( E, Nl, Fr )

5000 Year Old Aboriginal Cave Painting of The “Wandjina.” Known As ‘The Sky Beings’

By Arjun Walia

IN BRIEF

The Facts:
5000 year old cave art from Australia depicts strange beings that resemble what many perceive to represent the modern day 'Gray Alien.' These beings were known as Wandjina, cloud spirits and sky beings.
Reflect On:
Ancient cave art depicting peculiar beings has been found all over the world, dating back thousands of years. Perhaps these beings weren't really mythical?

Those who have gone deep into the lore associated with the UFO and extraterrestrial phenomenon are no doubt aware just how far back the phenomenon may go. Today, the UFO phenomenon is documented quite well, and it’s taken very seriously as, in the past decade alone, it’s gained a tremendous amount of well deserved credibility. But there is also the fact that the documentation of this phenomenon dates back thousands of years, there are multiple cases outlined throughout history, and many of them you can find in Dr. Jacque Valle’s book, Wonders In The Sky.

But how far back does “documentation” go? Discoveries of ancient cave art all over the world raise some interesting questions, especially ancient artwork in the form of cave paintings that were discovered in Kimberly, Australia. These specific paintings I am referring to were created approximately 5000 years ago by the native aborigines, and they illustrate entities that they referred to as the Wandjina, or sky beings.

According to Richard Dolan, one of the world’s leading UFO researchers,

In the aboriginal tradition, these beings were part of the beginning of creation and had great power over nature. One of them even became the Milky Way. When looking at the haunting images of the Wandjina, it is easy to think of gray aliens: oversized heads, no hair, large black eyes, no ears, no mouth, and pure white skin. Until the modern era of UFOs and depictions of ET beings, scholars had no point of reference for the Wandjina, no way to understand why these native Australians would create God beings so radically different in appearance from themselves. (UFOs For The 21st Century Mind)

According to Encyclopedia Britannica,

Wandjina style, also spelled Wondjina, type of depiction in Australian cave paintings of figures that represent mythological beings associated with the creation of the world. Called wandjina figures, the images are believed by modern Aborigines to have been painted by the Wondjinas, prehistoric inhabitants of the Kimberley region in northwest Australia, the only area where cave paintings in the wandjina style have been found. Among the Aborigines, each wandjina image is renovated, or repainted, by the oldest living member supposedly descended from its originator (source)

Based on everything we know now, maybe these beings weren’t quite ‘mythical’ as suggested. Many scholars also emphasize that they were considered “cloud spirits.” (source)

Again, there are many such strange depictions found all over the world. For example, not long ago, more paintings were discovered by scholars in Chhattisgarh, India.

According to archaeologist JR Bhagat, these paintings depict extraterrestrials. The Chhattisgarh state department of archaeology and culture was planning to seek the help of NASA and ISRO for research regarding the paintings, that’s the last I heard about that.

“The findings suggest that humans in prehistoric times may have seen or imagined beings from other planets which still create curiosity among people and researchers. Extensive research is needed for further findings. Chhattisgarh presently doesn’t have any such expert who could give clarity on the subject. The paintings are done in natural colours that have hardly faded despite the years. The strangely carved figures are seen holding weapon-like objects and do not have clear features. The nose and mouth are missing, and in a few pictures they are even shown wearing spacesuits. We can’t refuse the possibility of imagination by prehistoric men but humans usually fancy such things.” – JR Bhagat (source)

Dolan goes on to describe many other examples in his book.

There are many such ancient paintings on rocks and in caves around the world that depict what look like ET beings. In the northern Italian region of Lombardy, there is a rock painting dating to the Copper age, between 5,000 and 7000 years ago. It depicts apparent priests or God figures. Each of them has what appears to be a halo, except that these halos look rather more like helmets, with straight lines extending out from them.

The Takeaway

Perhaps some of these beings are indeed ‘extraterrestrial?’ Perhaps some of these beings are still visiting us today? The realization of this seems to have occurred throughout human history, but as we discover more and become more technologically advanced ourselves, perhaps some type of global interaction is part of our future? Perhaps it has already been for beings on other worlds? Always interesting to think about, because these realizations do indeed have tremendous implications.

{ https://www.collective-evolution.com/ }

12-01-2020 om 22:13 geschreven door peter

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‘It’s Creepy’: Unexplained Drones Are Swarming by Night Over Colorado

Sheriffs in western Nebraska and eastern Colorado say they don’t know who’s flying the drones — or why. The F.A.A. is investigating.

A drone flown by Colorado farmers in 2015. The Federal Aviation Administration has opened an inquiry into mysterious drone sightings over Colorado and Nebraska.

Credit...Michael Ciaglo for The New York Times

They come in the night: Drones — lots of them — flying in precise formations over the Colorado and Nebraska prairie.

Whose are they? Unknown.

Why are they there? Unclear.

“It’s creepy,” said Missy Blackman, who saw three drones hovering over her farm outside Palisade, Neb., on a recent evening, including one that lingered right above her house. “I have a lot of questions of why and what are they, and nobody seems to have any answers.”

Since before Christmas, sheriff’s departments in the region have been bombarded with reports of large drones with blinking lights and wingspans of up to 6 feet flying over rural towns and open fields. The drones have unnerved residents, prompted a federal investigation and made international news, even though they may be perfectly legal. And still, they remain unexplained.

“In terms of aircraft flying at night and not being identified, this is a first for me personally,” said Sheriff James Brueggeman of Perkins County, Neb., who has worked in law enforcement for about 28 years and who saw the drones while on patrol Tuesday night.

He said he had heard rumblings about people wanting to shoot down a drone, and had urged residents to report the sightings to law enforcement instead. “I think it’s kind of a joke, but you have to remember the part of the country we live in,” the sheriff said. “People here don’t like their privacy to be invaded.”

The flights have drawn attention just as the Federal Aviation Administration last week proposed sweeping new regulations that would require most drones to be identifiable. Ian Gregor, a spokesman for the F.A.A., said that the timing of the proposed rule was coincidental, but that the agency had opened an investigation of the sightings in Colorado and Nebraska.

“Multiple F.A.A. divisions and government agencies are investigating these reports,” Mr. Gregor said in an email. He declined to discuss the inquiry in detail, but said investigators were trying to determine who was operating the drones and the purpose of the flights.

On Facebook, 911 dispatch lines and local newspaper columns, the drones have been the talk of rural Colorado and Nebraska. And as sightings increase — people in four counties said they had seen them on Tuesday — so too does the urgency of residents’ questions.

Some have suggested they might be part of a simple mapping operation, or a land survey conducted by an oil and gas company — but why would such flights run at night?

Senator Cory Gardner, Republican of Colorado, said on social media that he would “closely monitor the situation.” A newspaper headline in Akron, Colo., asked, “What’s with the drones?” Multiple law enforcement agencies warned residents that shooting a drone out of the sky would be a crime.

“They’re high enough where you couldn’t shoot one anyway, but they’re low enough that they’re a nuisance,” said Dawn George, who lives near Wray, Colo., and whose Border collie has barked at the drones when they fly over her property.

Ms. George said she had heard wild speculation about who might be responsible for the flights — the government? a cartel? a gas company? — and feared they would never know the truth.

“All the sudden, it’s just going to stop and we’re not going to have answers,” Ms. George said. “And that’s very unsettling to a lot of people. It’s the fear of the unknown.”

Unmanned drones, which have exploded into popular usage in recent years and can be used for everything from mapping to photography to farming, can be difficult to track. Operators of all but the smallest drones have been required to register with the federal government since 2015, but there is no straightforward, legal way for state and local officials to identify the owner of a particular drone or to track that drone’s location.

“Like in many other areas of drone regulation, the statutory and regulatory framework is lagging the technology,” said Reggie Govan, a former chief counsel to the F.A.A. who now teaches at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. “It’s just that simple.”

Mr. Govan said that federal officials had tracking tools to figure out where the Colorado and Nebraska drones were coming from, but that the vast area over which the drones were operating could make that task difficult.

Limitations in drone detection have allowed rogue drone operators to approach the White House without raising alarms and, in another extreme case, to deploy homemade bombs in a Pennsylvania neighborhood. Though it was not clear that the drones flying over Colorado and Nebraska were violating the law, residents and local officials said they would welcome the proposed new F.A.A. rule that would make it easier to identify drones.

“Most people are very reasonable, and they say it could be somebody mapping or doing topography,” said Michael Yowell, a sheriff’s captain in Lincoln County, Colo., whose house was buzzed over by a drone squadron on New Year’s Eve. “But you can’t rule out what you don’t know.”

The drone sightings started in northeast Colorado around mid-December and have only grown more widespread since then. Almost all the sightings have occurred between sunset and about 10 p.m., though Ms. Blackman said she had seen them out later one night in Nebraska and, for the first time on Wednesday, during daylight hours. She said she had looked at them through binoculars and did not see any markings, just plain silver and white coloring.

Across the state line in Colorado, Captain Yowell tried to photograph the drones on Tuesday night with the camera he uses to document crime scenes, but came away without a clear image. He estimated that up to 30 drones were flying each night, though not all in the same place.

He said local officials were studying the flight path of the drones and coordinating across county lines to figure out where they were coming from. If his analysis was correct, he said, the drones would be back out on Wednesday night, flying in a grid pattern in the rural area between Hugo and Karval, Colo., about 100 miles southeast of Denver.

“We want to know, at around 10 o’clock, when we start to lose visuals of these, which direction are they homing? Which way are they heading?” Captain Yowell said. “We hope that’s how we can contact somebody on the ground.”

Sheriff Todd Combs of Yuma County, Colo., said in a Facebook post Tuesday that the drones appeared to be staying at least 150 feet from buildings or people, based on the footage he has seen.

“There are many theories about what is going on, but at this point, that’s all they are,” he said. “I think we are all feeling a little bit vulnerable due to the intrusion of our privacy that we enjoy in our rural community, but I don’t have a solution.”

Drone Regulation

The F.A.A. Wants to Start Tracking Drones’ Locations
Dec. 26, 2019

Drone Scare Near New York City Shows Hazard Posed to Air Travel
Jan. 23, 2019

Skies Aren’t Clogged With Drones Yet, but Don’t Rule Them Out
March 19, 2019

Mitch Smith covers the Midwest and the Great Plains. Since joining The Times in 2014, he has written extensively about gun violence, oil pipelines, state-level politics and the national debate over police tactics. He is based in Chicago. @mitchksmith

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

12-01-2020 om 21:21 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:MYSTERIES ( Fr, Nl, E)

Stunning view inside a young moon crater

Posted by Paul Scott Anderson in SPACE | TODAY'S IMAGE

NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has returned some amazing high-resolution photos of the surface of the moon, including these ones of steep cliffs and impact melt inside a young crater called Giordano Bruno.

Large crater seen from directly overhead. Wide gray circle with rough darker gray center.

View larger. | Giordano Bruno Crater as seen directly from overhead.

Image via NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University/LROC.

You might think of the moon as gray, rocky and dusty, a bleak and desolate world. But in fact, the moon is a beautiful place in its own way, and does offer some incredible scenery with its many craters and mountains. This view inside a crater from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) is a great example, and as the article title says, spectacular.

The stunning view inside a young crater in the top image shows how otherworldly yet starkly and serenely majestic the moon can be.

These photos were taken by LRO in August 2017, from an altitude of 70 miles (113 km). Giordano Bruno Crater is one of the youngest large craters on the moon, 13 miles (21 km) in diameter, and located at 35.97 degrees north latitude, 102.89 degrees east longitude. There is a lot of surface brightness (albedo) contrast visible, as the sun was high above the horizon at the time, and the only shadows seen are from steep cliffs and large boulders.

The steep cliff – the inside wall of the crater – rises a staggering 9,843 feet (3,000 meters) above the bottom of the crater, where you see a large melt pool of ancient liquified rock, left over from the huge impact that created the crater. Can you imagine yourself standing there and gazing up at this massive crater wall in front of you?

EarthSky 2020 lunar calendars are available! They make great gifts. Order now. Going fast!

Oblique view of large crater on the moon with lighter gray sloping sides and dark center.

A wider view of Giordano Bruno Crater from LRO.

Image via NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University/LROC.

Solidified flow of dark stone, mostly smooth with some cracks, on rough crater floor.

Detailed view of an impact melt flow inside Giordano Bruno Crater.

Image via NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University/LROC.

Blotch of dark material on top of lighter rocky surface.

Dark rubbly material on the bottom of Giordano-Bruno-Crater.

Image via NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University/LROC.

Steep cliff of gray rock and darker regolith at the bottom.

Close-up view of a steep cliff on the inside crater wall of Giordano Bruno Crater, as seen by Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) in August 2017.

Image via NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University/LROC.

The impacts that create craters like these are powerful. Here, a large rocky asteroid or meteor – up to 1.2 miles (2 km) in size – slammed into the moon about ten times faster than a speeding bullet. As typically happens, the impacting rock created a hole in the ground much larger than the rock itself. A tremendous amount of heat and pressure are released during the impact, which melts a lot of the rock. This created a temporary pool of melted rock – the melt pool – which sloshed and flowed, almost like water. Over time, the melted rock cooled and solidified, leaving the darker-colored melt pool we see today. You can still see where the melted rock flowed across the crater floor, filling depressions.

There is also some interesting dark, rubbly material on the bottom floor of the crater, which may be from basaltic dikes or perhaps impact melt glass, called impactite. Could it be similar to what China’s Yutu-2 rover recently found on the far side of the moon?

It isn’t known yet exactly how old the crater is, but the well-preserved forms of the impact melt flows and the sparsity of other smaller craters inside it show that it is quite young geologically-speaking, probably less than 10 million years.

Some of the LRO images of this crater have a pixel scale as small as 1.6 to 1.8 meters (5.5 to 6 feet). When in its lowest orbit, LRO obtained images of the crater with an impressive resolution of 50 centimeters (20 inches).

LRO was launched on June 18, 2009, and has been returning a wealth of science data ever since, as well as stunning views like these.

Blocky spacecraft with small dish antenna pointing toward distant Earth.

Artist’s illustration of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) near the moon.

Image via NASA.

Bottom line: This is a spectacular view inside a younger crater on the moon, as seen by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Via LROC

12-01-2020 om 18:45 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ASTRONOMIE / RUIMTEVAART

Tiener ontdekt nieuwe planeet op derde stagedag bij NASA - HLN.be

Joeri Vlemings

Bron: People, The Guardian

AFP

Artistieke impressie van de planeet TOI 1338 b.

WETENSCHAP Wolf Cukier is 17 en mag op zijn palmares al bijschrijven dat hij een nieuwe planeet heeft ontdekt. De student presteerde dat ook nog eens op zijn derde dag stage bij NASA.

De ontdekking dateert van vorige zomer, toen Wolf Cukier uit Scarsdale in de staat New York stage liep bij NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. Bij het doorpluizen van telescoopbeelden van ‘planetenjager’ TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) botste hij op een planeet die niet rond één maar rond twee sterren draait. Hij schakelde meteen zijn mentor in en, toen ze pas na een periode met ups en downs in hun overtuiging zeker waren, ook de andere collega’s.

De planeet kreeg de naam TOI 1338 b mee. Nieuwe planeten die gevonden worden met TESS worden niet genoemd naar de ontdekker ervan, maar beginnen met TOI. Net zoals TOI 700 d, de pas ontdekte planeet die gelijkenissen vertoont met de Aarde en waarop eventueel leven mogelijk zou zijn.

Cukier moest systemen onderzoeken waarbij twee sterren rond elkaar cirkelen. “Ik was ongeveer drie dagen ver in mijn stage toen ik een signaal van een systeem genaamd TOI 1338 zag”, zei Cukier over zijn ontdekking. De student zag iets in de baan van twee sterren dat het licht blokkeerde. “Eerst dacht ik dat het een stellaire eclips was, maar de timing klopte niet. Het bleek een planeet te zijn.”

TOI 1338 b is volgens NASA de eerste planeet met twee eigen sterren die ontdekt werd met TESS. Het is ook nog maar de dertiende ooit gevonden in zijn soort. De planeet is 6,9 keer groter dan de Aarde - ongeveer zo groot als Saturnus - en ligt op 1.300 lichtjaren in het sterrenbeeld Schilder. Een van de twee sterren is tien procent groter dan onze zon. De andere is kouder, minder helder en qua massa maar een derde van onze zon.

Voor de student, een Star Wars-fan, is TOI 1338 b, die zich elke 93 tot 95 dagen rond twee sterren beweegt, zoals de fictieve planeet Tatooine. “Bij elke zonsondergang gaan er twee sterren onder”, aldus Cukier.

De tiener droomt nu al luidop van studeren aan een van de drie Amerikaanse topuniversiteiten Princeton, MIT of Stanford.

VIDEO's, geselecteerd door peter2011

12-01-2020 om 17:35 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:HLN.be - Het Laatste Nieuws ( NL)

What is the Connection Between Alien Visitors and UFO Sightings?

UFO sightings have been around since the beginning of time, and everyone who has watched or investigated them has noticed a fascinating similarity between the event of a spaceship landing on the moon and the origins of the extraterrestrial subject. One theory is that the UFOs that have been sighted were a cover for the alien wars that took place in deep space millions of years ago. It’s also said that the landing of the UFOs on the moon were the proverbial last ditch efforts of the extraterrestrial visitors to get off the planet, thereby avoiding being assimilated by our planet. It has been also suggested that it was the presence of extraterrestrial life that was used to explain away the strange behaviour of the alien visitors.

During a visit to Egypt in the year of 1950, a group of scientists took up residence in a hotel at Thebes. There was an unexplained noise emanating from the hotel, in particular from a strange metallic rod with a large hole in it. The metallic rod seemed to emit a lot of noise, and at one point an unknown man appeared and began talking to a group of three men, one of whom thought he could recognise the voice.

UFO sightings, and the stories of encounters with UFO’s, have been reported as far back as the 1930’s. After all, many of the major discoveries in science and technology happened during that period. For example, Nazi scientists including Von Braun were able to build the first piloted aircraft, which was an important technological breakthrough that led to the other advances that have taken place in aerospace and aeronautics.

Even if this is not the case, and most scientists believe that UFOs are real and that we really do have some kind of alien visitors to our planet, there have been many recorded encounters of these UFOs. It was reported in 1973 that two US Air Force Generals saw an unidentified object that they described as a pyramid. It also helped that the shape of the object closely resembled that of an orbiting satellite.

The UFO phenomenon is not limited to the United States alone, and there are many other countries that have their own UFO sightings. There is a connection between some UFO sightings and natural phenomena, and it has been widely reported that many of the UFO sightings that have been reported are related to electrical storms, tornadoes, volcanic eruptions, volcanic eruptions, and seismic activity. The question of where these UFO’s are coming from remains a mystery, and most scientists have no idea.

The Ice Age that existed for many millions of years, including the Ice Age that currently exists, lasted about a thousand years. Because there was a marked increase in the number of UFO sightings at the same time, and it is also believed that more UFO sightings occur during periods of more seismic activity.

Even if the weather doesn’t create a UFO sighting, some of the things that you can see, or at least hear about, while you are looking around a UFO sighting are compelling enough to be worth taking note of. For example, it is reported that there are some very crafty, multi-dimensional crafts that look like they have been in space long enough to make their presence known. The way they interact with objects in the air is also something that causes a lot of talk and the accounts that come in about them are extremely compelling. Now this sounds like science fiction, but it is very close to the truth.

Source:

http://footageofufos.com/2020/01/what-is-the-connection-between-alien-visitors-and-ufo-sightings/

12-01-2020 om 15:12 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:UFOs , UAPs , USOS

Daytime UFO activity over Los Angeles, CA 11-Jan-2020

Another great 2020 UFO Sighting! This one was taken over the city of Los Angeles, California on 11th January 2020.

Witness report:

Orbs Rose from the west, 3 orbs followed by 5 that rose in a group, caught up to the first 3 then formed a pentagon. They held that shape for minutes. Looking westward at a working crane, I saw what i thought were bright perfectly round balloons floating upward from behind clouds to my west at an angle of about 25 degrees. The cloud today, after research were at a minimum 1300 feet to 2500 feet and dissipated at 24,000 feet. There were wispy clouds in the area of the orbs. They floated up slowly. The wind blew the clouds north east, slowly. The orbs followed the wind but appeared to go less north than the clouds. The 3 white orbs were by them selves for about a minute. then 5 orbs came up slightly faster than the others primary assent, and then slowed and split into the pentagon shape filmed. I have a snap shot of the first 3, in the area of the pentagon you won’t find any orbs.

In the other photo you can see the pentagon orbs close to the first 3. That shows they accelerated to the area, not filmed but seen by me. The 5 came up close, like a group of balloons released at the same time, then slowed and formed the pentagon shape filmed. I thought that this was not balloons!! Balloons don’t form shapes and hold for minutes. Those balloons stayed in that shape and followed the first 3 perfectly from west to directly over head, heading east. I lost sight of them after that. Clouds to the east covered them. I filmed and observed seagulls after that. They were sharper in the photos, under the cloud cover, much closer. I could tell then that the orbs I saw were not birds or balloons. I’ve observed satellites many times passing over, The orbs had that appearance, but not the speed. It took about 12 minutes to go from 25 degrees to 90/100 degrees. Real slow. I photographed helicopters and airplanes, also observed the appearance, altitudes, etc. From that observation my guess is the orbs were anywhere from 5000 feet to 20,000 feet. I won’t guess what they were, just reporting what I saw.

You can totally judge for yourselves. As an artist who has an eye and perception better than normal, and as an aircraft fan, I know aircraft, I’ve seen balloons, satellites, shooting stars etc. This was none of those

12-01-2020 om 14:51 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

Second Repeating Fast Radio Burst Traced to Mysterious Intergalactic Source

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Second Repeating Fast Radio Burst Traced to Mysterious Intergalactic Source

Fast radio bursts—or FRBs if you’re trying to sound like you’re in the know—are mysterious, bright bursts of radio waves coming from outside our galaxy. Bright is a bit of an understatement, actually. In just a fraction of a second, fast radio bursts emit as much energy as our sun does over the course of a century. But there are a lot of events and objects out in space whose magnitude or power is best shown by making our sun look like a tiny, weak, little nerd of a star.

There’s a rarer type of FRB that is still completely mysterious: repeating fast radio bursts. While most FRBs flash once and only once, repeating FRBs demonstrate a consistent pattern of the same signal, leading some to speculate that the source may be artificial or intelligent in nature. Only one repeating fast radio burst has so far been traced to its source, a dense dwarf galaxy 3 billion light-years away. Now researchers have traced a second repeating fast radio burst to a nearby galaxy similar in structure to our own. What they found, however, only deepens the mystery.

FRB 180916.J0158+65 is the memorable name of the object in question. It was discovered by the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) observatory in British Columbia, Canada. Astronomers at CHIME, alongside a network of observatories in Europe, were able to trace FRB 180916.J0158+65 to an arm of a medium-sized spiral galaxy only 500 million light-years away. Which is close for another entire galaxy, and makes this the closest FRB ever discovered. Their findings were published on January 6, 2020 in the journal Nature.

Circled: the source of the mysterious fast radio burst.

(Image credit: Gemini Observatory/NSF’s Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory/AURA)

Now that’s a story in and of itself: tracing a repeating fast radio burst to its source for only the second time and it happens to be the closest FRB (repeating or nonrepeating) ever discovered. There are tons of jokes about our neighbors being aliens that practically write themselves. But here’s the rub. The location they tracked this FRB to has no sources of radio waves that, to our knowledge, could produce a fast radio burst of any kind, let alone a repeating signal.

This finding also flies in the face of every other FRB astronomers have managed to track down. The only other repeating FRB researchers have localized came from a galaxy that has a definite persistent radio source—possibly a nebula, according to researchers—which was seen as a likely source of the FRB. This new one has nothing of the sort, meaning, at the very least, that researchers still don’t have a nice model to explain repeating fast radio bursts.

But it’s always fun to put on the old wild-and-baseless-speculation-hats. Actually, we don’t even need the wild-and-baseless-speculation-hats. Take that off. Researchers tracked a repeating radio signal to a galaxy that has no visible means of producing it. That’s kind of nuts.

12-01-2020 om 01:56 geschreven door peter

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Holy Tatooine! NASA Find First Planet Orbiting Two Stars

TESSCircumbinaryPlanetTOI_1338b_eclipsing_stars_still

The planet TOI 1338 b orbits two stars in a binary star system, as shown in this illustration.

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Chris Smith

Holy Tatooine! NASA Find First Planet Orbiting Two Stars

“Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope” took place in 0 BBY (Before the Battle of Yavin), making Luke Skywalker 19 years old when he left his home planet Tatooine and its binary stars, Tatoo I and Tatoo II. In 2019, Wolf Cukier was 17 years old and a high school junior when he left his home in Scarsdale, New York, to summer intern at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland in Year 0 BDT – Before the Discovery of TOI 1338 b, the first exoplanet found to be orbiting two stars at once. Does this make him a Jedi or just really popular at school?

“There’s a whole bunch of things that also looked like planets when I was searching. It took some time to actually verify that this was a bonafide planet and not the telescope shaking or something. When I first found it, it was among 100 other things I flagged to start. I do think I put like 10 asterisks next to it. I thought it looked pretty good compared to the rest of the things I saw.”

Cukier described to The New York Post his work using data from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) to search images of the sky for changes in a star’s brightness over time, which would indicate the transit of a planet in front of it. Cukier knew that the smaller dwarf star of the TOI 1338 pair could be causing its dimming (obviously a smart kid), so he flagged (or asterisked) it and kept an eye on it. His hunch paid off when he observed a consistent transit in front of the large star that could definitely be a planet … one that is about 6.9 times larger than Earth. But how could he confirm it?

“Throughout all of its images, TESS is monitoring millions of stars. That’s why our team created eleanor. It’s an accessible way to download, analyze and visualize transit data. We designed it with planets in mind, but other members of the community use it to study stars, asteroids and even galaxies.”

In a NASA press release, Adina Feinstein, a graduate student at the University of Chicago and co-author with Cukier of the paper on the discovery which was discussed this week at the 235th American Astronomical Society meeting in Honolulu, introduces us to eleanor, which Wolf probably had to explain to his girlfriend is not a female robotic co-worker but an open-source python framework for downloading, analyzing, and visualizing data from the TESS Full Frame Images. The program is named after another sci-fi character — Eleanor Arroway, the central character in Carl Sagan’s novel “Contact.” She confirmed TOI 1338 b was real and not an instrument anomaly. (Watch a NASA video on the discovery here — Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Chris Smith)

TESS (NASA depiction)

Since he’s still a teen, will Wolf Cukier one day make a trip to his own circumbinary Tatooine planet … or at least see a probe visit there in his lifetime? Probably not, since TOI 1338 is 1,300 light-years away in the constellation Pictor. However, he does qualify to appear in a NASA press release and co-autor a scientific paper. In the world of astronomy, that’s the equivalent of a laurel and hearty handshake.

Let’s hope that in the world of senior year at high school, it means an A in astrophysics and a scholarship to a good college for Wolf. Not to mention a date with a real Eleanor.

12-01-2020 om 01:43 geschreven door peter

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Military UFO Witness and Researcher Running for Congress

We have a number of candidates running for president who claim they will investigate the existence of extraterrestrials and their spaceships once they’re elected, but these types of promises tend to get shoved aside when more pressing matters like foreign affairs, domestic disasters and welcoming championship sports teams to the White House interfere. Perhaps it’s because none of these candidates have any actual encounters with UFOs or ETs. Fortunately, there’s one candidate running for US Congress in California (of course) who has both, and his name is probably familiar to ufologists – retired U.S. Air Force Captain Robert Salas, who says the recent release of videos showing military encounters with UFOs are part of his motivation to run, and disclosure is part of his platform. Does he have a chance?

Robert Salas, a UFO witness (and researcher) who figured prominently in UFOs & Nukes: Extraordinary Encounters at Nuclear Weapons Sites is running for Congress.

“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.”

In 1967, Robert Salas was told by personnel under his command at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana that a red, glowing object about 30 feet in diameter was hovering just above the front gate of the facility. As he was escalating this up the chain of command, the ten Minuteman One nuclear-tipped missiles (ICBMs) at the base shut down due to failures in their guidance and control systems. In a story he has now told many times, Salas asked about the status of the UFO and was told by a guard that it took off at a high speed. The ICBMs were eventually brought back online and an investigation was conducted, which found no viable/believable/non-ET cause for the mysterious shutdown. Salas and everyone else involved were told never to discuss the incident again.

So why do so many people know about it? Well, ex-soldiers talk, especially when there’s beer involved, and Salas discovered there was a similar UFO-related shutdown incident in 1966 at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota. He decided to come forward with his story in 1994, co-authored a book, Faded Giant, about it in 2005, co-sponsored a press conference about it with other ex-military witnesses in 2010, participated in the Citizen’s Hearing on Disclosure at the National Press Club in Washington in 2013 and wrote another book about it and other similar cases in 2015 (Unidentified: The UFO Phenomenon). And yet, with all of that effort – including lectures and media appearances, Salas has not been able to influence disclosure about UFOs, ETs and their possible relationship to nuclear weapons and nuclear power, even though UFOs are often seen around power plants.

“So, how does this relate to my running for Congress? You may have already guessed? It will be one of my prime objectives to get Congress to take this phenomenon on as a serious matter. One that is directly related to excessive secrecy in many of our agencies and the issue of nuclear weapons.”

On his political website (salas4congress.org), Salas lists “The UFO Issue,” “Excessive Government Secrecy” and “Nuclear Weapons” as part of his platform. For greater details on his beliefs, he refers voters to his other website (spiralgalaxy.org). Unlike the current presidential candidates, Salas is upfront about them. He tells De Void why the recent UFO videos inspired him to run – he sees the military seizing on them as a funding vehicle to fight aliens, not work with them.

“The shutting down of our missiles was, to me, a message – that’s all. They did no damage to those missiles, by the way, they simply upset the inertial guidance system. All they had to do was go out there and reorient the missiles properly so that if they launched, they would be accurate on target. It was strictly an orientation thing.”

Does he have a chance? California’s primaries on March 3rd are bipartisan, which means the top two vote-getters will meet again in November, regardless of their party. So, he just needs to finish second against a strong incumbent. And if he doesn’t?

“I don’t know where this is gonna go. But if I don’t get laughed out of the place for this UFO stuff, if I can get the UFO community behind me even more in terms of donations, then hopefully I’ll have enough to compete, and stimulate more interest in this subject.”

Get out and vote!

12-01-2020 om 01:26 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:UFOs , UAPs , USOS

Newly Declassified Document Sheds New Light On UFO Sighting Over Soviet Missile Range

The CIA recently declassified an intelligence report which reveals new information regarding a nearly 50-year-old UFO sighting. The sighting happened during the summer of 1973 at an experimental missile range located in Kazakhstan (Soviet Union’s Sary Shagan Weapons Testing Range).

The heavily redacted report contains only one paragraph explaining the mysterious UFO encounter that happened at a spot called “Site 7”. It explains that the witness was watching a Canada vs. USSR sports game on television when the person “stepped outside for some air”. At that point, the witness reported seeing “an unidentified sharp (bright) green circular object or mass in the sky.” Even though the object was hovering in the sky, the witness was unable to give an approximate size.

According to the report, “Within 10 to 15 seconds of observation, the green circle widened and within a brief period of time several green concentric circles formed around the mass. Within minutes the coloring disappeared. There was no sound, such as an explosion, associated with the phenomenon.”

After researcher John Greenewald asked for a Mandatory Declassification Review and received the intelligence report, he made an interesting connection between numerous unexplained sightings during the Cold War and other similar UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) sightings reported by the U.S. Department of Defense. In fact, a military official told The Washington Post that UAPs can sometimes be seen in military airspace multiple times per month.

In a telephone interview, Greenewald told Newsweek, “This is very much similar to the context we see today, with threats on military facilities,” adding, “The U.S. Navy has gone on the record saying whatever this is, it’s a concern. They’re being encroached upon by this unidentified phenomena.”

The report also added that several weapons were being tested at the range, such as experimental missiles and warheads that contained cartridges that were loaded with hundreds of metal balls. “According to hearsay, experiments involving laser weapons were conducted at an unknown location at the range. Supposedly the tests involved powerful antennas,” the report read. The UFO sighting happened at Site 7 which was used as the headquarters for the “warhead checkout unit” with a number of Soviet Air Force personnel stationed there. The full report can be read here.

It’s quite interesting that the UFO encounter took place at an experimental missile range in 1973 because just a short time before that there were over 12,000 UFO sightings reported to Project Blue Book between the years 1947 and 1969 during the Cold War.

T̷h̷e̷ ̷B̷l̷a̷c̷k̷ ̷V̷a̷u̷l̷t̷@blackvaultcom

The CIA just shed light on a #UFO encounter that has remained a mystery for more than 40 years.

https://www.theblackvault.com/documentarchive/cia-ufo-document-

declassified-further-solidifies-threat-potential-from-unknown-objects/

…#blackvault #FOIA #UAP

CIA UFO Document Declassified Further Solidifies Threat Potential from Unknown Objects - The Black...

By John Greenewald, Jr. – The Black Vault – Originally Published January 6, 2020 The year 2019 was undoubtedly exciting for UFO enthusiasts. It brought news that the U.S. government and military...
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12-01-2020 om 00:43 geschreven door peter

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Some Eerily Similar Cases of Dogfights with UFOs

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Some Eerily Similar Cases of Dogfights with UFOs

In the annals of airborne UFO encounters there are some that go beyond merely pilots or passengers aboard airliners seeing something strange or spooky out in the sky. In some cases the object in question is actually engaged or seems to have some intense interaction with the aircraft, to the point that in a way it can be considered a dogfight of sorts. Here we have brave pilots chasing things they cannot explain and in at least one case dying for their efforts, and two of these UFO dogfights happened in the same year and share some remarkable similarities.

One of the most famous, well-publicized, and allegedly deadliest UFO dogfights supposedly happened in January of 1948. It revolves around Kentucky Air National Guard pilot Captain Thomas F. Mantell, who was an experienced WWII ace pilot and a war hero, being the recipient of awards such as the Distinguished Flying Cross and an Air Medal for his brave actions and heroism during the war. In other words, he was no rookie and no nut job, and on January 7, 1948 Mantell was piloting a F-51D Mustang along with three other pilots from the 165th Fighter Squadron of the Kentucky Air National Guard, in the area of Godman Field, at Fort Knox, Kentucky on a training exercise, when a strange series of events began to unfold.

It started with a report to Godman field from a Kentucky highway patrolman warning that he had seen a large circular object about 300 feet in diameter in the sky near Maysville, Kentucky, after which several other reports came in of people seeing the same thing in the vicinity of Owensboro and Irvington. Shortly after this, at approximately 1:45 PM, a Sgt Quinton Blackwell at Fort Knox made visual contact with the object along with two other personnel in the tower, and it was described as being “very white” with a red border at the bottom. It was also seen at Clinton County Army Air Field in Ohio, with the witnesses saying it had “the appearance of a flaming red cone trailing a gaseous green mist,” and an observer at Lockbourne Army Air Field in Ohio reported that it had dipped all the way down to the ground, only to suddenly soar to an altitude of 10,000 feet and speed off.

Seeing the object as a potential threat to air traffic in the area and looking to find out exactly what it was, Mantell and the other pilots in the air in the area at the time were ordered to go investigate. One of them had to return to base after he ran low on fuel, but the other three dutifully approached the mystery object, and Mantell would make visual confirmation, reportedly telling air traffic control that it was “metallic and of tremendous size.” The other pilots would give a slightly different description, saying that they could not exactly make out what it was as it was too indistinct at the time. They advised Mantell to hold off on pursuing it until they could more concretely identify what it was, but the WWII fighter ace ignored this and tore off after it in hot pursuit.

The other two pilots followed him as he gained altitude, but were then forced to abort because one of the pilots had a low oxygen supply and the other had no oxygen mask at all, so they were unable to climb too high. They were forced to break off and head back as Mantell continued to chase the anomalous object, which seemed to be retreating upwards, passing an altitude of 22,500 feet. As he passed this threshold, it seems that Mantell must have blacked out from a lack of oxygen, as his plane was seen to stop its ascent and then begin a spiraling, circular fall towards the earth. The out of control descent ended with Mantell’s aircraft careening down to crash into a farm south of Franklin, Kentucky at 3:18 PM, and emergency crews were immediately sent out to the site. The UFO itself then vanished from view and was not seen again.

It wasn’t thought that Mantell could have possibly survived the horrific crash, and this was indeed correct. The pilot was found dead and burned in the wreckage, and there were some odd clues found in that the seatbelt had been shredded and his watch had stopped at exactly the time that the plane had come down. It is uncertain what else was found there, but considering that a UFO had been involved and the story began getting splashed all over the media, rumors would soon begin to fly. Various rumors said such myriad mysterious things as that Mantell’s body had been found unburned and fully intact, that it had been full of bullet holes or alternately tiny burned holes indicative of some unknown laser weapon, or that there had been no body at all, as well as that the entire plane had actually been disintegrated in mid-air, or that the wreckage had been magnetized or radioactive. There was absolutely no evidence for any of this, but the public ate it up and it created an added mystique to it all.

Theories ran amok that he had been shot down by a top secret air craft or even a UFO. As far as the military was concerned, it was a classified issue, but many Air Force officials said that they believed that Mantell had died after misidentifying the planet Venus for an unidentified object and then losing oxygen as he got too high. However, this hypothesis seems odd, as according to astronomers Venus at the time was not bright enough to be seen, at most as a vague pinpoint of light, let alone mistaken for an enormous metallic craft like that described. The official stance would change when it was found that the Navy had been carrying out a top secret program called Project Skyhook at the time, which entailed testing the use of special high-altitude meteorological balloons for the purpose of intelligence gathering. The idea was that the balloon could have been mistaken for a mysterious craft, and then foolishly pursued by Mantell. Of course, considering that the official stance is rarely completely trusted by the public, there is of course the idea that he really did chase an alien UFO.

There are a few problems with the balloon theory, such as why such an experienced pilot would not recognize it for what it was, and the fact that the object was also tracked by numerous other trained sources who also did not recognize it as a balloon, and the fact that no one seems to be able to tell if there was even one of those balloons in the area at the time. It also seems to have displayed very non-weather balloon-like behavior with the report of the object dipping down to ground level and shooting up to the sky, as well as displaying amazing acceleration. Whatever it was that Mantell chased or thought he was chasing, it has never really been satisfactorily explained, and nothing really matches all of the details, the experience of the pilot, and the preceding sightings by numerous other observers before the incident. It has gone on to have the distinction of being the first known death of a pilot directly as a result of a UFO, in this case not necessarily an alien craft, but an unidentified object. In the end, it is a weird tale with many questions, and has become perhaps the most well-known case of a pilot engaging an unidentified flying object.

The year 1948 seems to have been the year for this sort of thing, because another very similar case allegedly occurred in October of that year, this time in the skies over Fargo, North Dakota, in the United States. On October 1, 1948, a veteran fighter pilot of the Second World War by the name of George Gorman was on a cross country flight as a second lieutenant in the North Dakota Air National Guard. On this day he was travelling as a part of a squadron of P-51 Mustangs on a training flight, and they made their scheduled destination of Fargo at 8 PM that evening. While the other pilots landed, Gorman went off to do some night flight practice in the clear weather.

After 1 hour of this, at 9 PM Gorman would report that he had seen a bright blinking light that did not seem to have a fuselage or to be a normal airplane in any sense that he could tell. He radioed in the strange object to Fargo’s Hector Airport, and it turned out that no other aircraft was in the area except him and a small Piper Cub that Gorman could see even as he witnessed the mysterious light. It soon became apparent that the Piper Club was also witnessing the anomalous object, and this was enough to make Gorman decide to approach it to see what it was, soon finding that it was moving very rapidly, and it seemed to be evading his attempts to close in on it even as it seemed to taunt him, at one point whizzing by a mere 500 feet away. However, because of this he was able to get a closer visual, and would explain that it was little more than an intensely bright light only perhaps around 8 inches in diameter, and that it got brighter whenever it slowed down.

Gorman would proceed to doggedly pursue the object, which climbed and dropped at a rapid pace, sometimes drawing the pilot to such an altitude that his plane stalled, moved with incredible dexterity, circled around him, and on several occasions buzzed by dangerously close. This “dogfight” brought them directly over the Fargo Airport, where it was also clearly witnessed by air traffic control and ground personnel, who also watched as Gorman’s plane chased it right past them to the southwest. Gorman would manage to get above the object and make a dive on it, after which he claims it made a sudden vertical maneuver to go shooting past and disappear up into higher altitudes. Unable to get another visual on the object, Gorman gave up and flew back to the airport to land, where he would go on to give a formal account of what happened, saying:

I am convinced that there was definite thought behind its maneuvers. I am further convinced that the object was governed by the laws of inertia because its acceleration was rapid but not immediate and although it was able to turn fairly tight at considerable speed, it still followed a natural curve. When I attempted to turn with the object I blacked out temporarily due to excessive speed. I am in fairly good physical condition and I do not believe that there are many if any pilots who could withstand the turn and speed effected by the object, and remain conscious. The object was not only able to out turn and out speed my aircraft … but was able to attain a far steeper climb and was able to maintain a constant rate of climb far in excess of my aircraft.

George Gorman on the left

Gorman, the pilot of the Piper Cub, and other witnesses to the incident would be intensively questioned by the Air Force and the aircraft involved extensively checked for radiation or magnetism, finding Gorman’s plane to be significantly more radioactive than it should have been. At first the Air Force were forced to concede that “something remarkable had occurred,” but perhaps not surprisingly to the conspiracy minded they soon changed their tune. Their new theory? It was a weather balloon. Not only that, but to make it more bizarre they claimed that not only had Gorman frantically chased this balloon, but that he had then mistaken the planet Venus for the object and chased that as well. Remember, this was a war hero ace pilot we are talking about, so does this really make sense? Whether it does or not, this would be the official explanation and still is. We are still left to ask, does a trained and experienced fighter pilot mistake a balloon and Venus for something zipping around doing circles around him and taunting him? It seems odd. Of course this has been picked apart within the UFO community, and probably will be a mystery for some time to come.

Here we have looked at two cases that are similar in a number of ways. Both occurred in the same year, and were experienced by seasoned World War II pilots flying with the National Guard in similar planes. Both had strange encounters with a maneuverable, inexplicable craft that they chased to no avail as the objects seemed to toy with them, and both stalled out in this pursuit, one fatally. In both of these strange cases the objects were seen by numerous other observers and noted by air traffic control, with no one able to explain what they were seeing, and both times the explanation from the government came down to weather balloons and Venus. While the cases may be totally unrelated, they are undeniably very similar, both harrowing, and show similar features that mark them as perhaps something beyond mere mundane explanations. What happened to these men and others like them, who have become engaged in a test of wits and skill with possible forces from beyond our understanding? Is there something to this all, or is it just misidentification and weather balloons? If these really were UFOs then what did they want and why were they toying with these pilots? Whatever the case may be, these are two of the most well-known cases of UFO dogfights that remain talked about to this day.

12-01-2020 om 00:15 geschreven door peter

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11-01-2020

Navy admits it has secret unreleased video from infamous USS Nimitz encounters with mysterious 'Tic Tac' UFO in 2004

ONI revealed the existence of the video in a response to a FOIA request

The classified video relates to the 2004 USS Nimitz 'Tic Tac' UFO encounters

A confirmed clip of gun-pod video of the flying object previously leaked online
The classified video is likely the full unreleased version of that leaked video
ONI also says it has Top Secret briefing slides related to the encounters

By KEITH GRIFFITH FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

The U.S. Navy's Office of Naval Intelligence has revealed the existence of a classified, unreleased video relating to the USS Nimitz carrier group's 2004 encounters with a 'Tic Tac'-shaped UFO.

The existence of the video was revealed in a response to a Freedom of Information Act request made by researcher Christian Lambright, and published by Lambright's friend Paul Dean on Wednesday.

The video is likely the full version of a leaked 76-second video clip that the Defense Department admitted in 2017 was authentic Forward Looking Infrared (FLIR) gun-pod camera footage of the object shot by an F-18 Super Hornet pilot over the Pacific.

However, the possibility remains that a separate video exists of the object, which at least six Super Hornet pilots made visual or instrument contact with on November 14, 2004.

The encounters, which are documented in numerous interviews with first-hand witnesses, have never been explained, and the object's incredible speed and movements have led to speculation, so far unconfirmed, that it was extraterrestrial in origin.

The FOIA response letter above revealed that ONI has 'TOP SECRET' briefing slides and 'SECRET' video related to the 2004 USS Nimitz carrier group encounters

The FOIA response letter above revealed that ONI has 'TOP SECRET' briefing slides and 'SECRET' video related to the 2004 USS Nimitz carrier group encounters

In his October 28 FOIA request, Lambright requested 'all releasable portions of records and reports related to investigation of the detection of and encounter(s) with Anomalous Aerial Vehicles (AAVs) by personnel involved with the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group (CSG) operations off the western coast of the United States during the period of approximately 10-16 November, 2004.'

Less than two months later, ONI’s FOIA and public affairs coordinator, Camille V’Estres, responded that the department had 'no releasable records' in response to the request.

However, the response revealed the existence of classified documents related to the Nimitz carrier groups encounters.

'We have discovered certain briefing slides that are classified TOP SECRET,' V'Estres wrote in the letter.

The letter goes on to indicate that the briefing slides were created by another, undisclosed, agency, but remain classified under provisions that protect the sources and methods of intelligence gathering, as well as protections for scientific and technological matters related to national security.

Then the letter reveals the existence of the unreleased video.

'We have also determined that ONI possesses a video classified SECRET that ONI is not the Original Classification Authority for,' the letter reads.

'ONI has forwarded your request to Naval Air Systems Command to make a determination on releasability,' it continues.

The classified video is likely the full version of the leaked 76-second clip (above) which circulated online from 2007, and was confirmed as authentic in 2017

The Naval Air Systems Command provides support for the Navy's aircraft and airborne weapons, and the fact that it is the classification authority strongly suggests that the secret video was made by a plane-mounted camera such as the FLIR.

The original FLIR video from the Nimitz encounters leaked online as early as 2007. Witnesses say that clips of the FLIR video circulated widely on the intranet used to communicate among the ships in the carrier group, and a sailor in the group likely first leaked it.

The 76-second video is grainy, has no audio, and appears to be incomplete, showing the the unknown object after the FLIR had already acquired a lock — but despite these deficiencies, it became one of the most-touted pieces of evidence in the UFO community when the Pentagon confirmed its authenticity in 2017.

The new information from the ONI suggests that the full FLIR video remains classified — or, perhaps, that there is a second video that has never been disclosed.

Last month, Chad Underwood, the former Navy pilot who shot the famous leaked video clip, broke his silence in an interview with New York Magazine.

Underwood is the one who coined the description 'Tic Tac' for the oblong, wingless object, and it was his in-flight video that caused a sensation in 2017 when the Pentagon confirmed that the footage was authentic.

The incident unfolded during carrier group exercises in the Pacific, off the coast of Mexico.

For about two weeks, the Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser USS Princeton, part of Carrier Strike Group 11, had been tracking mysterious aircraft intermittently for two weeks on an advanced AN/SPY-1B passive radar.

Chad Underwood spoke out in an interview with New York Magazine published last month, detailing for the first time his experiences over the Pacific in November 2004

A map shows the rough location of the USS Nimitz carrier group during the 2004 encounter

The radar contacts were so inexplicable that the system was even shut down and restarted to to check for bugs — but operators continued to track the unknown aircraft.

Then on November 14, Commander David Fravor says he was flying in an F/A-18F Super Hornet when he made visual contact with the object, which seemed to dive below the water, resurface, and speed out of sight when he tried to approach it.

As Fravor landed on the deck of the Nimitz, Underwood was just gearing up to take off on his own training run.

Fravor told Underwood about the bizarre encounter, and urged Underwood to keep his eyes open. Underwood replied that the Princeton's radar crew had already reported an object that they wanted the fighters to attempt to track.

'So, we go out to where our designated training area is. We’re not necessarily looking for something, but the Princeton had a specific object that they wanted us to hunt, for lack of a better word. And all of a sudden, I got this blip on my radar,' Underwood recalled in the new interview.

Underwood estimated the object was about 20 miles away, and he was able to pick it up on his infrared gun-pod camera (FLIR).

'The thing that stood out to me the most was how erratic it was behaving. And what I mean by “erratic” is that its changes in altitude, air speed, and aspect were just unlike things that I’ve ever encountered before flying against other air targets,' Underwood told the magazine.

Underwood was flying in an F/A-18F Super Hornet as part of the USS Nimitz (above) carrier group when he encountered an 'unidentified aerial phenomena'

'Because, aircraft, whether they’re manned or unmanned, still have to obey the laws of physics. They have to have some source of lift, some source of propulsion. The Tic Tac was not doing that. It was going from like 50,000 feet to, you know, a hundred feet in like seconds, which is not possible,' he said.

'If it was obeying physics like a normal object that you would encounter in the sky — an aircraft, or a cruise missile, or some sort of special project that the government didn’t tell you about — that would have made more sense to me. The part that drew our attention was how it wasn’t behaving within the normal laws of physics,' Underwood continued.

'Normally, you would see engines emitting a heat plume. This object was not doing that. The video shows a source of heat, but the normal signatures of an exhaust plume were not there. There was no sign of propulsion,' he said.

Underwood said that the object was flying far to high to be birds, and dismissed the notion of a weather balloon because of its erratic and sudden movements.

The Navy flyer also scoffed at the notion that it was some kind of weather event, given the multiple radar and visual contacts made by both the Princeton and multiple Hornet pilots.

Underwood wasn't able to rule out the notion that the object was some kind of highly advanced, classified U.S. military project — but he did note that he was not given a debriefing warning him of the secret project, as he had in other scenarios as a pilot when he'd accidentally encountered classified planes.

To this day, Underwood isn't sure what the object was, and he refuses to speculate.

'I’ve never said that this is what I think it was or speculate as to what I think it was,' he said. 'That’s not my job. But I saw something. And it was also seen, via eyeballs, by both my commanding officer, Dave Fravor, and the Marine Corps Hornet squadron commanding officer who was out there as well.'

'At no point did I want to speculate as to what I thought this thing was — or be 'associated with, you know, “alien beings” and “alien aircraft” and all that stuff. I’m like, “No. I do not want to be part of that community.” It is just what we call a UFO. I couldn’t identify it. It was flying. And it was an object. It’s as simple as that,' he said.

Read more:

UFOs - Documenting The Evidence

11-01-2020 om 23:55 geschreven door peter

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Navy Admits To Having Additional Footage Of Nimitz UFO Encounter But Won’t Release It

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Navy Admits To Having Additional Footage Of Nimitz UFO Encounter But Won’t Release It

The United States Navy has admitted to having additional footage/information about the 2004 USS Nimitz Tic Tac UFO encounter, but won’t release it because it could jeopardize national security.

A researcher named Christian Lambright sent a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request to the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) in October requesting information on the encounter. He recently received a response to his request and while the Navy didn’t offer him any new evidence, they did provide very important information regarding a secret video and documents. They said that they did have “top secret” documents and “secret” video footage but they weren’t allowed to release them as they could cause “grave damage” to national security.

USS Nimitz

The response from ONI read in part, “We have discovered certain briefing slides that are classified TOP SECRET. A review of these materials indicates that are currently and appropriate Marked and Classified TOP SECRET under Executive Order 13526, and the Original Classification Authority has determined that the release of these materials would cause exceptionally grave damage to the National Security of the United States,” and, “We have also determined that ONI possesses a video classified SECRET.” The entire letter can be read in full here.

This is a very interesting development as several of the USS Nimitz sailors have reported watching longer videos than those that were made public in 2017. However, when journalists questioned the Pentagon about these allegedly longer videos, spokesperson Susan Gough said that the three videos released to the public were the only ones.

So is there another video of the encounter or not? According to a Navy pilot who chased the tic tac shaped UFO, there are missing tapes of the encounter. In an interview with The Fighter Pilot Podcast last year, Commander David Fravor said that “All the radar tapes from the Princeton are missing and they can’t find [them].” Additionally, he mentioned that after the encounter, he made copies of the tapes which also went missing.

USS Princeton

Another U.S. Navy veteran (Lead Petty Officer Ryan Weigelt) claimed that secret officials boarded the USS Princeton and took “something” off the helicopters which made them unable to fly.

Are these missing tapes the ones that the Navy won’t release to the public? And what exactly did the secret officials take off the Princeton? What are they trying to hide and why would it cause “grave damage” to national security? With each new bit of information regarding the tic tac UFO encounter, there seems to be more questions than answers.

11-01-2020 om 23:44 geschreven door peter

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The UFO Answer(s)

I regret, intellectually, not empathetically, griping about this, but I am almost convinced that an explanation of the UFO enigma – from an actual containment, forensically, of a UFO – will provide the answers that philosophers, theologians, science, et al. ask, and have been asking for millennia, about what the purpose of this existence is.

In the periodicals and books I get and which I’ve gotten the past few months, arise questions that many who visit (or once visited) this blog (and others) do not wish to cope with. (Do I need to provide the names of those passive UFOers?)

Just in the recent New Yorker magazine, the TLS(Times Literary Supplement), New York Review of Books, Wired, Smithso- nian, and the books I’ve noted here (some recommended by my astute pals), and a few TV shows via the Science Channel, Travel, Discovery, et cetera. questions or debates have arisen or have been resurrected about The Big Bang Theory, what constitutes reality, the nature of the universe – multi or multi dimensional, the singularity (and AI), consciousness, intelligent life in the cosmos, quantum mechanics (and its reality), Einstein’s perhaps errant Relativity, et cetera, et cetera.

Few coming here wish to deal with these philosophical or scientifically oriented issues.

And few are dealing with these and related issues elsewhere, Facebook taking hold of the mind and demeanor of many once curious UFO advocates, who now just ant to be “liked” or noted for what they eat or where their next trip/vacation takes them.

But the die-hards, few as they are nowadays, continue to seek the UFO answer, some with a conspiratorial mindset and addiction to the idea of “Disclosure” and others, the true seekers, wanting to know just what the hell UFOs are (or have been).

Then there’s me, who thinks, madly perhaps, that UFOs hold the answer(s) to the Universe and maybe even its God (or supreme being).

Getting a hold of – as I keep suggesting, doggedly, hoping you’ll forgive my obsession for the thought – a UFO, in a metaphorical sense or, better, in a real, material sense will offer answers to many of those things vibrantly being discussed in some circles.

I can’t seem to get some, who show up here, to pore over books, tomes, and printed materials that deal with weighty matters, most preferring the often slip-shod and iffy presentations on the Internet, YouTube a repository for much nonsense being a favorite for the lazy pseudo-intellectuals ufology is awash in.

Even a few brilliant academics I contend with have been usurped by the whimsy of the internet, a few seduced by Facebook, even though their presence there is virtually unnoticed by the billion or so Facebookers on this Earth.

Anyway, let’s hope that UFOs remain in the spotlight a little longer, and that some agency or Flying Saucer manics [sic] come up with a viable UFO, from which we can cull some answers about what we are and who is in charge of this mess we call existence.

http://ufocon.blogspot.com – The UFO Iconoclast(s)

Source:

https://ufocon.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-ufo-answers.html

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Most Mysterious Photos of All Time

From the ghost of a woman appearing randomly in a group photo to an apparition captured by closed-circuit security cameras, we count Most Mysterious Demon or Ghost Photos of All Time.

11-01-2020 om 18:04 geschreven door peter

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Ear-pleasing new report confirms volcanic source of mysterious global hum

Magma Hero

Credit: Getty Images

The idea is that “Every time the rock sags into the chamber, it creates a resonance and this produces this strange signal that you see far away.” Is this really ‘The Hum’?

Can you hear it? That elemental thrumming emerging just beneath the engulfing din of everyday city and suburban life? Well, chances are you're not losing your mind or developing some extrahuman ability akin to comic book superheroes. Better odds are that it's Mother Earth's growing pains in the form of loud volcanic stirrings, as revealed in a new study published in the journal Nature Geoscience.

First reported back in the '70s, these unexplained low-frequency rumbles were heard around the world, and though myriad theories were presented, there was no specific cause ever found, other than possible sound sources like area cooling towers, transformer substations, industrial air compressors, and even secret submarine tracking stations (as portrayed in a 1998 The X-Files episode titled Drive).

MORE VOLCANOES

Credit: Getty Images

Now a German scientific team has apparently solved the mystery of a strange seismic humming experienced around the globe since it was first detected in late 2018. And despite many believing it was some alien doomsday device warming up to unleash its planet-killing spores, it appears to be caused by a massive underwater volcano forming just off the coast of Madagascar.

Beginning in the spring of 2018, a wave of intense earthquakes was recorded off the coast of the minuscule island of Mayotte, a French territory midway between Madagascar and Mozambique.

This anomaly led study co-author Simone Cesca, a German seismologist of the GFZ German Research Center for Geosciences, to conclude with his colleagues that they were caused by an enormous pocket of molten magma slowly draining up to meet the sea floor of the Indian Ocean. According to their latest research paper, it’s the largest magma chamber ever discovered, and measures in at a whopping 16 to 19 miles deep.

Credit: Getty Images

While surrounding rock filtered and sagged down over the draining magma lake, the ocean floor responded by emitting an epic hum starting in June 2018, and first heard five months later. This gradual draining process also gave birth to a ginormous undersea volcano that spanned three miles in diameter and rose to a height of nearly 2,500 feet.

The primal machinations creating the underwater volcano began voicing a faint seismic humming that wasn't heard until Nov. 11, 2018, when sonic waves traversed the Earth from Kenya to Chile and Canada to the Hawaiian Islands, growing louder and lasting up to 30 minutes at a time. This thunderous downsag of the host rock overlying the reservoir is what triggered the worldwide resonance by emitting 407 very-long-period seismic signals.

Credit: Getty Images

“The whole episode is really, really rare,” Cesca told The Washington Post. “Seeing the deep magma chamber, seeing the magma’s propagation to the surface, seeing the volcano being born — I think this is unique, absolutely. Every time the rock sags into the chamber, it creates a resonance and this produces this strange signal that you see far away.”

So next time your ears pick up some odd reverberations you can't quite identify, it just might be the birthings of some baby volcano arriving into the world.

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

11-01-2020 om 17:38 geschreven door peter

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Flying Person Seen Over Ancient Temple In Saudi Arabia, Dec 2019, Video, UFO Sighting News.

Flying Person Seen Over Ancient Temple In Saudi Arabia, Dec 2019, Video, UFO Sighting News.

11-01-2020 om 16:17 geschreven door peter

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Jumping Person In Mars Photo, Proof Of Life, UFO Sighting News.

Jumping Person In Mars Photo, Proof Of Life, UFO Sighting News.

Date of discovery: January 11, 2020
Location of discovery: Mars
Source photo:

http://www.gigapan.com/gigapans/219323

I was searching for evidence of life in a gigapan photo of Mars when I came across this object on the side of a hill. The object seems to have three long appendages...maybe legs and arms. There is something similar to a head that is also visible. This could however also be a living plant growing on the side of the hill. Its difficult to make a 100% conclusion of what it is due to the the photo losing some detail at this close distance. Either way, it is 100% proof of live on Mars.
Scott C. Waring - Taiwan

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UFO At Space Station Recorded On Live Cam! Jan 5, 2020, UFO Sighting News.

UFO At Space Station Recorded On Live Cam! Jan 5, 2020, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: Jan 5, 2020

Location of sighting: Earths orbit at space station

I was watching the live cam and noticed the huge glowing object that matched speed with the space station. It was visible on NASA live cam for 15 minutes. If it was the moon, it would only be visible for a minute and half at most. I've seen the moon a hundred times on the cam...this is not it. I made the video 2x speed to make it faster and not waste your time, but it was 15 min long. The UFO moves from bottom to top but instead of moving in a straight line, it suddenly curves and moves to the upper left. At this point the object begins to move away from the space station at incredible speed...I know this because the object becomes smaller, which means its moving off into the distance. Why wont NASA ever talk about these UFOs? Because they are real.

Scott C. Waring - Taiwan

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

UFO-like anomaly appears next to the sun caught on camera

Linda Miller was doing some more filming at sunset and caught quite a few anomalies around the sun and and in our atmosphere.

Linda who captured the anomalies on December 29, 2019 is not sure whether the several objects are space junk, space rocks or satellites, or something else, but there is one object that changes direction.

She doesn't point out every single one, see if you can spot them all!

11-01-2020 om 15:28 geschreven door peter

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Unidentified flying object in the sky above Los Angeles, Nevada 9-Jan-2020

Latest UFO Sightings 2020 – This one was taken over LA on 9th January.

Witness report:

I shot this video from my backyard in the Summerlin area of Las Vegas, Nevada on the night of January 9, 2020. You can tell the difference between a UFO and a conventional aircraft despite some who claim that night vision make everything look like a UFO. Of course, that isn’t true and the short clip of a Janet jet flying over shows that. Somewhere in the near future, I will show a video of a number of different aircraft and how they appear after being captured by my night vision monocular. This main object isn’t the only strange object in the sky. There are a couple others that appear to fly very low which shouldn’t be happening.

11-01-2020 om 15:13 geschreven door peter

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Is Case Finally Closed on 1965 Pennsylvania 'UFO Mystery'?

By Leonard David

Mockup of the Kecksburg UFO made for the Unsolved Mysteries TV program in 1990. The object is displayed at the Kecksburg Volunteer Fire Department in Pennsylvania.

(Image: © Stan Gordon)

In the chronicles of UFO oddness, there's been a long-standing oddity ? some say folklore, others deem it reality. This saga, now over four decades old, centerson a reported out-of-the-sky incident involving the small town of Kecksburg, Pennsylvania.

The date is Dec. 9, 1965: Residents see a ball of fire shooting through the darkeningevening sky and then, seemingly, the object purportedly shaped like a jumbo-sizedacorn after impact makes some sort of controlled crash into the woods. From there, the strangeness factor escalates with purported military personnel isolating the area from curious onlookers and toting something out of the localeon a flatbed truck.

A meteorite? A wayward classified aircraft? Reentering space hardware of Earthlyorigin? An aliencraft from afar?

You pick.

Upagainst NASA

Whatevertook place in Kecksburg, a dutiful look into the episode escalated to a lawsuit against NASA for access to information on the incident.

A central figure in the weirdness is New York-based investigative journalist, LeslieKean. Working with the Coalition for Freedom of Information, she was on the receivingend of loads of documents an outcome of winning the lawsuit.

This stage of the saga began in 2002, when Kean was asked to spearhead a Freedom ofInformation Act (FOIA) initiative sponsored by the Sci Fi Channel an effort to acquire government documents on the Kecksburg case. The following year, sheended up as the plaint iff in a federal, FOIA lawsuit filed against NASA in Washington, DC.

After previously promising to conduct an expedited search for files related to the 1965 Kecksburg UFO crash case, NASA had stonewalled and was withholdingdocuments, leaving no recourse but this one, Kean explained in a just-issuedreport. A settlement four years later, in October 2007, required NASA toprovide hundreds of new documents and pay my attorney?s legal fees.

Nosmoking gun

NASA's resulting search, monitored by the court, was completed in August 2009. The outcome of the investigation is available in Keans paper, which was postedonline this month to the coalition?s Web site.

The report,flatly titled, The Conclusion of the NASA Lawsuit - Concerning the Kecksburg, PA UFO case of 1965, explains how the process worked and the results of thesearch after the 2007 settlement in federal court.

The bottomline: No smoking gun documents were released, Kean notes, but many provocativequestions and unresolved contradictions were raised by what was received, aswell as by the fact that many files were missing or destroyed.

One open-endedaspect of Kean?s reportage is the role of ?Project Moondust? ? a U.S. government-run activity involved in examining non-U.S. space objects, or objects of unknown origin. Indeed, variousState Department documents show that NASA played a role in the recovery andexamination of space object debris.

Coldtrail, hot caveats

After months of studying the material received, Kean reports that the trail is colbut with caveats.

I amconvinced that something came down and landed in Kecksburg, Kean told SPACE.com.

Kean thinksthat a UFO connection of the extra-Earth type is a possibility that has to be considered. It can't be ruled out, she said.

Other potentials, Kean added, ?include a very secret U.S. project or another nation?shardware. But both of these explanations are unlikely.

Keans research indicates that it appears doubtful that the object in question waseither Russian or from any other country on our planet backed up by NASA orbital debris elucidation. Also, data from the U.S. Space Command and the Russian Space Agency fortifies the fact that whatever came down that day was nota Russian satellite or space probe, she stated.

So I would rule that out, and say it's either a UFO or a secret American device of somesort, Kean said. If it was our own, she added, why couldn't they tell usabout this 40 years later?

Therefore, thats why the UFO possibility ?has to be kept in the running, as hard as it may be toaccept, Kean said. Possibly it was some kind of secretive U.S. government project or program or the testing of something. Maybe it was highlyradioactive so they don't want anybody to know about it.

However, acentral take home message from Kean has no connection with alien visitation ?more a governmental encounter of the lack-of-transparency kind.

The effort highlights the problems inherent to the use of the Freedom of Information Act in our democracy, Kean explained.

It hasbeen a long, long process, she said. The important thing about this hasnothing to do with UFOs. It just points out the problems with the Freedom of Information Act as it standstoday.

A caseworth investigating

The NASA lawsuit was made possible because of the support of a major television network,Kean said. Also add to the investigation, John Podesta -- President Clintons former Chief of Staff -- an archival research group, a lawyer, and a publicrelations firm in Washington, D.C.

Larry Landsman, then Director ofSpecial Projects at the Sci Fi Channel (now Syfy), launched the UFO advocacy initiative, with the Kecksburg lawsuit as one component of that larger undertaking.He is now an independent television producer working on various specialsand miniseries.

In early 2002, a group of us beganto seriously explore what initiative could be launched that would beappropriate to the spirit of the network, Landsman told SPACE.com. ?After muchbrainstorming, I proposed a campaign that pushed for the truth behind allof the many reports of UFOs and other unexplained phenomena. We were thefirst -- and so far, only -- company ever to pursue such an initiative and we attackedthe issue on a number of fronts both on air and off air, he said.

As for Kecksburg, Landsmancontinued, ?we felt it was a case worth investigating, supporting KeansFreedom of Information pursuit of the full and uncensored reports about the incident.

There were too many lives that we reupended from this event and American citizens had -- and have -- the right to know the truth. Clearly many things are going on in our world that cannot be easily explained, Landsman said. Polls show that a majority of Americans believe the government is covering up information on UFOs. Thetruth should not be kept in the hands of only a relative few at various government agencies and military departments

Keep an open mind

For Stan Gordon, a steadfast on-scene investigator of what took place in Kecksburg thosemany years ago, the case is far from closed.

My feelings today in regards to the Kecksburg incident are unchanged. I remainconvinced that an object of still undetermined origin fell from the sky into awooded area near Kecksburg, said Gordon.

Gordon told SPACE.com that multiple independent witnessesdescribed the object traversing the sky. As it turned and neared Kecksburg,the object was described as moving and descending slowly, as if making a controlledlanding.

The semi-buried metallic acorn shaped object was observed on the ground by a numberof independent eyewitnesses. Whatever that object was, it was important enoughfor the military to quickly arrive on the scene and recover the object in question,Gordon said.

One plausible theory, Gordon suggested, is that the object was an advancedsecretive human-made space device with re-entry control capabilities whichapparently failed. Another is that this could have beenan extra-terrestrial spacecraft, he noted.

Until definitive evidence is found that will conclusively explain the object, I willcontinue to keep an open mind concerning all theories as to the origin of theobject, Gordon concluded.

For Kean,even after years of work trying to unravel the Kecksburg incident, what tookplace there is an unanswered question.?

10 AlienEncounters Debunked
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LeonardDavid has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. Heis past editor-in-chief of the National Space Society's Ad Astra and SpaceWorld magazines and has written for SPACE.com since 1999.

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The Bizarre UFO Crash at Kecksburg

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The Bizarre UFO Crash at Kecksburg

Brent Swance

Alleged UFO crashes always generate interest, these cases of possible aliens from another word finding themselves stranded on Earth. There is a surprisingly large number of such accounts, yet some of these are not as well known as Roswell, and a few have managed to remain mostly relatively obscure. One of these supposedly happened in a small rural town in the United States, when something fell down from the heavens to leave bafflement that continues to this day.

On the otherwise peaceful evening of December, 9, 1965, the people of the small town of Kecksburg, Pennsylvania, around 40 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, were startled when a strange glowing object sped across the night sky from the north. The object was seen by hundreds of people, many of who would describe it as somewhat acorn-shaped and emanating wisps of yellow, purple and orange colors, as well as claiming that the object seemed to change directions and to be under intelligent control. One of the witnesses at the time, a boy named Robb Landy was out with his brother when it roared overhead, and he would say of it:

We were riding up the road and we just happened to look up into the sky and we saw this thing coming over the tops of the trees. It just glided right across the sky, like across the horizon of the trees. We were just, like, in awe, you know, as we watched it. Then it disappeared, and we ran.

It would later turn out that this strange object had been seen by thousands of witnesses streaking across a large swath of the northeastern United States and Canada, and the thing’s eerie trail reportedly was visible for hundreds of miles around. Yet it seems that after this fantastic light display the object, whatever it was and wherever it came from, would end its journey at Kecksburg, where it reportedly crashed right there in a small wooded hollow near a farm owned by the Kalp family. At the time many people believed that the object had been simply a plane on fire, and so curiosity seekers were soon flocking to where the smoke and fire of the impact site could be seen. It was not long after that police and firefighters were also converging on the scene, and this was when it would slowly become apparent that whatever it was that had fallen out of the sky onto that farm was no plane.

Some of the first descriptions of something very weird going on out in those darkened woods were from search teams that had been brought in to find where the crash site actually was, with these teams mostly formed of state troopers and firefighters. Some of these searchers would claim to have seen a very bright blue light flashing intermittently through the trees through the gloom of the smoke, and some even claimed to have come across the object itself. One of the most spectacular reports of this happening would come from volunteer fire fighter James Romansky, who would say of the outlandish sight awaiting his team:

Here was this humongous metal object, half buried in the ground. About six, seven, eight foot around, and it was every bit of eight, ten, twelve foot long. And to me the object looked like exactly like a fresh acorn that you’d pick off of a tree. There was no wings, there was no motors. There was no propellers. There was no identification whatsoever that would identify it as a aircraft that I would know. There was a bumper on the bottom part of it. On that bumper there was what I call, it looked to me like the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. It was markings like stars, and shapes and figures and circles, and lines, and what it was, I don’t know. To this day I’ve never seen anything like it. So we’re all standing around this thing, wondering what in the heck it could be, and finally here come two men down through the woods. And they took one look at the object, and immediately told us to leave. ‘We are in charge, we’re taking command, get out of here.’ So we left there, and by the time we got back down here to the fire hall, I mean, this place was wall to wall military.

Indeed, by all accounts the military was amazingly quick to arrive on the scene and take charge, within an hour moving in to disperse curious locals and eject all reporters and local authorities from the area. It was amazingly efficient and quick, but there were several witnesses who allegedly got a peak at what they were up to before being chased off. Some of them saw armed personnel swarming about, trucks marked with a white star, and people entering the area with special instruments and in some sort of radiation or HAZMAT suits. One witness named Bill Weaver would say:

I looked down in there myself. I seen there was something down in there, that had bright lights on it. But I couldn’t see the object itself. Some time later, I seen a van type truck pull up there. There was some men dressed in moon suits, we called them at the time, and they had a light colored box, roughly five foot square. They carried it down into the ravine.

Many others made similar claims of radiation suit clad personnel fanning out over the crash site, but the most interesting accounts are of those who say they saw the military whisking the actual mystery object away, which happened within an hour of them arriving. Most witnesses say they were only able to see a large, flatbed truck, flanked by jeeps and holding something large upon it covered with tarps, but some of them would say that they had seen the actual object, and this is where things get weird, as some witnesses insist that it was a large metallic craft of some kind, while others say it was a smaller object about the size of two suitcases put together. For their part, the military officially stated it was a meteorite and then took off without further explanation. The thing is, everyone who got a glimpse of the object maintain that it was no meteorite, and there is also the very distinctive appearance and behavior it had before it fell to earth, as well as the fact that everything was so hush hush. UFO researcher Stan Gordon has explained of what is wrong with the meteorite theory:

Astronomers who looked into the case at the time basically felt that the object in question was a bolides, which was a very bright fire-ball type meteor. But we now know the thing basically was coming down from the tip of Ontario, and appeared to have made about a 25 degree turn to the east, near Cleveland, Ohio. And the interesting thing is, now that the new data suggests that the object made a turn towards the south, and then the object made another turn towards the village of Kecksburg where it was proceeding towards the northeast. Within several miles of the crash site, multiple witnesses tell us that this object was coming in at a very, very slow speed of descent. Meteors do not make controlled turns. They do not come in at a slow speed like this. And they in fact do not glide in, which this thing apparently did.

In the aftermath of the strange incident, the people of Kecksburg and UFO researchers alike have struggled to find an answer for what happened that night in the void of any from the government. It seems fairly certain and undisputed that something did indeed come down out of the sky in this rural hamlet, and that the military did move in to clear it out, but just what that was has remained hotly debated. One idea is that this was a downed spy satellite either from a foreign country or domestic, the kind that the government would be keen to sweep under the carpet as much as possible. Another idea is that this was just some random space debris, but if this were the case, then why would the military be on the scene so fast in such full force to so totally lock the place down and keep it all so secret? It has also been found that there are no official records of any space debris being tracked to fall in that area at the time. Neither of these explanations explains the speed and maneuverability of what witnesses had seen either. There is also the possibility put forward that this was perhaps some experimental aircraft that crashed, which could explain some of the details of what witnesses claimed to have seen and the military interest. Of course there is also the idea that this was a genuine UFO and it is being covered up and kept in a secret location. What just about everyone agrees on, except the government, is that this was no meteorite, and Stan Gordon has said:

There was quite a lot of interest by government agencies as to what the object may have been. There were memos there and requests for information from Houston Space Center, from NORAD, from the Air Force Command Post, the Pentagon, even the Chairman of the Office of Emergency Planning requested information. The official Air Force explanation was that it was likely a meteor. And basically what it goes on to say is, the fact that the search was called off around 2:00 A.M. and that nothing was found. But evidence indicates that something indeed was found at the site.

Whatever came down in Kecksburg that night, is of high importance to the military agencies. The most mysterious thing about the whole case is the fact that after 25 years, the government still refuses to give us any actual information on what occurred. Either way, we’re dealing with some highly advanced space probe, probably of a foreign nation, that appears to be very highly technical for what we knew about 1965. Or, the possibility exists that we may indeed be dealing with an extraterrestrial spacecraft. I’ve always said this thing was either a very secretive, very advanced man-made space vehicle or it was extraterrestrial. In the 50 years I’ve been doing this, I’ve looked at all sorts of American and Soviet objects and nothing ever seemed to fit the description of what we saw in Kecksburg.

It’s a mystery and after so many years it would be great if we could find that conclusive information about what it was that fell from the sky that night in 1965, but it might be one of those things that we may never have the answer for.

To this day the town remembers the event well, hosting a UFO festival every July and keeping a Styrofoam mockup of the UFO that was used for the case appearance on an episode of the TV show Unsolved Mysteries. We are left to wonder just what in the world came down here in this small, rural town. Was it a UFO from another world, a spy satellite, a test aircraft, a meteorite, or what? No one seems to really know, and there has been no forthcoming answer in decades. It certainly seems as if the incident at Kecksburg will live on for some time to come.

11-01-2020 om 01:28 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:UFOs , UAPs , USOS

10-01-2020

Triangle UFOs Filmed Over Texas and New York

Triangle UFO

Triangle UFOs Filmed Over Texas and New York

Is it aliens or is it the government? Welcome to 2020, where the real question is what’s the difference, and does it even matter? It’s already pretty obvious it’s going to be a weird year in just about every department, including the skies. We’ve already had mysterious packs of drones in the sky over Colorado—and absolutely no one seems to know what’s going on with that—and now a couple of videos have surfaced showing a large triangular UFO floating in the sky over Texas and New York.

The triangle UFO is not a new phenomenon. It’s one of the more well-known UFO shapes. It’s also the UFO voted least likely to be aliens. Some speculate that the big triangle with three lights on it is the secret TR-3B spy plane which, thanks to the internet, isn’t so secret anymore. Is that what this is? Maybe, maybe not. Is it the same thing over both Texas and New York? I don’t know. It’s a very basic geometric shape, after all.

Lot’s of things look like triangles.

But have a look at the videos for yourself. The first sighting occurred on December 28, 2019 over Ilion, New York. The video was uploaded by the Youtube channel Tales From Out There and you can watch it here. In the description of the video, the witness says that before they started recording, a red orb flew out of the cloud. As that happened before they started recording, there’s no way to tell if that’s true or not. But if someone was going to make stuff up to make their flying triangle more impressive, you’d hope it’d be a little more entertaining than that.

The video shows three floating lights in broad daylight that do, in fact, make the shape of a triangle. It seems as if there is a sort of structure between the lights. If there is, however, then there would need to be some sort of invisibility cloak on the thing. Or it’s just a sky blue UFO, which would be kind of funny.

The second video was shot over Houston, Texas on New Year’s Eve. Again, it shows three lights floating in a static triangle shape. The lights move together in unison, suggesting that they may belong to the same craft or object. It’s night time, so the fact that the space between the lights matches the black of the night sky is a little more believable if it is a spy plane. Secret government projects are definitely more of a black than a sky blue. In the background are sounds of fireworks. Being New Year’s Eve, there was a lot more activity in the sky than normal and these lights could have something to do with that. A possible explanation is someone using a drone to film fireworks, but that’s also speculation.

This one’s coming next.

Regardless, it’s a pretty common UFO shape and the fact that both of these were right around the new year might mean they’re the same thing. Either the government keeping tabs on a period of increased activity with their fancy new toys, or aliens who came to get drunk and watch fireworks. At this point, it’s hard to say.

10-01-2020 om 23:52 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:UFOs , UAPs , USOS

Jim Keith’s Theory on Roswell: An Atomic Bomb

When it comes to the matter of the Roswell affair of July 1947, there are numerous theories for what happened and what came down. They include the following: (1) a weather balloon; (2) a Mogul balloon designed to monitor for early Russian atomic bomb tests; (3) an alien spacecraft; (4) time-travelers from the future; (5) a rocket with monkeys or chimpanzees aboard; (6) a Japanese Fugo balloon; (7) human guinea-pigs used in high-altitude experiments; (8) the vehicle of an ancient race of “Cryptoterrestrials;” and (9) a Russian aircraft used to make the U.S. government think that aliens were invading. And, then there’s the theory of the late Jim Keith. He was the author of a number of conspiracy / UFO-themed books, including Casebook on the Men in Black; The Octopus (co-written with Kenn Thomas); and Black Helicopters Over America.

In a fairly small article titled Roswell UFO Bombshell: Was the Crashed Spaceship Really a Lost -Bomb?, Keith described meeting with “a longtime researcher / instructor of engineering at a school in New Mexico” who claimed to know the truth of Roswell. The old man claimed that Roswell had nothing to do with aliens, apes, time-surfers or balloons. As for what Keith was told, it goes like this: “According to my source, the true story behind the alleged UFO crash was that there was an accident involving a B-29 flying from the Army Air Force Base in Sandia (Albuquerque) to Roswell…my source states that either an atomic bomb or what is termed a ‘bomb shape,’ or ‘test shape,’ the shell of a nuke lacking explosives and atomic capability, and sometimes filled with concrete to add weight, was accidentally or purposefully jettisoned above Corona, New Mexico, directly on the flight path between Sandia and Roswell. Along with the bomb, metal foil used for radar jamming, termed ‘chaff,’ may have also been dropped.”

Although I don’t personally endorse Jim Keith’s theory at all, I do think that, at the very least, it should be aired and investigated, regardless of how controversial and outlandish it certainly is. Keith’s source ( who, I should stress, was his only source) was said to have been “a longtime researcher / instructor of engineering at a school in New Mexico.” Jim Keith had been researching this highly controversial scenario since 1997, which was when it was first given to him. Publicly, however, the story didn’t surface until January 2000. That was when Fate magazine published the article referred to above. The article was published posthumously, however, as Keith died in 1999 – some say in controversial circumstances. He died in September of that year after attending the annual Burning Man event in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert. Keith had headed out to the annual Burning Man festival in Black Rock, just north of Reno, Nevada, a day before the event began.

While on stage, Keith lost his balance and fell to the ground. At first, Keith thought he had just badly bruised his leg. By the morning, though, Keith was in such agony that he had to call for paramedics, who were quickly on the scene and took him to the Washoe Medical Center, in Reno. Keith was told he had fractured his tibia and that he was to be prepped for surgery – which would require him to be anesthetized. This was when things got really strange. Keith put a call through to a friend in the conspiracy field – George Pickard – and told him that one of the attendants at the hospital had the same name as someone he had debated on the matter of the black helicopters, and just a few months earlier. Coincidence? Who knows?

UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter crews from 3rd Battalion, 501st Aviation Regiment, Combat Aviation Brigade, 1st Armored Division complete aerial gunnery at Fort Bliss, Texas, December 12, 2017.

(Photo Credit: U.S. Army photo by Capt. Tyson Friar, 1st Armored Division Combat Aviation Brigade Public Affairs )

As the time for surgery got closer, Keith got more and more anxious. He said to his nephew, Chris Davis: “I have a feeling that if they put me under I’m not coming back. I know if I get put under, I am going to die.” That’s exactly what happened: a blood-clot took Keith’s life. The field of conspiracy-theorizing was both stunned and suspicious by this very untimely and tragic state of affairs. An unfortunate event or a well-orchestrated murder by culprits unknown? That was the question which was specifically asked most frequently in the immediate wake of Keith’s death. It’s a question that still gets asked today.

10-01-2020 om 23:31 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:MYSTERIES ( Fr, Nl, E)

Aliens Ship Found In Antartica Using Google Earth Map, Video, UFO Sighting News.

Aliens Ship Found In Antartica Using Google Earth Map, Video, UFO Sighting News.

Date of discovery: January 6, 2020

Location of discovery: Antartica

Tools Used: Google Earth free map

This alien ship has landed on top of a small snowy hill, pushing itself deeply into the ice and snow of Antartica. The object is clearly out of place in this location, however alien bases and crashed ships seem to be frequently found in Antartica. This landed UFO was found by Argentine researcher Marcelo Irazusta. The ship has very artistic and unique design. The close up reveals that it has a nose area with a command center cockpit view...three long fins that are linked at the end...and it looks like several large engines at its back. The objects color is also a brownish grey metal. The objects back wing end is 112 meters across. From nose to end of tail is the same distance. From right to left is about 95 meters. This is an extraordinary discovery and one that needs to have scientists sent out to explore this craft and enter its interior. The technology salvaged from it could be used to transport humanity across the universe.

Scott C. Waring - Taiwan

10-01-2020 om 21:47 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )

Aliens Appear On Ancient Stone Site In Cornwall, England, Video, UFO Sighting News.

Aliens Appear On Ancient Stone Site In Cornwall, England, Video, UFO Sighting News.

Date of discovery: 2019-2020

Location of sighting: Cornwall, England

Strange figures were found on some rocks in Cornwall, just a few hundred km from where Stonehenge is located. These figure had heads and eyes like those of aliens. One even had a halo like light around its head, but doesn't resemble any biblical person ever mentioned looking more like a reptile than a human. There are many strange stones located around that area of England and the explanations of why there are there and the purpose is still a mystery.

This does however look like an ancient recording onto stone of aliens contacting humans thousands of years ago in England. Alien life spans are no limited like our own. The aliens that are recorded on those stones...they are still alive and out there. For them, sightings of them are frequent because of the long lives they live of thousands and millions or more year old. For us, the sightings seem periodic and huge amounts of time in between, because our lives as humans are all too short. You see...the difference in age of each of our species causes a huge difficulty in understanding why aliens don't work on our time frame.

Scott C. Waring - Taiwan

10-01-2020 om 21:33 geschreven door peter

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Grey Metal UFO Seen Near Space Station, Jan 6, 2020, UFO Sighting News.

Grey Metal UFO Seen Near Space Station, Jan 6, 2020, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: January 6, 2020
Location of sighting: Earths orbit, ISS
Source photo:

https://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/SearchPhotos/photo.pl?mission=ISS061&roll=E&frame=120436

I was looking through some NASA photos taken recently from the space station and I noticed this large rectangular metallic object. The object seems to be made by intelligent beings, because it has eight perfect right angles to it. Thats highly unlikely for it to be space debris. This could possibly be reflection, but I highly doubt that, most the NASA lenses are very expensive and cut out most reflections...as you probably know, certain filters can accomplish this. So it is my personal opinion that its an alien craft watching the space station...or possibly visiting.
Scott C. Waring - Taiwan

10-01-2020 om 20:39 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

Geologen ontdekken krater waar grootste meteoriet ooit 790.000 jaar geleden insloeg op aarde - HLN.be

Bron: CNN, PNAS

Shutterstock

Het Bolavenplateau in Laos wordt onder meer gekenmerkt door indrukwekkende watervallen.

WETENSCHAP Zo’n 790.000 jaar geleden is de grootste ons bekende meteoriet ooit ingeslagen op aarde. Waar precies, dat was een mysterie. Tot nu. Geologen menen de plaats van de inslag te hebben ontdekt in Zuid-Laos.

Volgens de onderzoekers ligt de inslagkrater met een diameter van ongeveer 15 km bedolven onder lava in een gebied van 910 km³ op het vulkanische terrein van het Bolavenplateau in het zuidoosten van Laos, niet ver van de grens met Thailand. Aanwijzingen daarvoor zijn de teruggevonden tektieten, glaskorrels van aards materiaal die ontstaan door smelting na de inslag van een meteoriet - een ruimteobject dat niet is opgebrand door de atmosfeer en vervolgens op aarde is neergestort. De stukjes gesmolten gesteente zijn na de inslag van de enorme meteoriet van 2 km breed eerst onze atmosfeer ingeblazen om daarna weer op aarde te vallen.

“Hun bestaan wijst erop dat de ingeslagen meteoriet zo groot was en zijn snelheid zo hoog dat hij de stenen die hij raakte kon doen smelten”, zegt professor Kerry Sieh, hoofdonderzoeker Earth Observatory of Singapore en co-auteur van de studie, aan CNN. Voor andere inslagen van meteorieten vonden wetenschappers de kraters aan de hand van tektieten, maar niet de krater van het zogenaamde Australaziatische tektietenveld. Dat strekt zich uit ten zuiden van Zuidoost-Azië en over Australië, en van het zuiden van Tasmanië tot Oost-Antarctica, met een westelijke uitstulping over Madagascar en een oostelijke uitstulping over de westelijke Stille Oceaan. Een enorm gebied dat zo’n tien procent van de aardoppervlakte uitmaakt.

“Er waren al heel wat eerdere pogingen om de inslagkrater te vinden”, weet Sieh. “Ze kwamen uit op Noord-Cambodja, Midden-Laos, Zuid-China, Oost-Thailand en Vietnam. Maar onze studie is de eerste die zoveel soorten bewijzen heeft samengebracht, variërend van de chemische aard van de tektieten tot hun fysieke kenmerken, en van zwaartekrachtmetingen tot metingen van de leeftijd van de lava die de krater zou kunnen bedelven.”

Volgens de berekeningen van deze studie is de krater zo’n 13 km breed en 17 km lang. Verder onderzoek is nu nodig. De geologen willen “tot een paar honderd meter diep boren om te zien of het gesteente onder de lava overeenkomt met de verwachtingen”.

10-01-2020 om 20:11 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:HLN.be - Het Laatste Nieuws ( NL)

UFO-like anomaly appears next to the sun caught on camera

Linda Miller was doing some more filming at sunset and caught quite a few anomalies around the sun and and in our atmosphere.

10-01-2020 om 19:22 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

VIDEO: Strange UFO activity in the sky above Louisiana – 2020

These strange lights were filmed over Louisiana on 5th January 2020.

Here’s the witness statement from the first footage in the video:

At approximately 6:05 pm on Sunday January 5, 2020, i stepped out back door to smoke a cigarette while watching the nfc wildcard game of Seattle vs eagles football. the second i stepped out, almost directly above me were multiple flashing lights. 5 to 7 or more. no sound whatsoever no definition other than an orb shape while it flashed. when there was no flash.. there was no object. the flash of white light occurred to the left and the right of the orb. nothing above or below. they appeared to moving in a west to south west direction. i immediately ran back in the house to grab my wife and told that she needs to come outside now. without grabbing my phone, i ran back outside to witness until she arrived. they moved very fast… but slow…. if that makes sense. i ran and grabbed my phone and proceeded to move west up the street to get a video of what i could… and the video is what physical evidence i have.

10-01-2020 om 18:54 geschreven door peter

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This Air Force Jet Was Scrambled to Intercept a UFO—Then Disappeared

Gordheath/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 3.0

This Air Force Jet Was Scrambled to Intercept a UFO—Then Disappeared

The Air Force offered the pilot's widow conflicting explanations.

DARRYN KING

The night an Air Force jet mysteriously disappeared over Lake Superior—November 23, 1953—was a stormy one.

Near the U.S.-Canadian border, U.S. Air Defense Command noticed a blip on the radar where it shouldn’t have been: an unidentified object in restricted air space over Lake Superior, not far from Soo Locks, the Great Lakes’ most vital commercial gateway. An F-89C Scorpion jet, from Truax Air Force Base in Madison, Wisconsin, took off from nearby Kinross AFB to investigate, with two crew members on board. First Lieutenant Felix Moncla—who had clocked 811 flying hours, including 121 in a similar aircraft—took the pilot’s seat, while Second Lieutenant Robert Wilson was observing radar.

The men would not return from their intercept mission.

What followed, according to Donald Keyhoe, the former Marine Corps naval aviator and UFO researcher who wrote about the incident in his 1955 book The Flying Saucer Conspiracy—was “one of the strangest cases on record.”

READ MORE: When a U.S. Fighter Pilot Got into a Dogfight with a UFO

The two radar blips ‘converge’

F-89C Scorpion jet pictured 1956, the same aircraft Moncla was flying the day of the incident.

F-89C Scorpion jet pictured 1956, the same aircraft Moncla was flying the day of the incident.

United States Air Force

Once airborne, Lieutenant Wilson had difficulty tracking the unknown object, which kept changing course. So with ground control directing the aviators over the radio, the Scorpion gave chase. The jet, traveling at 500 miles per hour, pursued the object for 30 minutes, gradually closing in.

On the ground, the radar operator guided the jet down from 25,000 to 7,000 feet, watching one blip chase the other across the radar screen. Gradually, the jet caught up to the unknown object about 70 miles off Keweenaw Point in upper Michigan, at an altitude of 8,000 feet, approximately 160 miles northwest of Soo Locks.

At that point, the two radar blips converged into one—“locked together,” as Keyhoe would put it later. And then, according to an official accident report, the radar return from the F-89 simply “disappeared from the GCI [ground-controlled interception] station’s radar scope.”

And then the first radar return, indicating the unidentified object, veered off and vanished too.

The United States Air Force, United States Coast Guard and Canadian Air Force conducted an extensive search-and-rescue effort. No wreckage, or sign of the pilots, was ever found.

READ MORE: Two Pilots Saw a UFO. Why Did the Air Force Destroy the Report?

The Air Force flip-flops in its explanation

Felix Moncla by a T-33 at Truax Field in Madison, Wisconsin, 1953.

Felix Moncla by a T-33 at Truax Field in Madison, Wisconsin, 1953.

Gordheath/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 3.0

The Air Force’s official news release about the disappearance, delivered to the Associated Press, stated that the vanished jet “was followed by radar until it merged with an object 70 miles off Keweenaw Point in upper Michigan.” The statement appeared in a story in the Chicago Tribune with the headline, “JET, TWO ABOARD, VANISHES OVER LAKE SUPERIOR.”

The Air Force soon retracted the statement and changed its story: According to the new statement, the ground control radar operator had misread the scope. In fact, the F-89 had successfully completed the mission, intercepting and identifying the UFO as a Dakota—a Royal Canadian Air Force C-47 aircraft—flying some 30 miles off course. Lieutenant Moncla, probably stricken with vertigo, crashed into the lake during the return to base. Canadian officials refuted the account—no flights had taken place in the area that night.

According to Keyhoe, who would write about the Kinross Incident again in his 1973 book Aliens From Space, two separate Air Force representatives provided Lieutenant Moncla’s widow with contradictory explanations of the incident. In one version of events, the pilot had crashed into the lake while flying too low. In the other, the jet exploded at a high altitude.

READ MORE: When UFOs Buzzed the White House and the Air Force Blamed the Weather

The investigators’ take

Donald Keyhoe, a retired Marine Corps major, holds a copy of his book, "Flying Saucers from Outer Space," in which he claims the Air Force has secret motion pictures of the apparitions proving that they are interplanetary craft.

Bettmann Archive/Getty Images

The case file from Project Blue Book, the Air Force’s own UFO investigatory team, reiterated the Air Force assertion that the jet “successfully accomplished its mission,” and that the crash was an accident, “probably” caused by an “attack of vertigo.” It attributed the abnormal radar behavior to unusual “atmospheric conditions” and deemed the inability to recover wreckage as understandable, given the deep water.

Meanwhile, investigators from the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) discovered that any mention of the mission had been expunged from official records. And the Aerospace Technical Intelligence Center’s official line on the case was: “There is no record in the Air Force files of sighting at Kinross AFB on 23 November 1953… There is no case in the files which even closely parallels these circumstances.”

In the absence of a thorough and satisfying official explanation, “civilian saucer groups,” as Project Blue Book would call them, developed their own theories. According to one, the jet had crashed into the UFO’s protective beam like a “concrete wall.” Others speculated that the jet may have been “scooped” out of the air and taken aboard the spacecraft—perhaps so the captured men could teach their alien captors the English language.

In 1968, there were local newspaper reports of military jet fragments discovered near the shore of Lake Superior, but the find was never verified.

In 2006, Adam Jiminez, claiming to be a representative of the Great Lakes Dive Company, corresponded with UFO bloggers and members of the UFO community. He claimed that not only had an airplane wreck been discovered in the area, but a metallic object resembling a chunk of a flying saucer as well.

UFO researchers soon exposed inaccuracies in Jimenez’s story, and concluded that the Great Lakes Dive Company did not exist. Eventually, Adam Jimenez, too, vanished without a trace.

{ https://www.history.com/news }

10-01-2020 om 01:38 geschreven door peter

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US navy confirms UFOs recorded by pilots are real

Tim Murith

Now that the navy has confirmed that these UFOs recorded by its pilots are “real”

Now that the navy has confirmed that these UFOs recorded by its pilots are “real”

The spokesperson for the United States navy’s deputy chief of naval operations for information warfare, Joseph Gradisher, has confirmed to Time magazine that the videos recorded by its pilots showing a series of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) and released to the public are, in fact, real.

These videos, which show what the navy prefers to refer to as Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, were sourced from the US department of defence, and were initially reported on in the New York Times in December 2017 as being part of the department’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Programme, which monitored and documented UFO activities from 2007 to 2012. The programme was funded by the Senate to the tune of $22-million a year, which means that taxpayers’ contributions were used to fund it.

This is the first time that an identified current official from the US government has publicly acknowledged that the videos — which started being released in 2017, with more following in 2018 — are officially genuine recordings of UFOs conducting manoeuvres that are not possible by human pilots, as seen by US navy pilots in the course of the flight missions. However, the navy has declined to comment on “who” could be piloting these aircraft.

It appears that there is now a concerted campaign by a certain section of the US government to roll out a partial and gradual “official disclosure” process, designed to begin to release previously classified information to the wider public. If a partial disclosure is indeed under way, then the logical inference is that there has also been a deliberate programme of “official denial” with regards to UFOs that we can surmise has been operational since at least the initial debunking of the 1947 “Roswell” flying saucer incident, which was widely reported in the media. In 1972, the US defence department conducted a series of investigations into the regular sightings that were being reported across the country, which were ultimately compiled into a report titled Project Blue Book — now converted into a popular television series.

Now that the navy has confirmed that these UFOs recorded by its pilots are “real”, it suggests that the countries of the world collectively need to begin to articulate how they plan to engage with them in the event that an initial public contact event takes place. As the situation stands, the United Nations does not have a protocol to engage with interstellar aerial craft that traverse the Earth’s atmosphere at will. There is a designated UN Office for Outer Space Affairs (Unoosa), based in Vienna, Austria, which was established following the adoption of a Treaty on Principle Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, Including the Moon and other Celestial Bodies.

Unoosa’s mandate is to promote “international co-operation for the peaceful uses of outer space” and to undertake research and training on the use of space science and technology to advance the social, economic and developmental initiatives on the planet. However, it does not have a programme or unit specifically dedicated to engaging with interstellar aircraft that are not human in origin, and that traverse Earth’s atmosphere and its immediate space vicinity.

Unoosa has listed the South African Space Agency (Sansa) as one of its partners. The agency is based in Pretoria, and was established in 2010 with a mandate to “promote the use of space and strengthen cooperation in space-related activities”. Sansa also states that its mission is “to lead and inspire the South African space community to create a better future”, and it pursues this through four programme areas: Earth observation; space engineering; space operations and space science.

However, despite the existence of these space-oriented international and national institutions, there are no programmes or projects designed to address the inevitable question of how humanity will engage and interact with prospective interstellar visitors from within or beyond our solar system and galaxy. If the US navy’s confirmation of the reality of UFOs leads to a prospective “first contact” scenario, humanity will be confronted by a whole range of questions, which it lacks an institutional framework to begin to address. This is a major and serious oversight in terms of forward planning and preparing the policy, scientific and societal constituencies to engage with potential interstellar aviators.

This year, the US government will formally operationalise its so-called Space Force within the defence department, as an additional and separate branch of its military complex, which is tasked with confronting threats in space. Regrettably, this typically US response to militarise and securitise any prospective engagement with nonhuman interstellar aerial craft could precipitate a number of unforeseen challenges.

Some analysts have irreverently questioned whether the launch of the Space Force, is intended to fight “space pirates”. Perhaps the US Space Force is based on a fundamental knowledge of who is piloting these confirmed UFOs, with a view to establishing a counterforce to contain or repel a possible attack. However, this is speculation until we have additional data as to who exactly is operating these UFOs.

An important question from a sociological and cultural perspective, is why the media and citizens have not asked more questions about the UFO sightings, which the navy now confirms are “real”. There could be a number of reasons why the story has not gone viral, linked to the distrust that people have towards governments in general, notwithstanding their predisposition to believe anything that emerges from the authorities through a partial disclosure, despite the fact that it could be a global game-changing event.

In addition, people could be viewing this as a deliberate attempt to distract them from their everyday struggles, given the age of austerity that is depressing economies and societies around the world. An alternative reason could be that reality of the implications of the existence of extra-terrestrial civilisations is too onerous to contemplate for a human society that is still predominantly beguiled and ensnared by its dogmatic religious and ideological convictions, which distracts people from dealing with such otherworldly realities. The investigative, print and broadcast media have a moral responsibility to interrogate this question further because public resources have been, and are still being, used to track and monitor UFOs.

In terms of a framework to understand the emerging phenomenon, the distinguished theoretical physicist Professor Michio Kaku — based at the City University of New York and a co-founder of string field theory — notes in his most recent book, The Future of Humanity, that “there might be 20-billion Earth-sized planets orbiting a sun-like star in our galaxy alone”. Kaku suggests that we could analyse the atmospheres of these planets “for oxygen and water vapour, a sign of life, and listen for radio waves, which would signal the existence of an intelligent civilisation”.

Kaku delivered a keynote address at the most recent Ufology World Congress — held in Barcelona, Spain, in September last year — in which he elaborated on a classification of planets, into Type-1, Type-2 and Type-3 civilisations on the basis of their energy consumption and their ability to undertake interstellar travel. The classification of advanced civilisation was proposed by the Russian astronomer Nikolai Kardashev in 1964. He suggested that a Type-1 civilisation is planetary, consuming all of the energy that falls on the planet from the sun, and is capable of space travel in the vicinity of the planet. A Type-2 civilisation is stellar, consuming all of energy of the planet plus all of the energy of emitted by its sun, and is capable of travel within the galaxy with the ability to reach about 100 nearby stars. A Type-3 civilisation is galactic, consuming the energy of billions of stars in its entire galaxy, and is capable of interstellar travel across the entire galaxy, with the ability to settle and build new civilisations. Kaku, notes that Earth is only approaching a Type-1 planetary civilisation, because we still primarily rely on “dead plants”, namely oil and gas, for our sources of energy.

According to Kaku’s presentation at the Ufology World Congress, based on the information that the US navy is now gradually releasing to wider society, the confirmed interstellar aircraft are most probably visiting Earth from Type-2 or Type-3 planetary civilisations. It is necessary for civilian institutions such as the Sansa and the Unoosa — working in tandem with citizen groups, which are already raising awareness across different communities around the world — to develop a protocol urgently to engage these prospective interstellar aviators, so that humanity is not caught off-guard in the event of an actual first contact scenario.

It is also incumbent on all of us to continue to raise awareness among our families, schools and places of work and worship to assist in the processing of the information and shifting our mindsets in terms of the now emerging reality of UFOs, and humanity’s place in the universe, as we enter the second decade of the 21st century.

Professor Tim Murithi is head of the Peacebuilding Interventions Programme at the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation, and editor of the Routledge Handbook of Africa’s International Relations. Follow him on Twitter @tmurithi12

{ https://beta.mg.co.za/ }

10-01-2020 om 01:15 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:UFOs , UAPs , USOS

09-01-2020

Video of Mysterious Shining Triangle Hovering Over Texas on New Year's Day Puzzles Netizens

New Year 2020 UFO sighting

Video of Mysterious Shining Triangle Hovering Over Texas on New Year's Day Puzzles Netizens

From an enigmatic shadow allegedly lurking around a SpaceX rocket to cigar-shaped unidentified flying objects spotted across the US, 2019 provided alien hunters and conspiracy theorists with a lot of material to process. This year has already given them a reason to grab their tinfoil hats too.

A clip showing what looks like an enormous triangle-shaped UFO over Houston, Texas, on New Year’s Day has heated up the imagination of online commenters. The video, shared by Stephaine Westerfield, shows three lights apparently dancing in the night sky and maintaining formation while fireworks (or gunshots?) are heard in the background. The voice of what sounds like a child is also heard asking: “What are those?”

“Not sure what these lights are”, Westerfield noted in the caption.

Although the authenticity of the video could not be confirmed, it was immediately caught up by conspiracy channels. Some YouTube users rushed to offer their opinions on what it could be.

“Nice catch. The UFO(s) look legit to me. Too distant and bright to be 3 drones”, a user under the handle Bruce Wayne suggested, while another commenter claimed that it is one of the large triangle craft “that are being seen all over the world”.

Another YouTuber shared that it was not the only strange sighting spotted that day as, according to him, there was one light that looked like a star and moved slowly before suddenly turning bright yellow.

“Then there’s another 1 that does the same thing nearby the first one. Then, there’s 3 more to join it. In total I counted 5”, he noted in the comments.

A military-related conspiracy theory also popped up eventually, as one of the commenters claimed that it was a TR-3B surveillance plane, rumoured to be developed under a black project, which is also triangular in shape.

However, many had a more mundane explanation, saying it was just three drones in a triangle formation or Chinese lanterns.

The video emerged shortly after a YouTube user uploaded a clip of a triangular object hovering in the sky above a town in upstate New York in the US, which he believed to be a fascinating UFO sighting.

Given its tremendous altitude, the object was supposedly huge, as the person who recorded the video claims that they saw a red “orb” type object being dropped from the triangular craft just before they started filming. However, whether or not the video is genuine cannot be confirmed.

{ https://sputniknews.com/ }

09-01-2020 om 23:52 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

George Adamski Got Famous Sharing His UFO Photos and Alien ‘Encounters’

He claimed to have conversed with Venusians using hand gestures and mental telepathy.

GREG DAUGHERTY

Mary Evans Picture Library/Everett

Then, in 1952, Adamski reported that he had met and conversed with a visitor from Venus in a California desert, using a combination of hand gestures and mental telepathy.

His story would only get stranger from there.

READ MORE: UFO Stories

A star gazer is born

George Adamski UFO photo

A cigar-shaped Venusian interplanetary carrier photographed through a 6" telescope over Palomar Gardens, California taken by Adamski.

Mary Evans Picture Library/Everett

READ MORE: How Betty and Barney Hill's Abduction Story Defined a Genre

Who was George Adamski?

George Adamski with a photograph of a Venusian Scout on February 18, 1959.

Norman Victor Herfort/Fairfax Media/Getty Images

George Adamski was reportedly born in Poland in 1891, came to the U.S. with his parents at as a young boy and grew up in far-northern New York state.

He seems to have had little formal education, though the press would later refer to him as “Professor Adamski”—a habit he appears to have encouraged.

Eyes on the skies

George Adamski UFO photo

A Venusian 'scout craft' photographed by George Adamski, 1952.

Mary Evans Picture Library/Everett

In October 1946, he said, he spotted his first UFO—“a large black object, similar in shape to a gigantic dirigible, and apparently motionless.”

“Since then, winter and summer, day and night, through heat and cold, wind, rains and fog, I have spent every moment possible outdoors, watching the skies,” he wrote.

A close encounter of the Venusian kind

A painting depicting an encounter with a visitor from Venus at Desert Center, California, 1952.

A painting depicting an encounter with a visitor from Venus at Desert Center, California, 1952.

Mary Evans Picture Library/Michael Buhler/Everett

Con man, crackpot or cosmic messenger?

George Adamski

George Adamski stands in front of a painting by Gay Betts depicting the Venusian space pilot he met in the Mojave Desert, California.

Mary Evans Picture Library/Everett

Adamski published at least one more book, Flying Saucers Farewell (1961) and continued to lecture widely.

Since his death, Adamski’s critics have tended to portray him as a harmless crackpot, small-time con artist or perhaps a bit of both.

Others, like J. Allen Hynek, took a somewhat dimmer view, accusing Adamski and others like him, of discrediting the entire field of UFO research.

But Adamski stuck to his story to the end—including the upbeat but somehow ominous message he’d delivered in Flying Saucers Have Landed:

“My most urgent message and plea to every person who reads it is: Let us be friendly. Let us recognize and welcome the men from other worlds! THEY ARE HERE AMONG US.”

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

09-01-2020 om 23:36 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )

Navy Admits It Has More Information/Video On The Nimitz UFO Encounter That They’re Not Sharing

JAZZ SHAW

There’s been an interesting, if not terribly informative development in the story of those UFOs encountered by the Nimitz aircraft carrier battle group back in 2004. As you may recall, there were three videos released over the past couple of years by the Navy through the efforts of To The Stars Academy (TTSA) showing encounters with bizarre flying objects exhibiting performance characteristics that defy much of our understanding of physics. One was from the Nimitz incident and the others were from a much later encounter involving the carrier Roosevelt. The videos were somewhat grainy and short in length. Many journalists have attempted to find out if more such videos exist, or at least if longer, clearer versions of the ones we’ve seen are available. All such requests were answered in the negative.

SEE ALSO: Trump hints: We’ll stop Bolton from testifying at the impeachment trial

That is… until now. One researcher named Christian Lambright submitted a FOIA request to the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) back in October looking for some very specific information along these lines. He finally received a response recently. The military didn’t supply him with any new videos or documents, but they did concede that they located other documents and another video that would be applicable to his request. They could not release them, however, because the documents were classified TOP SECRET and the video footage was SECRET. Their release, the Navy claims, could cause “grave damage” to national security. This information was published recently by Paul Dean. (Emphasis added)

Our review of our records and systems reveal that ONI has no releasable records related to your request. ONI has searched our records for responsive documents. We have discovered certain briefing slides that are classified TOP SECRET. A review of these materials indicates that are currently and appropriate Marked and Classified TOP SECRET under Executive Order 13526, and the Original Classification Authority has determined that the release of these materials would cause exceptionally grave damage to the National Security of the United States. Specifically, under Section 1.4, the materials would trigger protections under subcategory c), the Intelligence Activities of the United States, as well as the Sources and Methods that are being used to gather information in support of the National Security of the United States. In addition, the materials would trigger protections under subcategory e), Scientific and Technological Matters related to the National Security of the United States. For this reason, the materials are exempt from release under the (b) (1) Exemption for Classified Matters of National Defense. As a result these records may not be released and are being withheld.

We have also determined that ONI possesses a video classified SECRET that ONI is not the Original Classification Authority for. ONI has forwarded your request to Naval Air Systems Command to make a determination on releasability…”

We should immediately place these revelations in context, so let’s review a couple of important points.

Starting early last year, the Pentagon seemed to grow tired of fielding all of these questions about UFOs and started referring all journalistic inquiries to a single spokesperson, Susan Gough. This is an important point to make because we’ve heard testimony from several of the sailors from the Nimitz battle group who witnessed these events saying that they remembered seeing longer videos. However, when journalists asked the Pentagon about this, Ms. Gough informed us on multiple occasions that those three videos were the only ones they had and no longer or clearer versions existed.

Now ONI has gone on record stating that there is at least one additional video from the Nimitz encounter and it can’t be released because it’s classified SECRET. (They are reviewing that classification to see if it can be changed now so perhaps we’ll eventually see it.) So once again we have the Pentagon, through Ms. Gough, saying there are no more videos and we have ONI saying there is at least one more. Both of these things can not be simultaneously true. In other words, somebody is lying… again.

Who should we believe? We might able to apply a bit of a logic test to this situation and come up with a pretty good guess. One possibility is that someone at the Office of Naval Intelligence has decided to fabricate a fairy tale about nonexistent UFO video footage and send it out to researchers and journalists to… I don’t know. Gaslight them?

The other possibility is that when the Pentagon was asked about additional videos they lied to us. You may recall that I wrote a rather lengthy screed about a month ago about the Pentagon (and really most of the government) and their somewhat dubious relationship with the truth. This is the same Susan Gough who told us repeatedly for many months that the AATIP program was real and it investigated UAPs. (That’s their term for UFOs now.) Then on December 7th, she inexplicably put out a statement saying that AATIP had never had anything to do with UAPs. She also told us that TTSA’s Louis Elizondo was never in charge of or associated with AATIP (which may still be true) while numerous other sources claim that he ran the program and his name shows up on one of the only verifiable documents about AATIP associated with Harry Reid.

So I don’t know, sports fans. If we have to decide whether ONI is fibbing or the Pentagon is, which way are you leaning?

One additional thing to note here is that the response from ONI speaks of a set of briefing slides and a single video. But if you follow the link and look at Lambright’s FOIA request, you’ll note that it is structured very specifically to request information relating to UAP encounters happening in relation to the Nimitz battle group over a period from 10-16 November 2004. Having battled through the FOIA process myself on a number of occasions, I can assure you that the government never, ever gives up more than they have to under the law. Lambright apparently got exactly what he asked for, but nothing more.

To put it bluntly, ONI might be sitting on thousands of documents and as many videos. But if they originated from any time prior to November 10, 2004, or any date from November 17th of 2004 to the present, or if they happened anywhere else in the world but the Nimitz training exercise area, they would not include those items in the response.

What does that mean? Well, we’ve heard from the pilots involved in both the 2004 Nimitz encounter and the 2015 Roosevelt incident that they’ve been seeing these things “all the time.” This happens frequently enough to alarm some senior people in the military and they want answers. If that’s the case, do you really think they only managed to record three (or now possibly four) videos in the past sixteen years (at a minimum)? Unlikely in the extreme.

This is yet another example that’s turned up of the government feeding us bogus information on this subject and being caught. More than likely they have a mountain of evidence and they’re withholding it all. And they’re still lying about it. Mind you, this still doesn’t automatically mean that any of this has anything to do with extraterrestrials. For example, why was the slide presentation and the other video so classified? Perhaps that evidence might reveal some secret program of ours or the Russians or the Chinese demonstrating incredible technological advancements. You could understand how that might need to be classified. But without emptying the bag entirely, they should tell us whether it’s one or the other. And just as a favor… STOP. LYING. TO. US.

{ https://hotair.com/ }

09-01-2020 om 22:49 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:UFOs , UAPs , USOS

UFO sightings in North America jumped to nearly 6,000 in 2019

California, Florida and Washington top the rankings for most UFO sightings.

By IVAN PEREIRA

There was a rise in the number of North Americans who looked up into the sky in 2019 and found something that didn’t look like a bird or a plane.

The National UFO Reporting Center, which tracks calls and messages from people around the U.S. and Canada about strange sightings in the sky, reported that it received 5,971 sightings in 2019 -- a jump from 3,395 in 2018.

Peter Davenport, who runs the independent organization that's based in Davenport, Washington, said he couldn’t explain why more people called about seeing flashing white lights, fireballs, disc-shaped objects or other oddities in 2019.

"One of the mysteries of ufology is there is a fluctuation in the number of reports over the years," he told ABC News in a phone interview. "Some years it’s been low, but it’s gotten higher recently."

MORE: Navy developing new UFO reporting guidelines amid rise of unauthorized aircraft sightings

California led the country last year with the most number of UFO observations to the site: 485 in total, an increase of 182 sightings from 2018. Florida came in second with 385 sightings in 2019, which was 156 more reports than in 2018, according to UFO Reporting Center data.

Washington came in third with 222 reports last year, which represented an increase of 51 from 2018, according to the site.

Davenport’s site takes reports from callers and online submissions, many of which are anonymous, and lists them with as much detail as possible. For example, on April 15, a man and his girlfriend reported they saw a formation in the sky near Bakersfield, California.

"We witnessed 3 unidentified objects, one in middle being the larger escorted by two other smaller unidentified objects one to the left and one on the right having no lights and no sound and dark colored objects heading southeast traveling at an unknown speed and disappeared into the clouds beyond sight," the report said.

Davenport said he does not investigate any of the claims he collects and noted that some of the sightings may have been the same object that was seen by multiple people.

MORE: SpaceX launches 60 more satellites, trying to tone them down.

Rick Fienberg, a spokesman for the American Astronomical Society, emphasized that the "u" in UFO stands for unidentified, and many people are unaware of astronomical goings on in space on any given day. For instance, Jupiter and Venus were more visible to Earth last year and they can stand out in the night sky, according to Fienberg.

He also noted that Space X launched 180 new satellites into space last year, and those devices have lit up the night skies.

"If you’re not keeping up with the news and not familiar with the skyline, you might mistakenly see an unidentified flying object. It may be unidentified to you, but known to others," Fienberg said.

{ https://abcnews.go.com/ }

09-01-2020 om 22:25 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:UFOs , UAPs , USOS

'It looks like a craft': UFO ball which 'interacted with the light' spotted in the skies of West Yorkshire

A blue-purple ball UFO which 'interacted with the light' was spotted in the skies of West Yorkshire by a concerned resident, a freedom of information request revealed.

By Daniel Sheridan

The object was spotted after a resident was woken by a 'bright white light'.

The resident reported the sighting to police after filming video footage of the 'craft' "turning to her as she looked at it".

Weather conditions at the time were fine and it was not raining, the log states.

UFO spotting cc Adobe

The resident told police the UFO - which was spotted in Bradford in April 2018 - 'sounded like a helicopter'.

A police officer was not dispatched to the incident, the log confirmed.

Another caller in Bradford reported a 'triangle shaped red and blue' craft moving in the skies in August 2017.

The log states: "His friend stated it may have been a satellite but he does not think it is."

In August 2015, a Bradford resident also spotted an 'oblong shape with three flashing blue lights' moving exceptionally fast, according to the call log released by police.

{ https://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/ }

09-01-2020 om 21:57 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:UFOs , UAPs , USOS

NASA's 1st SLS Megarocket Core Loaded Onto Barge Ahead of Key Engine Test

By Mike Wall

The rocket core is headed to Mississippi for a "green run" test.

The first completed core stage of NASA’s Space Launch System rocket is guided toward the agency’s Pegasus barge on Jan. 8, 2020, ahead of its forthcoming journey to NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. Teams rolled the core out from NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans to the barge in preparation for the core stage “green run” test series.

The heart of NASA's first Space Launch System (SLS) megarocket is on the move.

The 212-foot-long (65 meters) SLS core stage rolled out of NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans Wednesday (Jan. 8) and was loaded onto a barge, agency officials announced.

That barge will soon depart for NASA's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, where the booster will endure a crucial, months-long "green run" test designed to demonstrate its fitness to send astronauts to the moon, Mars and other deep-space destinations.

Related: Watch NASA's SLS Megarocket Get Ready for US Moon Missions (Video)

A jazz band from a local high school escorted the booster out to the road Wednesday, said John Shannon, SLS vice president and program manager at Boeing, the prime contractor for the rocket's core stage.

"It was just a fantastic way to celebrate this historic milestone — sending the most complicated vehicle that's ever been built at Michoud, by far, out on its way to the test facility," Shannon said during a call with reporters on Wednesday afternoon.

The journey to Stennis will take about 9 hours, he added. The voyage is not yet underway, however; the travel date depends on the weather.

The SLS is key to NASA's human spaceflight plans. The rocket's first iteration, known as the Block 1, will stand 322 feet (98 m) tall and generate 8.8 million lbs. of maximum thrust at liftoff — 15% more than the agency's iconic Saturn V rocket, which launched the Apollo missions to the surface of the moon. The SLS core stage's four RS-25 engines will provide about 2 million lbs. of that thrust; the rest will come from two strap-on solid rocket boosters.

The future Block 2 SLS will be even brawnier, producing nearly 12 million lbs. of maximum thrust at liftoff.

NASA's Space Launch System rocket’s core stage, complete with all four RS-25 engines, is transported from NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans to the agency’s Pegasus barge on Jan. 8, 2020.

(Image credit: NASA)

The core that just left Michoud will fly in the Block 1 configuration, on the very first flight of the SLS. That mission, known as Artemis 1, will launch NASA's Orion capsule on an uncrewed journey around the moon. Artemis 1 is currently scheduled to launch no earlier than November of this year.

But the SLS core has to pass the green run before Artemis 1 can get off the ground. That test series will put the core stage through its paces, checking out its many complicated and interconnected subsystems and ultimately lighting up the four RS-25 engines for a full 8 minutes — the amount of time they'll fire on an actual mission to the moon. (The "green" in "green run," by the way, refers to the previously untested nature of the hardware on the stand.)

If everything goes well with the green run and Mother Nature cooperates, the test campaign could wrap up by July or August, Shannon said. But weather issues, and the need to refurbish the core after various subtests, may well push completion into October, he added.

After the green run is done, the core stage will take another, much longer barge trip — an eight- to 12-day trek around Florida's west coast and back up the state's east side to NASA's Kennedy Space Center, the Artemis 1 launch site.

Related: Photos: NASA's Space Launch System for Deep-Space Flights

Artemis 1, in turn, is just the first of many planned missions in NASA's Artemis program, which seeks to land two astronauts near the lunar south pole by 2024 and establish a long-term, sustainable human presence on and around the moon by 2028.

Artemis 2, another lunar flyby, will be the first crewed flight of SLS and Orion. That mission is currently targeted for late 2022.

The SLS program has endured a series of cost overruns and delays. Indeed, a 2015 assessment estimated that the first core stage would be done by the end of 2017, Shannon said.

"So, we're about two years late," he said. "Boeing completely owns that."

Shannon cited two main issues that led to this latest delay. The first involved the new tooling used to weld the core stage together, as well as problems with the welding process itself.

"The other issue, I think, that caused us some difficulty was, we really underestimated the complexity of building the engine section, which is the very bottom of the rocket that holds all of the propulsion elements and all of the TVC [thrust vector control] and hydraulic elements," Shannon said.

But Boeing learned a great deal from this first build and is already applying the lessons, he added, stressing that the second SLS core is coming together at Michoud 40% faster than the first one did.

NASA Deputy Administrator Jim Morhard — who also participated in today's call, along with NASA SLS Program Manager John Honeycutt — said that delays are to be expected when building something as big and complex as an SLS core stage for the first time. And Morhard stressed that the future is bright for SLS and the Artemis program.

"There's a lot more to come," Morhard said.

09-01-2020 om 21:26 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ASTRONOMIE / RUIMTEVAART

A pair of supermassive black holes are stuck in a collision between galaxies. Astronomers caught the chaos on camera.

Aria Bendix

An artist's impression of the merging NGC 6240 galaxy.

NRAO/AUI/NSF, S. Dagnello

Astronomers have captured a photo of two supermassive black holes caught in the collision of two galaxies.
The galaxies are merging to form a new galaxy, called NGC 6240.
The image suggests that the two black holes are much less massive than astronomers anticipated.
Visit Businessinsider.com for more stories.

It takes more than a billion years for a pair of galaxies to merge.

But in the constellation of Ophiuchus, about 400 million light-years from Earth, two galaxies are almost ready to become one.

The galaxies are in the process of violently crashing into one another. Astronomers estimate it will take them another 10 to 20 million years to fuse completely; at that point, they'll form a new galaxy called NGC 6240.

Both galaxies contain a supermassive black hole in their center, and those are expected to merge as well.

This whole process is difficult to capture on camera, however. Black holes' gravity is so strong that nothing can escape — not even light — so astronomers attempting to see them have to rely on light from the matter that gets sucked in (before it disappears). The first-ever photograph of a supermassive black hole was published in April 2019.

But an international team of astronomers recently captured a sharp photo that shows how two supermassive black holes are caught in the galactic collision that's forming the NGC 6240 galaxy.

The astronomers used the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA), a powerful telescope funded in part by the US National Science Foundation, to assemble the image. They presented their research at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Honolulu, Hawaii, on Sunday.

The black holes themselves aren't visible in the photo, but you can see the glowing gas that surrounds them (the blue stuff in the images below).

black hole collision

NGC 6240 as seen with ALMA (top right) and the Hubble Space Telescope (bottom right).

ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), E. Treister; NRAO/AUI/NSF, S. Dagnello; NASA/ESA Hubble That gas is located within the black holes' "sphere of influence" — the innermost region of a galaxy where the black hole is the dominant force of gravity. The two black holes are feeding on the gas, which causes them to grow bigger as the galaxies merge. Previous images weren't able to capture this gas in such detail.

'A chaotic stream of gas'

Ezequiel Treister, an associate astronomy professor at Pontificia Universidad Católica in Santiago, Chile, told the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) that the gas doesn't form a rotating disk, as some scientists anticipated.

"We don't find any evidence for that," he said. "Instead, we see a chaotic stream of gas with filaments and bubbles between the black holes. Some of this gas is ejected outwards with speeds up to 500 kilometers per second. We don't know yet what causes these outflows."

Gas that isn't ejected from the sphere of influence will likely get sucked into the black hole.

The black holes are less massive than researchers expected

An artist’s impression of a rapidly spinning supermassive black hole surrounded by an accretion disc. Key features of black holes are labeled in red.

ESO, ESA/Hubble, M. Kornmesser; Business Insider

The image also challenges astronomers' ideas about the masses of these particular black holes. By observing the photo, the team found that a lot of the gas was stuck in the spheres of influence instead of the black holes themselves. That means the black holes are much less massive than anticipated.

Until recently, astronomers believed that the supermassive black holes in the NGC 6240 galaxy had a mass equivalent to about 1 billion suns. The new photo suggests, however, that the black holes are about as massive as a few hundred million suns.

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

09-01-2020 om 20:24 geschreven door peter

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Young stars have been found in an old part of our galaxy

A star cluster in the Milky Way’s halo may come from gas torn from two other galaxies

A cluster of young stars (marked with blue stars) in the outer reaches of the Milky Way may have formed from gas torn off two smaller galaxies falling toward our own galaxy.

A. PRICE-WHELAN

By Christopher Crockett

HONOLULU – A cluster of young stars in the Milky Way is hanging out where it seemingly shouldn’t exist.

Our galaxy is enveloped in an extensive halo of old stars and hot gas — gas which can’t cool down enough to clump together and form new stars. And yet, a flock of relatively new stars is hurtling through the halo, researchers reported January 7 during a news conference at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society.

The star cluster is about 120 million years old and sits about 94,000 light-years away from Earth. Astronomers found it by sifting through data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia satellite for young stars clumped together and moving in the same direction across the sky.

The cluster “didn’t have time to form somewhere else, so it was probably born near where we see it,” said Adrian Price-Whelan, an astrophysicist at the Flatiron Institute in New York City. “But how did it form there, where there’s very little cold gas that you need in order to form a new generation of stars?”

A clue, he said, lies with the Magellanic Clouds, two satellite galaxies of the Milky Way. The cluster appears to be speeding ahead of a stream of gas being torn from those galaxies by the Milky Way’s gravity, suggesting that perhaps new stars are popping out of shredded remains of these satellites.

If the cluster and the stream are connected, they reveal unknown conditions in the halo, said David Nidever of Montana State University in Bozeman at the same news conference. The stars appear to plow ahead, while gas in the halo drags on the stream, slowing it down. Taking into account the star cluster’s age and its 17,000-light-year distance from the leading edge of the stream, Nidever said that gas in the halo may be 10 times as dense as previously thought.

Newfound star cluster in the Milky Way animation

A newfound star cluster (blue dots) sits far above the spiral disk of the Milky Way (white dots) and likely formed out of material from the Magellanic Clouds (purple dots), two satellites of our galaxy.

A. PRICE-WHELAN, SIMULATION BY J. HUNT

{ https://www.sciencenews.org/ }

09-01-2020 om 16:01 geschreven door peter

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Black triangle hovering in the sky above Mordovia, Russia 6-Jan-2020

Here’s one new really interesting footage of a 2020 UFO sighting above Mordovia in Russia. It was taken on 6th January.

09-01-2020 om 15:39 geschreven door peter

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Europe Officially Signs on for Asteroid-Smashing Effort

By Mike Wall

The Hera spacecraft will observe the effects of a NASA probe's high-speed crash into an asteroid.

An artist's depiction of Europe's Hera mission at the binary asteroid Didymos.

Europe has confirmed its participation in humanity's first full-on planetary-defense demo.

The European Space Agency (ESA) has officially approved the Hera mission, which will assess the results of NASA's asteroid-walloping Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART).

DART is scheduled to launch atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in July 2021 and reach the Didymos two-asteroid system in October 2022. The NASA probe will then slam into "Didymoon," the 540-foot-wide (165 meters) satellite of the 2,540-foot-wide (775 m) space rock Didymos.

Related: Humanity Will Slam a Probe into an Asteroid Soon to Help Save Us All

Telescopes here on Earth will document how the impact affects Didymoon and its orbit around Didymos, helping researchers gauge the effectiveness of the "kinetic impactor" asteroid-deflection strategy. The DART team had long hoped that such long-range data would be supplemented by up-close observations, and now that vision will become reality.

Hera will likely launch in 2023 or 2024 and get to the Didymos system two years later. The European spacecraft will gather a variety of types of data about the space rocks with the aid of two tiny cubesats, both of which will perform asteroid landings, ESA officials have said.

The Asteroid Prospection Explorer (APEX), which was provided by a Swedish-Finnish-Czech-German consortium, will investigate the interior structure and surface composition of both asteroids in the system. And Juventas, which was built by the Danish company GomSpace and the Romanian company GMV, will study Didymoon's structure and gravity field.

DART will also feature a cubesat. The Italian Space Agency's briefcase-sized Light Italian Cubesat for Imaging of Asteroids (LICIA) will separate from DART shortly before the big probe hits Didymoon; LICIA will observe the impact from a safe distance, beaming data and photos home to Earth.

Originally, by the way, an ESA craft was supposed to do this real-time impact-observing work. The Didymoon-whacking project, in its first incarnation, was a joint NASA-ESA effort called the Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment (AIDA). An ESA spacecraft called AIM (Asteroid Impact Mission) would have gotten to the Didymos system before DART arrived, collecting information both pre- and post-collision. But AIM was canceled in 2016, so AIDA was no more.

But the decision to approve Hera, which ESA announced last week at a gathering of European space leaders in Seville, Spain, means that NASA won't go it alone on this planetary-defense test.

"We are very pleased by the European Space Agency's decision to fund the Hera mission, a critical part of humanity's first attempt at deflecting an asteroid," the #SupportHera campaign, which has been advocating for the mission, wrote in a statement. "One day, the Hera mission could be crucial to protecting our planet from asteroids."

Kinetic impactors like DART aren't the only way to nudge dangerous asteroids away from Earth. For example, if the potential impact is far enough out in the future — a few decades, say — we could launch a "gravity tractor" probe out to the asteroid. This spacecraft would fly along with the rock, tugging it slightly but continuously onto a different trajectory.

And if the possible collision is just weeks or months away, we might be forced to go with the nuclear option, literally. Exploding nuclear bombs on or near the asteroid could blast the rock apart or at least push it off course, researchers have said.

DART won't be the first probe to smack an asteroid. Earlier this year, Japan's Hayabusa2 spacecraft sent an impactor barreling into the space rock Ryugu. That collision will likely help scientists better understand Ryugu's internal structure, so the Hayabusa2 mission could have planetary-defense applications. But that impact was designed primarily to unearth pristine material for sample collection.

09-01-2020 om 01:42 geschreven door peter

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Gigantic Wave of Star-Forming Gas Is Largest Known Structure of Its Kind in Milky Way

main article image

SPACE

Gigantic Wave of Star-Forming Gas Is Largest Known Structure of Its Kind in Milky Way

MICHELLE STARR

In 1879, astronomer Benjamin Gould identified what looked to be a ring in the sky, measuring about 3,000 light-years across, made of dust and gas and young stars - interconnected stellar nurseries. Now, a new discovery has shattered our understanding of this structure, which has been known for 150 years as Gould's Belt.

According to data collected by the Gaia mapping survey of the Milky Way galaxy, Gould's Belt is just part of a much larger structure - a colossal, serpentine wave of gas and dust 9,000 light-years long, 400 light-years wide, and extending 500 light-years above and below the galactic plane.

This wave - newly named the Radcliffe Wave, after Harvard University's Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study, where the research was conducted - includes many of the stellar nurseries found in Gould's Belt, and others besides.

It's the largest gaseous structure identified in the Milky Way (although not the largest structure in the galaxy; the Fermi gamma-ray bubbles, for example, span 50,000 light-years).

"No astronomer expected that we live next to a giant, wave-like collection of gas - or that it forms the local arm of the Milky Way," said astronomer Alyssa Goodman of the Smithsonian Institution, and co-director of the Science Program at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.

"We were completely shocked when we first realised how long and straight the Radcliffe Wave is, looking down on it from above in 3D - but how sinusoidal it is when viewed from Earth. The Wave's very existence is forcing us to rethink our understanding of the Milky Way's 3D structure."

The Gaia satellite was launched in 2013, and has been collecting data ever since to produce the most accurate 3D map yet of our home galaxy, the Milky Way. This is what the researchers were studying to try to get a better understanding of the structure of Gould's Belt - to determine if the clouds do, in fact, form a ring in three dimensions.

They also used recently developed techniques based on the colour of stars to map the 3D distribution of dust around them, and to accurately measure the distances to stellar nurseries - regions where clumps of dust and gas collapse under their own gravity to form new stars.

Yet, as they looked closer at the data, they realised they were looking at a structure of these interconnected regions, but also a structure that was much bigger than Gould's Belt itself.

"Instead, what we've observed is the largest coherent gas structure we know of in the galaxy, organised not in a ring but in a massive, undulating filament," said physicist and astronomer João Alves of the University of Vienna in Austria.

"The Sun lies only 500 light-years from the Wave at its closest point. It's been right in front of our eyes all the time, but we couldn't see it until now."

radcliffe wave

radcliffe wave

(Alve et al., Nature, 2019)

If you look at it from the top down (obviously we can't physically do this, but we can simulate the perspective with a computer-generated map), the Radcliffe Wave is more or less a straight line. Come back down to the galactic plane and look at it side-on, however, and it has an impressive sinuous wiggle.

It's a peculiar shape, and it's not entirely clear how it came about. "It could be like a ripple in a pond, as if something extraordinarily massive landed in our galaxy," Alves said.

We know such a thing is possible - Gaia data have also helped previously identify giant ripples across the Milky Way's disc, thought to have been created by the collision with a dwarf galaxy less than a billion years ago. But the team's paper offers no speculation about the event that could have created the Radcliffe Wave, although those investigations could form the basis of a future study.

What they do know is that it does, on occasion, (harmlessly) interact with the Sun.

"[The Sun] passed by a festival of supernovae as it crossed Orion 13 million years ago," Alves said, "and in another 13 million years it will cross the structure again, sort of like we are 'surfing the wave'."

The research has been published in Nature.

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

09-01-2020 om 01:20 geschreven door peter

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Origin of Deep-Space Radio Flash Discovered, and It's Unlike Anything Astronomers Have Ever Seen

By Adam Mann

Things are only getting more confusing.

This image shows the location of fast radio bursts across the night sky.

An animation shows the random appearance of fast radio bursts (FRBs) across the sky.

HONOLULU — Mysterious ultra-fast pinpricks of radio energy keep lighting up the night sky and nobody knows why. A newly discovered example of this transient phenomenon has been traced to its place of origin — a nearby spiral galaxy — but it's only made things murkier for astronomers.

The problem concerns a class of blink-and-you'll-miss-them heavenly events known as fast radio bursts (FRBs). In a few thousandths of a second, these explosions produce as much energy as the sun does in nearly a century. Researchers have only known about FRBs since 2007, and they still don't have a compelling explanation regarding their sources.

"The big question is what can produce an FRB," Kenzie Nimmo, a doctoral student at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, said during a news briefing on Monday (Jan. 6) here at the 235th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Related: The12 Strangest Objects in the Universe

Scientists were given some help in 2016, when they discovered an FRB that repeated its quick-pulsing radio tune in random bursts. All previous examples had been one-off events.

The repeating FBR was eventually traced back to a dwarf galaxy with a high rate of star formation 3 billion light-years away, Nimmo said. The galaxy contains a persistent radio source, possibly a nebula, that could explain the FRB's origin, she added.

Astronomers have also managed to determine that three non-repeating FRBs came from distant massive galaxies with little star formation going on. This seemed to provide evidence that repeating and non-repeating FRBs arose from different types of environments, Nimmo said. But the new discovery challenges this simple story.

FRB 180916.J0158+65, as the object is known, is a repeating FRB discovered by the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) observatory, a radio telescope near Okanagan Falls in British Columbia that Nimmo called "the world's best FRB-finding machine."

Follow-up observations by a network of telescopes in Europe allowed the research team to produce a high-resolution image of the FRB's location. This location turned out to be a medium-sized spiral galaxy like our Milky Way that is surprisingly nearby, only 500 million light-years away, making it the closest-known FRB to date. The results were published yesterday (Jan. 6) in the journal Nature.

Image of SDSS J015800.28+654253.0, the host galaxy of Fast Radio Burst (FRB) 180916.J0158+65. The green circle shows the location of the FRB. The image was captured by the 8-meter Gemini-North telescope.

(Image credit: Gemini Observatory/NSF’s Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory/AURA)

Despite precisely locating the FRB, the team was unable to detect any radio sources in the spiral galaxy that could explain the mysterious outbursts. Even worse, this new entity seems not to fit the patterns established by previous repeating and non-repeating FRBs.

Related: The 15 Weirdest Galaxies in Our Universe

"This is completely different than the host and local environments of other localized FRBs," Benito Marcote, a radio astronomer at the Joint Institute for VLBI European Research Infrastructure Consortium and lead author of the Nature paper, said during the news briefing.

The researchers hope that subsequent data might help them get a handle on what this FRB is telling them. But until then, they might have to continue scratching their heads over these puzzling phenomena.

Originally published on Live Science.

09-01-2020 om 00:48 geschreven door peter

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194 UFO sightings reported in Wash. state last year

Photo: MGN Online

DAVENPORT, Wash. - Some 194 UFO sightings were reported in Washington state last year - about one every 45 hours on average, according to the National UFO Reporting Center.

That's greater than the 160 observations reported in Washington in 2018, and reflects a worldwide upturn in sightings of "unidentified aerial phenomena," as the U.S. military now terms these reports.

The National UFO Reporting Center, based in Davenport, Wash., receives reports from all around the world, but says it makes no claims as to the validity of the information in any of these reports.

“Obvious hoaxes have been omitted, however most reports have been posted exactly as received in the author's own words," the center says. "We hope that this information will prove to be useful to the general public and the UFO community at large.”

160 UFO sightings reported in Wash. state last year

The center reports that Washington state has the third-highest number of total sightings in its database, behind California (No. 1) and Florida (No. 2).

The reports from the Evergreen State are diverse. Many described triangular- or cigar-shaped objects, spheres, lights, disks, fireballs and even formations of multiple objects.

The reports came from all over the state at all times of the day and night. Some sightings lasted only two or three seconds while others continued for several minutes or, in rare cases, an hour or more.

Some excerpts from those reports:

March 24 nighttime sighting of pulsating orange light off the Washington coast at Ocean Shores: "I could see a particularly bright red pulsing light stationary towards the west over the ocean. I (awakened) my wife and I told her she has to see this. ... By the time she got up and was observing it it had doubled in magnitude. ... This was orange red and it began pulsing. We both were in amazement. ... After several minutes of it getting progressively brighter, all of a sudden it got very bright then completely just vanished. I am a retired school teacher and my wife a real estate agent and are rational people but this was as clear as it could be. We have not seen anything like it before over the ocean at night here at our beach home."
-Jan. 13 nighttime encounter with a "17- to 20-foot tall alien robot" at a large business campus in Federal Way: "I was sitting in my car while my dogs were out for a run. ... About 100 yards away, I saw colored lights high up in the trees. In that same glance I saw my dogs very rapidly, running back and forth while jumping and running repeatedly. ... I could tell it was something standing (that) I quickly concluded was some kind of machine or a robot. ... It had a large round red light in the center of its head. ... On the right side and a bit lower was round medium dark blue light. On the left side was a green light and a white/yellow light. ... The robot was taller than the trees. ... The robot was looking for something and it swayed gently from side to side with each step.
Feb. 28 sighting of a multi-colored triangle in Lakewood at about 4 a.m.: "I was outside with my dog (when I see) a light hovering behind the trees. ... It slowly starts moving out from the trees and its orange, blinking quickly. Suddenly once I had full view it started blinking a weird pattern of green and red, and moved to the east of me behind a building. Five minutes later ... I see a very bright light approaching me super slowly at tree top level, it flew right above me ... and it was a triangle. It had a red and green flashing light ... and it almost looked transparent, if all lights were off you wouldn't be able to see it. ... I've never seen anything like this before but I got a warm feeling from it, no fear. Welcome our visitors with love, don't be afraid."
May 18 daylight sighting by a couple of a black craft near Fife: "I turned my truck towards the south and we immediately spotted a black craft moving strangely. It was shaped like a cell phone, kind of rectangular. It was falling like a leaf, then shooting forward for a distance before coming to a stop and spinning. When it would shoot forward, it would move very fast and come to a stop without noticeably braking. Just an instant stop. It would then fall like a leaf again, swaying side to side and slowly dropping, before shooting forward again. While we were watching this, another object appeared. A silver sphere. ... I turned the corner, parked again and could not see either object again. I saw neither leave."
May 31 nighttime sighting of of an orange orb and a "human like greenish thing" in North Seattle: "I just witnessed a bright orange orb or ball across the street from 24th Ave. NW and 95th Ave. About 1:30 a.m. I walked out to have a cigarette, looked to my right, saw the orange light object at roof level and then as I watched, a streak of a grey/green human shape leaped into it from the side and then it vanished. I felt like something realized it was being watched so it stopped whatever it was doing. ... Anyway, it has me shaken up. I feel like I saw something, like a shooting or a kidnap, and I know that no one will believe me. Since I'm the only witness to this."
June 7 daytime sighting of a "shimmering wing shape" traveling at ultra-fast speed near Port Angeles: "I was standing on the back deck, with a beautiful, mostly sunny day. ... Something caught my eye, coming from the south, moving very fast! By my calculations, it traveled from directly over my house, to east of Victoria, B.C., in two seconds! Made a 90-degree turn and headed towards Whidbey Island. ... There seemed to be a shimmer around what looked like, a wing shape, with no fuselage visible. ... The leading edge of the wing appeared dark. Looked like a flying wing. And jet engine noise. The estimated distance traveled in two seconds was fifty miles!!!"
Aug. 13 sighting of an "ambient glowing cloud sky ghost" over Tacoma just after midnight: "As I was driving I kept an eye on it because it just seemed so out of place. ... What caught my eye is that it was changing shape, almost dancing in a very graceful way around the top of the moon. I’m not religious but I could say it looked like a huge angel. ... It wasn’t a solid “craft” or “vessel” of any sort but something that could be literally not of this physical world. ... I’m not on anything, I saw this completely sober. I’ve never seen anything like it. ... We really don’t know what’s going on up there."
Sept. 7 nighttime sighting of a circular object in the clouds that followed a husband and wife as they drove home near Rochester: "As I made the second curve, I almost wrecked the car! I caught sight of the craft just to the left of me and a bit ahead. ... You could see 6 white lights rotating in a pattern and 4 red lights that spun, then the white lights ran to the inside or center of the craft, made a star formation, then reversed direction and made a circle around the center star like light. ... As we parked, the craft stopped and hovered. ... There was no engine noise at all! ... We got the dogs out of the kennel ... they had been raising holy hell, and were frantic! ... As I walked up the road I looked and saw at least 25 rays of light pointing up to the sky, they were like spotlights and were bouncing all over the place! ... I am still shaken up, and just a bit afraid they will come back."
Oct. 2 sighting of a fleet of triangular craft by a father and son as they were seated around a campfire at night in the Port Orchard area: "The entire formation moved as one and traveled sideways. Each triangle appeared to be separate. There was nothing visible that connected them. ... There was no sound. It seemed to move with great speed. ... There were no lights we associate with aviation. The only light was a white-yellowish glow coming from each triangle."
Oct. 12 nighttime sighting of 25 to 30 white pulsating objects by a retired firefighter and his wife in University Place: "The objects seemed to rise into view from the north and proceed in a relatively quick manner to the south. The objects made no sound. ... Where we live is near Joint Base Lewis McChord and we are very familiar with the various aircraft that fly in the area skies. ... These objects were not rotary or fixed wing aircraft using the regular flight paths. ... This event lasted for about 10-12 minutes and consisted of approximately 25, to as high as 30 objects."
Nov. 30 nighttime sighting of a bright circular object emitting rays at about 2:20 a.m. over Redmond: "Woke up looking out window with open blinds. ... (Observed) very bright (appx 4x more than Venus) light emitting six to eleven rays. ... Woke up wife/partner. Asked her to stand up and report what was seen outside. Both (of us) viewed something never seen before. Both sober. Both viewed rays from object moving as if defying law of gravity. Only white in color. Only watched for appx 30 minutes."

View all the reports from Washington state here ...

View reports from other states and countries here ...

NUFORC Home

Reports	Count
UNSPECIFIED/INTERNATIONAL	5159
ALBERTA,CANADA	376
ALASKA	417
ALABAMA	866
ARKANSAS	667
ARIZONA	2867
BRITISH COLUMBIA,CAN	466
CALIFORNIA	9479
COLORADO	1890
CONNECTICUT	1328
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA	84
DELAWARE	263
FLORIDA	5266
GEORGIA	1762
HAWAII	434
IOWA	748
IDAHO	829
ILLINOIS	2537
INDIANA	1583
KANSAS	704
KENTUCKY	1037
LOUISIANA	714
MASSACHUSETTS	1701
MANITOBA,CANADA	145
MARYLAND	1185
MAINE	731
MICHIGAN	2248
MINNESOTA	1330
MISSOURI	1688
MISSISSIPPI	480
MONTANA	645
NEW BRUNSWICK,CAN	146
NORTH CAROLINA	2432
NORTH DAKOTA	157
NEBRASKA	420
NEWFOUNDLAND,CAN	26
NEW HAMPSHIRE	760
NEW JERSEY	1783
NEW MEXICO	1026
NOVA SCOTIA,CAN	135
NORTHWEST TERRITORY	10
NEVADA	967
NEW YORK	3409
OHIO	2717
OKLAHOMA	874
ONTARIO,CAN	1403
OREGON	1993
PENNSYLVANIA	3100
PRINCE EDW ISLAND	13
PUERTO RICO	2
QB	1
QC	192
RHODE ISLAND	406
SASKATCHEWAN,CAN	5
SOUTH CAROLINA	1601
SOUTH DAKOTA	252
SK	123
TENNESSEE	1423
TEXAS	3460
UTAH	929
VIRGINIA	1758
VERMONT	413
WASHINGTON	3837
WISCONSIN	1496
WEST VIRGINIA	563
WYOMING	227
YT	17

{ https://komonews.com/ }

09-01-2020 om 00:21 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:UFOs , UAPs , USOS

08-01-2020

Afstemmen op het universum

Afstemmen op het universum

Het was laatst weer zover. Ik sprak met iemand en op een gegeven moment hadden we het over spiritualiteit en spirituele zaken. Ik kreeg meteen een blik van ‘geloof jij daarin dan?’

Ik zei: “ja, natuurlijk geloof ik daarin. En het gaat verder dan geloven. Het is meer weten”.

Hij lachte een beetje schuin, keek naar beneden en zei: “Al die onzin. Ik geloof alleen maar wat tastbaar is en wat ik kan zien met mijn blote ogen”.

Ik zei, wat ik al vaker tegen mensen zei: “Ooh, zit het zo. Goh. Weet je… Zou je iets willen doen voor mij? Kom even mee”…

En ik stond op en trok hem aan zijn arm mee. Ik liep demonstratief naar een stopcontact en zei:

“Kijk, dit is een stopcontact. Er staat 220 volt op. Alleen ik zie dat niet. En ik denk dat jij dat ook niet met je blote ogen kunt zien.

Nou wil ik graag zien wat er gebeurt als je even beide vingers tegelijkertijd in die gaatjes daar steekt. Nou past dat natuurlijk niet, maar pak even twee ijzeren paperclips en buig ze open en steek ze dan erin. Kijken wat er gebeurt, oké?”

Ik kreeg de blik van een waanzinige. “Nee, natuurlijk doe ik dat niet”, zei hij.

“Aha, maar je kunt het niet zien met je blote ogen. Dus je gelooft er niet niet in. Dat waren je eigen woorden… Of vergis ik mij nu?” zei ik.

Hij lachte… “Nee, dat was anders…”

“Oh. Dit is anders. Oké.”

Dus ik vroeg hoe zit het dan met radio en tv-signalen die door de lucht verstuurd worden. Die zie je ook niet met je blote ogen. Maar ze zijn er wel. Zelfs nu gaan deze signalen door jou en mij heen. Je ziet of voelt ze niet, maar ze zijn er wel.

En op dezelfde manier zijn er veel meer dingen die we niet meteen kunnen zien. Onze ogen, jóuw ogen, kunnen maar een heel klein gedeelte van het electromagnetisch spectrum opvangen. Bovendien zijn er energieën, die niet electromagnetisch van aard zijn. Die kun je sowieso niet opmerken met je zintuigen. Maar dat wil niet zeggen dat ze niet bestaan.

Hij knikte en zei, “Ja, als je het zo bekijkt”…

Het kwartje was gevallen

En dat was de eerste stap voor hem om in te zien dat de wereld waarin we leven zo veel meer is dan wat je kunt zien met je ogen. En als je alles bij elkaar zou nemen, het zichtbare en het onzichtbare, dan kun je dat ook wel het ‘AL’ noemen. Of het universum.

Signalen uit het universum

Om signalen uit het universum op te kunnen vangen zijn er een aantal dingen nodig. Als eerste moet er iets zijn dat signalen creëert en/of uitzendt. Ten tweede moet je een ontvanger hebben. En je zult een koppeling moeten hebben tussen beide.

De signalen zijn er al. En de ontvanger ook. Elk mens is in staat om te kunnen ontvangen. Wat interessant is, is die koppeling. Die bepaalt per mens of deze de signalen wel of niet ontvangt. Met andere woorden: of deze mens is afgestemd op die signalen.

Het werkt ongeveer als een radio. Als deze is afgestemd op zender 1, dan worden de signalen van zender 2 niet omgezet in geluid. Je hoort alleen zender 1. Ondanks dat de signalen van zender 2 ook gewoon door de ruimte gaan.

Natuurlijke koppeling met het universum

Sommige mensen hebben van nature een koppeling met het universum. Zij zijn van nature daarop afgestemd. Daardoor kunnen zij dingen waarnemen die anderen niet waarnemen. Deze mensen worden dan spiritueel begaafd genoemd. Zij kunnen bijvoorbeeld dingen zien, voelen, horen of weten, wat volgens de fysieke wetten onmogelijk lijkt.

En dit fenomeen komt veel vaker voor dan je je realiseert. Er zijn zelfs mensen die afgestemd zijn op het universum die het niet weten of niet willen.

Marco

Zo kan ik mij een voorval herinneren van Marco, het zoontje van een vroegere kennis. Marco was een jaar of 8 en had enorm last van mensen die tegen hem spraken. Dit gebeurde vooral ’s avonds. Hij hoorde en zag mensen die anderen niet zagen. Het deed mij een beetje denken aan de film ‘The sixth sense’. En het gebeurde daar vlak voor mijn ogen. Het kind kon er niet door slapen.

Als eerste werd er natuurlijk gedacht aan een levendige fantasie. Daarna dacht men dat het kind een mentale stoornis had en ze wilden hem naar een psychiater sturen. Gelukkig werd dat geweigerd door zijn ouders.

De reden was dat zij geloofden in van hun zoontje zei. En uiteindelijk werd aangetoond dat Marco dingen kon vertellen die hij met geen mogelijkheid kon weten. Dingen van vroeger die hem nooit verteld waren en die hij ook nergens op had kunnen zoeken.

Er was dus meer aan de hand. Dit kind had een connectie met de andere kant. Met een ander deel van het universum. Uiteindelijk werd er een professional bijgehaald die ervoor zorgde dat hij tot zijn achttiende ‘afgesloten’ werd voor dit soort communicatie. De rust keerde terug en hij kon na lange tijd weer rustig slapen. Deze professional was zeker geen arts of psychiater. Het was een specialist op spiritueel gebied.

Interessant fenomeen

Ondanks dat sommige mensen liever niet afgestemd zijn op het universum, zoals Marco, zijn er veel meer mensen die dat wel graag willen. En terecht! Het kan je leven op ongekende wijze spiritueel verrijken.

Hoe interessant zou het zijn als je het vermogen hebt om direct in contact te komen met de krachten van het universum? En als je de informatie die je krijgt zou kunnen gebruiken in je dagelijkse leven?

Je zou een geheel nieuwe kijk op het leven kunnen ontwikkelen en beter gebruik kunnen maken van de enorme potenties die het universum je biedt.

De schakel tussen jou en het universum

Contact leggen met het universum is eenvoudig. Het enige dat je hoeft te doen is je onderbewustzijn toestaan dit te doen voor je. Je onderbewustzijn is de schakel tussen het universum en je bewustzijn.

En wanneer je jouw onderbewustzijn de instructies geeft om signalen van het universum tastbaar te maken voor je, dan kun je dingen gaan zien, horen en voelen die voor anderen verborgen blijven.

Wanneer je jouw onderbewustzijn afstemt op het universum, dan ervaar je dat er veel meer is dan alleen de zichtbare fysieke wereld en krijg je het vermogen om deze kennis te gebruiken in je voordeel.

En om jouw onderbewustzijn af te stemmen op het universum hoef je alleen maar enkele keren te luisteren naar een speciale sessie. Deze sessie kost € 49,99, maar nu tijdelijk kun je hem krijgen voor slechts 27 euro.

Het is een geweldig mooie manier om je spirituele vermogens te ontwikkelen of te versterken.

Meer info en downloaden doe je hier

 

08-01-2020 om 23:59 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:NineForNews. nl ( new ipv NIBURU.nl) (NL)

Repeterende ‘snelle radioflits’ uit een spiraalstelsel vergroot het mysterie over de oorsprong van deze signalen

frb

Telescopen van het European VLBI Network (EVN) hebben een repeterende fast radio burst (FRB) waargenomen in een spiraalstelsel zoals het onze. De FRB is de dichtstbijzijnde die ooit is gelokaliseerd en is aangetroffen in een omgeving die radicaal afwijkt van eerdere gevallen. Door deze ontdekking moeten wetenschappers hun ideeën over de oorsprong van dit geheimzinnige extragalactische verschijnsel opnieuw bijstellen.

Een van de grootste astronomische raadsels is de vraag waar de korte, hevige uitbarstingen van radiostraling vandaan komen die bekendstaan als fast radio bursts (FRBs) oftewel ‘snelle radioflitsen’. Hoewel deze uitbarstingen maar een duizendste van een seconde duren, zijn er tot nu toe al honderden van gedetecteerd. Maar slechts van vier FRBs is de exacte bron bekend.

In 2016 werd vastgesteld dat een van deze vier gelokaliseerde bronnen zich op onvoorspelbare wijze herhaalde. De betreffende radioflitsen kwamen steeds uit hetzelfde stukje hemel. Sindsdien maken onderzoekers onderscheid tussen FRBs waarvan slechts één uitbarsting is waargenomen (‘niet-repeterende’) en die waarvan meerdere radioflitsen zijn geregistreerd (‘repeterende’).

‘De meervoudige flitsen die we van de eerste repeterende FRB hebben gezien, kwamen voort uit heel specifieke en extreme omstandigheden in een heel klein (dwerg)sterrenstelsel’, zegt Benito Marcote van het Joint Institute for VLBI ERIC en hoofdauteur van het huidige onderzoek. ‘Die ontdekking vormde het eerste stukje van de puzzel, maar riep meer vragen op dan zij beantwoordde, zoals de vraag of er een fundamenteel verschil bestaat tussen repeterende en niet-repeterende FRBs. En nu hebben we een tweede repeterende FRB gelokaliseerd, die onze eerdere ideeën over wat de bron van deze radioflitsen kan zijn in twijfel trekt.’

frb

Op 19 juni 2019 deden acht telescopen van het European VLBI Network (EVN) gelijktijdige waarnemingen van een radiobron die bekendstaat als FRB 180916.J0158+65. Deze bron was al in 2018 ontdekt met de CHIME-telescoop in Canada, en dat stelde het team onder leiding van Marcote in staat om met het EVN met zeer hoge resolutie naar FRB 180916.J0158+65 te kijken. In de loop van vijf uur detecteerden de onderzoekers vier radioflitsen die stuk voor stuk minder dan twee duizendsten van een seconde duurden. De hoge resolutie werd bereikt door radiotelescopen die verspreid over de wereld staan opgesteld met elkaar te combineren. Dankzij deze techniek, die Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) wordt genoemd, kon worden vastgesteld dat de radioflitsen allemaal afkomstig waren uit een slechts ongeveer zeven lichtjaar groot gebied. Deze lokalisatie is vergelijkbaar met het vanaf de aarde opsporen van een mens op de maan.

Met behulp van deze locatie kon het team waarnemingen doen met een van de grootste optische telescopen ter wereld, de 8-meter Gemini North op de Mauna Kea (Hawaï). Door de omgeving van de bron te onderzoeken kon worden vastgesteld dat de radioflitsen afkomstig waren uit een spiraalstelsel (SDSS J015800.28+654253.0 geheten) dat 500 miljoen lichtjaar van de aarde verwijderd is, en specifiek uit een gebied in dat stelsel waar veel stervorming plaatsvindt.

frb

‘De gevonden locatie is compleet anders dan die van de eerder gelokaliseerde repeterende FRB, maar verschilt ook van alle andere onderzochte FRBs’, legt Kenzie Nimmo, promovendus aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam, uit. ‘De verschillen tussen repeterende en niet-repeterende snelle radioflitsen zijn dus minder duidelijk, en we denken nu dat deze verschijnselen niet gebonden zijn aan een specifiek type sterrenstelsel of omgeving. Het zou zomaar kunnen zijn dat FRBs op een grote verscheidenheid aan locaties in het heelal kunnen optreden en alleen specifieke omstandigheden vereisen om waarneembaar te zijn.’

Hoewel het huidige onderzoek eerdere aannames in twijfel trekt, is deze FRB de meest nabije die ooit is waargenomen. Dat stelt astronomen in de gelegenheid om dit verschijnsel gedetailleerder dan ooit te onderzoeken.

‘We hopen dat verder onderzoek duidelijk zal maken onder welke omstandigheden deze geheimzinnige flitsen ontstaan. We streven ernaar om meer FRBs nauwkeurig te lokaliseren en uiteindelijk hun ontstaan te begrijpen’, besluit Jason Hessels, corresponderend auteur van het onderzoek, van het Nederlands Instituut voor Radioastronomie (ASTRON) en de Universiteit van Amsterdam.

Publicatie

B. Marcote, K. Nimmo, J. W. T. Hessels, S. P. Tendulkar, C. G. Bassa, Z. Paragi, A. Keimpema, M. Bhardwaj, R. Karuppusamy, V. M. Kaspi, C. J. Law, D. Michilli, K. Aggarwal, B. Andersen, A. M. Archibald, K. Bandura, G. C. Bower, P. J. Boyle, C. Brar, S. Burke-Spolaor, B. J. Butler, T. Cassanelli, P. Chawla, P. Demorest, M. Dobbs, E. Fonseca, U. Giri, D. C. Good, K. Gourdji, A. Josephy, A. Yu. Kirichenko, F. Kirsten, T. L. Landecker, D. Lang, T. J.W. Lazio, D. Z. Li, H.-H. Lin, J. D. Linford, K. Masui, J. Mena-Parra, A. Naidu, C. Ng, C. Patel, U.-L. Pen, Z. Pleunis, M. Rafiei-Ravandi, M. Rahman, A. Renard, P. Scholz, S. R. Siegel, K. M. Smith, I. H. Stairs, K. Vanderlinde & A. V. Zwaniga. 2020. A repeating fast radio burst source localised to a nearby spiral galaxy. Nature.

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1866-z

Film

A repeating Fast Radio Burst from a Spiral Galax:

https://youtu.be/eKo-Jx3l418

[Astron,

Eerste afbeelding en banner afbeelding:

Bijschrift: Artistieke impressie van de lokalisatie van Fast Radio Burst (FRB) 180916.J0158 + 65 (a.k.a. "R3") in zijn gaststerrenstelsel, SDSS J015800.28 + 654253.0. De afbeelding van het gaststerrenstelsel is gebaseerd op echte waarnemingen met behulp van de Gemini-North telescoop bovenop Mauna Kea in Hawaii. De FRB afkomstig uit het sterrenstelsel is gebaseerd op echte gegevens die zijn vastgelegd met de 100-meter Effelsberg-radiotelescoop in Duitsland. De 8 radio schotels die worden afgebeeld, maken deel uit van het European Very-long-baseline-interferometry Network (EVN). Dit wereldwijde netwerk van radiotelescopen werd gebruikt om de locatie van de FRB te bepalen in een stervormende regio in het gaststerrenstelsel. De afgebeelde telescoopkoepel is die van de Gemini-North optische telescoop, die het gaststerrenstelsel observeerde om zijn roodverschuiving te bepalen, wat aangeeft wat de afstand is.

Credit afbeelding: Danielle Futselaar (artsource.nl)

Tweede afbeelding:

Bijschrift: Afbeelding van SDSS J015800.28 + 654253.0, het gaststerrenstelsel van Fast Radio Burst (FRB) 180916.J0158 + 65 (ook bekend als "R3") - geobserveerd met de Gemini-North telescoop van 8 meter. Afbeeldingen verkregen in SDSS g ', r' en z’ filters worden respectievelijk gebruikt voor de blauwe, groene en rode kleuren. De positie van de FRB in de spiraalvormige arm van het melkwegstelsel wordt aangeduid door witte markeringsstreepjes.

Credit afbeelding: Shriharsh Tendulkar / Gemini Observatory

{ https://www.astron.nl/nl }

08-01-2020 om 23:27 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ASTRONOMIE / RUIMTEVAART

Uit dit sterrenstelsel komen geheimzinnige signalen, en niemand snapt er iets van

Met behulp van telescopen zijn vreemde signalen, een zogeheten repeterende snelle radioflits, waargenomen uit een ander sterrenstelsel.

Het gaat om de dichtstbijzijnde snelle radioflits die ooit is geregistreerd.

Daarnaast wijst de omgeving waarin hij is gevonden radicaal af van die van eerdere flitsen.

Geen idee

De ontdekking, die is gepubliceerd in Nature, heeft ervoor gezorgd dat astronomen hun ideeën over de raadselachtige signalen opnieuw moeten bijstellen.

Sterrenkundigen hebben geen idee wat de bron van de korte uitbarstingen van radiostraling is.

De signalen van de eerste repeterende snelle radioflits kwamen uit een klein sterrenstelsel.

Meer vragen

De signalen kwamen voort uit heel specifieke en extreme omstandigheden, legt hoofdonderzoeker Benito Marcote uit.

“Die ontdekking riep meer vragen op dan zij beantwoordde,” zegt hij.

“En nu hebben we dus een tweede repeterende snelle radioflits gelokaliseerd, die onze eerdere ideeën weer in twijfel trekt,” vervolgt hij.

Tweeduizendste van een seconde

Op 19 juni vorig jaar werden met acht telescopen vier radioflitsen ontdekt die minder dan tweeduizendste van een seconde duurden.

Ze bleken afkomstig te zijn uit het spiraalstelsel SDSS J015800.28+654253.0 op 500 miljoen lichtjaar van de aarde.

Omstandigheden

Het gaat om een ‘compleet andere’ locatie dan die van eerdere repeterende én gewone radioflitsen, reageert astronoom Kenzie Nimmo van de Universiteit van Amsterdam.

Coauteur Jason Hessels zei te hopen dat verder onderzoek duidelijk zal maken onder welke omstandigheden deze geheimzinnige flitsen ontstaan.

[Astron, UvA]

08-01-2020 om 23:05 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:NineForNews. nl ( new ipv NIBURU.nl) (NL)

The Truth About Reptoids in the Past, Present and Future

According to John Rhodes, people have reported interacting with half-human and half-reptile beings in various parts of the world since the dawn of mankind. While most of these ancestral memories or mythologies are symbols of ancient religious self-identification, a few appear to be relating actual encounters, similar to those reported in the modern UFO culture.

While most reptiles are wild and shy away from humans, reptoids have exhibited a marked degree of intelligence and an intense curiosity of the humans they encounter. These are the most mysterious of all. Because so few people are aware that the majority of life on and in Earth has yet to be encountered by mankind, when something unusual and intelligent like a reptoid is encountered, they are misidentified as ET’s or “aliens.”

Some of these elusive animal-beings have been encountered by accident, some of the intelligent ones appear to be encountering humans on purpose, in the middle of the night or in disguise by day for various undeterminable reasons.

08-01-2020 om 22:42 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )

UFO Encounters Of Japan Air Lines Flight 1628

A JAL cargo flight from Paris to Tokyo reported having observed a pair of UFOs shadowing them as they passed Iceland and Alaska in November 1986. The crew were not prone to be confused any flying objects with balloons or clouds as they were experienced flyers. They all agreed that they spotted an unknown aerial vehicle.

The unidentified tube or possibly square-shaped craft was observed with glowing thrusters and heated the cabin of the JAL jumbo at closest approach.

The captain of the jumbo Kenju Terauchi, who was also a fighter pilot, had over 10,000 hours flight experience.

He said that one of the UFO was moving as if there was no such thing as gravity. The craft sped up, stopped, and then flew at their speed, in their direction. The next instant, the UFO changed course like it was defying the gravity.

Moments later, a second, larger craft appeared to match the flight path of the 747.

Radar returns brought two or more interpretations with civilian and military stations reporting different results.

The sighting lasted for around 50 minutes. Captain Terauchi was grounded for a lengthy period after the incident. He only returned to flight duties many years later.

08-01-2020 om 22:16 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

Elon Musk says a device resembling a ‘UFO on a stick’ will connect people to SpaceX’s new Starlink satellite internet service

Dave Mosher

SpaceX rocketed another 60 internet-providing Starlink satellites at once on Monday night, adding to 120 previously launched to space.
The more than 170 working satellites makes the company, founded by tech mogul Elon Musk, the single-largest operator of spacecraft in orbit around Earth.
On Tuesday, Musk tweeted there would be “no training required” for users to connect to SpaceX’s globe-encircling network: Just point a device that looks like a “UFO on a stick” at the sky and plug it in.
Starlink is one of several “megaconstellations” of thousands of satellites that companies plan to launch this decade. SpaceX plans to launch up to 42,000 before the end of the decade, which may boost the company’s value up to $120 billion.
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Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

On Monday evening, SpaceX, the rocket company founded by tech mogul Elon Musk, blasted a fresh batch of Starlink internet satellites into orbit. The mission added 60 new versions of the spacecraft to a network of 120 already circling Earth – a total of 180 launched into space.

Though several experimental Starlink satellites launched in May have stopped working, SpaceX now manages more private space satellites than any company, according to Ars Technica. (About 2,200 functional spacecraft orbit Earth today.)

SpaceX is just getting started, though: The company plans to launch 60 more satellites about every two weeks in 2020, perhaps ramping up missions to get as many as 42,000 flown before the end of the decade. The network should boot up after several hundred are in space, ostensibly getting early adopters online later this year.

But there remains an open question of how, exactly, anyone will connect to SpaceX’s next-generation satellite internet network.

During a press call earlier this year, Musk described a computer-powered antenna terminal that would look like “a small to medium-size pizza.”

On Tuesday, Musk tweeted a colorful new description of a terminal:

Looks like a thin, flat, round UFO on a stick. Starlink Terminal has motors to self-adjust optimal angle to view sky. Instructions are simply: – Plug in socket – Point at sky These instructions work in either order. No training required.

Musk uploaded no picture of a Starlink terminal, though he’s tweeted using a prototype that’s at his home in Los Angeles, according to Space News.

‘This is very different business for SpaceX’

space starlink satellite internet coverage animation signal cones_slow.2019 10 18 14_13_35

Foto: An animation of SpaceX’s Starlink providing internet coverage to the Americas.

sourceSpaceX

Musk previously said Starlink terminal antennas would be “electronically steered,” allowing one to switch connections from one satellite flying out of view to one coming into view “in less than a millisecond.”

The addition of a steering motor, according to Musk’s tweet, suggests electronic switching alone is not be enough to maintain a reliable connection to satellites in typical use cases.

Musk said in 2015 that SpaceX’s terminals (before they earned the name Starlink) would cost $100 to $300 each. However, the cheapest any manufacturer is selling such devices for today is about $1,000, according to Tim Farrar, an industry analyst. As with Starlink satellites themselves, SpaceX is designing and manufacturing the terminals, which President and Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell told reporters in October was no trivial task.

“This is very different business for SpaceX,” she said, according to Space News. “It’s leveraging space technology, but it’s a consumer business.”

spacex starlink internet satellite spacecraft solar panels arrays earth orbit illustration 00002

Foto: An illustration of SpaceX’s Starlink in orbit around Earth.

sourceSpaceX

Starlink is not alone in the push to launch megaconstellations of internet-providing satellites. Iridium is beefing up its network, as is OneWeb. Larger tech powerhouses like Amazon are also looking to establish their own fleets. Apple is also quietly working on the tech, according to Bloomberg.

Though these fleets could bathe Earth in unprecedentedly fast, pervasive, and low-cost internet, not everyone has taken a liking to them.

Astronomers have repeatedly and loudly voiced their complaints about the brightness of the satellites in the night sky (which have prompted many reports of UFOs). SpaceX, to its credit, has coated the Earth-facing side of its new Starlink satellites with a substance to make it less shiny, though the move is experimental.

There are also concerns about space junk: Launching so many satellites will increase the risk of orbital collisions and debris fields. SpaceX says its Starlink satellites use a small krypton-ion engine to move around and autonomously dodge high-speed threats, though a communications error led to a close call with a European satellite in September.

{ https://www.businessinsider.nl/ }

08-01-2020 om 17:33 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ASTRONOMIE / RUIMTEVAART

The Mysterious Case of the RB-47H UFO Encounter

The RB-47 UFO Encounter, July 17, 1957

The Mysterious Case of the RB-47H UFO Encounter

UFO encounters always skirt the realm of the fantastical and weird, always perplexing and begging for answers on whether they really happened or not. Often there is no real evidence, and we are left with mere stories with no discernible substance, free to swirl about in the limbo of speculation and debate. Yet, there are those cases that are well-documented, recorded, and which serve to be genuine enigmas that stand out among the rest. Truly one of the great UFO cases of recent memory revolves around a flight of an experienced crew, and which was fully verified by numerous sources at the time to firmly cement itself into UFO legend.

It was July of 1957, and a highly advanced RB-47H reconnaissance aircraft loaded with state-of-the-art electronic countermeasure equipment was preparing for a mission. The 6-man crew was highly experienced, consisting of seasoned pilot Lewis D. Chase, copilot James H. McCoid, and navigator Thomas H. Hanley, as well as monitors John J. Provenzano, Frank B. McClure, and Walter A. Tuchscherer. It was to be a routine training mission beginning at Forbes AFB in Topeka, Kansas, and flying out over Gulf of Mexico to perform navigation and enemy radar detection exercises before returning back across the south-central U.S., after which they were to be deployed to Germany. The crew was seasoned and tested, the aircraft cutting edge, with the most sophisticated electronic intelligence available, and when they took off in the early morning hours of July 17, 1957 in clear, calm, and cloudless weather there was no reason to think this would be anything other than a by-the-books, typical training exercise, but it was soon to prove to be anything but.

At approximately 4:00 AM, the first part of the mission had already been completed without incident, and the aircraft was making its way back over Gulfport, Mississippi, to continue its exercises when an anomalous airborne signal was picked up by McClure to the rear of the aircraft somewhere out over the Gulf of Mexico. It was first thought that this signal was coming from a ground radar installation due to the nature of its frequency, but it was soon determined that the signal was moving at a rather fast clip, indeed surpassing the plane’s 500 mph airspeed to circle around it to fade and then disappear out over Mississippi. At this point no visual confirmation had yet been made of the object, and indeed McClure made no mention of it at the time, thinking it must have been due to a glitch.

In the meantime, the rest of the crew was oblivious to the whole strange incident, and the aircraft continued on its course over Jackson, Mississippi, where they were due to engage in a series of simulated war exercises against Air Force ground radar units stationed there. Things went smoothly until over Winnsboro, Louisiana pilot Lewis Chase noticed a rather odd sight up ahead. He reported a bright light approaching at a very fast speed. He at first took this to be possibly from the landing lights of an airliner, but it soon became clear that there were no navigational lights, and that the object was a singular very bright bluish-white light moving toward them at a dangerously high speed, and was described as being as big as a house. Alarmed, Chase warned the crew to prepare for evasive maneuvers, but before they even had time to get ready the light had sped by them in a flash and vanished. At this time only the pilot and copilot had actually visually seen the anomaly, and they described it to the rest of the crew even as they reconfigured their equipment to try and pick up whatever it was. McClure at this point came clean about his own odd experience, and they managed to pick up the signal again on several pieces of equipment, showing that this was no glitch, this time seeming to be keeping perfect speed with the RB-47H, and it was agreed that this was not from any ground based radar or normal aircraft.

Throughout all of this the pilot radioed it in and found that ground radar at the Carswell Air Force Base Ground Controlled Intercept (GCI) station was also picking up an unexplainable signature of something up there with them, and he asked for permission to approach the mysterious object, which was granted. However, as soon as the RB-47H moved in to intercept, the signal rapidly dropped over 20,000 feet in altitude almost instantaneously, beyond what any known aircraft was capable of. The mysterious object would then toy with the plane for over an hour, elusively evading them for over 600 miles, all while ground radar registered it and it emitted a powerful radar signal of its own. It was seen to change directions suddenly, speed up, slow down, and rise or dip far beyond what any known aircraft was capable of, as well as intermittently “winking out,” during which time it would be invisible to both ground radar at several locations and the plane’s instruments, before appearing again as if from nowhere. It also was starting to take on the appearance of a bright red light, and this was all very unsettling for the crew.

Low on fuel by this point, the RB-47H was forced to stop trying to engage the object and headed north into Oklahoma to land. The mysterious object showed up on their readings all the way up to Oklahoma City, before fading away, this time for good. In Edward U. Condon’s 1969 book Final Report of the Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects, he would report that shortly after landing “electronic counter-measures, graphic data, and radar scope pictures which had been taken during the flight were removed from the plane by Intelligence personnel,” the crew was interrogated heavily, and the whole thing was kept very hush hush, with a “security lid” placed over the incident. Indeed, the case of the RB-47H would remain classified for years, and it was only with its declassification that it ever got out into the wild to be discussed and debated by the UFO community.

In the end it is all a rather harrowing encounter that is notable for the fact that it was fully registered visually by the crew of the plane, picked up on the aircraft’s on board electronic detection devices, and also documented by ground based radar in several locations, which when taken with the experienced crew on board points to this being one of the most authentic and credible reports of a UFO and airplane encounter on record. Nevertheless, Project Bluebook would try to wave it off as a misidentification of a passenger airliners, which, considering all of the available evidence and what was seen and detected, is rather absurd. What was it that harassed that crew up there? Surely it could not have been any normal plane. Was this some sort of experimental aircraft or something else, and why should it deem this training flight to be the subject of its game? Although we may never know, the account of the RB-47H remains one of the best documented and genuine unexplainable UFO cases out there, and will probably hold that title for some time to come.

08-01-2020 om 17:18 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:UFOs , UAPs , USOS

Conspiracy, Deception and Revelation: False UFO Memories

Today’s article demonstrates – in a strange way – how the mind can provoke false memories of the UFO type. Before we get to that specific issue, however, we must first take a look at a series of books that are among my favorites. From 1990 to 1991, the late author David Bischoff penned a trilogy of novels: Abduction: The UFO Conspiracy; Deception: The UFO Conspiracy; and Revelation: The UFO Conspiracy. If you are into UFOs, cosmic cover-ups and the world of fiction (and all rolled into one), then if you have not read this great series, you really should. They are, in my opinion, the definitive UFO novels. While I won’t reveal the complete plot-line that links all three of the books – in case you plan on purchasing copies after reading this! – I will explain my enthusiasm for them. Imagine a combination of The X-Files meets The Fugitive meets Robert Ludlum meets The Invaders and you’ll have some idea of what this series is all about. Except that Bischoff’s books predate Mulder and Scully by a couple of years.

The overall theme of these highly entertaining, fictional tales is an intriguing one: a shadowy, powerful group in the U.S. government – a group that is pretty much answerable to no-one at all – has, for years, been secretly fabricating UFO incidents, and particularly so “alien abduction”-based encounters. So, does that mean there are no real aliens visiting us, after all? Well, no it does not mean that. Or maybe it does. Then again, perhaps it’s a bit of both. And that’s what makes the UFO Conspiracy series so entertaining: it keeps you on your toes and guessing from the very first page to the absolute last. As for the characters, they are a fine and equally entertaining bunch. We have maverick journalist Jake Camden (think of Mickey Rourke’s character of private-detective Harry Angel in Alan Parker’s 1987 movie, Angel Heart and that’s the closest thing you’ll get to Jake Camden). We also have Dr. Everett Scarborough, a UFO skeptic, and a best-selling author on books that the Flying Saucer faithful absolutely loathe. And there’s Marsha Manning, a gutsy character who provides the romance factor for Scarborough, while Camden prefers booze-filled, coke-fueled hook-ups in motel-rooms with UFO groupies.

Now, it’s time to return to the opening sentence of this article. Namely, the matter of false memories and the UFO phenomenon. A week or so before Christmas I received an email from a guy who said that he had read one of my two books on Roswell (The Roswell UFO Conspiracy) and wanted to make a few points. He said he knew that aliens came down not too far from Roswell, New Mexico in the summer of 1947. He also said that in terms of the bodies allegedly found on the Foster Ranch, they were not the large-headed, small creatures that most people associate with when it comes to the famous case. Rather, he said that the aliens at Roswell actually looked just like us, for the most part. He also said that the aliens were genetically designed so that when they died on the ranch, their bodies decomposed extremely quickly – and, as a result, the U.S. government never had the chance to study their rapidly decaying remains. On top of that, he said that he had read all of this in one of the controversial Majestic 12 documents that surfaced from the 1980s to the 1990s; but which, oddly, he could no longer find.

The guy assured me that this was the correct scenario for Roswell. I said he was wrong. Rather, I explained, this is the exact scenario presented in the second novel in David Bischoff’s The UFO Conspiracy series. No, I was wrong, he told me. He said he only ever read UFO non-fiction, rather than saucer-themed fiction. Well, he got back to me two days later, and lo and behold, he said that he did have these very three books – after all – on one of his many bookshelves, which he had read when they were published. While he was searching his shelves, I spent a couple of hours going through my own copies of the trilogy looking for the relevant page on the decomposing aliens. I finally found it, on page 233 of Deception. When we chatted again I told him to turn to page 233 and read it. He did. Three decades after reading Deception, and after we chatted again, he realized his error. In the early 1990s he had read Deception (and not Majestic 12-themed documents at all); but around thirty years later his mind and memories had turned the Bischoff scenario for Roswell into a real event, rather than what it really is: a fine piece of entertaining UFO conspiracy-fiction.

Of course, there was no attempt on the part of the guy to deceive me. Rather, his memories had deceived himself. It’s a cautionary, UFO-themed story of how the passage of time can turn one thing into something very different.

08-01-2020 om 17:09 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:Diversen (Eng, NL en Fr)

Earth-Sized Planet Discovered In Habitable Zone Of A Nearby Star

Astronomers discovered an Earth-sized planet located in the habitable zone of a nearby star that could potentially contain liquid water. A group of NASA exoplanet astronomers (Josh Schlieder and his students Emily Gilbert, Tom Barclay, and Elisa Quintana) were looking at data from TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) when they found the planet and it’s really not that far from Earth. In fact, it’s so close that its atmosphere may potentially be observed by using the James Webb Space Telescope or even large ground-based telescopes.

The Earth-sized exoplanet’s host star is called TOI-700 (or TESS of Interest number 700) and it’s relatively small and dim. It’s only around 40% of the size of our own sun and approximately 1/50 of its brightness. It’s located in the constellation Dorado – which can be viewed from the Southern Hemisphere – and is approximately 100 light-years away from Earth. To put this into better perspective, Proxima Centauri, which is the closest star to us, is located 4.2 light-years away from us and would take us around 20,000 years to travel there. So, although it’s quite far away, it’s still relatively close in comparison to other stars and exoplanets that have been found.

In the past decade, around a dozen Earth-sized exoplanets have been discovered that are located in the habitable zone of their host stars; however, most of them are between 600 and 3,000 light-years away from us and are pretty much impossible to study and observe.

Three planets surround TOI-700 and are simply named b, c, and d. Planet d is the one that’s located in the habitable zone and is around the same size as Earth. What’s even more interesting is that it orbits its star every 37 days. Planet b is also Earth-sized but orbits its star at a very close range (Planet c is mini-Neptune sized). For comparison, Venus receives twice the amount of sunlight that Earth gets and the planet is dry and extremely hot. Planet b receives five times that amount of sunlight.

And since liquid water is essential for life, it’s very important for astronomers to figure out if there is any on Planet TOI-700 d and what its atmosphere is like. Based on different models studied by the astronomers, if the planet’s atmosphere has a combination of methane or carbon dioxide, or water vapor, it could possibly be habitable. Hopefully the James Webb Space Telescope will be able to confirm or deny these hypotheses when it’s launched next year.

08-01-2020 om 16:48 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ASTRONOMIE / RUIMTEVAART

Mysterious Drones Fly Near Denver as Colorado Residents Fear a Government Cover-Up

“They’re he-ere!”

Anyone who remembers the movie “Poltergeist” knows that hearing someone say those words is not good news. That could explain why residents of Castle Rock, Parker and Fort Collins, Colorado, aren’t thrilled to hear the news that the mysterious giant drones that have been flying in formation over parts of northeastern Colorado and across the border into Nebraska are now moving west and southwest and are getting dangerously close to Denver — Castle Rock and Parker are just a few miles south of the state’s capitol and most populated city. This may also explain why residents in those cities and those in the northeast who have been seeing these drones every night since a week before Christmas are skeptical at best about the announcement that a government task force has been set up to investigate them. With many believing these drones are tied to the military, they’re wondering if this is an investigation … or a cover-up.

It wouldn’t be such a mystery if the drones appeared at dusk rather than at night.

“You could see them. There were four of them, perfectly spaced. I don’t understand why they don’t want the public to know unless there’s something hidden.”

Castle Rock resident Jim Tewes told the local Fox News affiliate that he’s seen the drones on multiple nights and they’re definitely not airplanes or helicopters. Castle Rock is considered to be part of the Denver metropolitan area even though it’s halfway between that city and Colorado Springs, the home of the US Air Force Academy. Tewes wife, Patti, is more forceful in her assessment of the growing fear of a conspiracy.

“The fact that no one is jumping on it from the government, the FAA doesn’t seem concerned, it’s got to be the government.”

What are they watching?

Now that the giant drones are both literally and physically out in the open, more people are coming forth with sightings, including Castle Rock’s Brian Swanson, who claims he may actually be a target for the mysterious force behind them. He has taken a video of the drones he claims have been flying over his home for two years. Swanson told ABC Contact7:

“They’re just kind of like trailing me. You don’t mention it too much to people because they think you’re nuts. It just ain’t normal stuff in the sky … Who’s operating the drones? is it legal to do this? I have no idea. No idea. I’d like to find out.”

Whether he’s really a target of the drones or not, many Colorado and Nebraska residents, not to mention concerned citizens around the country, agree with Swanson … they want to find out. Fortunately, the federal government is FINALLY here to help.

“We take every drone-sighting report seriously. Multiple FAA divisions are working closely with federal, state and local stakeholders to determine whether the reported sightings in Colorado and Nebraska are drones and, if so, who is operating them and for what reason.”

On January 6th, local law enforcement agencies from eastern Colorado held a meeting with several federal agencies and later announced the formation of a task force to try and identify the owner of the drones. The task force will probably need a bigger room for the next meeting because it now includes local sheriffs from numerous counties, the FBI, the FAA, the Department of Defense, Colorado Information Analysis Center, the Colorado Department of Homeland Security, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis and a few kitchen sinks.

“I don’t think it’s silly. It’s causing fear, and that’s not funny.”

Sorry, Phillips County Sheriff Tom Elliott, we’re not laughing at the drones but the idea that their nightly flights over many parts of Colorado and Nebraska for at least three weeks and quite possibly many months is a mystery to so many federal agencies and organizations chartered with protecting the public from just such fearsome aerial activities. It’s little comfort that everyone seems to agree it’s NOT aliens … but it’s becoming terrifying that the authorities have not been able to quickly solve this perceived threat. Are they waiting for a private citizen to do what none of them seem to want to (and warn against doing) … shoot one down?

Pilatus PC-12 drone hunter.

The task force claims to be looking for a command vehicle – a sinister-looking plain box trailer or van with antennas – that would be near the flight paths of a drone formation. Separately from the task force, the Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control is flying a state-owned high-tech Multi-Mission Aircraft – a Pilatus PC-12 airplane – this week over areas where the drones have been seen. So far, a spokesperson says “The joint operation found no verification of suspicious drones.”

No evidence of something that now hundreds of people and law enforcement officials have seen with their own eyes and a few smartphones.

Mystery … or cover-up?

This is far from over because …

“They’re he-ere!”

We’re he-ere!

08-01-2020 om 16:34 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:MYSTERIES ( Fr, Nl, E)

Big Glowing UFO Seen Over Volcano In Mexico, Video, UFO Sighting News.

Big Glowing UFO Seen Over Volcano In Mexico, Video, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: Dec 31, 2019
Location of sighting: Colima, Mexico
Source: Volcano live cam

This raw footage was recorded from the Colima Volcano live cam and shows a glowing disk object moving around, up, over and down the volcano. The object looks big, about the size of a car and has a powerful glow to it.

UFOs have been seen around the Mexican volcanos for over a decade and the sightings have not decreased at all. The objects are usually glowing brightly like this one, but some are longer and half actually enter or leave the mouth of the volcano.

Absolute proof that an alien base exists below this volcano.
Scott C. Waring - Taiwan

Other videos of UFOS by Vulcans, peter2011

08-01-2020 om 14:28 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )

Real Reasons Behind US Government Secrecy on UFOs

alien-conspiracy

In 2017, the New York Times revealed the shocking story of a secret Pentagon program to investigate unidentified flying objects (UFOs). The story led many researchers to delve into this strange world. Since then, the public has learned some interesting information about UFOs or unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) as the Pentagon refers to them.

However, the US government makes it extremely difficult to know what and where UFO-related stuff is going on. Some believe the government is behind some significant conspiracy to cover up the evidence of alien visitation to Earth. Others think the government is in cahoots with ET species to create human-alien hybrids.

Perhaps, but many suspects not.

What many others believe is that the few people in the US government who know about it believe the phenomena might be a threat but don’t know how to deal with it.

Several UFO enthusiasts suggest the government’s assessment of the phenomena, though they won’t admit it, is that the UFOs are being monitored near the nuclear-powered aircraft carriers. UFOs also are popping up near nuclear submarines and Air Force nuclear weapons bases.

On Robert Hastings’ documents, these UFOs have sometimes even temporarily shut down nuclear weapons systems in the US. It appears now that humanity’s perfection of nuclear energy piqued something or someone’s curiosity in us.

It is important to note that these UFOs are far more advanced than US military capabilities. These UFOs are observed as being capable of reaching hypersonic speeds, demonstrating anti-gravity and invisibility technologies. They have also been tracked moving in and out of Earth orbit, making the most advanced capabilities of the US military an absurd joke in comparison. If these UFOs intend harm, we don’t have a chance. For Pentagon planners, this scenario is an Armageddon-level thing.

Publicizing the truth about UFOs also risks another danger. If the US shares what it knows about UFOs, Russia or China might learn enough to replicate associated very advanced technologies behind UFOs for themselves. If Moscow or Beijing figures out the space-time manipulation before the US, we have a rather large problem.

So, don’t count the military to share more of what it knows anytime soon. We’ll get to the truth eventually, but it will take time.

Aliens, flying discs and sightings -- oh my! A short history of UFOs in America

08-01-2020 om 13:55 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

These four questions need to be answered in 2020 to solve the mystery of UFOs

These four questions need to be answered in 2020 to solve the mystery of UFOs

By Jasper Hamill, Science & Technology Reporter

You might not know it, but we’re currently living in a golden age of ufology.

In the 20th century, anyone who saw mysterious objects in the sky was dismissed as a crank or a fraudster.

But that changed almost exactly two years ago when a bombshell article published in the New York Times revealed the existence of a shadowy US government project called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) which gathered information about ‘unidentified aerial phenomena’ (UAP).

This secret programme gathered information on at least three sightings of aircraft travelling at impossible speeds which were recorded by US airmen or military personnel.

In the most famous incident revealed during the uncovering of AATIP, two Navy pilots chased a ‘whitish oval object, about the size of a commercial plane’. This ‘Tic Tac’ UFO was observed off the coast of San Diego in 2004 and followed by two by jets launched from the USS Nimitz.

Since this report, details of the strange and almost unbelievable work carried out by AATIP has slowly leaked into the public domain. And in that time, Metro has worked closely with Nick Pope, a former Ministry of Defence UFO investigator, to cover all the revelations.

Now he’s set out four questions which need to be solved in order for us to solve the UFO mystery once and for all.

He told Metro: ‘We’ve recently passed the second anniversary of the New York Times story revealing the existence of the Pentagon’s AATIP (Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program) initiative, and in those last 2 years the UFO phenomenon has come out of the fringe and into the mainstream.

‘Expectations are high that 2020 will bring further bombshell revelations, but it’s difficult for the UFO community and the wider public to navigate this complex story. There’s information overload, with so much data that most people struggle to identify the parts of the story that are not just interesting, but important.

‘To help people focus on the key issues, I’ve used my insider knowledge of having run the UK government’s UFO project to identify four critical questions. The answers would clear up much of the confusion.’

Of course, it’s worth remembering that we have no official explanation of the sightings yet. The advanced aircraft could be experimental flying machines built secretly by the US Government or even one of its enemies. Last year, we uncovered a patent granted to the US Navy for an exotic aircraft which used ‘mass-reduction’ technology to reduce its mass and lessen inertia (an object’s resistance to motion) so it can zoom along at high velocities.

Although we don’t know if the patented tech was used in a real aircraft, the invention was so advanced that it resembled the anti-gravity mechanisms found in science fiction movies.

AATIP researchers also investigated wormholes, invisibility cloaking, warp drives and high energy laser weapons during a probe into UAP.

So what’s really going on in our skies? Here are the questions Nick Pope hopes to solve this year in order to crack the mystery once and for all.

1. What is the US Government’s current ‘best assessment’ of the objects depicted in the 3 US Navy videos?

‘Everyone has been asking the wrong question. People ask “what are the objects” and this opens the door to responses such as a previous statement from a spokesperson which said: “The Navy considers the phenomena contained/depicted in those three videos as unidentified.”

‘Fair enough, but we know President Trump and various Senators have been briefed on this and I know from my MoD experience as a briefer that you never go into such meetings with an assessment that goes no further than “we don’t know”.

‘That’s because even if that’s true, the follow-up question is: “Fine, but what’s your best current assessment?”

‘And when you’re dealing with senior political leadership, you simply must have something meaningful to offer, when that inevitable question is asked. The best assessment may be wrong – think of the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction – but there absolutely will be one!’

Nick Pope greets fans and supporters at an AlienCon event

Nick Pope greets fans and supporters at an AlienCon event

2. What’s the truth about the ‘metamaterials’?

Early media reports about AATIP talked about buildings at Bigelow Aerospace – the company which got the AATIP contract from the DIA – being modified to store materials said to have recovered from UAP which are called metamaterials.

‘Just when this story was being dismissed with the suggestion that the debris was mainly material sent in by UFO witnesses and researchers over the years, Luis Elizondo stated that while some material did indeed come from the public, some came from “governmental sources”.

‘Additionally, it was revealed that the US Army had signed a research and development agreement with Tom DeLonge’s To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science – the non-profit group for whom Luis Elizondo and other key players in AATIP now work. This isn’t the first time that the military seemed to step in to keep the story going, just when things were dying down. That’s interesting, because it reverses the usual situation where the military tries to downplay or kill off UFO stories.

‘Isotopic ratio analysis and x-ray diffraction will be able to determine if any of these materials have been in space, or if there’s anything unusual about their structure. These tests are so obvious that they must already have been carried out. One would expect the US Army to know this and to know the results, so the fact that they’re still interested is potentially telling here.’

Navy Pilots Were Seeing UFOs on an Almost Daily Basis in 2014 and 2015.

(Picture: U.S. Department of Defense)

These pictures were taken by cockpit-cameras

(Picture: U.S. Department of Defense)

Pilots were shocked disbelief by what they saw

(Picture: U.S. Department of Defense)

3. Why is the Pentagon walking back on its earlier admission that AATIP investigated UAP?

Early official statements about AATIP described it as being a program to assess “far-term foreign advanced aerospace threats to United States” and added “including anomalous events (such as sightings of aerodynamic vehicles engaged in extreme manoeuvres, with unique phenomenology, reported by U.S. Navy pilots or other credible sources)”.

‘A May 2019 statement to New York Post journalist Steven Greenstreet from a US Navy spokesperson confirmed that AATIP “did pursue research and investigation into unidentified aerial phenomena”.

‘However, in a recent statement to UFO researcher John Greenewald Jr., a Pentagon spokesperson stated that AATIP was not UAP related’.

‘This contradicts former DIA official and AATIP point man Luis Elizondo, who said “AATIP was a 100% UFO program”, as well as former Senate majority leader Harry Reid, who set up AATIP. To further complicate matters, in January 2019 DIA’s Office of Corporate Communications released to me a copy of a DIA letter to Congress where they attached “a list of all products produced under the AATIP contract”, which included studies into anti-gravity, invisibility, stargates, warp drive, wormholes and the Drake Equation, the latter being a theoretical construct designed to estimate the number of other civilizations in our galaxy – clearly not something you’d need to know if the concern was Russian and Chinese aircraft.

‘Whether it’s the President or someone in Congress, someone needs to step in and sort out this mess, because at present we have one part of the government saying one thing, while another says something else. It’s farcical and it makes everyone look foolish.

4. What’s the status of Congressional interest in all this?

‘There’s been previous interest in AATIP and the US Navy encounters from several parts of Congress: the Armed Services Committee, the Intelligence Committee and the Homeland Security Committee. There have also been suggestions that the Space subcommittee and/or the Emerging Threats and Capabilities subcommittee should be involved.

‘However, the fact that Congress has two chambers – the Senate and the House of Representatives – complicates things. The public don’t know what committee or subcommittee – if any – has the current lead on all this, what documents have been generated by this Congressional activity and how much of this documentation will be releasable under the Freedom of Information Act.

‘It’s also not known whether or not this Congressional interest will evolve into formal hearings and, if so, whether these will be public hearings, or closed hearings, as may be the case if much of the information is highly classified.’

{ https://metro.co.uk/ }

08-01-2020 om 01:43 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:UFOs , UAPs , USOS

Mysterious lights spotted above Reading spark UFO sightings

The mysterious lights were spotted "moving randomly across the sky" in Reading on Saturday night

By Hugh Fort & Joshua Smith

What could the strange lights be?

(Image: Berkshire Live)

Strange lights have been spotted above a UK town - leaving locals very confused.

The mysterious lights were spotted "moving randomly across the sky" in Reading on Saturday night.

People in the town have reported their confusion over what the strange shapes could be.

Charlotte Butterworth said she saw a "distinct, large white light in the sky" while driving down the M4 on the night of Saturday, January 4 at around 10pm.

She said: "It was visible for at least the last 20 miles, moving randomly across the sky."

Another person spotted the light in Sonning Common area, saying it was "a white beam of light scanning the sky", coming from the direction of Reading, Berkshire.

She added it was "a bit like Batman's signal."

Jake New, of Tilehurst , spotted the light above the village and took the photos above.

One possibility is that the light is the one seen coming from the Winter On Ice event, which has been in Reading throughout December.

The light there can be seen from quite a way away, depending on the cloud cover.

UFO sightings are set to increase in 2020 - and there have already been a number of them as a gigantic ‘triangular UFO’ was spotted above Texas days after a New York sighting .

A cigar-shaped UFO has been captured hovering over an Arizona airport.

A passenger flying between the cities of Almaty and Petropavlovsk in Kazakhstan just before Christmas filmed an eerie unexplained glow in the clouds outside the aircraft window.

Former Blink-182 star Tom DeLonge also recently announced that his To The Stars organisation had fragments of a crashed UFO .

Have you seen anything similar? Contact Daily Star at news@dailystar.co.uk.

{ https://www.dailystar.co.uk/ }

08-01-2020 om 01:14 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

The home galaxy of a second repeating fast radio burst is a puzzle

Astronomers have traced a mysterious, recurrent blast of radio waves to a Milky Way–like galaxy

FRB galaxy

The first galaxy discovered to host a repeating fast radio burst was a tiny dwarf galaxy. Now a second host galaxy has been found (arrow points to the burst’s location), and it’s a massive spiral similar to the Milky Way.

SHRIHARSH TENDULKAR/GEMINI OBSERVATORY

By Maria Temming

Brief, brilliant flashes of radio waves have been traced back to a galaxy that looks like the Milky Way — a radically different environment from where astronomers have seen similar radio flares before.

Until now, the only source known for a recurrent fast radio burst like this was a tiny, star-forming dwarf galaxy (SN: 1/4/17), while nonrepeating bursts have been tracked back to more massive, mellow galaxies. That implied that the two varieties of fast radio bursts, or FRBs, might have different sources (SN: 6/27/19).

But astronomers have pinned a second repeating FRB to an entirely different kind of host galaxy: a star-forming spiral, similar in size to our own galaxy, about 500 million light-years away. That observation, reported online January 6 in Nature, suggests that a whole menagerie of galactic environments may generate FRBs.

“There needs to be a theory that can explain this diversity of environments, or … there are multiple different sources for fast radio bursts,” says Jason Hessels, an astrophysicist at the University of Amsterdam.

To identify the home of this second repeating FRB, originally spotted by the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment in British Columbia (SN: 8/14/19), Hessels’ team aimed eight radio telescopes in the European VLBI Network at this burst in June 2019. Combining the telescopes’ observations allowed the researchers to triangulate the FRB’s exact position in the sky. They then used the Gemini North telescope in Hawaii to image its spiral galaxy host.

The nature of this galaxy implies that the FRB may have a different engine than the repeater in the dwarf galaxy, thought to have the conditions necessary to forge highly magnetized neutron stars that could power repeated bursts (SN: 1/10/18). But in the case of the spiral, “there’s no reason why this type of galaxy should produce any particularly exotic type of neutron star,” Hessels says. Instead, he imagines that a black hole gobbling up material could account for the blinking FRB.

{ https://www.sciencenews.org/ }

08-01-2020 om 00:56 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ASTRONOMIE / RUIMTEVAART

Aliens definitely exist and they could be living among us on Earth, says Britain's first astronaut

By Rob Picheta, CNN

(CNN) - Aliens definitely exist, Britain's first astronaut has said -- and it's possible they're living among us on Earth but have gone undetected so far.

Final frontier: Helen Sharman, Britain’s first astronaut. Photograph: Alamy

Helen Sharman, who visited the Soviet Mir space station in 1991, told the Observer newspaper on Sunday that "aliens exist, there's no two ways about it."

"There are so many billions of stars out there in the universe that there must be all sorts of different forms of life," she went on. "Will they be like you and me, made up of carbon and nitrogen? Maybe not."

Then, in a tantalizing theory that should probably make you very suspicious of your colleagues, Sharman added: "It's possible they're here right now and we simply can't see them."

Sharman was the first of seven Britons to enter space.

Sharman became the first Briton in space in 1992.

The chemist spent eight days as a researcher on the space mission when she was 27, making her one of the youngest people to enter orbit.

NASA rovers are trawling Mars for evidence of past or present life forms, but humankind's endless fascination with extraterrestrial life forms has so far proved fruitless.

Sharman is not the only person to speculate that we've had brushes with aliens, though.

A former Pentagon official who led a secret government program to research potential UFOs, revealed in 2017, told CNN at the time that he believes there is evidence of alien life reaching Earth.

Elsewhere in her interview, Sharman said there is "no greater beauty than looking at the Earth from up high."

"I'll never forget the first time I saw it," she added.

Sharman also discussed her frustration with observers defining her by her sex. "People often describe me as the first British woman in space, but I was actually the first British person. It's telling that we would otherwise assume it was a man," she said.

"When Tim Peake went into space, some people simply forgot about me. A man going first would be the norm, so I'm thrilled that I got to upset that order."

CNN has reached out to Sharman for comment.

{ https://edition.cnn.com/ }

08-01-2020 om 00:49 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )

07-01-2020

Betelgeuse: What’s up?

Betelgeuse: What’s up?

Posted by Andy Briggs in SPACE

The red supergiant star Betelgeuse, a bright star in the constellation of Orion, has been making headlines due to a recent drop in brightness. Is an explosion imminent? If it happens, will Earth be affected?

View at EarthSky Community Photos.

Brian Ottum kindly provided this direct comparison of Betelgeuse a few years ago and Betelgeuse now. He wrote: “Left is February 2016. Right is December 31, 2019. Note that the brightness/appearance of all background stars are identical left versus right, but Betelgeuse is definitely fainter on the right.” Thank you, Brian!

Why is the red supergiant star Betelgeuse in the news?

Beginning in October 2019, astronomers noticed that the brightness of Betelgeuse suddenly began to change. The star was dimming. Once one of the top 10 brightest stars in the sky, its brightness had fallen to 21st place by the end of December 2019. Wild claims have been made about this sudden dimming of Betelgeuse, and many misconceptions spread. Some media outlets claimed the dimming was evidence that the star was about to go supernova, ending its life in a spectacular explosion. Is that possible? And if Betelgeuse did go supernova, how would that affect Earth?

A star chart showing the constellation Orion, and naming some of its brightest stars.

Betelgeuse is one of 2 very bright stars in the constellation Orion. 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 represents Orion’s Shoulder.

What is Betelgeuse?

Betelgeuse, pronounced “BET-tal-joos”, is a red supergiant star, located an estimated 642 light-years away. It’s the alpha star – that is the brightest star – of the constellation Orion the Hunter, which is a very prominent constellation in the sky at this time of year. Betelgeuse represents Orion’s left shoulder. It’s a distinctly red-colored star. Betelgeuse has an estimated diameter of 767 million miles (about 1,200 km), as befits a red supergiant star. It has an estimated mass nearly 12 times that of our sun. The star is estimated to be between nine and ten million years old, in contrast to our sun’s age of about 4.5 billion years. Yet our sun is only middle-aged, while Betelgeuse is nearing the end of its life. That’s because the massive supergiant stars, like Betelgeuse, burn their thermonuclear fuel more quickly that medium-sized stars like our sun.

Big red blobby star image, with orbits of solar system planets overlaid.

This image, made with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), shows the red supergiant Betelgeuse, one of the largest stars known. In the millimeter part of the spectrum the star is around 1,400 times larger than our sun. The overlaid annotation shows how large the star is compared to our solar system. Betelgeuse would engulf all four terrestrial planets — Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars — and even the gas giant Jupiter. Only Saturn would be beyond its surface.

Image via ESO.

Is Betelgeuse’ dimming unusual? Will the star go supernova?

The dimming of Betelgeuse is not unusual per se. It has been known for a long time that Betelgeuse is a variable star, that is to say one whose brightness fluctuates over time. The star has been found to have multiple cycles of dimming: a 5.9-year main cycle and, within that, several smaller ones. It’s conceivable that – when the minima of all the cycles come together – the star could look exceptionally faint, as it does now.

And there are other possibilities. Astronomers have also suggested that the change in brightness could be due to some sort of eruption of gas or dust, or changes in the star’s surface brightness.

So will Betelgeuse go supernova? Yes! But probably not in our lifetimes. Current understanding is that all supergiants, be they red or blue, end their lives as supernovae. However, in the case of Betelgeuse, this event is predicted to happen anytime within the next few hundred thousand years.

Most astronomers do not believe a supernova is imminent. For example, astronomers Richard Wasatonic and Edward Guinan, of Villanova University, postulate that the current dimming is due to an unusually extreme 425-day dimming cycle within the main 5.9-year one. Unusual, certainly, but nothing that indicates an imminent explosion.

The other thing to remember is that there is no precedent, in astronomy’s history of observing supernovae, for the end of a supergiant star’s life to be preceded by a dimming of its light. Such a phenomenon has not been observed, although it cannot be ruled out. But certainly there is nothing in the computer models of supernovae to indicate the existence of a dimming phase before the explosion.

It must be said, however, that predicting supernovae is very much an inexact science, so there is still a possibility, however remote, that Betelguese’s fiery end could indeed happen tomorrow. Or, to be more exact, it happened 642 years ago and the light from it is about to reach the Earth.

If Betelgeuse did go supernova, is the Earth in any danger?

No. Our planet is simply too far away from Betelgeuse for the supernova to present any danger whatsoever. It will have absolutely no effect on the solar system. Stories you might have read in the media, about our planet being in danger, are just hype.

Astronomers believe the dimming cycle will end soon and Betelgeuse will return to its former glory. As its brightness increases, it is certain that the stories in the media about the star will fade and this episode will swiftly be forgotten.

However, one day Betelgeuse will explode and give us an amazing celestial show. It’ll be brighter in our sky than a full moon, and possibly visible in daytime!

Bottom line: Questions and answers about the recent dimming of the star Betelgeuse.

07-01-2020 om 22:29 geschreven door peter

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NASA's TESS Planet Hunter Finds Its 1st Earth-Size World in 'Habitable Zone'

By Mike Wall

TOI 700 d is a landmark discovery for NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite.

NASA's newest planet hunter just bagged some big game.

For the first time, the agency's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has discovered a roughly Earth-size planet in the habitable zone of its host star, the zone of orbital distances where liquid water could be stable on a world's surface, researchers announced today (Jan. 6).

The newfound exoplanet, known as TOI 700 d, lies just 101.5 light-years from Earth, making it a good candidate for follow-up observations by other instruments, scientists added.

Related: NASA's TESS Exoplanet-Hunting Mission in Pictures

"TESS was designed and launched specifically to find Earth-sized planets orbiting nearby stars," Paul Hertz, astrophysics division director at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said in a statement. "Planets around nearby stars are easiest to follow up with larger telescopes in space and on Earth. Discovering TOI 700 d is a key science finding for TESS."

TESS, which launched in April 2018, hunts for planets using the "transit method," looking for telltale dips in stellar brightness caused by orbiting worlds crossing stars' faces from the satellite's perspective. This same strategy was used to great effect by NASA's Kepler space telescope, which discovered about 70% of the roughly 4,000 known exoplanets.

Artist's illustration of TOI 700 d, the first Earth-size, haitable-zone planet discovered by NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite.

(Image credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center)

TESS found three different planets circling the star TOI 700 (TOI is short for "Tess Object of Interest"). One of the other planets is a red dwarf about 40% as massive, 40% as wide and 50% as hot as Earth's sun. The innermost world, TOI 700 b, is roughly Earth-sized and completes one orbit every 10 Earth days. The center planet, TOI 700 c, is 2.6 times bigger than our planet, meaning it's likely a gassy "mini-Neptune," and zips around TOI 700 every 16 days.

TOI 700 d, the outermost known planet in the system, is the really intriguing one. It's just 20% larger than Earth and completes one orbit every 37 days. The alien world receives 86% of the stellar energy that Earth gets from the sun, putting TOI 700 d in the habitable zone (at least as it's traditionally defined), discovery team members said.

All three planets may be tidally locked to TOI 700, always showing it the same face just as Earth's moon only ever shows us its near side. But tidal locking doesn't necessarily preclude the possibility of life on an alien world, astronomers say. And there's more good news along these lines regarding TOI 700.

Related: Gallery: The Strangest Alien Planets

"In 11 months of data, we saw no flares from the star, which improves the chances TOI 700 d is habitable and makes it easier to model its atmospheric and surface conditions," discovery team leader Emily Gilbert, a graduate student at the University of Chicago, said in the same statement.

(Red dwarfs are generally much more active than the sun, and there's considerable debate about how habitable their planets may be as a result. Frequent and powerful flaring, for example, can strip away a planet's atmosphere.)

TESS isn't the only spacecraft that has spotted evidence of TOI 700 d. A different team of researchers used NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope to confirm the existence of the alien planet.

"Given the impact of this discovery — that it is TESS’s first habitable-zone Earth-size planet — we really wanted our understanding of this system to be as concrete as possible," team leader Joseph Rodriguez, an astronomer at the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, said in the same statement.

"Spitzer saw TOI 700 d transit exactly when we expected it to," Rodriguez added. "It's a great addition to the legacy of a mission that helped confirm two of the TRAPPIST-1 planets and identify five more."

TRAPPIST-1 is a dwarf star that lies just 40 light-years away from us and hosts seven Earth-size planets, three of which appear to be in the habitable zone. The system is a prime candidate for observation by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, which is scheduled to launch in 2021. James Webb should be able to probe the TRAPPIST-1 worlds' atmospheres for potential biosignature gases, such as methane and oxygen, scientists have said.

TOI 700 is a bit farther away, but it's still close enough to be scrutinized in more detail in the future. And scientists do hope to learn more about it via observations by other instruments. For example, they want to pin down TOI 700 d's mass by measuring how much its gravity tugs the host star this way and that. Without knowing the mass, it's unclear how dense TOI 700 d is — and thus if it's a rocky world like Earth.

And in-depth observations of light that has streamed through TOI 700 d's atmosphere on its way to Earth could tell us a great deal about conditions on the alien world's surface, which remain a total mystery at the moment.

A third team of researchers, led by Gabrielle Engelmann-Suissa, a Universities Space Research Association visiting research assistant at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, did some modeling work to get at the various possibilities. And those possibilities are vast. For example, one of their simulations depicted TOI 700 d as an ocean-covered world with a carbon-dioxide-dominated atmosphere, whereas another one pictured the planet as a dry, cloudless world.

"Someday, when we have real spectra from TOI 700 d, we can backtrack, match them to the closest simulated spectrum and then match that to a model," Engelmann-Suissa said in the same statement. "It's exciting because no matter what we find out about the planet, it’s going to look completely different from what we have here on Earth."

Gilbert, Rodriguez and Engelmann-Suissa presented their results today in Honolulu at the 235th meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS). Their papers have also been submitted to scientific journals.

Other exciting TESS news came out at AAS today as well. For example, mission team members also announced TESS' first circumbinary planet — a world with two suns in its sky — and revealed that the bright star Alpha Draconis and its dimmer companion mutually eclipse each other.

07-01-2020 om 22:06 geschreven door peter

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NASA ontdekt nieuwe planeet die mogelijk bewoonbaar is (met dank aan haar ‘planetenjager’) - HLN.be

Bron: NASA, ANP, Space.com

EPA

WETENSCHAP & PLANEET De Amerikaanse ruimtevaartorganisatie NASA heeft een nieuwe planeet ontdekt die mogelijk bewoonbaar is. TOI 700 d heeft ongeveer dezelfde grootte als onze Aarde en bevindt zich in de bewoonbare zone rond zijn ster. De NASA deed de ontdekking met behulp van haar ‘planetenjager’, die in 2018 gelanceerd werd en ons heelal afspeurt naar plaatsen waar leven mogelijk is.

Transisting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is de naam van de ‘planetenjager’ en hij werd speciaal ontworpen om planeten zoals de Aarde te vinden die rond een ster draaien. De ontdekking van TOI 700 d is zijn allereerste grote wapenfeit. De NASA deelde maandag een illustratie van de planeet en die doet meteen wegdromen.

Goudvis

TOI 700 d maakt deel uit van het planetaire systeem TOI 700 en ligt op 100 lichtjaren of 946.000.000.000.000 kilometer van de Aarde. Dat lijkt misschien ver, maar dat is het niet in ruimtetermen. De planeet maakt deel uit van het sterrenbeeld Dorado (Goudvis). Dat bevindt zich aan de zuidelijke hemel en is minder bekend bij ons omdat het niet te zien is vanuit België.

De planeet bevindt zich in de bewoonbare zone rond zijn ster, wat betekent dat hij niet te ver en niet te dicht staat. Daardoor kan er mogelijk vloeibaar water voorkomen op de oppervlakte. Dat kán op zijn beurt leven mogelijk maken, maar dat is niet noodzakelijk zo.

Enkele cijfers: de ster van TOI 700 d is ongeveer half zo groot als de zon en ook ongeveer half zo heet. TOI 700 d krijgt daardoor ongeveer 86 procent van de energie die de Aarde van de zon krijgt. De planeet zelf is ongeveer 20 procent groter dan de Aarde. Een jaar duurt er 37 dagen.

TOI 700 d wordt daarmee toegevoegd aan een voorlopig beperkt lijstje met planeten die de juiste omstandigheden hebben om er leven mogelijk te maken. Op dat lijstje staan onder meer ook zeven planeten in het TRAPPIST-1-stelsel. Vooral TRAPPIST-1e lijkt daar erg op de aarde. (lees hieronder verder)

AFP

photo_news

Het planetaire systeem TOI 700 zou in totaal uit drie planeten bestaan, voor zover de wetenschappers nu weten. De binnenste planeet heet TOI 700 b en is bijna exact even groot als de Aarde. De oppervlakte zou rotsachtig zijn en hij zou in 10 dagen tijd rond zijn ster draaien. De middelste planeet TOI 700 c is 2,6 keer de grootte van de Aarde - iets tussen de grootte van de Aarde en Neptunus - en draait in 16 dagen rond haar ster. Vermoedelijk bestaat die planeet vooral uit gas. TOI 700 d is de buitenste planeet en de enige in de bewoonbare zone.

Donkere kant

Bij alle drie de planeten is de rotatieperiode om hun eigen as dezelfde als de omlooptijd rond hun ster. Dat betekent dat telkens dezelfde kant van de planeten naar de ‘zon’ gekeerd is en dat de planeten dus een verlichte en een donkere kant hebben. Zoals de maan altijd met dezelfde kant naar de Aarde staat.

Verder onderzoek moet nu uitmaken of de planeten een atmosfeer hebben en waaruit ze exact samengesteld zijn. Wat alvast vóór mogelijk leven pleit, is dat er nog geen zonnevlammen gezien zijn: uitbarstingen die veroorzaakt worden door het vrijkomen van energie van de ster.

TESS ontdekte daarnaast ook een planeet die rond twee sterren draait en die dus twee zonnen aan de hemel heeft staan. Die planeet is zeven keer zo groot als de aarde. Een jaar duurt er ongeveer 3 maanden. De planeet is 1.300 lichtjaar van ons verwijderd en staat in het sterrenbeeld Schilder.

07-01-2020 om 20:57 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:HLN.be - Het Laatste Nieuws ( NL)

Armies Of Unidentified Drones Are Appearing Over The Western U.S. At Night, And It Is Really Freaking People Out

Michael Snyder is the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog, The American Dream Blog and The Truth. You can follow him on Twitter right here

Since just before Christmas, armies of unidentified drones have been appearing each night in the skies above Colorado, Nebraska and Kansas. The drones are approximately 6 feet wide and they have red and white lights, but nobody knows where they are from or who owns them. This is a story that is now receiving national attention, and the FBI, the FAA and the U.S. Air Force are all investigating this mystery. According to eyewitnesses, these drones can move “much faster than a regular aircraft”, and that would seem to indicate that they are highly sophisticated. So far, the U.S. military, every government agency that has been asked, and many of the major companies in the area have all denied operating the drones. Federal, state and local law enforcement officials have been doing all that they can to solve this mystery, but so far they have come up completely empty.

And even though these drones are now receiving so much attention, they just keep coming back night after night. According to one northern Colorado resident, when the drones come out it looks like “something from a movie”…

For the last week, Michelle Eckert has spotted a high-flying, night-time mystery above her rural northern Colorado home. She has seen drones, sometimes a dozen or more with wingspans 6 feet wide.

“The sky is lit up with Christmas lights basically,” she told CBS News. “There’s lights and things flying all over. It reminded me of something from a movie.”

Sometimes eyewitnesses just see one drone. In other cases, the drones are working in pairs. And in other instances, there are large groups of up to 30 drones working in very close coordination.

On Thursday night, a Denver Post reporter went out in search of these drones, and it wasn’t long before some of them were spotted…

As light turned to dark Thursday, stars appeared in the night sky. And soon after, so did drones. Around 6:10 p.m., a Denver Post reporter and photographer spotted two unmanned aircraft whizzing west above I-70, 8 miles outside Limon.

More drones could be seen outside Last Chance, a slight whir audible as they passed overhead. The aircraft flashed one red light and one white. Two other yellowish lights remained on throughout the flight. In 20 minutes, a half-dozen flying objects could be seen traversing over the barren wind farms.

The fact that there are so many of them and that they are operating over such a large area would seem to indicate that this is not the work of some rogue individual.

But at this point we don’t have any answers.

Lincoln County Sheriff Tom Nestor has been working on this case for quite a few days, and his county map is now “dotted with blue and yellow thumbtacks” because so many people have been reporting sightings…

Inside the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office in Hugo on Thursday afternoon, Sheriff Tom Nestor and Capt. Yowell stared at a county map hanging in a narrow hallway.

It’s dotted with blue and yellow thumbtacks, depicting sightings from across the county of just under 5,500 people. There’s a series of tacks clustered around Interstate 70 in Limon, with a few scattered north and south of the interstate. Some people reported the drones flying in packs. Others saw solo flights.

Nestor immediately suspected that a local company may be doing some mapping, but that theory didn’t turn up anything. And other law enforcement officials in the region have come up empty as well…

Nestor said he has spoken to local oil companies and drone experts, learning information but getting no answers. Neighboring sheriffs have spoken to the military, which has denied involvement, he said. The Air Force, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Department of Defense, the Environmental Protection Agency, the North American Aerospace Defense Command and the University of Colorado Boulder have told The Denver Post that they’re not flying the drones.

The FAA has gotten involved, and you would think that they should be able to get to the bottom of this, but they are just as puzzled as everyone else…

Already, the FAA has contacted test sites, drone companies and companies that have received authorization to operate drones in the affected areas. But the agency has not been able to determine who is flying the aircraft, spokesman Ian Gregor said in a statement Monday.

The FAA also asked area airports and pilots to report sightings or people they see operating the drones from the ground.

So far there is no evidence that these drones are malicious, but just a few days ago we received a reminder of how deadly they can potentially be. Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani was killed by a drone, and he probably never even knew that the attack was coming.

On Monday, dozens of federal, state and local law enforcement officials gathered in the town of Brush to talk about these drones. At the conclusion of the meeting, reporters were told that there is still “no explanation” for this mystery…

Mysterious drone sightings remains a mystery on Colorado’s Eastern Plains. Monday, more than 70 local, state and federal officials met in Brush to talk about findings and reports from the last couple of weeks.

Multiple law enforcement agencies, the FBI, United States Air Force and the FAA ended the meeting with no explanation of what the objects hovering over vast properties really are.

People living in Colorado, Nebraska and Kansas desperately want some answers, and now a similar sighting has been reported in Minnesota…

Drones were reported flying over Juniata and Hastings Sunday night. An operator has not been identified at this time.

Minneapolis Air Traffic Control contacted the Hastings Police Department with a report from an airplane pilot about the drones.

Air traffic control reported the drones were flying in a grid pattern around 9-10 p.m. Sunday, Police Capt. Mike Doremus said.

This sounds very similar to many of the other sightings, but nobody has been able to examine one of these drones up close yet, and so we still don’t know precisely what we are dealing with.

But what we do know is that our world is a very strange place, and it is getting stranger by the day.

Hopefully this is just some relatively harmless top secret U.S. military program that the Pentagon doesn’t want to talk about.

Because if these drones do not have a U.S. origin, then that opens up a completely different can of worms.

About the Author:

I am a voice crying out for change in a society that generally seems content to stay asleep. My name is Michael Snyder and I am the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. I have written four books that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned) By purchasing those books you help to support my work. I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but due to government regulations I need those that republish my articles to include this “About the Author” section with each article. In order to comply with those government regulations, I need to tell you that the controversial opinions in this article are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the websites where my work is republished. This article may contain opinions on political matters, but it is not intended to promote the candidacy of any particular political candidate. The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions. Those responding to this article by making comments are solely responsible for their viewpoints, and those viewpoints do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of Michael Snyder or the operators of the websites where my work is republished. I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.
Michael Snyder is the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog, The American Dream Blog and The Truth. You can follow him on Twitter right here

Source:

http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/armies-of-unidentified-drones-are-appearing-over-the-western-u-s-at-night-and-it-is-really-freaking-people-out

07-01-2020 om 20:29 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:UFOs , UAPs , USOS

Retired USAF General Claims Advanced Technology Exists That Could Transport a Human Anywhere on Earth in 1 Hour

Recently retired U.S. Air Force Lieutenant General Steven L. Kwast gave a lecture last month that seems to further signal that the next major battlefield will be outer space.

Kwast’s lecture included comments that heavily hint at the possibility that the United States military and its industry partners may have already developed next-generation technologies that have the potential to drastically change the aerospace field, and human civilization, forever, reports The Drive in their extensive article on advanced space technology.

Around the 12:00 mark in the video, Kwast makes the somewhat bizarre claim that the U.S. currently possesses revolutionary technologies that could render current aerospace capabilities obsolete:

“The technology is on the engineering benches today. But most Americans and most members of Congress have not had time to really look deeply at what is going on here. But I’ve had the benefit of 33 years of studying and becoming friends with these scientists.”

“This technology can be built today with technology that is not developmental to deliver any human being from any place on planet Earth to any other place in less than an hour.”

https://ufosightingshotspot.blogspot.com/

07-01-2020 om 15:48 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:Diversen (Eng, NL en Fr)

How did life survive in the Snowball Earth? Scientists might have cracked the mystery

The researchers do admit that ‘Snowball Earth is just a hypothesis’, but that period seems to have been an era of the most extreme long-term cold spell(s) ever detected on Earth.

There is very little life in Arctic tundras and glaciers. However that was the situation in a big portion of the world during Ice Ages, says Technology.org.

This is a dramatization of what happened 700 million years ago, when Earth fell into the deepest ice age in its history. This period is called the Snowball Earth.

Image credit: Neethis via Wikimedia

How did life survive these difficult periods? How didn’t everything just die, being cut off from any kind of sources of nutrition and oxygen?

Scientists examined the chemistry of the iron formations in Australia, Namibia, and California to get a window into the environmental conditions during the ice age. They selected rocks left there by the ice age, because they are representative of the conditions during that difficult period for life.

By analysing these rocks scientists from the McGill University were able to estimate the amount of oxygen in the oceans around 700 million years ago.

Oxygen concentration is a crucial condition for sustainability of life. Without oxygen everything dies in a massive domino chain. And scientists did find that a huge portion of the ocean was uninhabitable due to a low concentration of oxygen, but some areas, particularly where the grounded ice sheet begins to float there, became a critical source of oxygenated meltwater.

This effect, called the glacial oxygen pump, enriches water with oxygen. Air bubbles trapped in the glacial ice are released into the water as it melts, becoming a crucial supply of oxygen for various life forms, including eukaryotes.

Scientists believe that this explanation answers a question that has been puzzling them for decades – how did life on Earth survive the Snowball Earth time 700 million years ago, when our planet fell into the most severe ice age in its history?

Professor Galen Halverson, one of the authors of the paper, commented: “This study actually solves two mysteries about the Snowball Earth at once. It not only provides an explanation for how early animals may have survived global glaciation, but also eloquently explains the return of iron deposits in the geological record after an absence of over a billion years”.

Previous studies have hypothesized that oxygen-dependent life might have been restricted to meltwater puddles on the surface of the ice. However, now it seems that there were plenty of marine life forms as well, living in oxygen-enriched water. Furthermore, scientists think that this process of adapting to these extremely harsh conditions became one of the crucial accelerators for the evolution of life. They think that this situation enforced the diversification of various species into more complex forms. It is always the environment that is the biggest factor in the course of evolution.

The Snowball Earth is just a hypothesis, stating that 650-700 million years ago Earth’s surface became entirely or almost entirely frozen over. Scientists cannot prove these claims, but there are many evidences pointing out that it could have been the case. Regardless, that period was the most extreme climate period for our planet and life managed to survive and rise for a new time for its evolution.

Source:

McGill University

{ https://www.technology.org/ }

07-01-2020 om 15:43 geschreven door peter

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Weird blue glowing orb hovers over railway tracks before it explodes

On January 3, 2020 Vladimiir Kartsovnik posted a bizarre video on his Facebook page showing a blue glowing orb that appears at the edge of the forest.

Next, the orb hovers over the railway tracks and ends up on the other side of the tracks before it explodes.

Whether it is ball lightning or evidence of a spirit or alien orb, so far there is no explanation for this mysterious phenomenon.

Bottom photos rotated and in negative color show an alien face inside the orb.

Although Vladimiir did not mentioned the location, the recording seems to have been made in the regions of Russia.

https://www.facebook.com/vladimiir.kartsovnik/videos/3199403310074816/

07-01-2020 om 15:08 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

'Alien Abduction?' Homeowner vanishes in a streak of light recorded by Ring doorbell

Ahomeowner appeared to vanish in a streak of light when he stepped off his porch in astonishing Ring doorbell footage.

According to coasttocoast it starts with the man exiting his house in Porter, Texas.

In the video, the man can be seen exiting the house and venturing down the front walk, when something very weird occurs. As he stands at the end of the path, he suddenly appears to transform into a ball of light that zips into the sky and disappears.

What happened to the homeowner, did aliens teleported or abducted him?

However, the man's financee explained that they were looking through their videos recorded on December 27, 2019 by Ring and they found a weird glitch. She told him: 'Look Ring had you abducted by aliens or you just been part of the rapture!'

But was it really a glitch or the homeowner just doesn't remember it.

Small Yet Mighty Mercury Is Still a Mystery

07-01-2020 om 15:00 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

Cigar-shaped UFO recorded hovering near airport as 2019 drew to a close

Cigar-shaped UFO recorded hovering near airport as 2019 drew to a close

Jeff Parsons

The strange object filmed hovering over Arizona (YouTube/Disclose Screen)

The strange object filmed hovering over Arizona

(YouTube/Disclose Screen)

Last year was a big one for the alien-hunting community.

There was the declassifying of secret military documents, a ‘flaming’ UFO on Friday 13th and – of course – the ill-fated attempt to storm Area 51.

But even as the year drew to a close, more footage was emerging.

While most of us were eating and drinking too much over the festive break, conspiracy theorists were debating a 14-minute video filmed on December 28 showing a cigar-shaped object floating in the sky in the US.

The UFO was filmed above Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport in Arizona and uploaded to YouTube by conspiracist Disclose Screen The Grimreefar. It racked up over a thousand views after it was uploaded with commenters weighing in about what they thought the cylindrical object was.

Most were convinced it was some form of blimp that had drifted too close to the airport.

‘You can tell it’s a zeppelin when you pause a video. You can even see the square display and stabilizers,’ wrote YouTube user Ivan G. ‘And silver or gray color match the description. Flies like a Zeppelin, looks like a Zeppelin, located near a hangar for the Zeppelin…. Then it must be a UFO.’

Cigar UFO hovering over Harbor airport, Phoenix

Is this just a blimp?

(YouTube/Disclose Screen)

The fascination of UFOs and possible alien contact surged in 2019 and it’s unlikely to abate as we continue on into 2020.

‘Explaining the widespread interest in UFOs has proven more challenging than tracking it,’ said Greg Eghigian, a professor of history at Penn State University.

‘The most common explanation offered has focused on the Cold War: worries over possible alien invaders has been seen as an expression of anxiety about the threat of global nuclear destruction on the part of the scientifically uneducated,’ he told Metro.co.uk.

‘Academic research, however, has revealed that enthusiasts and their curiosity are more difficult to pin down than that. Studies conducted in the early-2000s showed that those reporting UFOs were generally lower income white males of moderate to high education.

‘And a survey in the 1980s of British UFO researchers indicated that a majority did not believe the objects came from outer space.’

A UFO sighting does not necessarily mean aliens (Photographer's Choice/Getty Images)

A UFO sighting does not necessarily mean aliens

(Photographer’s Choice/Getty Images)

‘Overall, those who take a deep interest in UFOs have ranged widely in their motivations and beliefs. There are those who take up UFO study as a hobby akin to trainspotting or birding. There are sceptics who delight in treating each case as a challenging puzzle to crack.’

So, what we’re saying, is to expect plenty more bizarre sightings in the sky over the next 12 months.

{ https://metro.co.uk/ }

07-01-2020 om 01:43 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:UFOs , UAPs , USOS

This Is Venus, Earth's Boiling Twin

The second rock from the sun has the hottest surface temperatures of any planet in our solar system.

By Jennifer Leman

NASA/JPL/USGS

Like Earth, our Twin planet Venus’s origins began around 4.5 billion years ago, in a gyrating cloud of dust, rock and rubble. In many ways, the two planets are similar—in size, density and gravity. Both have iron-rich cores, mantles filled with churning molten rock, and thin, rocky crusts that cover their surface.

Scientists suspect that, at one point, the surface of Venus looked a lot like Earth, with plate tectonics and shallow water oceans.

An artist’s rendition of an ancient, Earth-like Venus.

NASA

Then, 2 billion years into its life, everything changed. Shallow oceans on the Venusian surface began to evaporate, according to NASA. The amount of radiation emitted by the sun grew stronger and stronger. Atmospheric water vapor disintegrated, and hydrogen floated out into space, leaving a wealth of oxygen left to be cobbled into a choking cloud of carbon dioxide.

This cloud would encircle the planet for billions of years, trapping the Sun’s heat and energy in what scientists have dubbed a “runaway greenhouse effect.” Under these conditions, the planet absorbs more heat from the sun than it is able to radiate back out into space.

I'm Your Venus, I'm Your Fire

This is a NASA /ESA Hubble Space Telescope ultraviolet-light image of the planet Venus, taken on January 24 1995, when Venus was at a distance of 114 million kilometers) from Earth. Venus is covered with clouds made of sulfuric acid, rather than the water-vapor clouds found on Earth. These clouds permanently shroud Venus' volcanic surface.

L. ESPOSITO (UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO, BOULDER), AND NASA/ESA

The surface of Venus is now far less-inviting.

It is the hottest planet in the solar system—scorching surface temperatures clock in at 880 degrees Fahrenheit, which is hot enough to melt lead. Ultra high temperatures have rendered the search for life on Venus's surface all but futile. Researchers don't think we're likely to find any sort of living organism—in any form.

For centuries, Venus was shrouded in mystery—literally. Scientists weren't able to peer past its cloudy atmosphere and weren't certain it even had a rocky surface. That's also one of the reasons why the planet is the brightest non-moon object in the sky—its bright, white haze reflects light readily. Its atmosphere is also a staggering 90 times more dense than Earth’s, we've recently discovered, exerting crushing forces on the planet's surface.

That thick atmosphere, made of 96.5 percent carbon dioxide, 3.1 percent nitrogen with piercing droplets of sulfuric acid, does a marvelous job of insulating the planet in a cushion of fire.

It doesn't sound very hospitable, but oddly, scientists believe the upper reaches of its thick atmosphere may be the spot we'd be most likely to find life. This is despite the fact that winds in the upper Venusian atmosphere churn and spiral at speeds of more than 220 miles per hour.

Temperatures at these altitudes are much more habitable—closer to that of Earth's surface. A 2018 paper published in the journal Astrobiology, suggested that dark, swirling clouds in Venus's atmosphere could be indicative of swirling colonies of light-absorbing bacteria.

Venus's close proximity to the sun, while still in the habitable zone, likely kicked off this unfortunate planetary process. It’s dramatic, but some researchers see the sweltering demise of Venus as a harbinger of things to come if we aren't able to control our own levels of carbon dioxide.

In any case, there are lessons to learn about our own future weather and climate from Venus’s atmosphere.

A Hidden Rocky Surface

NASA/JPL

Venus's impenetrable rocky surface is just as intriguing as its atmosphere. The crust is riddled with mountains, valleys, and volcanoes—like Maxwell Montes, the planet's highest peak, which stretches 20,000 feet above the surface. Atmospheric pressure on the surface of the planet, which has a radius of just 3,760 miles, is equivalent to what you might find more than half a mile beneath the ocean.

Large plateaus of lava spread across the planet's hemispheres. Last year, a paper published Aug. 9 in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets called into question the composition of some of these highland plateaus, and, in turn, the Venus’s water-logged history. Instead of being composed fully of granitic rock, researchers reanalyzed old Magellan data and posited that these landforms could be made of basaltic lava. Basaltic rocks do not need water to form, unlike granitic rocks.

Our understanding of the surface of Venus is changing all the time. Venusian volcanoes on may be a lot more active than previously thought, according to research published on January 3, 2020, in the journal Science Advances. Researchers analyzed rates of weathering in olivine crystals—the chemical signature of which ESA's Venus Express Orbiter discovered in the early 2000s—and found that lavas containing these chemically altered minerals would have been just days old.

Venus has strange features seen nowhere else in the solar system, too. For example, ring-like structures jut out, warping the planet’s surface, according to Space.com. It does have craters, but only large ones—most meteoroids large enough to create craters smaller than .09 miles burn up as they tumble through the atmosphere.

Interestingly. the planet itself is the only one named for a woman. Venusian surface features are named after powerful female historical figures, such as Sacajawea and the Roman goddess Diana.

In a Weird Orbit

NASA/BILL DUNFORD

Venus also has a highly unusual orbit and rotation. It's one of two planets in our solar system—here's to you, Uranus!—to rotate "backwards" from east to west instead of from west to east. And with no axial tilt, there are also no seasons.

Because Venus rotates extremely slowly on its axis, a single day on the planet is equivalent to 243 Earth days, but it takes Venus 225 Earth days to orbit the sun. So, yes, a year on Venus is shorter than a day on Venus. Curiously, Venus also has a nearly circular orbit, whereas, other planets that circle the sun do so on along an elliptical orbit.

Because of Venus's sluggish race around the solar system, its iron core isn't able to generate a robust, protective magnetosphere like we have here on Earth. Eventually, like every other inner, rocky planet in our solar system, Venus will be gulped up by the sun. Fortunately, researchers say this won’t happen for roughly 7 billion years.

A Soviet Obsession

JAXA / ISAS / DARTS / DAMIA BOUIC

A new mission to Venus could be on the horizon. Recently, scientists have suggested lofting a fleet of hot-air balloons equipped with super-sensitive seismometers that can capture infrasound waves down into the thick Venusian atmosphere. Others have hatched wild plans to launch "cloud cities" in the upper reaches of the Venusian atmosphere.

The last NASA spacecraft to venture to Venus was Magellan, which spun around the planet more than 15,000 times in four years before crashing into its surface in 1994. Magellan painted a previously never-before-seen picture of the planet, mapping more than 90 percent of its surface. Before that, Mariner 2, sped past Venus, gathering temperature and atmospheric readings of the planet, along with the Pioneer orbiter of the 1980s.

In the 1970s, the Soviet Union sent several probes to Venus, including the first spacecraft to successfully land on another planet, Venera 7, which touched down on the rocky surface on December 15, 1970, before being crushed and melted by Venus’ extreme pressure and scorching heat. In total, the Soviet Union sent seven missions to Venus, and returned a number of images, important atmospheric readings, and soil analysis.

RUSSIAN SPACE AGENCY

The European Space Agency's orbiter, Venus Express, which launched in 2006 circled the planet for eight years, revealed secrets about its dark side, and found evidence of lightning. The agency has ambitious goals to revisit the sweltering planet. At a meeting in Madrid in 2019, scientists proposed sending a pair of orbiters, a handful of landers, a balloon, and rocket which would return samples to Earth.

A GUIDE TO THE SOLAR SYSTEM

Everything You Need to Know About the Sun

Jupiter Is a Jerk

Currently, Akatsuki, JAXA's spacecraft, which launched in 2010, is the sole spacecraft orbiting the planet. It's unlocked secrets about the planet's atmosphere and, in 2017, caught sight of a strange atmospheric disturbance, an arc of gravity waves, which washed over the planet and slowed its rotation.

In December 2019, Park Solar Probe, which isn’t designed to study planets, swung close to Venus. While the spacecraft primarily studies the sun’s plasma, it will use the flyby to study the location of the Venus's bow shock, a protective boundary around planetary objects that protects them from solar winds, and make measurements about the loss of Venus’s atmosphere. In July, 2020, and Feb., 2021, Parker will circle back around to measure atmosphere loss, which is caused by intense solar winds, again.

The greatest challenge of visiting Venus, of course, is designing a lander that can survive the trials of operating on its scorching surface. NASA has steadily increased its investments in developing "hot technologies," which can last up to weeks on surfaces as hot as Venus.

Hopefully, someday, we'll get there.

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

07-01-2020 om 01:10 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ASTRONOMIE / RUIMTEVAART

Last known appearance of Homo erectus was in Ngandong, Java

Posted by Shireen Gonzaga in HUMAN WORLD

New research shows that Homo erectus, an ancestor of human beings, lived as recently as 108,000 to 117,000 years ago in Ngandong, on the Indonesian island of Java.

Anthropologist Russell Ciochon in his lab at the University of Iowa, holding a cast of a Homo erectus skull. The original fossils are in Indonesia.

Image via Russell Ciochon/ University of Iowa.

Scientists have determined the last known dates that Homo erectus, an early ancestor of human beings, walked the Earth. New analysis of a site at Ngandong, on the Indonesian island of Java, indicates that a population lived there as recently as 108,000 to 117,000 years ago. On December 18, 2019, the University of Iowa published a good description of this new study, which was led by Yan Rizal of the Bandung Institute of Technology, located in Bandung, Indonesia. The findings were published the same day in the peer-reviewed journal Nature.

Anthropologist Russell Ciochon of University of Iowa was a co-corresponding author on the study. Ciochon explained:

This site is the last known appearance of Homo erectus found anywhere in the world. We can’t say we dated the extinction, but we dated the last occurrence of it. We have no evidence Homo erectus lived later than that anywhere else.

A map of Indonesia with Ngandong marked.

The approximate location of Ngandong on the Indonesian island of Java in Southeast Asia. (Indonesia is shaded yellow in this map.)

Map of Indonesia via Uwe Dedering/ Wikimedia Commons.

Homo erectus arose in Africa about 2 million years ago, then dispersed throughout Asia and perhaps Europe. By about 400,000 years ago, this early relative of modern humans had largely disappeared. The date range for the last known Homo erectus holdout, in Ngandong, is 108,000 to 117,000 years ago. Around that same time, modern humans were roaming in Africa, and Neanderthals lived in Europe.

The fossils in Ngandong had been discovered in the 1930s by Dutch surveyors. Using notes left by these early surveyors, the researchers on the new study relocated the original bone bed where the Homo erectus fossils (12 skull caps and two tibia) had been found. In 2008 and 2010, the team excavated that site to collect animal fossil fragments for dating.

The new age ranges for the Homo erectus fossils – 108,000 to 117,000 years old – were determined using two strategies; besides dating the animal fossils in the original bone bed, the scientists further constrained the date range by geological dating of river terraces below and above the fossil bed.

An excavation site, with several large holes in which men are digging.

Dutch surveyors excavated the original bone bed containing Homo erectus fossils in the 1930s. In 2008 and 2010, researchers led by Yan Rizal located and found the same site, using the earlier study’s notes. Dating of animal fossils at that site were used, in part, to determine the new age of the Homo erectus fossils.

Image via Russell Ciochon/ University of Iowa.

Around the same time that Yan Rizal’s team was excavating its site, another team, led by Kira Westaway of Macquarie University, was independently dating nearby surrounding landforms. Ciochon explained:

It was coincidental. With the data we had, we couldn’t really date the Ngandong fossils. We had dates on them, but they were minimum ages. So, we couldn’t really say how old, although we knew we were in the ballpark. By working with Kira, who had vast amount of dating data for the terraces, mountains, and other landscape features, we were able to provide precise regional chronological and geomorphic contexts for the Ngandong site.

Stalagmites from caves in the Southern Mountains of Ngandong were dated by Westaway’s team to determine when those mountains first rose. That helped them figure out when the Solo River started flowing through the fossil site and when sequences of river terraces were created. Westaway, who is listed as second author on the December 18, 2019, Nature paper, said:

The issues with the dating of Ngandong could only ever be resolved by an appreciation of the wider landscape. Fossils are the byproducts of complex landscape processes. We were able to nail the age of the site because we constrained the fossils within the river deposit, the river terrace, the sequence of terraces, and the volcanically active landscape.

Ciochon commented on the 52 new age estimates arrived at by the team:

You have this incredible array of dates that are all consistent. This has to be the right range. That’s why it’s such a nice, tight paper. The dating is very consistent.

According to previous research by Ciochon and others, Homo erectus arrived at Java, Indonesia, about 1.6 million years ago, and settled across the Indonesian islands. Back then, Ngandong was mainly a grassland with a rich flora and fauna, not unlike Homo erectus‘ original habitat in Africa. But around 130,000 years ago, it changed. Ciochon explained:

There was a change in climate. We know the fauna changed from open country, grassland, to a tropical rainforest (extending southward from today’s Malaysia). Those were not the plants and animals that Homo erectus was used to, and the species just could not adapt.

Ciochon also remarked on a unique feature of the Ngandong Homo erectus population. In a video statement, he said:

We assume that Homo erectus on the island of Java, because it was isolated, continued to encephalize – the brain got bigger. Does that mean that Homo erectus on Java was smarter than Homo erectus in Africa? We don’t know. But we can certainly document that the brain got bigger.

Brown, smooth skull-shaped casts on a laboratory table.

Casts of Homo erectus skulls at Russell Ciochon’s lab.

Via Russell Ciochon/ University of Iowa.

Bottom line: The last known Homo erectus, a human ancestor, lived in Ngandong, Java, as recently as 108,000 to 117,000 years ago. These findings, published in the December 18, 2019, issue of Nature, are based on dating fossilized animals from the same bone bed in which the Homo erectus remains were found in the 1930s, and also by dating river terraces at the fossil site.
Source: Last appearance of Homo erectus at Ngandong, Java, 117,000–108,000 years ago
Via University of Iowa

07-01-2020 om 00:54 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ARCHEOLOGIE ( E, Nl, Fr )

06-01-2020

CIA's Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947-90 - Part I

Gerald K. Haines

An extraordinary 95 percent of all Americans have at least heard or read something about Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs), and 57 percent believe they are real. (1) Former US Presidents Carter and Reagan claim to have seen a UFO. UFOlogists--a neologism for UFO buffs--and private UFO organizations are found throughout the United States. Many are convinced that the US Government, and particularly CIA, are engaged in a massive conspiracy and coverup of the issue. The idea that CIA has secretly concealed its research into UFOs has been a major theme of UFO buffs since the modern UFO phenomena emerged in the late 1940s. (2)

In late 1993, after being pressured by UFOlogists for the release of additional CIA information on UFOs, (3) DCI R. James Woolsey ordered another review of all Agency files on UFOs. Using CIA records compiled from that review, this study traces CIA interest and involvement in the UFO controversy from the late 1940s to 1990. It chronologically examines the Agency's efforts to solve the mystery of UFOs, its programs that had an impact on UFO sightings, and its attempts to conceal CIA involvement in the entire UFO issue. What emerges from this examination is that, while Agency concern over UFOs was substantial until the early 1950s, CIA has since paid only limited and peripheral attention to the phenomena.

Background

The emergence in 1947 of the Cold War confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union also saw the first wave of UFO sightings. The first report of a "flying saucer" over the United States came on 24 June 1947, when Kenneth Arnold, a private pilot and reputable businessman, while looking for a downed plane sighted nine disk-shaped objects near Mt. Rainier, Washington, traveling at an estimated speed of over 1,000 mph. Arnold's report was followed by a flood of additional sightings, including reports from military and civilian pilots and air traffic controllers all over the United States. (4) In 1948, Air Force Gen. Nathan Twining, head of the Air Technical Service Command, established Project SIGN (initially named Project SAUCER) 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. (5)

The Technical Intelligence Division of the Air Material Command (AMC) at Wright Field (later Wright-Patterson Air Force Base) in Dayton, Ohio, assumed control of Project SIGN and began its work on 23 January 1948. Although at first fearful that the objects might be Soviet secret weapons, the Air Force soon concluded that UFOs were real but easily explained and not extraordinary. The Air Force report found that almost all sightings stemmed from one or more of three causes: mass hysteria and hallucination, hoax, or misinterpretation of known objects. Nevertheless, the report recommended continued military intelligence control over the investigation of all sightings and did not rule out the possibility of extraterrestrial phenomena. (6)

Amid mounting UFO sightings, the Air Force continued to collect and evaluate UFO data in the late 1940s under a new project, GRUDGE, which tried to alleviate public anxiety over UFOs via a public relations campaign designed to persuade the public that UFOs constituted nothing unusual or extraordinary. UFO sightings were explained as balloons, conventional aircraft, planets, meteors, optical illusions, solar reflections, or even "large hailstones." GRUDGE officials found no evidence in UFO sightings of advanced foreign weapons design or development, and they concluded that UFOs did not threaten US 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. On 27 December 1949, the Air Force announced the project's termination. (7)

With increased Cold War tensions, the Korean war, and continued UFO sightings, USAF Director of Intelligence Maj. Gen. Charles P. Cabell ordered a new UFO project in 1952. Project BLUE BOOK became the major Air Force effort to study the UFO phenomenon throughout the 1950s and 1960s. (8) The task of identifying and explaining UFOs continued to fall on the Air Material Command at Wright-Patterson. With a small staff, the Air Technical Intelligence Center (ATIC) tried to persuade the public that UFOs were not extraordinary. (9) Projects SIGN, GRUDGE, and BLUE BOOK set the tone for the official US Government position regarding UFOs for the next 30 years.

Early CIA Concerns, 1947-52

CIA closely monitored the Air Force effort, aware of the mounting number of sightings and increasingly concerned that UFOs might pose a potential security threat. (10) Given the distribution of the sightings, CIA officials in 1952 questioned whether they might reflect "midsummer madness.'' (11) Agency officials accepted the Air Force's conclusions about UFO reports, although they concluded that "since there is a remote possibility that they may be interplanetary aircraft, it is necessary to investigate each sighting." (12)

A massive buildup of sightings over the United States in 1952, especially in July, alarmed the Truman administration. On 19 and 20 July, radar scopes at Washington National Airport and Andrews Air Force Base tracked mysterious blips. On 27 July, the blips reappeared. The Air Force scrambled interceptor aircraft to investigate, but they found nothing. The incidents, however, caused headlines across the country. The White House wanted to know what was happening, and the Air Force quickly offered the explanation that the radar blips might be the result of "temperature inversions." Later, a Civil Aeronautics Administration investigation confirmed that such radar blips were quite common and were caused by temperature inversions. (13)

Although it had monitored UFO reports for at least three years, CIA reacted to the new rash of sightings by forming a special study group within the Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI) and the Office of Current Intelligence (OCI) to review the situation. (14) Edward Tauss, acting chief of OSI's Weapons and Equipment Division, reported for the group that most UFO sightings could be easily explained. Nevertheless, he recommended that the Agency continue monitoring the problem, in coordination with ATIC. He also urged that CIA conceal its interest from the media and the public, "in view of their probable alarmist tendencies" to accept such interest as confirming the existence of UFOs. (15)

Upon receiving the report, Deputy Director for Intelligence (DDI) Robert Amory, Jr. assigned responsibility for the UFO investigations to OSI's Physics and Electronics Division, with A. Ray Gordon as the officer in charge. (16) Each branch in the division was to contribute to the investigation, and Gordon was to coordinate closely with ATIC. Amory, who asked the group to focus on the national security implications of UFOs, was relaying DCI Walter Bedell Smith's concerns. (17) Smith wanted to know whether or not the Air Force investigation of flying saucers was sufficiently objective and how much more money and manpower would be necessary to determine the cause of the small percentage of unexplained flying saucers. Smith believed "there was only one chance in 10,000 that the phenomenon posed a threat to the security of the country, but even that chance could not be taken." According to Smith, it was CIA's responsibility by statute to coordinate the intelligence effort required to solve the problem. Smith also wanted to know what use could be made of the UFO phenomenon in connection with US psychological warfare efforts. (18)

Led by Gordon, the CIA Study Group met with Air Force officials at Wright-Patterson and reviewed their data and findings. The Air Force claimed that 90 percent of the reported sightings were easily accounted for. The other 10 percent were characterized as "a number of incredible reports from credible observers." The Air Force rejected the theories that the sightings involved US or Soviet secret weapons development or that they involved "men from Mars"; there was no evidence to support these concepts. The Air Force briefers sought to explain these UFO reports as the misinterpretation of known objects or little understood natural phenomena. (19) Air Force and CIA officials agreed that outside knowledge of Agency interest in UFOs would make the problem more serious. (20) This concealment of CIA interest contributed greatly to later charges of a CIA conspiracy and coverup.

Amateur photographs of alleged UFOs

The CIA Study Group also searched the Soviet press for UFO reports, but found none, causing the group to conclude that the absence of reports had to have been the result of deliberate Soviet Government policy. The group also envisioned the USSR's possible use of UFOs as a psychological warfare tool. In addition, they worried that, if the US air warning system should be deliberately overloaded by UFO sightings, the Soviets might gain a surprise advantage in any nuclear attack. (21)

Because of the tense Cold War situation and increased Soviet capabilities, the CIA Study Group saw serious national security concerns in the flying saucer situation. The group believed that the Soviets could use UFO reports to touch off mass hysteria and panic in the United States. The group also believed that the Soviets might use UFO sightings to overload the US air warning system so that it could not distinguish real targets from phantom UFOs. H. Marshall Chadwell, Assistant Director of OSI, added that he considered the problem of such importance "that it should be brought to the attention of the National Security Council, in order that a communitywide coordinated effort towards it solution may be initiated." (22)

Chadwell briefed DCI Smith on the subject of UFOs in December 1952. He urged action because he was convinced that "something was going on that must have immediate attention" and that "sightings of unexplained objects at great altitudes and traveling at high speeds in the vicinity of major US defense installations are of such nature that they are not attributable to natural phenomena or known types of aerial vehicles." He drafted a memorandum from the DCI to the National Security Council (NSC) and a proposed NSC Directive establishing the investigation of UFOs as a priority project throughout the intelligence and the defense research and development community. (23) Chadwell also urged Smith to establish an external research project of top-level scientists to study the problem of UFOs. (24) After this briefing, Smith directed DDI Amory to prepare a NSC Intelligence Directive (NSCID) for submission to the NSC on the need to continue the investigation of UFOs and to coordinate such investigations with the Air Force. (25)

The Robertson Panel, 1952-53

On 4 December 1952, the Intelligence Advisory Committee (IAC) took up the issue of UFOs. (26) Amory, as acting chairman, presented DCI Smith's request to the committee that it informally discuss the subject of UFOs. Chadwell then briefly reviewed the situation and the active program of the ATIC relating to UFOs. The committee agreed that the DCI should "enlist the services of selected scientists to review and appraise the available evidence in the light of pertinent scientific theories" and draft an NSCID on the subject. (27) Maj. Gen. John A. Samford, Director of Air Force Intelligence, offered full cooperation. (28)

At the same time, Chadwell looked into British efforts in this area. He learned the British also were active in studying the UFO phenomena. An eminent British scientist, R. V. Jones, headed a standing committee created in June 1951 on flying saucers. Jones' and his committee's conclusions on UFOs were similar to those of Agency officials: the sightings were not enemy aircraft but misrepresentations of natural phenomena. The British noted, however, that during a recent air show RAF pilots and senior military officials had observed a "perfect flying saucer." Given the press response, according to the officer, Jones was having a most difficult time trying to correct public opinion regarding UFOs. The public was convinced they were real. (29)

In January 1953, Chadwell and H. P. Robertson, a noted physicist from the California Institute of Technology, put together a distinguished panel of nonmilitary scientists to study the UFO issue. It included Robertson as chairman; Samuel A. Goudsmit, a nuclear physicist from the Brookhaven National Laboratories; Luis Alvarez, a high-energy physicist; Thornton Page, the deputy director of the Johns Hopkins Operations Research Office and an expert on radar and electronics; and Lloyd Berkner, a director of the Brookhaven National Laboratories and a specialist in geophysics. (30)

The charge to the panel was to review the available evidence on UFOs and to consider the possible dangers of the phenomena to US national security. The panel met from 14 to 17 January 1953. It reviewed Air Force data on UFO case histories and, after spending 12 hours studying the phenomena, declared that reasonable explanations could be suggested for most, if not all, sightings. For example, after reviewing motion-picture film taken of a UFO sighting near Tremonton, Utah, on 2 July 1952 and one near Great Falls, Montana, on 15 August 1950, the panel concluded that the images on the Tremonton film were caused by sunlight reflecting off seagulls and that the images at Great Falls were sunlight reflecting off the surface of two Air Force interceptors. (31)

The panel concluded unanimously that there was no evidence of a direct threat to national security in the UFO sightings. Nor could the panel find any evidence that the objects sighted might be extraterrestrials. It did find that continued emphasis on UFO reporting might threaten "the orderly functioning" of the government by clogging the channels of communication with irrelevant reports and by inducing "hysterical mass behavior" harmful to constituted authority. The panel also worried that potential enemies contemplating an attack on the United States might exploit the UFO phenomena and use them to disrupt US air defenses. (32)

To meet these problems, the panel recommended that the National Security Council debunk UFO reports and institute a policy of public education to reassure the public of the lack of evidence behind UFOs. It suggested using the mass media, advertising, business clubs, schools, and even the Disney corporation to get the message across. Reporting at the height of McCarthyism, the panel also recommended that such private UFO groups as the Civilian Flying Saucer Investigators in Los Angeles and the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization in Wisconsin be monitored for subversive activities. (33)

The Robertson panel's conclusions were strikingly similar to those of the earlier Air Force project reports on SIGN and GRUDGE and to those of the CIA's own OSI Study Group. All investigative groups found that UFO reports indicated no direct threat to national security and no evidence of visits by extraterrestrials.

Following the Robertson panel findings, the Agency abandoned efforts to draft an NSCID on UFOs. (34) The Scientific Advisory Panel on UFOs (the Robertson panel) submitted its report to the IAC, the Secretary of Defense, the Director of the Federal Civil Defense Administration, and the Chairman of the National Security Resources Board. CIA officials said no further consideration of the subject appeared warranted, although they continued to monitor sightings in the interest of national security. Philip Strong and Fred Durant from OSI also briefed the Office of National Estimates on the findings. (35) CIA officials wanted knowledge of any Agency interest in the subject of flying saucers carefully restricted, noting not only that the Robertson panel report was classified but also that any mention of CIA sponsorship of the panel was forbidden. This attitude would later cause the Agency major problems relating to its credibility. (36)

The 1950s: Fading CIA Interest in UFOs

After the report of the Robertson panel, Agency officials put the entire issue of UFOs on the back burner. In May 1953, Chadwell transferred chief responsibility for keeping abreast of UFOs to OSI's Physics and Electronic Division, while the Applied Science Division continued to provide any necessary support. (37) Todos M. Odarenko, chief of the Physics and Electronics Division, did not want to take on the problem, contending that it would require too much of his division's analytic and clerical time. Given the findings of the Robertson panel, he proposed to consider the project "inactive" and to devote only one analyst part-time and a file clerk to maintain a reference file of the activities of the Air Force and other agencies on UFOs. Neither the Navy nor the Army showed much interest in UFOs, according to Odarenko. (38)

A nonbeliever in UFOs, Odarenko sought to have his division relieved of the responsibility for monitoring UFO reports. In 1955, for example, he recommended that the entire project be terminated because no new information concerning UFOs had surfaced. Besides, he argued, his division was facing a serious budget reduction and could not spare the resources. (39) Chadwell and other Agency officials, however, continued to worry about UFOs. Of special concern were overseas reports of UFO sightings and claims that German engineers held by the Soviets were developing a "flying saucer" as a future weapon of war. (40)

To most US political and military leaders, the Soviet Union by the mid-1950s had become a dangerous opponent. Soviet progress in nuclear weapons and guided missiles was particularly alarming. In the summer of 1949, the USSR had detonated an atomic bomb. In August 1953, only nine months after the United States tested a hydrogen bomb, the Soviets detonated one. In the spring of 1953, a top secret RAND Corporation study also pointed out the vulnerability of SAC bases to a surprise attack by Soviet long-range bombers. Concern over the danger of a Soviet attack on the United States continued to grow, and UFO sightings added to the uneasiness of US policymakers.

Mounting reports of UFOs over eastern Europe and Afghanistan also prompted concern that the Soviets were making rapid progress in this area. CIA officials knew that the British and Canadians were already experimenting with "flying saucers." Project Y was a Canadian-British-US developmental operation to produce a nonconventional flying-saucer-type aircraft, and Agency officials feared the Soviets were testing similar devices. (41)

Adding to the concern was a flying saucer sighting by US Senator Richard Russell and his party while traveling on a train in the USSR in October 1955. After extensive interviews of Russell and his group, however, CIA officials concluded that Russell's sighting did not support the theory that the Soviets had developed saucerlike or unconventional aircraft. Herbert Scoville, Jr., the Assistant Director of OSI, wrote that the objects observed probably were normal jet aircraft in a steep climb. (42)

Wilton E. Lexow, head of the CIA's Applied Sciences Division, was also skeptical. He questioned why the Soviets were continuing to develop conventional-type aircraft if they had a "flying saucer." (43) Scoville asked Lexow to assume responsibility for fully assessing the capabilities and limitations of nonconventional aircraft and to maintain the OSI central file on the subject of UFOs.

CIA's U-2 and OXCART as UFOs

In November 1954, CIA had entered into the world of high technology with its U-2 overhead reconnaissance project. Working with Lockheed's Advanced Development facility in Burbank, California, known as the Skunk Works, and Kelly Johnson, an eminent aeronautical engineer, the Agency by August 1955 was testing a high-altitude experimental aircraft--the U-2. It could fly at 60,000 feet; in the mid-1950s, most commercial airliners flew between 10,000 feet and 20,000 feet. Consequently, once the U-2 started test flights, commercial pilots and air traffic controllers began reporting a large increase in UFO sightings. (44) (U)

The early U-2s were silver (they were later painted black) and reflected the rays from the sun, especially at sunrise and sunset. They often appeared as fiery objects to observers below. Air Force BLUE BOOK investigators aware of the secret U-2 flights tried to explain away such sightings by linking them to natural phenomena such as ice crystals and temperature inversions. By checking with the Agency's U-2 Project Staff in Washington, BLUE BOOK investigators were able to attribute many UFO sightings to U-2 flights. They were careful, however, not to reveal the true cause of the sighting to the public.

According to later estimates from CIA officials who worked on the U-2 project and the OXCART (SR-71, or Blackbird) project, over half of all UFO reports from the late 1950s through the 1960s were accounted for by manned reconnaissance flights (namely the U-2) over the United States. (45) This led the Air Force to make misleading and deceptive statements to the public in order to allay public fears and to protect an extraordinarily sensitive national security project. While perhaps justified, this deception added fuel to the later conspiracy theories and the coverup controversy of the 1970s. The percentage of what the Air Force considered unexplained UFO sightings fell to 5.9 percent in 1955 and to 4 percent in 1956. (46)

At the same time, pressure was building for the release of the Robertson panel report on UFOs. In 1956, Edward Ruppelt, former head of the Air Force BLUE BOOK project, publicly revealed the existence of the panel. A best-selling book by UFOlogist Donald Keyhoe, a retired Marine Corps major, advocated release of all government information relating to UFOs. Civilian UFO groups such as the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) and the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO) immediately pushed for release of the Robertson panel report. (47) Under pressure, the Air Force approached CIA for permission to declassify and release the report. Despite such pressure, Philip Strong, Deputy Assistant Director of OSI, refused to declassify the report and declined to disclose CIA sponsorship of the panel. As an alternative, the Agency prepared a sanitized version of the report which deleted any reference to CIA and avoided mention of any psychological warfare potential in the UFO controversy. (48)

The demands, however, for more government information about UFOs did not let up. On 8 March 1958, Keyhoe, in an interview with Mike Wallace of CBS, claimed deep CIA involvement with UFOs and Agency sponsorship of the Robertson panel. This prompted a series of letters to the Agency from Keyhoe and Dr. Leon Davidson, a chemical engineer and UFOlogist. They demanded the release of the full Robertson panel report and confirmation of CIA involvement in the UFO issue. Davidson had convinced himself that the Agency, not the Air Force, carried most of the responsibility for UFO analysis and that "the activities of the US Government are responsible for the flying saucer sightings of the last decade." Indeed, because of the undisclosed U-2 and OXCART flights, Davidson was closer to the truth than he suspected. CI, nevertheless held firm to its policy of not revealing its role in UFO investigations and refused to declassify the full Robertson panel report. (49)

In a meeting with Air Force representatives to discuss how to handle future inquires such as Keyhoe's and Davidson's, Agency officials confirmed their opposition to the declassification of the full report and worried that Keyhoe had the ear of former DCI VAdm. Roscoe Hillenkoetter, who served on the board of governors of NICAP. They debated whether to have CIA General Counsel Lawrence R. Houston show Hillenkoetter the report as a possible way to defuse the situation. CIA officer Frank Chapin also hinted that Davidson might have ulterior motives, "some of them perhaps not in the best interest of this country," and suggested bringing in the FBI to investigate. (50) Although the record is unclear whether the FBI ever instituted an investigation of Davidson or Keyhoe, or whether Houston ever saw Hillenkoetter about the Robertson report, Hillenkoetter did resign from the NICAP in 1962. (51)

The Agency was also involved with Davidson and Keyhoe in two rather famous UFO cases in the 1950s, which helped contribute to a growing sense of public distrust of CIA with regard to UFOs. One focused on what was reported to have been a tape recording of a radio signal from a flying saucer; the other on reported photographs of a flying saucer. The "radio code" incident began innocently enough in 1955, when two elderly sisters in Chicago, Mildred and Marie Maier, reported in the Journal of Space Flight their experiences with UFOs, including the recording of a radio program in which an unidentified code was reportedly heard. The sisters taped the program and other ham radio operators also claimed to have heard the "space message." OSI became interested and asked the Scientific Contact Branch to obtain a copy of the recording. (52)

Field officers from the Contact Division (CD), one of whom was Dewelt Walker, made contact with the Maier sisters, who were "thrilled that the government was interested," and set up a time to meet with them. (53) In trying to secure the tape recording, the Agency officers reported that they had stumbled upon a scene from Arsenic and Old Lace. "The only thing lacking was the elderberry wine," Walker cabled Headquarters. After reviewing the sisters' scrapbook of clippings from their days on the stage, the officers secured a copy of the recording. (54) OSI analyzed the tape and found it was nothing more than Morse code from a US radio station.

The matter rested there until UFOlogist Leon Davidson talked with the Maier sisters in 1957. The sisters remembered they had talked with a Mr. Walker who said he was from the US Air Force. Davidson then wrote to a Mr. Walker, believing him to be a US Air Force Intelligence Officer from Wright-Patterson, to ask if the tape had been analyzed at ATIC. Dewelt Walker replied to Davidson that the tape had been forwarded to proper authorities for evaluation, and no information was available concerning the results. Not satisfied, and suspecting that Walker was really a CIA officer, Davidson next wrote DCI Allen Dulles demanding to learn what the coded message revealed and who Mr. Walker was. (55) The Agency, wanting to keep Walker's identity as a CIA employee secret, replied that another agency of the government had analyzed the tape in question and that Davidson would be hearing from the Air Force. (56) On 5 August, the Air Force wrote Davidson saying that Walker "was and is an Air Force Officer" and that the tape "was analyzed by another government organization." The Air Force letter confirmed that the recording contained only identifiable Morse code which came from a known US-licensed radio station. (57)

Davidson wrote Dulles again. This time he wanted to know the identity of the Morse operator and of the agency that had conducted the analysis. CIA and the Air Force were now in a quandary. The Agency had previously denied that it had actually analyzed the tape. The Air Force had also denied analyzing the tape and claimed that Walker was an Air Force officer. CIA officers, under cover, contacted Davidson in Chicago and promised to get the code translation and the identification of the transmitter, if possible. (58)

In another attempt to pacify Davidson, a CIA officer, again under cover and wearing his Air Force uniform, contacted Davidson in New York City. The CIA officer explained that there was no super agency involved and that Air Force policy was not to disclose who was doing what. While seeming to accept this argument, Davidson nevertheless pressed for disclosure of the recording message and the source. The officer agreed to see what he could do. (59) After checking with Headquarters, the CIA officer phoned Davidson to report that a thorough check had been made and, because the signal was of known US origin, the tape and the notes made at the time had been destroyed to conserve file space. (60)

Incensed over what he perceived was a runaround, Davidson told the CIA officer that "he and his agency, whichever it was, were acting like Jimmy Hoffa and the Teamster Union in destroying records which might indict them." (61) Believing that any more contact with Davidson would only encourage more speculation, the Contact Division washed its hands of the issue by reporting to the DCI and to ATIC that it would not respond to or try to contact Davidson again. (62) Thus, a minor, rather bizarre incident, handled poorly by both CIA and the Air Force, turned into a major flap that added fuel to the growing mystery surrounding UFOs and CIA's role in their investigation.

Another minor flap a few months later added to the growing questions surrounding the Agency's true role with regard to flying saucers. CIA's concern over secrecy again made matters worse. In 1958, Major Keyhoe charged that the Agency was deliberately asking eyewitnesses of UFOs not to make their sightings public. (63)

The incident stemmed from a November 1957 request from OSI to the CD to obtain from Ralph C. Mayher, a photographer for KYW-TV in Cleveland, Ohio, certain photographs he took in 1952 of an unidentified flying object. Harry Real, a CD officer, contacted Mayher and obtained copies of the photographs for analysis. On 12 December 1957, John Hazen, another CD officer, returned the five photographs of the alleged UFO to Mayher without comment. Mayher asked Hazen for the Agency's evaluation of the photos, explaining that he was trying to organize a TV program to brief the public on UFOs. He wanted to mention on the show that a US intelligence organization had viewed the photographs and thought them of interest. Although he advised Mayher not to take this approach, Hazen stated that Mayher was a US citizen and would have to make his own decision as to what to do. (64)

Keyhoe later contacted Mayher, who told him his story of CIA and the photographs. Keyhoe then asked the Agency to confirm Hazen's employment in writing, in an effort to expose CIA's role in UFO investigations. The Agency refused, despite the fact that CD field representatives were normally overt and carried credentials identifying their Agency association. DCI Dulles's aide, John S. Earman, merely sent Keyhoe a noncommittal letter noting that, because UFOs were of primary concern to the Department of the Air Force, the Agency had referred his letter to the Air Force for an appropriate response. Like the response to Davidson, the Agency reply to Keyhoe only fueled the speculation that the Agency was deeply involved in UFO sightings. Pressure for release of CIA information on UFOs continued to grow. (65)

Although CIA had a declining interest in UFO cases, it continued to monitor UFO sightings. Agency officials felt the need to keep informed on UFOs if only to alert the DCI to the more sensational UFO reports and flaps. (66)

The 1960s: Declining CIA Involvement and Mounting Controversy

In the early 1960s, Keyhoe, Davidson, and other UFOlogists maintained their assault on the Agency for release of UFO information. Davidson now claimed that CIA "was solely responsible for creating the Flying Saucer furor as a tool for cold war psychological warfare since 1951." Despite calls for Congressional hearings and the release of all materials relating to UFOs, little changed. (67)

In 1964, however, following high-level White House discussions on what to do if an alien intelligence was discovered in space and a new outbreak of UFO reports and sightings, DCI John McCone asked for an updated CIA evaluation of UFOs. Responding to McCone's request, OSI asked the CD to obtain various recent samples and reports of UFO sightings from NICAP. With Keyhoe, one of the founders, no longer active in the organization, CIA officers met with Richard H. Hall, the acting director. Hall gave the officers samples from the NICAP database on the most recent sightings. (68)

After OSI officers had reviewed the material, Donald F. Chamberlain, OSI Assistant Director, assured McCone that little had changed since the early 1950s. There was still no evidence that UFOs were a threat to the security of the United States or that they were of "foreign origin." Chamberlain told McCone that OSI still monitored UFO reports, including the official Air Force investigation, Project BLUE BOOK. (69)

At the same time that CIA was conducting this latest internal review of UFOs, public pressure forced the Air Force to establish a special ad hoc committee to review BLUE BOOK. Chaired by Dr. Brian O'Brien, a member of the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board, the panel included Carl Sagan, the famous astronomer from Cornell University. Its report offered nothing new. It declared that UFOs did not threaten the national security and that it could find "no UFO case which represented technological or scientific advances outside of a terrestrial framework." The committee did recommend that UFOs be studied intensively, with a leading university acting as a coordinator for the project, to settle the issue conclusively. (70)

The House Armed Services Committee also held brief hearings on UFOs in 1966 that produced similar results. Secretary of the Air Force Harold Brown assured the committee that most sightings were easily explained and that there was no evidence that "strangers from outer space" had been visiting Earth. He told the committee members, however, that the Air Force would keep an open mind and continue to investigate all UFO reports. (71)

Following the report of its O'Brien Committee, the House hearings on UFOs, and Dr. Robertson's disclosure on a CBS Reports program that CIA indeed had been involved in UFO analysis, the Air Force in July 1966 again approached the Agency for declassification of the entire Robertson panel report of 1953 and the full Durant report on the Robertson panel deliberations and findings. The Agency again refused to budge. Karl H. Weber, Deputy Director of OSI, wrote the Air Force that "We are most anxious that further publicity not be given to the information that the panel was sponsored by the CIA." Weber noted that there was already a sanitized version available to the public. (72) Weber's response was rather shortsighted and ill considered. It only drew more attention to the 13-year-old Robertson panel report and CIA's role in the investigation of UFOs. The science editor of The Saturday Review drew nationwide attention to the CIA's role in investigating UFOs when he published an article criticizing the "sanitized version" of the 1953 Robertson panel report and called for release of the entire document. (73)

Unknown to CIA officials, Dr. James E. McDonald, a noted atmospheric physicist from the University of Arizona, had already seen the Durant report on the Robertson panel proceedings at Wright-Patterson on 6 June 1966. When McDonald returned to Wright-Patterson on 30 June to copy the report, however, the Air Force refused to let him see it again, stating that it was a CIA classified document. Emerging as a UFO authority, McDonald publicly claimed that the CIA was behind the Air Force secrecy policies and coverup. He demanded the release of the full Robertson panel report and the Durant report. (74)

Bowing to public pressure and the recommendation of its own O'Brien Committee, the Air Force announced in August 1966 that it was seeking a contract with a leading university to undertake a program of intensive investigations of UFO sightings. The new program was designed to blunt continuing charges that the US Government had concealed what it knew about UFOs. On 7 October, the University of Colorado accepted a $325,000 contract with the Air Force for an 18-month study of flying saucers. Dr. Edward U. Condon, a physicist at Colorado and a former Director of the National Bureau of Standards, agreed to head the program. Pronouncing himself an "agnostic" on the subject of UFOs, Condon observed that he had an open mind on the question and thought that possible extraterritorial origins were "improbable but not impossible." (75) Brig. Gen. Edward Giller, USAF, and Dr. Thomas Ratchford from the Air Force Research and Development Office became the Air Force coordinators for the project.

In February 1967, Giller contacted Arthur C. Lundahl, Director of CIA's National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC), and proposed an informal liaison through which NPIC could provide the Condon Committee with technical advice and services in examining photographs of alleged UFOs. Lundahl and DDI R. Jack Smith approved the arrangement as a way of "preserving a window" on the new effort. They wanted the CIA and NPIC to maintain a low profile, however, and to take no part in writing any conclusions for the committee. No work done for the committee by NPIC was to be formally acknowledged. (76)

Ratchford next requested that Condon and his committee be allowed to visit NPIC to discuss the technical aspects of the problem and to view the special equipment NPIC had for photoanalysis. On 20 February 1967, Condon and four members of his committee visited NPIC. Lundahl emphasized to the group that any NPIC work to assist the committee must not be identified as CIA work. Moreover, work performed by NPIC would be strictly of a technical nature. After receiving these guidelines, the group heard a series of briefings on the services and equipment not available elsewhere that CIA had used in its analysis of some UFO photography furnished by Ratchford. Condon and his committee were impressed. (77)

Condon and the same group met again in May 1967 at NPIC to hear an analysis of UFO photographs taken at Zanesville, Ohio. The analysis debunked that sighting. The committee was again impressed with the technical work performed, and Condon remarked that for the first time a scientific analysis of a UFO would stand up to investigation. (78) The group also discussed the committee's plans to call on US citizens for additional photographs and to issue guidelines for taking useful UFO photographs. In addition, CIA officials agreed that the Condon Committee could release the full Durant report with only minor deletions.

In April 1969, Condon and his committee released their report on UFOs. The report concluded that little, if anything, had come from the study of UFOs in the past 21 years and that further extensive study of UFO sightings was unwarranted. It also recommended that the Air Force special unit, Project BLUE BOOK, be discontinued. It did not mention CIA participation in the Condon committee's investigation. (79) A special panel established by the National Academy of Sciences reviewed the Condon report and concurred with its conclusion that "no high priority in UFO investigations is warranted by data of the past two decades." It concluded its review by declaring, "On the basis of present knowledge, the least likely explanation of UFOs is the hypothesis of extraterrestrial visitations by intelligent beings." Following the recommendations of the Condon Committee and the National Academy of Sciences, the Secretary of the Air Force, Robert C. Seamans, Jr., announced on 17 December 1969 the termination of BLUE BOOK. (80)

The 1970s and 1980s: The UFO Issue Refuses To Die

The Condon report did not satisfy many UFOlogists, who considered it a coverup for CIA activities in UFO research. Additional sightings in the early 1970s fueled beliefs that the CIA was somehow involved in a vast conspiracy. On 7 June 1975, William Spaulding, head of a small UFO group, Ground Saucer Watch (GSW), wrote to CIA requesting a copy of the Robertson panel report and all records relating to UFOs. (81) Spaulding was convinced that the Agency was withholding major files on UFOs. Agency officials provided Spaulding with a copy of the Robertson panel report and of the Durant report. (82)

On 14 July 1975, Spaulding again wrote the Agency questioning the authenticity of the reports he had received and alleging a CIA coverup of its UFO activities. Gene Wilson, CIA's Information and Privacy Coordinator, replied in an attempt to satisfy Spaulding, "At no time prior to the formation of the Robertson Panel and subsequent to the issuance of the panel's report has CIA engaged in the study of the UFO phenomena." The Robertson panel report, according to Wilson, was "the summation of Agency interest and involvement in UFOs." Wilson also inferred that there were no additional documents in CIA's possession that related to UFOs. Wilson was ill informed. (83)

In September 1977, Spaulding and GSW, unconvinced by Wilson's response, filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Agency that specifically requested all UFO documents in CIA's possession. Deluged by similar FOIA requests for Agency information on UFOs, CIA officials agreed, after much legal maneuvering, to conduct a "reasonable search" of CIA files for UFO materials. (84) Despite an Agency-wide unsympathetic attitude toward the suit, Agency officials, led by Launie Ziebell from the Office of General Counsel, conducted a thorough search for records pertaining to UFOs. Persistent, demanding, and even threatening at times, Ziebell and his group scoured the Agency. They even turned up an old UFO file under a secretary's desk. The search finally produced 355 documents totaling approximately 900 pages. On 14 December 1978, the Agency released all but 57 documents of about 100 pages to GSW. It withheld these 57 documents on national security grounds and to protect sources and methods. (85)

Although the released documents produced no smoking gun and revealed only a low-level Agency interest in the UFO phenomena after the Robertson panel report of 1953, the press treated the release in a sensational manner. The New York Times, for example, claimed that the declassified documents confirmed intensive government concern over UFOs and that the Agency was secretly involved in the surveillance of UFOs. (86) GSW then sued for the release of the withheld documents, claiming that the Agency was still holding out key information. (87) It was much like the John F. Kennedy assassination issue. No matter how much material the Agency released and no matter how dull and prosaic the information, people continued to believe in a Agency coverup and conspiracy.

DCI Stansfield Turner was so upset when he read The New York Times article that he asked his senior officers, "Are we in UFOs?" After reviewing the records, Don Wortman, Deputy Director for Administration, reported to Turner that there was "no organized Agency effort to do research in connection with UFO phenomena nor has there been an organized effort to collect intelligence on UFOs since the 1950s." Wortman assured Turner that the Agency records held only "sporadic instances of correspondence dealing with the subject," including various kinds of reports of UFO sightings. There was no Agency program to collect actively information on UFOs, and the material released to GSW had few deletions. (88) Thus assured, Turner had the General Counsel press for a summary judgment against the new lawsuit by GSW. In May 1980, the courts dismissed the lawsuit, finding that the Agency had conducted a thorough and adequate search in good faith. (89)

During the late 1970s and 1980s, the Agency continued its low-key interest in UFOs and UFO sightings. While most scientists now dismissed flying saucers reports as a quaint part of the 1950s and 1960s, some in the Agency and in the Intelligence Community shifted their interest to studying parapsychology and psychic phenomena associated with UFO sightings. 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. Agency analysts from the Life Science Division of OSI and OSWR officially devoted a small amount of their time to issues relating to UFOs. These included counterintelligence concerns that the Soviets and the KGB were using US citizens and UFO groups to obtain information on sensitive US weapons development programs (such as the Stealth aircraft), the vulnerability of the US air-defense network to penetration by foreign missiles mimicking UFOs, and evidence of Soviet advanced technology associated with UFO sightings.

CIA also maintained Intelligence Community coordination with other agencies regarding their work in parapsychology, psychic phenomena, and "remote viewing" experiments. In general, the Agency took a conservative scientific view of these unconventional scientific issues. There was no formal or official UFO project within the Agency in the 1980s, and Agency officials purposely kept files on UFOs to a minimum to avoid creating records that might mislead the public if released. (90)

The 1980s also produced renewed charges that the Agency was still withholding documents relating to the 1947 Roswell incident, in which a flying saucer supposedly crashed in New Mexico, and the surfacing of documents which purportedly revealed the existence of a top secret US research and development intelligence operation responsible only to the President on UFOs in the late 1940s and early 1950s. UFOlogists had long argued that, following a flying saucer crash in New Mexico in 1947, the government not only recovered debris from the crashed saucer but also four or five alien bodies. According to some UFOlogists, the government clamped tight security around the project and has refused to divulge its investigation results and research ever since. (91) In September 1994, the US Air Force released a new report on the Roswell incident that concluded that the debris found in New Mexico in 1947 probably came from a once top secret balloon operation, Project MOGUL, designed to monitor the atmosphere for evidence of Soviet nuclear tests. (92)

Circa 1984, a series of documents surfaced which some UFOlogists said proved that President Truman created a top secret committee in 1947, Majestic-12, to secure the recovery of UFO wreckage from Roswell and any other UFO crash sight for scientific study and to examine any alien bodies recovered from such sites. Most if not all of these documents have proved to be fabrications. Yet the controversy persists. (93)

Like the JFK assassination conspiracy theories, the UFO issue probably will not go away soon, no matter what the Agency does or says. The belief that we are not alone in the universe is too emotionally appealing and the distrust of our government is too pervasive to make the issue amenable to traditional scientific studies of rational explanation and evidence.

From Studies In Intelligence Vol. 01 No. 1, 1997

06-01-2020 om 23:33 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:UFOs , UAPs , USOS

CIA's Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947-90 - Part II

Gerald K. Haines

Notes

(1) See the 1973 Gallup Poll results printed in The New York Times, 29 November 1973, p. 45 and Philip J. Klass, UFOs: The Public Deceived (New York: Prometheus Books, 1983), p. 3.

(2) See Klass, UFOs, p. 3; James S. Gordon, "The UFO Experience," Atlantic Monthly (August 1991), pp. 82-92; David Michael Jacobs, The UFO Controversy in America (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1975); Howard Blum, Out There: The Government's Secret Quest for Extraterrestrials (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990); Timothy Good, Above Top Secret: The Worldwide UFO Cover-Up (New York: William Morrow, 1987); and Whitley Strieber, Communion: The True Story (New York: Morrow, 1987).

(3) In September 1993 John Peterson, an acquaintance of Woolsey's, first approached the DCI with a package of heavily sanitized CIA material on UFOs released to UFOlogist Stanton T. Friedman. Peterson and Friedman wanted to know the reasons for the redactions. Woolsey agreed to look into the matter. See Richard J. Warshaw, Executive Assistant, note to author, 1 November 1994; Warshaw, note to John H. Wright, Information and Privacy Coordinator, 31 January 1994; and Wright, memorandum to Executive Secretariat, 2 March 1994. (Except where noted, all citations to CIA records in this article are to the records collected for the 1994 Agency-wide search that are held by the Executive Assistant to the DCI).

(4) See Hector Quintanilla, Jr., "The Investigation of UFOs," Vol. 10, No. 4, Studies in Intelligence (fall 1966): pp.95-110 and CIA, unsigned memorandum, "Flying Saucers," 14 August 1952. See also Good, Above Top Secret, p. 253. During World War II, US pilots reported "foo fighters" (bright lights trailing US aircraft). Fearing they might be Japanese or German secret weapons, OSS investigated but could find no concrete evidence of enemy weapons and often filed such reports in the "crackpot" category. The OSS also investigated possible sightings of German V-1 and V-2 rockets before their operational use during the war. See Jacobs, UFO Controversy, p. 33. The Central Intelligence Group, the predecessor of the CIA, also monitored reports of "ghost rockets" in Sweden in 1946. See CIG, Intelligence Report, 9 April 1947.

(5) Jacobs, The UFO Controversy, p. 156 and Quintanilla, "The Investigation of UFOs," p. 97.

(6) See US Air Force, Air Material Command, "Unidentified Aerial Objects: Project SIGN, no. F-TR 2274, IA, February 1949, Records of the US Air Force Commands, Activities and Organizations, Record Group 341, National Archives, Washington, DC.

(7) See US Air Force, Projects GRUDGE and BLUEBOOK Reports 1- 12 (Washington, DC; National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena, 1968) and Jacobs, The UFO Controversy, pp. 50-54.

(8) See Cabell, memorandum to Commanding Generals Major Air Commands, "Reporting of Information on Unconventional Aircraft," 8 September 1950 and Jacobs, The UFO Controversy, p. 65.

(9) See Air Force, Projects GRUDGE and BLUE BOOK and Jacobs, The UFO Controversy, p. 67.

(10) See Edward Tauss, memorandum for Deputy Assistant Director, SI, "Flying Saucers," 1 August 1952. See also United Kingdom, Report by the "Flying Saucer" Working Party, "Unidentified Flying Objects," no date (approximately 1950).

(11) See Dr. Stone, OSI, memorandum to Dr. Willard Machle, OSI, 15 March 1949 and Ralph L. Clark, Acting Assistant Director, OSI, memorandum for DDI, "Recent Sightings of Unexplained Objects," 29 July 1952.

(12) Stone, memorandum to Machle. See also Clark, memorandum for DDI, 29 July 1952.

(13) See Klass, UFOs, p. 15. For a brief review of the Washington sightings see Good, Above Top Secret, pp. 269-271.

(14) See Ralph L. Clark, Acting Assistant Director, OSI, memorandum to DDI Robert Amory, Jr., 29 July 1952. OSI and OCI were in the Directorate of Intelligence. Established in 1948, OSI served as the CIA's focal point for the analysis of foreign scientific and technological developments. In 1980, OSI was merged into the Office of Science and Weapons Research. The Office of Current Intelligence (OCI), established on 15 January 1951 was to provide all-source current intelligence to the President and the National Security Council.

(15) Tauss, memorandum for Deputy Assistant Director, SI (Philip Strong), 1 August 1952.

(16) On 2 January 1952, DCI Walter Bedell Smith created a Deputy Directorate for Intelligence (DDI) composed of six overt CIA organizations--OSI, OCI, Office of Collection and Dissemination, Office National Estimates, Office of Research and Reports, and the Office of Intelligence Coordination--to produce intelligence analysis for US policymakers.

(17) See Minutes of Branch Chief's Meeting, 11 August 1952.

(18) Smith expressed his opinions at a meeting in the DCI Conference Room attended by his top officers. See Deputy Chief, Requirements Staff, FI, memorandum for Deputy Director, Plans, "Flying Saucers," 20 August 1952, Directorate of Operations Records, Information Management Staff, Job 86-00538R, Box 1.

(19) See CIA memorandum, unsigned, "Flying Saucers," 11 August 1952.

(20) See CIA, memorandum, unsigned, "Flying Saucers," 14 August 1952.

(21) See CIA, memorandum, unsigned, "Flying Saucers," 19 August 1952.

(22) See Chadwell, memorandum for Smith, 17 September 1952 and 24 September 1952, "Flying Saucers." See also Chadwell, memorandum for DCI Smith, 2 October 1952 and Klass, UFOs, pp. 23-26.

(23) Chadwell, memorandum for DCI with attachments, 2 December 1952. See also Klass, UFOs, pp. 26-27 and Chadwell, memorandum, 25 November 1952.

(24) See Chadwell, memorandum, 25 November 1952 and Chadwell, memorandum, "Approval in Principle - External Research Project Concerned with Unidentified Flying Objects," no date. See also Philip G. Strong, OSI, memorandum for the record, "Meeting with Dr. Julius A. Stratton, Executive Vice President and Provost, MIT and Dr. Max Millikan, Director of CENIS." Strong believed that in order to undertake such a review they would need the full backing and support of DCI Smith.

(25) See Chadwell, memorandum for DCI, ""Unidentified Flying Objects," 2 December 1952. See also Chadwell, memorandum for Amory, DDI, "Approval in Principle - External Research Project Concerned with Unidentified Flying Objects," no date.

(26) The IAC was created in 1947 to serve as a coordinating body in establishing intelligence requirements. Chaired by the DCI, the IAC included representatives from the Department of State, the Army, the Air Force, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the FBI, and the AEC.

(27) See Klass, UFOs, p. 27.

(28) See Richard D. Drain, Acting Secretary, IAC, "Minutes of Meeting held in Director's Conference Room, Administration Building, CIA," 4 December 1952.

(29) See Chadwell, memorandum for the record, "British Activity in the Field of UFOs," 18 December 1952.

(30) See Chadwell, memorandum for DCI, "Consultants for Advisory Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects," 9 January 1953; Curtis Peebles, Watch the Skies! A Chronicle of the Flying Saucer Myth (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1994). pp. 73-90; and Jacobs, The UFO Controversy, pp. 91-92.

(31) See Fred C. Durant III, Report on the Robertson Panel Meeting, January 1953. Durant, on contract with OSI and a past president of the American Rocket Society, attended the Robertson panel meetings and wrote a summary of the proceedings.

(32) See Report of the Scientific Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects (the Robertson Report), 17 January 1953 and the Durant report on the panel discussions.

(33) See Robertson Report and Durant Report. See also Good, Above Top Secret, pp. 337-38, Jacobs, The UFO Controversy, p. 95, and Klass, UFO's, pp. 28-29.

(34) See Reber, memorandum to IAC, 18 February 1953.

(35) See Chadwell, memorandum for DDI, "Unidentified Flying Objects," 10 February 1953; Chadwell, letter to Robertson, 28 January 1953; and Reber, memorandum for IAC, "Unidentified Flying Objects," 18 February 1953. On briefing the ONE, see Durant, memorandum for the record, "Briefing of ONE Board on Unidentified Flying Objects," 30 January 1953 and CIA Summary disseminated to the field, "Unidentified Flying Objects," 6 February 1953.

(36) See Chadwell, letter to Julius A. Stratton, Provost MIT, 27 January 1953.

(37) See Chadwell, memorandum for Chief, Physics and Electronics Division/OSI (Todos M. Odarenko), "Unidentified Flying Objects," 27 May 1953.

(38) See Odarenko, memorandum to Chadwell, "Unidentified Flying Objects," 3 July 1953. See also Odarenko, memorandum to Chadwell, "Current Status of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOB) Project," 17 December 1953.

(39) See Odarenko, memorandum, "Unidentified Flying Objects," 8 August 1955.

(40) See FBIS, report, "Military Unconventional Aircraft," 18 August 1953 and various reports, "Military-Air, Unconventional Aircraft," 1953, 1954, 1955.

(41) Developed by the Canadian affiliate of Britain's A. V. Roe, Ltd., Project Y did produce a small-scale model that hovered a few feet off the ground. See Odarenko, memorandum to Chadwell, "Flying Saucer Type of Planes" 25 May 1954; Frederic C. E. Oder, memorandum to Odarenko, "USAF Project Y," 21 May 1954; and Odarenko, T. M. Nordbeck, Ops/SI, and Sidney Graybeal, ASD/SI, memorandum for the record, "Intelligence Responsibilities for Non-Conventional Types of Air Vehicles," 14 June 1954.

(42) See Reuben Efron, memorandum, "Observation of Flying Object Near Baku," 13 October 1955; Scoville, memorandum for the record, "Interview with Senator Richard B. Russell," 27 October 1955; and Wilton E. Lexow, memorandum for information, "Reported Sighting of Unconventional Aircraft," 19 October 1955.

(43) See Lexow, memorandum for information, "Reported Sighting of Unconventional Aircraft," 19 October 1955. See also Frank C. Bolser, memorandum for George C. Miller, Deputy Chief, SAD/SI, "Possible Soviet Flying Saucers, Check On;" Lexow, memorandum, "Possible Soviet Flying Saucers, Follow Up On," 17 December 1954; Lexow, memorandum, "Possible Soviet Flying Saucers," 1 December 1954; and A. H. Sullivan, Jr., memorandum, "Possible Soviet Flying Saucers," 24 November 1954.

(44) See Gregory W. Pedlow and Donald E. Welzenbach, The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance: The U-2 and OXCART Programs, 1954-1974 (Washington, DC: CIA History Staff, 1992), pp. 72-73.

(45) See Pedlow and Welzenbach, Overhead Reconnaissance, pp. 72-73. This also was confirmed in a telephone interview between the author and John Parongosky, 26 July 1994. Parongosky oversaw the day-to-day affairs of the OXCART program.

(46) See Jacobs, The UFO Controversy, p.�135.

(47) See Peebles, Watch the Skies, pp. 128-146; Ruppelt, The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects (New York: Doubleday, 1956); Keyhoe, The Flying Saucer Conspiracy (New York: Holt, 1955); and Jacobs, The UFO Controversy, pp. 347-49.

(48) See Strong, letter to Lloyd W. Berkner; Strong, letter to Thorton Page; Strong, letter to Robertson; Strong, letter to Samuel Goudsmit; Strong, letter to Luis Alvarez, 20 December 1957; and Strong, memorandum for Major James F. Byrne, Assistant Chief of Staff, Intelligence Department of the Air Force, "Declassification of the `Report of the Scientific Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects,'" 20 December 1957. See also Berkner, letter to Strong, 20 November 1957 and Page, letter to Strong, 4 December 1957. The panel members were also reluctant to have their association with the Agency released.

(49) See Wilton E. Lexow, memorandum for the record, "Comments on Letters Dealing with Unidentified Flying Objects," 4 April 1958; J. S. Earman, letter to Major Lawrence J. Tacker, Office of the Secretary of the Air Force, Information Service, 4 April 1958; Davidson, letter to Berkner, 8 April 1958; Berkner, letter to Davidson, 18 April 1958; Berkner, letter to Strong, 21 April 1958; Davidson, letter to Tacker, 27 April 1958; Davidson, letter to Allen Dulles, 27 April 1958; Ruppelt, letter to Davidson, 7 May 1958; Strong, letter to Berkner, 8 May 1958; Davidson, letter to Berkner, 8 May 1958; Davidson, letter to Earman, 16 May 1958; Davidson, letter to Goudsmit, 18 May 1958; Davidson, letter to Page, 18 May 1958; and Tacker, letter to Davidson, 20 May 1958.

(50) See Lexow, memorandum for Chapin, 28 July 1958.

(51) See Good, Above Top Secret, pp. 346-47; Lexow, memorandum for the record, "Meeting with the Air Force Personnel Concerning Scientific Advisory Panel Report on Unidentified Flying Objects, dated 17 January 1953 (S)," 16 May 1958. See also La Rae L. Teel, Deputy Division Chief, ASD, memorandum for the record, "Meeting with Mr. Chapin on Replying to Leon Davidson's UFO Letter and Subsequent Telephone Conversation with Major Thacker, [sic]" 22 May 1958.

(52) See Edwin M. Ashcraft, Chief, Contact Division (Scientific), memorandum to Chief, Chicago Office, "Radio Code Recording," 4 March 1955 and Ashcraft, memorandum to Chief, Support Branch, OSI, 17 March 1955.

(53) The Contact Division was created to collect foreign intelligence information from sources within the United States. See the Directorate of Intelligence Historical Series, The Origin and Development of Contact Division, 11 July 1946�1 July 1965 (Washington, DC; CIA Historical Staff, June 1969).

(54) See George O. Forrest, Chief, Chicago Office, memorandum to Chief, Contact Division for Science, 11 March 1955.

(55) See Support Division (Connell), memorandum to Dewelt E. Walker, 25 April 1957.

(56) See J. Arnold Shaw, Assistant to the Director, letter to Davidson, 10 May 1957.

(57) See Support (Connell) memorandum to Lt. Col. V. Skakich, 27 August 1957 and Lamountain, memorandum to Support (Connell), 20 December 1957.

(58) See Lamountain, cable to Support (Connell), 31 July 1958.

(59) See Support (Connell) cable to Skakich, 3 October 1957 and Skakich, cable to Connell, 9 October 1957.

(60) See Skakich, cable to Connell, 9 October 1957.

(61) See R. P. B. Lohmann, memorandum for Chief, Contact Division, DO, 9 January 1958.

(62) See Support, cable to Skakich, 20 February 1958 and Connell (Support) cable to Lamountain, 19 December 1957.

(63) See Edwin M. Ashcraft, Chief, Contact Division, Office of Operations, memorandum for Austin Bricker, Jr., Assistant to the Director, "Inquiry by Major Donald E. Keyhoe on John Hazen's Association with the Agency," 22 January 1959.

(64) See John T. Hazen, memorandum to Chief, Contact Division, 12 December 1957. See also Ashcraft, memorandum to Cleveland Resident Agent, "Ralph E. Mayher," 20 December 1957. According to this memorandum, the photographs were viewed at "a high level and returned to us without comment." The Air Force held the original negatives. The CIA records were probably destroyed.

(65) The issue would resurface in the 1970s with the GSW FOIA court case.

(66) See Robert Amory, Jr., DDI, memorandum for Assistant Director/Scientific Intelligence, "Flying Saucers," 26 March 1956. See also Wallace R. Lamphire, Office of the Director, Planning and Coordination Staff, memorandum for Richard M. Bissell, Jr., "Unidentified Flying Saucers (UFO)," 11 June 1957; Philip Strong, memorandum for the Director, NPIC, "Reported Photography of Unidentified Flying Objects," 27 October 1958; Scoville, memorandum to Lawrence Houston, Legislative Counsel, "Reply to Honorable Joseph E. Garth," 12 July 1961; and Houston, letter to Garth, 13 July 1961.

(67) See, for example, Davidson, letter to Congressman Joseph Garth, 26 June 1961 and Carl Vinson, Chairman, House Committee on Armed Services, letter to Rep. Robert A. Everett, 2 September 1964.

(68) See Maxwell W. Hunter, staff member, National Aeronautics and Space Council, Executive Office of the President, memorandum for Robert F. Parkard, Office of International Scientific Affairs, Department of State, "Thoughts on the Space Alien Race Question," 18 July 1963, File SP 16, Records of the Department of State, Record Group 59, National Archives. See also F. J. Sheridan, Chief, Washington Office, memorandum to Chief, Contact Division, "National Investigation Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP)," 25 January 1965.

(69) Chamberlain, memorandum for DCI, "Evaluation of UFOs," 26 January 1965.

(70) See Jacobs, The UFO Controversy, p. 199 and US Air Force, Scientific Advisory Board, Ad Hoc Committee (O'Brien Committee) to Review Project BLUE BOOK, Special Report (Washington, DC: 1966). See also The New York Times, 14 August 1966, p. 70.

(71) See "Congress Reassured on Space Visits," The New York Times, 6 April 1966.

(72) Weber, letter to Col. Gerald E. Jorgensen, Chief, Community Relations Division, Office of Information, US Air Force, 15 August 1966. The Durant report was a detailed summary of the Robertson panel proceedings.

(73) See John Lear, "The Disputed CIA Document on UFOs," Saturday Review (September 3, 1966), p. 45. The Lear article was otherwise unsympathetic to UFO sightings and the possibility that extraterritorials were involved. The Air Force had been eager to provide Lear with the full report. See Walter L. Mackey, Executive Officer, memorandum for DCI, "Air Force Request to Declassify CIA Material on Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO)," 1 September 1966.

(74) See Klass, UFOs, p. 40, Jacobs, The UFO Controversy, p. 214 and Everet Clark, "Physicist Scores `Saucer Status,'" The New York Times, 21 October 1966. See also James E. McDonald, "Statement on Unidentified Flying Objects," submitted to the House Committee on Science and Astronautics, 29 July 1968.

(75) Condon is quoted in Walter Sullivan, "3 Aides Selected in Saucer Inquiry," The New York Times, 8 October 1966. See also "An Outspoken Scientist, Edward Uhler Condon," The New York Times, 8 October 1966. Condon, an outgoing, gruff scientist, had earlier become embroiled in a controversy with the House Unamerican Activities Committee that claimed Condon was "one of the weakest links in our atomic security." See also Peebles, Watch the Skies, pp. 169-195.

(76) See Lundahl, memorandum for DDI, 7 February 1967.

(77) See memorandum for the record, "Visit of Dr. Condon to NPIC, 20 February 1967," 23 February 1967. See also the analysis of the photographs in memorandum for Lundahl, "Photo Analysis of UFO Photography," 17 February 1967.

(78) See memorandum for the record, "UFO Briefing for Dr. Edward Condon, 5 May 1967," 8 May 1967 and attached "Guidelines to UFO Photographers and UFO Photographic Information Sheet." See also Condon Committee, Press Release, 1 May 1967 and Klass, UFOs, p. 41. The Zaneville photographs turned out to be a hoax.

(79) See Edward U. Condon, Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects (New York: Bantam Books, 1969) and Klass, UFOs, p. 41. The report contained the Durant report with only minor deletions.

(80) See Office of Assistant Secretary of Defense, News Release, "Air Force to Terminate Project BLUEBOOK," 17 December 1969. The Air Force retired BLUEBOOK records to the USAF Archives at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama. In 1976 the Air Force turned over all BLUEBOOK files to the National Archives and Records Administration, which made them available to the public without major restrictions. Some names have been withheld from the documents. See Klass, UFOs, p. 6.

(81) GSW was a small group of UFO buffs based in Phoenix, Arizona, and headed by William H. Spaulding.

(82) See Klass, UFOs, p. 8.

(83) See Wilson, letter to Spaulding, 26 March 1976 and GSW v. CIA Civil Action Case 78-859.

(84) GSW v. CIA Civil Action Case 78-859, p. 2.

(85) Author interview with Launie Ziebell, 23 June 1994 and author interview with OSI analyst, 21 July 1994. See also affidavits of George Owens, CIA Information and Privacy Act Coordinator; Karl H. Weber, OSI; Sidney D. Stembridge, Office of Security; and Rutledge P. Hazzard, DS&T; GSW v. CIA Civil Action Case 78-859 and Sayre Stevens, Deputy Director for National Foreign Assessment, memorandum for Thomas H. White, Assistant for Information, Information Review Committee, "FOIA Litigation Ground Saucer Watch," no date.

(86) See "CIA Papers Detail UFO Surveillance," The New York Times, 13 January 1979; Patrick Huyghe, "UFO Files: The Untold Story," The New York Times Magazine, 14 October 1979, p. 106; and Jerome Clark, "UFO Update," UFO Report, August 1979.

(87) Jerome Clark, "Latest UFO News Briefs From Around the World," UFO Update, August 1979 and GSW v. CIA Civil Action No. 78-859.

(88) See Wortman, memorandum for DCI Turner, "Your Question, `Are we in UFOs?' Annotated to The New York Times News Release Article," 18 January 1979.

(89) See GSW v. CIA Civil Action 78-859. See also Klass, UFOs, pp. 10-12.

(90) See John Brennan, memorandum for Richard Warshaw, Executive Assistant, DCI, "Requested Information on UFOs," 30 September 1993; Author interviews with OSWR analyst, 14 June 1994 and OSI analyst, 21 July 1994. This author found almost no documentation on Agency involvement with UFOs in the 1980s.

There is a DIA Psychic Center and the NSA studies parapsychology, that branch of psychology that deals with the investigation of such psychic phenomena as clairvoyance, extrasensory perception, and telepathy. The CIA reportedly is also a member of an Incident Response Team to investigate UFO landings, if one should occur. This team has never met. The lack of solid CIA documentation on Agency UFO-related activities in the 1980s leaves the entire issue somewhat murky for this period.

Much of the UFO literature presently focuses on contactees and abductees. See John E. Mack, Abduction, Human Encounters with Aliens (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1994) and Howard Blum, Out There (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990).

(91) See Charles Berlitz and William L. Moore, The Roswell Incident (New York: Berkeley Books, 1988); Moore, "The Roswell Incident: New Evidence in the Search for a Crashed UFO," (Burbank, California: Fair Witness Project, 1982), Publication Number 1201; and Klass, UFOs, pp. 280-281. In 1994 Congressman Steven H. Schiff (R-NM) called for an official study of the Roswell incident. The GAO is conducting a separate investigation of the incident. The CIA is not involved in the investigation. See Klass, UFOs, pp. 279-281; John H. Wright, Information and Privacy Coordinator, letter to Derek Skreen, 20 September 1993; and OSWR analyst interview. See also the made-for-TV film, Roswell, which appeared on cable TV on 31 July 1994 and Peebles, Watch the Skies, pp. 245-251.

(92) See John Diamond, "Air Force Probes 1947 UFO Claim Findings Are Down to Earth," 9 September 1994, Associated Press release; William J. Broad, "Wreckage of a `Spaceship': Of This Earth (and U.S.)," The New York Times, 18 September 1994, p. 1; and USAF Col. Richard L. Weaver and 1st Lt. James McAndrew, The Roswell Report, Fact Versus Fiction in New Mexico Desert (Washington, DC: GPO, 1995).

(93) See Good, Above Top Secret; Moore and S. T. Friedman, "Philip Klass and MJ-12: What are the Facts," (Burbank California: Fair-Witness Project, 1988), Publication Number 1290; Klass, "New Evidence of MJ-12 Hoax," Skeptical Inquirer, vol. 14 (Winter 1990); and Moore and Jaime H. Shandera, The MJ-12 Documents: An Analytical Report (Burbank, California: Fair-Witness Project, 1990), Publication Number 1500. Walter Bedell Smith supposedly replaced Forrestal on 1 August 1950 following Forrestal's death. All members listed were deceased when the MJ-12 "documents" surfaced in 1984. See Peebles, Watch the Skies, pp. 258-268.

Dr. Larry Bland, editor of The George C. Marshall Papers, discovered that one of the so-called Majestic-12 documents was a complete fraud. It contained the exact same language as a letter from Marshall to Presidential candidate Thomas Dewey regarding the "Magic" intercepts in 1944. The dates and names had been altered and "Magic" changed to "Majic." Moreover, it was a photocopy, not an original. No original MJ-12 documents have ever surfaced. Telephone conversation between the author and Bland, 29 August 1994.

From Studies In Intelligence Vol. 01 No. 1, 1997

06-01-2020 om 23:31 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:UFOs , UAPs , USOS

Strange Dark Matter Findings Could Rewrite the Universe's History

Scientists believe that mysterious dark matter is key to forming galaxies in the cosmos. Now, a recent series of bizarre findings threatens to undermine everything we think we know.

By Carly Minsky

In November, astronomers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijng published a paper identifying 19 galaxies which might violate the most fundamental theory of how the universe first formed.

They had been searching the sky for yet-undiscovered galaxies which seem to be lacking the usual dark matter component, aiming to add more evidence to a baffling phenomenon scientists had begun observing last year. And they claimed to have found a whole group of them.

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Until recently, it was almost unanimously assumed that huge amounts of invisible dark matter was the key to galaxy formation; the gravitational effects experienced and induced by clumps of dark matter in the universe produced swirling disks of gas clouds, stars and dark matter. Dark matter had to make up the majority of matter in these galaxies, according to standard models of the universe, otherwise they would never have formed.

But since 2016, researchers keep stumbling upon galaxies that don’t seem to be dominated by dark matter. Some calculations imply that these galaxies lack dark matter entirely. Either way, galaxies which have far less dark matter than expected would give physicists a lot of explaining to do: why are they lacking dark matter, and how did they form in the first place?

Galaxies without dark matter could rewrite the history of the universe

Unlike the researchers in Beijing, Yale professor Pieter van Dokkum wasn’t trying to find anomalies among the "ultra diffuse" galaxies he studies—those with very few stars. After all, before van Dokkum made a chance discovery in 2018, there was very little reason to expect to find any galaxies which had formed and continued to exist without dark matter.

In fact, van Dokkum and his team expected to find dark matter everywhere they looked. Unlike our own star-packed Milky Way, where dark matter is only on the periphery, ultra-diffuse galaxies should be densely filled with dark matter. Their analysis instead identified, for the first time, a galaxy without any dark matter at all.

“The way the stars move should be entirely dominated by the amount of dark matter,” he says. “The fact we found this deficit was not a subtle result.”

Though van Dokkum's findings were and remain controversial, new analysis of galaxies observed through giant telescopes keeps poking holes in accepted theories. If nothing else, the latest study by researchers in Beijing highlights still-open questions about the shape and structure of galaxies.

Attempts to explain the apparent lack of dark matter in the identified dwarf galaxies fall into two broad categories: theories about how and why galaxies may have been stripped of the dark matter they once had, and theories which postulate the formation of galaxies without dark matter at all.

In the first group, researchers such as Go Ogiya at Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur in France are exploring a phenomenon called "tidal stripping" in which matter is pulled away from a galaxy due to tidal forces that arise when it is interacting with the gravitational field of another galaxy. Even before van Dokkum reported his observations of two dark-matter-deficient galaxies, there was evidence that tidal stripping would disproportionately affect dark matter, which is less tightly bound than visible or “baryonic” matter (i.e. stars) in the centre of the galaxy.

“Whether the baryonic matter is stripped from the satellite galaxy depends on its structure: the distribution of stars determines their resilience to the tidal force,” Ogiya wrote in an email. “In my numerical simulations...stars are hardly stripped from the satellite galaxy while its size doubles as a result of dark matter stripping.”

Ogiya also suggests a process by which galaxies might form without ever containing dark matter. So-called “tidal dwarf galaxies” could form when dark matter and baryonic matter is “ejected” from an existing galaxy due to tidal forces, but the dark matter component evaporates due to its higher velocity, leaving only stars and gas to form a new galaxy.

However, the theories with game-changing potential are those which rewrite the history of the early universe, around 13 billion years ago, long before the “heyday of galaxy formation” when tidal stripping might have taken place. Though he says he's agnostic about proposed explanations of dark-matter-deficiency, van Dokkum favours a theory suggesting that dark matter and gas interacted just after the Big Bang in ways which are not currently predicted. This could cause gas clumps which would separate from the dark matter and then later form galaxies made up only of gas and stars.

“That would be really cool because then we would learn something about the conditions of the early universe and probe the epoch when galaxy formation was not yet underway,” he says.

Dark matter deficiency, or miscalculation?

Some scientists believe that van Dokkum's result, while striking, may not be reliable. Since dark matter can’t be seen, how much of it is present in a galaxy has to be inferred from the behaviour of stars in the galaxy, which can be seen. Calculating this behaviour (for instance, velocity of the stars), depends on other galactic traits, like the shape of the galaxy and its distance away from us.

Ignacio Trujillo, a scientist specializing in Extragalactic Astronomy at the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands, has shown that the strange behaviour of these ultra-diffuse galaxies can be explained away by measuring how far away they are using alternative methods. If the anomalous galaxies are in fact much closer to Earth than the distance used for van Dokkum’s calculations, then calculating their dark matter components gives results within the expected range.

"You find yourself in this strange regime where you have to ask yourself: how strange a hypothesis can I accommodate which is still less strange than finding no dark matter?"

According to Trujillo, it is indeed possible for very tiny galaxies to form without the presence of dark matter, but not the way galaxies were formed just after the Big Bang. Rather than gas and stars clumping together due to gravitational effects, these galaxies form when an existing galaxy collides with another and residual matter stripped from the colliding galaxies forms a new galaxy—all without any dark matter. In contrast to galaxies formed by the tidal-stripping effects Ogiya studies, these galaxies would live for a relatively short time by cosmic standards: a few hundred years. Examples have already been identified for decades, he says, but these aren’t the sort of dark-matter-deficient galaxies that challenge the current understanding of our universe.

“People have already found things they have called galaxies without dark matter, but they are transient features which then disappear,” he says. “The novelty would be to find a galaxy which was formed originally in the early universe without dark matter, and I don’t think we have any strong candidates yet.”

Already, Trujillo’s colleagues say they have also found issues with the research published last month identifying 19 possible galaxies lacking dark matter. This week the American Astronomical Society published a research note authored by Jorge Sanchez Almeida which argued that the dark matter calculations for the 19 galaxies failed to account for true shape of dwarf galaxies, simplifying them as being “disk-like” instead of elliptical 3D shapes.

For van Dokkum, questions on both sides of the debate are very much still open. The two anomalous galaxies he’s identified as being dark-matter-deficient are strange in a number of ways, by anyone’s standards, he says. If they do in fact contain dark matter, contrary to his own hypothesis, other assumptions about the distribution of dark matter, as well as the shape and orientation of the galaxies and their history will need to be revised.

“You can come up with unlikely scenarios in which these galaxies do contain dark matter,” he says. “And unlikely is relative in this case to the hypothesis that there is no dark matter.”

“You find yourself in this strange regime where you have to ask yourself: how strange a hypothesis can I accommodate which is still less strange than finding no dark matter?”

Future research

The “fun thing” about the ultra-diffuse dwarf galaxies van Dokkum and others are studying is that they are “nearby and bright," van Dokkum said, which makes it relatively easy to investigate their behaviour.

With the powerful telescopes available today, van Dokkum hopes not only to make more accurate measurements of galaxy velocities and distance, but also identify the epoch in which the galaxies formed, using new data from the Hubble telescope. This empirical evidence would rule out a whole class of explanations for the apparent dark matter deficiency, one way or another.

Nicolas Martin, a researcher at the Observatory Astronomical De Strasbourg in France, believes that the observations needed to drive research forward are just beyond the limits of what is possible with the best apparatus around at the moment. Emailing while on location at one such cutting-edge telescope, he said that the research community would likely have to wait for two next-generation telescopes, currently planned or under construction in Chile and Hawaii, before they could generate even more precise measurements of the velocity of stars in the dwarf galaxies.

In the meantime, Martin, van Dokkum, Ogiya, and others will all be searching the sky to determine how many other strange dark-matter-deficient galaxies might be out there.

“If they are very common, then they need to be naturally produced by our models of galaxy formation,” Martin says. “If they are not common, then maybe they are just weirdos, coming from environments that are poorly understood corner cases, which is less problematic overall.”

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06-01-2020 om 23:13 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ASTRONOMIE / RUIMTEVAART

Ontmoet Bruie, de kleine NASA robot die op zoek gaat naar buitenaards leven op maan van Jupiter - HLN.be

Bron: NASA, NYT

De Buoyant Rover for Under-Ice Exploration - kortweg Bruie - van het Amerikaanse ruimtevaartagentschap NASA.

EPA

De Buoyant Rover for Under-Ice Exploration - kortweg Bruie - van het Amerikaanse ruimtevaartagentschap NASA.

WETENSCHAP De Buoyant Rover for Under-Ice Exploration - kortweg Bruie - van het Amerikaanse ruimtevaartagentschap NASA staat een loodzware taak te wachten. Bedoeling is dat de kleine robot op een dag naar Europa zal reizen, niet het continent maar wel één van de manen die rondom Jupiter draaien, waar hij op zoek moet gaan naar teken van leven. Bruie doorstond in november alvast een eerste veelbelovende test.

Geen simpele opdracht want het oppervlak van Europa bestaat uit een dikke ijslaag die tot wel dertig kilometer dik kan zijn. Daaronder een diepe oceaan. De robot moet dus eerst zijn weg zien te banen doorheen de dikke ijslaag voordat hij de “vijandige oceaan” kan verkennen.

“De ijsmassa’s zouden op die manen het leven in de oceanen kunnen helpen voeden”, aldus Kevin Hand, hoofdwetenschapper van het Bruie-project. De NASA-wetenschapper gelooft dat Europa dankzij de dikke bevroren massa een van de beste locaties is om te zoeken naar buitenaards leven.

Antarctica

Dan blijft de vraag hoe NASA het voor elkaar zal krijgen om de robot doorheen de dikke ijslaag te sturen. “Antarctica benadert het dichtst de zeeën van een maan”, aldus Hand. Dus bezocht Bruie Antarctica afgelopen november.

Daar was het spannend afwachten voor de wetenschappers. De robot bleef iets meer dan 42 uur onder het ijs en werd daar blootgesteld aan de sterke stromingen van het water. Daardoor kost het de robot veel energie om zijn positie te behouden waardoor zijn batterij onvoldoende reserves overhoudt om langer dan gepland actief te blijven. Als de rover crasht, gaat zijn positie sowieso verloren.

Ondanks de grootte van de uitdaging, wist de robot die tot een goed einde te brengen. Traag maar zeker bewoog hij zich voort onder het ijs. En dankzij een ingebouwde camera konden de wetenschappers meegenieten van het bijzondere uitzicht, dat er al behoorlijk buitenaards uitzag.

Bezoek aan Europa

Bruie is ongeveer een meter lang en uitgerust met twee wielen die elk zo groot zijn als een pizza. Dankzij de wielen kan de robot zich voortbewegen onder een dikke ijslaag. De Buoyant Rover for Under-Ice Exploration werd in 2017 ontwikkeld door technici van Jet Propulsion Laboratory van NASA in Pasadena en doorstond in 2019 zijn eerste succesvolle test in Antarctica. Wanneer hij Europa zal bezoeken, is vooralsnog onduidelijk.

06-01-2020 om 22:38 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ASTRONOMIE / RUIMTEVAART

New Evidence Suggests That There Are Still Active Volcanoes On Venus

According to a new study, there may still be active volcanoes on Venus and they could have erupted very recently. If this is correct, this would be a significant discovery as the only other known place in our Solar System (besides Earth) that contains active volcanoes that spew lava is Jupiter’s moon Io. Mars, as well as our own moon, had active volcanoes at one time, but they all died out a very long time ago.

Around a decade ago, scientists were studying data from the European Space Agency’s Venus Express probe that orbited the planet from 2006 to 2014 and found that lava flowed on the planet less than 2.5 million years ago and perhaps even as recently as 250,000 years ago. In fact, back in 2010, visible to near-infrared light was emitting from certain areas on Venus which indicated recent lava flows. But how recent the lava flows occurred remains unknown as it’s still unclear as to how the volcanic rocks react to Venus’ severely harsh atmosphere.

However, with traces of sulfurous gases in Venus’ atmosphere, it seems as though there are still active volcanoes on the planet.

In order to find out for sure how recent the lava flows occurred, researchers conducted an experiment using crystals of olivine, which are green minerals that are found in volcanic rocks. They studied how the crystals would be affected in conditions that are similar to Venus’ surface.

The researchers heated the olivine, as well as Earth air, inside of a furnace with temperatures as high as 1,650 degrees Fahrenheit for approximately a month. They discovered that within days, the olivine was coated with a red-black mineral hematite which causes some of the crystal’s features to become hard to detect.

Since signs of olivine were detected from space, this suggests that there were volcanic eruptions on Venus quite recently or else they wouldn’t have been detected if the eruptions happened a long time ago.

Researchers then conducted another experiment with different volcanic minerals heated with air containing carbon dioxide and sulfur – more similar to the atmosphere on Venus. “The results with those are pretty much the same,” Justin Filiberto, who is a planetary scientist at the Universities Space Research Association’s Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, told Space.com. He went on to say, “This is the first time we may have seen active volcanism on another planet.”

The scientists’ findings were published in the journal Science Advances and can be read in full here.

06-01-2020 om 21:48 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ASTRONOMIE / RUIMTEVAART

06-01-2020 om 21:17 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:UFOs , UAPs , USOS

Top 10 UFO stories of 2019 - Richard Dolan Intelligent Disclosure

Whatever else you might say about the year 2019, it was certainly not boring, and this is doubly so when it comes to the UFO subject.

Richard and Tracey make the case that this could well be a year of historical importance.

All ten stories on this list were significant, and the #1 story will probably surprise many - until they stop and reflect on it.

Enjoy the countdown with Richard and Tracey.

06-01-2020 om 20:53 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:UFOs , UAPs , USOS

Klobuchar Teases UFO Docs Declassification If Americans Elect Her President

The 2020 US presidential candidate Senator Amy Klobuchar suggested recently that she would allow journalists to look into classified stuff on UFO sightings if she won president.

Klobuchar spoke about her optimism towards the presidential race, telling that she thinks she’s well-positioned to win against President Donald Trump. The Minnesota senator also talked about unidentified flying objects (UFOs), specifically on the story of the Navy fighter pilot David Fraser about chasing a UFO in 2014 on the West Coast.

She said that we don’t know enough and she doesn’t know what’s occurred, not just with that sighting, but with others. And she believes one of the things a leader of the nation could do is to look into what is there in regards to what does the science say and what does our military say.

She added that the exciting part of that answer is that some of this is old before suggested that some of this information could be released to the public for journalists to look into and get the bottom of the truth.

06-01-2020 om 20:28 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

Presidential Hopeful Pete Buttigieg Weighs in on UFOs

Somewhere in the mid 1800s, novelist and columnist and columnist Fanny Fern (real name Sara Wills) coined the adage: “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach”. While still popular today, the year 2020 may bring to the national lexicon a different one: “The way to full UFO and ET disclosure is through New Hampshire.” That’s because an intrepid reporter with The Conway Daily Sun has been putting tough questions about recent UFO sightings by military personnel to every Democratic and Republican presidential candidate to pass through the state which hosts the first presidential primary election (not a caucus) on February 11. On January 3rd, it was South Bend, Indiana, mayor Pete Buttigieg’s turn in reporter Daymond Steer’s UFO hotseat and the former US Navy lieutenant showed why the key to electing a president willing to open the X-files to the public might be a military background.

Pete Buttigieg

“Well, strange things happen out there.”

In response to Steer’s UFO question about the USS Nimitz UFO incident in 2004 witnessed by New Hampshire’s own fighter pilot David Fravor, Buttigieg immediately defended the right and responsibility of military personnel to be able to report strange incidents like that without fear of ridicule or reprisal. He then tells a personal story from his childhood. On a New Mexico trip past a military base, he saw a strange-looking blimp under heavy security. Twenty years later when he was deployed at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, Lieutenant Buttigieg looks up and saw the blimp doing surveillance to protect the base and its troops. Does this mean he thinks all UFOs are secret military test aircraft?

“It’s very unlikely we’re alone in the universe.”

Buttigieg takes the safe approach in saying we’re not the only life forms around, but he doesn’t think we’ll see “concrete evidence” of it on Earth. However, that doesn’t mean we should stop watching the skies.

“As a curious species, we should always be looking at what’s going on around us.”

Mayor Pete is obviously a very curious guy. But is he openminded enough to accept the idea that “what’s going on around us” — or went on around us in the past with evidence stored in secret files — could indeed be visitors from another planet or galaxy if presented with proof?

“Unimaginably strange things often happened in the grand sweep of American and world history and we should never fail to be on the lookout for what’s happening around us.”

“Unimaginably strange things.” Could they be too unimaginably strange to reveal to the American public? If Pete Buttigieg were elected president, would he accept that it was because a majority of voters are part of his “curious species” and want to know “what’s going on around us” too?

An unimaginable strange thing that became a reality?

Pete Buttigieg was one of the most open to the UFO questions of the candidates sitting down for the Sun Editorial board meetings and the inevitable questions from reporter Daymond Steer. (You can watch the full clip here.) However, if Mayor Pete is too young for your taste in presidents, longshot candidate Joe Stesak, a retired three-star Navy admiral who commanded an aircraft battle group in Afghanistan and Iraq before serving two terms in Congress representing Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives, had an admiral-like blunt answer to the same question about what Fravor saw. (Stesak dropped out of the race last month but he can still be a write-in.)

“If you’re an F-18 pilot, you’re nobody’s fool.”

The New Hampshire primary isn’t until February 11th and more candidates will be in the hotseat. Stay tuned.

06-01-2020 om 12:15 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:UFOs , UAPs , USOS

The Mysterious Case of the UFO Attack at Falcon Lake

One of the most dramatic and harrowing supposed UFO encounters in not only Canadian history, but that of anywhere else, began in 1967 in the remote wilderness of a place called Falcon Lake, Manitoba, located just about 150 kilometers east of the city of Winnipeg. It was here in this peaceful wilderness where on May 20, 1967, industrial mechanic and Polish immigrant Stefan Michalak was out prospecting for mineral deposits. At one point he seemed to have found what he was looking for, a rich vein of quartz, but as he was getting ready to try and go about staking a claim on it a very bizarre sequence of events would unfold that would change his life forever, and would go on to become one of the most intriguing cases of a purported UFO attack ever.

As he scoped out the area, Michalak was startled by a gaggle of geese suddenly alighting into the sky with some commotion, which he followed skyward until his eyes fell upon an otherworldly sight hovering above. He says that the geese passed in front of two large, oval or cigar-shaped objects in the air surrounded by a reddish glow, and that one of these began to descend as he looked on in awe to land on a nearby flat shelf of rock, where it seemed to morph into a disc-like shape right before his startled eyes. As the strange object did this, the other craft allegedly ascended into the sky to disappear, leaving Michalak alone with the glowing disc that had landed only about 45 meters away from him.

The witness would claim that he had warily approached the curious sight, and as he did so a hatch would open on the side of the object as the glow subsided to reveal a metallic surface. He claimed that the opening belched forth a smell not unlike sulphur, and that a motorized whirring noise could be heard emanating from within, as well as the glare from a bright light. He still crept closer, and says that he could hear what sounded vaguely like voices echoing about within. Michalak allegedly called out to whoever it was, but there was no reply. The multilingual Michalak even tried calling out in Polish, Russian, and German, thinking that this was a manmade craft, but met with only that unearthly machine hum each time. Where as most people would have probably called it a day and gotten out of there with haste, Michalak was so curious that he moved ever closer to the craft, each call out to the occupants unanswered, until he was purportedly standing right at the portal that had opened in the craft, and it was here where things would get truly bizarre.

After taking a peek within to see various flashing lights, panels of some sort, all bathed in a purplish glow, he reached out to touch the side of the object to find it extremely hot to the touch, causing him to withdraw his hand in surprise. Inspecting his glove, he apparently found that it had been actually melted, and as he stared at his hand in bafflement the whole of the craft then began to rattle and shake. As this was happening, the now frightened man says he was struck in the chest by what felt like a stream of very hot air emitted from within the craft, which sent him sprawling back away from the disc. The bizarre craft then began to lift off the ground to hover over him, before shooting off over the trees into the sky to leave Michalak feeling nauseous to the point that he vomited where he stood. In his head he could feel an intense pain building, as well as an intense burning in his chest area, and he knew that something was very wrong. Wrapping himself close with his jacket, he meandered off towards the road and towards civilization, constantly vomiting along the way and eventually stumbling into the the parking lot of the Falcon Motor Hotel.

When hotel staff found him, he was delirious and rambling, disheveled and wild-eyed and still vomiting, and it was at first thought that he was just very drunk. Michalak managed to make it on his own on a bus back to Winnipeg, where he was whisked off to the hospital and things would get even stranger still. When examined it was revealed that he had a series of burn marks that formed a grid-like pattern over his chest, as well as signs of what appeared to be radiation sickness, the causes unknown. Michalak’s son, Stan Michalak, would later say of seeing his father in this state:

I recalled seeing him in bed. He didn’t look good at all. He looked pale, haggard. When I walked into the bedroom there was a huge stink in the room, like a real horrible aroma of sulphur and burnt motor. It was all around and it was coming out of his pores. It was bad. I was very afraid. My dad had been injured and I didn’t know anything about it.

Stefan Michalak after the incident

As soon as the man was lucid enough to give his version of events, the story hit the news and a UFO sensation was born. Apparently there was quite a lot of interest from the military and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and Royal Canadian Air Force at he time, with numerous alleged searches of the area of the incident using tracker dogs and aircraft, and even Michalak himself was recruited to join in the sweep when he was feeling better. They apparently found the remains of Michalak’s scorched and melted glove, as well as some of his tools and allegedly a circular area on the rock that was strangely devoid of moss or any vegetation and which possessed soil high in radiation readings and some odd pieces of melted metal within the cracks of the rock, also radioactive in nature.

In the meantime the tale was really launching itself into local legend, and there was by many accounts a pronounced military presence in the area for weeks, with helicopters hovering above at all hours. There was also a deluge of reporters and curiosity seekers gravitating towards the Michalak home, and in the meantime there was also an intense investigation going on into the claims he had made. There were some efforts at the time to discredit Michalak, trying to paint him as a town drunk who had hallucinated the whole thing or completely fabricated it, but this didn’t stick and seems to have been wholly invented just to make him look crazy. He had been a military policeman in his former years and was known as an honest and responsible upstanding citizen, with no history of telling tall tales, by all accounts not someone who would be making these kinds of stories up or showing up stumbling about ranting about flying saucers. There was also the physical evidence left behind, which could not be easily explained and which was confirmed by doctors. UFO researcher Chris Rutkowski, who has written the definitive book on the whole incident, When They Appeared: Falcon Lake 1967: The inside story of a close encounter, has said of this:

Michalak certainly wasn’t an alcoholic. He didn’t drink to excess but he drank socially. To suggest that having a few drinks or even three or four drinks the night before his experience would make him imagine something to the point where he would be physically burned and leave radioactive debris behind is, I think, quite a quantum leap.

We have a witness who was judged by a psychiatrist to not fabricate stories. A person who was a good member of society holding a good job, a background in the military himself, and no reason to perpetrate such a hoax at all. He maintained until he died that this is what happened to him. He did not have a history of seeing aliens around every corner, like so many contactees and abductees maintain these days in their own stories. This was a very unusual experience that happened to him and he was as puzzled as anyone. Whether it was something from outer space or a military vehicle… there’s no question something happened. It’s a mystery. It’s quite fascinating. I knew the family quite well, and he wasn’t the type of guy to make up stories like this.

Michalak’s son would agree, having said, “If Dad hoaxed this — remember we’re talking about a blue-collar, industrial mechanic — if he hoaxed it then he was a freakin’ genius.” There were also the findings of official investigators and civilian researchers, who came to the conclusion that there was no explanation for the incident, the radiation, or what happened to Michalak, and to this day the Canadian Department of National Defence considers the case to be officially unsolved. Michalak himself would adamantly stand by his story right up until his death in 1999, so what happened to him? Was this just all some sort of elaborate hoax or something else, and if so, what? One idea is that he saw not aliens or extraterrestrials, but rather some sort of terrestrial experimental aircraft, and indeed Michalak himself thought this could be the case, never really specifically insisting that what he saw was aliens. His son Stan has said of this:

If you asked him what it was he saw, he could describe it in intimate detail but he would never say, ‘Oh, it was definitely extraterrestrials,’ because there was no evidence to prove that. He might ask, ‘What do you think I saw?’ but right up until he died, his story never changed one iota — nothing about it or how he told it. I’m not so close-minded that I can’t entertain the possibility that it’s otherworldly. I can’t discount that. But without specific evidence to show me that it is, I don’t know. What I can tell you is that I’m an aviation fanatic, a huge aviation buff, and I am very familiar with how aviation technology has advanced in the past 50 years. And there was nothing even close to that in the works anywhere at that time.

What are we dealing with here? Was this an extraterrestrial presence? Was it some type of top secret military craft? Was it all a tall tale, and if so how did he fake the injuries and the physical evidence that was allegedly found at the site? Or was it something else altogether? What caused those grid-like burns on his chest and was this some sort of attack directed at him? These are questions we still don’t have the answers to, and the case of the Falcon Lake Incident has become one of the great mysteries of the landscape of UFO lore.

06-01-2020 om 12:07 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:UFOs , UAPs , USOS

The Rendlesham Forest UFO Saga: A Soviet Connection?

In a new article at his website titled “Codename Rendlesham,” Dr. David Clarke addresses the matter of the famous Rendlesham Forest UFO landing of December 1980. As Dave notes: “Next Christmas marks the 40th anniversary of the story that began on Boxing Day morning, 26 December 1980.” He also says: “As the legend moves into its fourth decade there is an ever growing cast of story-tellers and alleged experiencers, all armed with rival versions of the story. Each personality has their own group of followers ready to engage in flame-wars to win the credibility battle with rival story-tellers.” The main thrust of Dave’s article, however, is a forthcoming documentary on the still-mysterious affair: Codename Rendlesham. Dave says of this production: “It avoids the more sensational tropes that have emerged more recently, particularly those concerning alleged cover-ups and contactee stories. Instead, it concentrates on the how the story first emerged and how it developed, placing factual evidence under a withering examination.”

With that all said, and the fact that in less than one year from now we’ll be celebrating the 40th anniversary of the incident, I figured I would get the wheels moving. It’s time to share certain data with you that perhaps will be expanded upon by someone as Rendlesham gets closer and closer to forty. It was right around Christmas 1980 when one of the most significant of all UFO encounters occurred in Rendlesham Forest, Suffolk, England – adjacent to the twin-Royal Air Force Bases, Woodbridge and Bentwaters. A memo prepared the Deputy Base Commander, Lieutenant Charles Halt reveals the astonishing facts:

“Early in the morning of 27 Dec 80 (approximately 0300L) two USAF security police patrolmen saw unusual lights outside the back gate at RAF Woodbridge. Thinking an aircraft might have crashed or been forced down, they called for permission to go outside the gate to investigate. The on-duty flight chief responded and allowed three patrolmen to proceed on foot. The individuals reported seeing a strange glowing object in the forest. The object was described as being metallic in appearance and triangular in shape, approximately two to three meters across the base and approximately two meters high. It illuminated the entire forest with a white light. The object itself had a pulsing red light on top and a bank(s) of blue lights underneath. The object was hovering or on legs. As the patrolmen approached the object, it maneuvered through the trees and disappeared. At this time the animals on a nearby farm went into a frenzy. The object was briefly sighted approximately an hour later near the back gate.” The notable encounter remains unresolved to this day.

In case you may not know, an equally controversial affair occurred just two nights after the Rendlesham events went down – and on the other side of the world, specifically Texas, USA. When, shortly before 9:00 p.m., Vickie Landrum, her grandson, Colby, and Betty Cash exited the restaurant where they had just eaten, they couldn’t imagine what was just around the corner. As they headed towards the town of Huffman, they were terrified by the sudden sight of an unknown object in the sky. Worse, it was descending on a flight-path guaranteed to ensure it landed on the road they were on. As they got closer, they could see the aerial thing appeared to be in flames and shaped not unlike a diamond. It reached a perilously low level of around twenty-five feet, something which ensured a screeching of brakes and the car brought to a shuddering standstill. The interior temperature of the car suddenly reached intolerable levels. The three jumped out of the vehicle and could only stare in awe and fear. Then, out of the blue, around two dozen, double-rotor helicopters were on the scene, clearly intent on correlating the UFO. Or, perhaps they were escorting it. Cash was sure they were CH-47 Chinooks. They watched as both the UFO and the helicopters left the area and were finally lost from sight.

Within days, all three fell sick: nausea and vomiting were at the forefront. Betty Cash was the one affected most of all – which may be explainable by the fact that she was the one member of the group who got closest to the object. Her hair started to fall out, her skin was covered with pustules and blisters, and the nausea got worse. Despite attempts to force the U.S. government to come clean on what went down, there was nothing but denial after denial from the authorities. The case is a puzzling one, with some UFO researchers believing the three encountered a real UFO, while others suspect they were unfortunate enough to cross paths with a top secret, nuclear-powered, prototype aircraft that was in deep trouble.

It’s interesting to note that the witnesses at Huffman reported seeing multiple helicopters surrounding the craft. It just so happens that RAF Woodbridge had an interesting helicopter-based connection attached to it. As Captain John E. Boyle of the U.S. Air Force revealed to me in 1988: “In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the 67th Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron stationed at RAF Woodbridge [provided] standby rescue coverage for the American space flights. Of course, they were never needed to provide emergency rescue actions, but at the time, the unit was trained and available to rescue astronauts with their HH-53 and HC-130 aircraft. In early 1988, the 67th ARRS was re-designated as part of the 39th Special Operations Wing, their primary mission changing from that of rescue to supporting U.S. Special Operations forces. Their secondary mission remains that of search and rescue and they would provide any assistance necessary in future space missions.”

So, we have two near-legendary UFO-themed events, which, time-wise, were very closer to each other. Also, the ARRS was still in place when the Rendlesham incident occurred. This brings us to the possibility of a Soviet connection. Ian Ridpath notes: “At 21.07 on the evening of 1980 December 25 (i.e. a mere six hours before the supposed UFO landing in Rendlesham Forest) the Russian Cosmos 749 rocket re-entered over north-west Europe and was widely reported as a UFO.” Was something Russian secretly retrieved in the forest? Let’s see what Jenny Randles, who has written a number of books on the Rendlesham case, has to say about this. In her 1998 book, UFO Crash Landing? Friend or Foe?, Randles says: “It seems inconceivable that if a Soviet nuclear motor was retrieved from Rendlesham Forest several days earlier it would have been ferried across the Texas countryside in this way. However, the links between the cases are stunning. The shape is very like that described by Burroughs and Penniston. Then there is the radiation.” And as Randles is careful to note: “The NASA-trained Aerospace Rescue and Recovery squadron at Woodbridge links with the main NASA HQ near Huffman [italics mine].”

Perhaps, someone reading this article will feel up to the challenge and pursue this theory – and the intriguing threads – to a much greater degree, in time for the 40th anniversary in December 2020. It’s time to get moving; there’s a little less than twelve months to go.

06-01-2020 om 11:59 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:UFOs , UAPs , USOS

100% Proof That Aliens Once Lived On Mars Surface, UFO Sighting News.

100% Proof That Aliens Once Lived On Mars Surface, UFO Sighting News.

Date of discovery: Jan 6, 2020

Location of discovery: Mars

Source photo:

http://www.gigapan.com/gigapans/219270

I found a few ancient alien artifacts on the surface of Mars in this recent photo. The first object looks to be a disk-like jar with another broken disk on top of it. I added color to make it sand out up above. I also found a fossil tooth. Fossil means turned to stone over the ages and teeth are the most frequently found fossils due to their extreme hardness to start out with. Also I found a face in the side of a stone that looks more bear like than human. This is absolute proof that aliens once lived on Mars surface.

Scott C. Waring

06-01-2020 om 11:37 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:Ruins, strange artifacts on other planets, moons, ed ( Fr, EN, NL )

Haunting 'Devil Face' appears in smoke of wildfires, Victoria, Australia

Devastated dairy farmer Craig Calvert, who spent 13 hours fighting fires threatening his property in Victoria, has shared an eerie image of the blaze which depicts "a big devil face" in the billowing smoke.

The picture was taken in the Gippsland fires near Sarsfield, Victoria. The demonic apparition in right hand corner of the blaze can’t be unseen.

Craig Calvert told Sunrise: "I'm not really into hokey pokey spooky stuff but there's a big devil face right in the fire".

06-01-2020 om 11:13 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:MYSTERIES ( Fr, Nl, E)

05-01-2020

Contactee Claims That Our Moon Is Artificial And Brought Here By Aliens From Other Galaxy

Contactee Claims That Our Moon Is Artificial And Brought Here By Aliens From Other Galaxy

Alex Collier is one of the most famous characters who claim to have made contact with an alien race. And his statements do not end here.

Alex claims that the Moon is an artificial construction and was brought to orbit around Earth by the gray aliens at the order of the reptilian masters.

In case you didn’t already know, the reptilians are supposed to be our ancestors.

I mean the creators of the human race. Alex Collier and Job Robinson claim that they have come into contact with an alien civilization.

In the video below you can see widely the statements of the two and the conversations, they had with this alien race.

Watch the following video and see for yourself:

{ https://trueblog.net/ }

05-01-2020 om 23:19 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:MYSTERIES ( Fr, Nl, E)

Former Air Force medic: there are extraterrestrial labs all over the world

Emery Smith, former Air Force field medic, is changing the course of UFO history. He claims to have autopsied about 3,000 different types of ET humanoids.

He was also a HAZMAT instructor, EMT, terrorist negotiation coordinator, flight medic specialist, surgical technologist, expert marksman, chemical warfare specialist, biotech warfare specialist, and led DECON response units.

“The ships of extraterrestrials can also change their shape, even when the aliens are inside them. They can travel very fast and also disappear from other parts of the universe.”, in the video says Emery Smith.

In 1990, after going through junior military programs in high school, Emery became active duty in the USAF, stationed at Lackland AFB in San Antonio, Texas. He went on to Kirtland AFB in New Mexico, where he worked on and off-base at UNM Hospital as a surgical assist and paramedic.

Some of his most interesting experiences came when he worked in underground compartmentalized laboratories, where he autopsied over 3,000 “alien” specimens, including approximately 1200 nearly intact bodies.

He said that he personally dealt with many aliens, claiming that these creatures come in our dimension as light and can change their shape and density with ease.

“The ships of extraterrestrials can also change their shape, even when the aliens are inside them. They can travel very fast and also disappear from other parts of the universe.”, in the video says Emery Smith.

ALSO TO READ

“It seems as though these aliens have learned how to teleport and make their bodies light.”

The full interview with Emery Smith watch below:

{ https://www.disclose.tv/ - https://anomalien.com/ }

05-01-2020 om 23:08 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )

What is the asteroid belt?

Posted by Andy Briggs in SPACE

The asteroid belt is a region of our solar system – between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter – in which many small bodies orbit our sun. Here’s a good basic introduction.

Here is the inner part of our solar system, from the sun to the 5th planet, Jupiter. In this illustration, the asteroid belt is the white donut-shaped cloud.

Image via Wikimedia Commons.

Meet the asteroid belt, a place in our solar system where small bodies – mostly rocky and some metallic – orbit the sun. These little worlds are also sometimes called minor planets. They move mostly between the orbits of the fourth planet Mars and fifth planet Jupiter. Astronomers once thought they were all that was left of a rocky planet, long ago torn apart by Jupiter’s gravity. Now, most astronomers now think the asteroid belt is just rubble that Jupiter’s gravity prevented from ever coalescing into a planet. Thus the asterids are likely simply leftovers from the ordinary processes that created our solar system, 4.6 billion years ago.

Their name, asteroid, means starlike. They got this name because – in the early 1800s, when the first asteroids were discovered – astronomers thought they looked like stars. And yet their movement in front of the star background, caused by their nearness to us, showed them to be something other than stars.

Measurements of the amount of material in the asteroid belt suggest it contains about enough material – combined together – to form a body smaller than Earth’s moon.

Comprising an estimated one to two million asteroids more than half a mile (about a km) across, plus untold millions of smaller ones, the asteroid belt contains objects which vary wildly in size. The smallest are probably no bigger than pebbles. The biggest object in the asteroid belt was also the first one to be discovered, in the year 1801. It is 1 Ceres, which measures some 587 miles (945 km). Ceres is now classified as a dwarf planet, by the way, by the International Astronomical Union.

EarthSky 2020 lunar calendars are available! Nearly sold out. Order now!

A round world with many craters. In one crater, there are 2 very bright spots.

This orthographic projection shows the largest body in the asteroid belt – 1 Ceres, discovered in 1801 – now categorized as a dwarf planet by the International Astronomical Union. Ceres is one of several main-belt objects visited by spacecraft. This composite image is from the Dawn spacecraft, still the only earthly spacecraft to have orbited first one body in our solar system (Vesta, 2011 to 2012), then gone on to orbit a second (Ceres, arrived 2015). See the 2 bright spots in Occator Crater? They spawned speculation about alien life on Ceres, but turned out to be salt deposits. This image is made from views Dawn took during its low-altitude mapping orbit, at about 240 miles (385 km) above the surface.

Image via NASA.

Outer space is vast. And thus, despite there being many millions (possibly billions) of objects in the asteroid belt, the average distance between them is 600,000 miles (about a million km). This means that spacecraft can fly through the asteroid belt without colliding with any asteroids, although, obviously, a chance collision can never be ruled out completely. The asteroid belt is certainly nothing like the densely-packed asteroid fields depicted in fantasies like “Star Wars” and its ilk.

Standing on any asteroid in the belt, you would likely be unable to see any other asteroids, because of their distance.

The asteroid belt lies between 2.2 and 3.2 astronomical units (AU) from our sun. One AU is the distance between the Earth and sun. So the width of the asteroid belt is roughly 1 AU, or 92 million miles (150 million km).

Its thickness is similarly about 1 AU thick.

A slightly oblong, roundish rocky body with a lot of craters on it.

Here’s asteroid 4 Vesta – discovered in 1807 – the 2nd-biggest asteroid after Ceres. The Dawn spacecraft orbited Vesta from July 2011 to September 2012. A towering mountain at this asteroid’s south pole – more than twice the height of Mount Everest – is visible at the bottom of the image. The set of three craters known as the “snowman” can be seen at the top left.

Image via NASA.

The asteroid belt is often referred to as the “main” belt to distinguish it from other, smaller groups of asteroids in the solar system such as the Lagrangians (for example, Trojan asteroids orbiting in Jupiter’s orbit around the sun) and Centaurs in the outer solar system.

What was thought to be a homogeneous belt is now known to be slightly more complicated. There are different and distinct zones within the main belt asteroids, especially at its peripheries, where astronomers now recognize the Hungaria group at the inner edge and the Cybele asteroids at the outer. Toward the middle of the belt there is the highly-inclined Phocaea family.

In addition, astronomers have established that the age of asteroids in the main belt also varies. They’ve now classified several asteroid groupings by their age including the Karin family, a group of about 90 main-belt asteroids that share an orbit and are thought to have come from a single object an estimated 5.7 million years ago. And there is the Veritas family, from an estimated 8.3 million years ago. A very recent group is the Datura family, dating from just 530,000 years ago from a collision.

In order to be round, a body in space has to have enough internal mass to have strong-enough gravity to have pulled itself into the shape of a ball. Most asteroids don’t accomplish this, and thus they come in all sorts of shapes. Here is asteroid 433 Eros – discovered in 1898 – now famous as the 1st asteroid ever to be orbited by a spacecraft, NEAR Shoemaker, in 1998. This object is considered a main-belt asteroid: although its orbit crosses that of Mars, it doesn’t quite reach that of Earth. Yet it’s also considered a near-Earth asteroid … a subject for another day!

Image via NASA.

Bottom line: The asteroid belt is a region of our solar system – between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter – in which many small bodies orbit our sun.

05-01-2020 om 22:51 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ASTRONOMIE / RUIMTEVAART

Parker Solar Probe sheds light on our local star

Posted by Deborah Byrd in SPACE

Parker Solar Probe – now in its 4th orbit around the sun – can endure heat and radiation like no previous mission. This week, 4 new studies in Nature reveal new insights about the sun’s mysterious corona and solar wind.

Scientists who study the sun are buzzing this week about four new papers published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature on December 4, 2019. The papers are based on data collected by the record-setting Parker Solar Probe mission – launched in 2018 – during the spacecraft’s first two close sweeps past our parent star (late 2018 and early 2019). These early studies, the scientists say, have provided insights into the two fundamental questions the Parker Solar Probe mission was designed to answer. First, defying all logic, why does the sun’s outer atmosphere – or corona – become much, much hotter the farther it stretches from the sun’s surface? Second, what accelerates the solar wind – a supersonic stream of protons, electrons and other particles – emanating from the corona and permeating the entire solar system?

A December 4, 2019, statement from scientists at the University of Michigan – who work with one of the instruments aboard the Parker Solar Probe – explained:

Both questions have ramifications for how we predict, detect and prepare for solar storms and coronal mass ejections that can have dramatic impacts on Earth’s power grid and on astronauts.

Nour E. Raouafi, project scientist for Parker Solar Probe at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, which built and manages the mission for NASA, added in a separate December 4 statement:

The sun has fascinated humanity for our entire existence. We’ve learned a great deal about our star in the past several decades, but we really needed a mission like Parker Solar Probe to go into the sun’s atmosphere. It’s only there that we can really learn the details of these complex solar processes.

And what we’ve learned in just these three solar orbits alone has changed a lot of what we know about the sun.

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Animated illustration of a white circle on blue with gently waving threadlike wisps around it.

Isn’t this beautiful? It’s an illustration of our sun – our local star – and its outer atmosphere, or corona, extending into space. Mysteriously, the corona is hotter than the sun’s surface. It releases the solar wind, a stream of charged particles that sometimes affects earthly satellites and power grids. Space scientists launched the Parker Solar Probe to study both the corona and solar wind.

Image via NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Lisa Poje/Genna Duberstein.

Justin Kasper of the University of Michigan, who serves as principal investigator for Parker’s Solar Wind Electrons Alphas and Protons (SWEAP) instrument suite. He led one of the new studies and is co-author of two others. In their statement, these scientists said that the Parker Solar Probe revealed that the sun’s rotation or spin on its axis – completing a single spin only once every 27 days at its equator – has an impact on the solar wind much farther away than previously thought. They already knew that – near the sun – the sun’s magnetic field pulls the solar wind in the same direction that the sun spins. Farther from the sun, at the distance the spacecraft measured in these first encounters, they had expected to see, at most, a weak signature of that rotation. However, Kasper said:

To our great surprise, as we neared the sun, we’ve already detected large rotational flows – 10 to 20 times greater than what standard models of the sun predict.

So we are missing something fundamental about the sun, and how the solar wind escapes.

This has huge implications. Space weather forecasting will need to account for these flows if we are going to be able to predict whether a coronal mass ejection will strike Earth, or astronauts heading to the moon or Mars.

See a video: How does the solar wind affect Earth?

Inner planet orbits with green oval trajectory, one end close to sun, and many red lines inside it.

Parker Solar Probe’s location with respect to Mercury, Venus and Earth on December 3, 2019. The craft completed its 3rd orbit around the sun on November 15. Its next milestone will be a Venus flyby on December 26.

Image via NASA/JHUAPL/Where is Parker Solar Probe?

Parker Solar Probe’s findings regarding the sun’s magnetic field – which is believed to play a role in the coronal heating mystery – were equally surprising, the scientists said. The new findings relate to what called Alfvén waves, which are waves that occur in a plasma (the sun is so hot that most of its gas exists in plasma form). Alfvén waves were detected in the solar wind long ago. Some researchers though they might be remnants of whatever mechanism is causing the mysterious heating of the sun’s outer atmosphere, or corona. Parker researchers were on the lookout for indications that might be the case, but found something unexpected. Kasper explained:

When you get closer to the sun, you start seeing these ‘rogue’ Alfvén waves that have four times the energy than the regular waves around them. They feature 300,000 mph velocity spikes that are so strong, they actually flip the direction of the magnetic field.

According to these scientists:

Those polarity-reversing velocity spikes offer another potential candidate for what may cause the corona to get hotter moving away from the sun.

That’s clearly an early result, but it gives space scientists something to be watching for as – aided by breakthrough technologies that let the craft endure heat and radiation like no previous mission – Parker Solar Probe continues to sweep closer and closer to the sun.

Box showing records held by Parker Solar Probe for fastest speed and closest to sun.

Image via Johns Hopkins University.

And sweeping close to the sun is, in fact, Parker Solar Probe’s job. It’ll ultimately come within 4 million miles of the sun’s surface.

The probe launched on August 12, 2018. On October 29 of that year, it broke its first record, coming closer to the sun than any other human-made object (passing within the previous record of 26.55 million miles from the sun’s surface, set by the German-American Helios 2 spacecraft in 1976).

As the Parker Solar Probe mission has progressed, the spacecraft has repeatedly broken its own records, coming closer and closer to the sun. Its most recent perihelion (closet point to sun) – perihelion #3 – was September 1, 2019. The next one – perihelion #4 – will be January 29, 2020. In 2024, the craft is expected to come within 4 million miles of the sun’s surface (3.83 million miles, or 6.1 million km). Click here for a timeline showing upcoming perihelions in the mission.

Data collected during the spacecraft’s first two solar orbits was released on November 12. This week, these four new papers are causing a stir.

And the Michigan scientists aren’t the only ones excited about the data from the Parker Solar Probe. Heliophysicists around the globe have a reason to be excited. For example, Joe Giacalone of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona – team member for another instrument aboard the probe (Integrated Science Investigation of the Sun) – commented to Jasmine Demers in an article in the Arizona Daily Star on December 2, 2019:

This is an exciting time to be a heliophysicist.

The data that is now publicly available comes from a region of space we have never sampled previously. With many brilliant scientists now poring through this amazing data set, new discoveries about our star are soon coming.

A spacecraft rushing along in what looks like a hot place!

Artist’s concept of the Parker Solar Probe sweeping close to the sun. At its closest to the sun – toward the end of its 7-year prime mission – Parker Solar Probe will come well within the mysterious solar corona, or outermost atmosphere, within 3.83 million miles of the solar surface.

Image via NASA: 10 Things to Know about Parker Solar Probe.

Bottom line: Parker Solar Probe – launched in 2018 and now in its 4th orbit around our local star – is designed to endure the sun’s heat and radiation like no previous mission. This week, 4 new studies in Nature – related to the solar wind and corona – have space scientists buzzing.

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NASA's Sun-Kissing Parker Solar Probe Is Lifting the Veil on Our Closest Star

By Mike Wall

The first results from the daring mission are in

An artist's depiction of NASA's Parker Solar Probe gathering data about the sun.

The sun is starting to give up some of its most closely guarded secrets.

The first science results are in from NASA's Parker Solar Probe (PSP), which has flown faster and closer to the sun than any other human-made object in history.

The initial PSP returns, which are reported in four papers published online today (Dec. 4) in the journal Nature, begin to lift the veil on Earth's star, which has remained surprisingly mysterious despite forever being the brightest light in our sky.

Related: NASA's Parker Solar Probe Mission to the Sun in Pictures

"These four papers show that, by going into an unexplored region of the solar system, the PSP has already made great discoveries," Daniel Verscharen, a researcher at the Mullard Space Science Laboratory at University College London, wrote in an accompanying "News and Views" piece in the same issue of Nature. Verscharen was not involved in any of the new studies.

Kissing the sun

The PSP launched in August 2018, on a $1.5 billion mission to help researchers better understand the inner workings of the sun.

Mission scientists are particularly interested in solving two long-standing puzzles: how the stream of particles flowing continuously from the sun, known as the solar wind, is accelerated to its tremendous velocities; and why the sun's outer atmosphere, or corona, is so much hotter than its surface. (Corona temperatures can top 2 million degrees Fahrenheit, or 1.1 million degrees Celsius. The solar surface is downright temperate by comparison, at 11,000 F, or 6,000 C.)

The PSP is tackling these questions by brazenly barreling into the corona itself. Once every five months or so, the probe zooms through the sun's sizzling atmosphere, getting unprecedented up-close looks at our star.

These closest approaches, or perihelion passages, have taken the PSP within 15 million miles (24 million kilometers) of the solar surface to date. Before this mission, the closest a probe had ever gotten to the sun was 26.55 million miles (42.73 million km) — a feat pulled off in 1976 by the Helios 2 craft, a joint effort of the United States and the former West Germany.

Helios 2 also set the record for the fastest speed relative to the sun, at 153,454 mph (246,960 km/h). This mark was broken by NASA's Juno Jupiter orbiter, which reached 165,000 mph (265,000 km/h) during its arrival at the gas giant in July 2016. But the PSP is now the speed king: During the spacecraft's first perihelion pass, on Nov. 6, 2018, the sun's powerful gravity accelerated the PSP to a top speed of 213,243 mph (343,181 km/h).

Conditions in the corona are extreme, of course, so the PSP is equipped with some heavy-duty armor: a 4.5-inch-thick (11.4 centimeters) carbon-composite shield, which protects the craft and its four science instruments from intense heat and radiation.

Those instruments are the Fields Experiment (Fields), which is measuring electric and magnetic fields and waves, among other things; the Integrated Science Investigation of the Sun (ISoIS), which is characterizing the electrons, protons and heavy ions that are accelerated to high speeds in the sun's atmosphere and beyond; the Wide-field Imager for Solar Probe (WISPR), a set of telescopes imaging the corona and environs; and the Solar Wind Electrons Alphas and Protons (SWEAP) investigation, which is studying the most abundant constituents in the solar wind (electrons, protons and helium ions).

The four new papers report what these instruments observed during the PSP's first two perihelion passes, which occurred in November 2018 and April 2019.

Related: NASA's Parker Solar Probe Sun Mission Explained (Infographic)

Click here for more Space.com videos...

Tracing the "slow" solar wind to its source

One of the studies, for example, found that Fields is starting to get the goods on the "slow" solar wind, a component of the stream that never exceeds about 1.1 million mph (1.8 million km/h). "Slow" is a relative term here; the "fast" solar wind zips along at about twice that velocity.

Scientists already knew that the fast solar wind originates in large coronal "holes" — patches where the outer atmosphere is considerably cooler and thinner than normal — near the sun's poles. And the data from Fields suggest that the slow wind is coming from coronal holes as well, but from smaller ones near the solar equator.

Fields also observed surprising reversals in the solar magnetic field flowing past the spacecraft: The field sometimes flipped its orientation 180 degrees and then, within seconds or minutes, flipped back again.

"These switchbacks are probably associated with some kind of plasma jets," study lead author and Fields principal investigator Stuart Bale, a physics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said in a statement. "My own feeling is that these switchbacks, or jets, are central to the solar wind heating problem."

Data from SWEAP, meanwhile, indicate that such reversals are "travelling S-shaped bends in the field lines coming from the sun," as Verscharen put it, and that the flips are boosting the speed of the solar wind.

Findings from ISoIS help flesh out this emerging picture. The instrument's data show that it takes energetic solar particles longer than previously expected to reach the PSP, perhaps because they're traveling along the surprisingly S-shaped field lines.

ISoIS has also detected multiple particle bursts that aren't dramatic enough to be noticed by instruments here on Earth.

"It's amazing — even at solar minimum conditions, the sun produces many more tiny energetic particle events than we ever thought," David McComas of Princeton University, ISoIS principal investigator and lead author of one of the new studies, said in a statement. (Solar activity waxes and wanes on an 11-year cycle, and our star is currently in a relatively inactive phase.)

"These measurements will help us unravel the sources, acceleration, and transport of solar energetic particles and ultimately better protect satellites and astronauts in the future," McComas added.

And WISPR is giving scientists a clearer picture of the sun, the corona and the complex, roiling region immediately surrounding our star. WISPR's images help put the information collected by the other instruments into proper context and also yield insights in their own right.

For example, the fourth new study reports, WISPR photos provide some evidence for a dust-free zone near the sun, which has been postulated but not yet directly detected. "The detailed images from the PSP also show spatial variations in the solar wind that are consistent with variations in the sun's magnetic field on its surface, and reveal small blobs of plasma that are ejected from the sun and form part of the young solar wind," Verscharen wrote.

Related: What's Inside the Sun? A Star Tour from the Inside Out

The best is yet to come

The solar-wind answer is a partial one at the moment, and it's still unclear how exactly the corona is heated so dramatically (though the new results provide some intriguing clues). But the PSP team has plenty of time to fill in the blanks, for these newly published results are just the beginning. The spacecraft is designed to continue studying the sun through 2025, and its perihelion passages will keep getting closer and closer, thanks to trajectory-sculpting flybys of Venus.

The PSP's final science orbit, for example, will take it within just 3.83 million miles (6.16 million km) of the solar surface and feature top speeds of about 430,000 mph (690,000 km/h).

And these future close approaches will become more frequent, because the PSP's path around the sun will shrink. The probe's orbital period is currently about 150 Earth days but will be 88 days by mission's end.

The length of that mission will allow the PSP team to study the sun at diverse stages of its 11-year activity cycle. So, the sun-kissing spacecraft should gather reams of interesting data that keep researchers busy for a long time to come.

"It is expected that PSP data will guide our understanding of the sun and the solar wind for many years," Verscharen wrote. "New models and theories will be motivated by the spacecraft’s discoveries, and this knowledge will be transferable to other stars and astrophysical plasmas throughout the universe."

This story was updated at 2 p.m. EST to include a statement from David McComas.

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

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The Oldest Copy of the First Illustrated Book Has Been Discovered in Egypt

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Categorie:ARCHEOLOGIE ( E, Nl, Fr )

Wow! More evidence for active volcanoes on Venus

Posted by Paul Scott Anderson in SPACE

We’ve known for some time that Venus has vast lava plains, fields of small lava domes, and large shield volcanoes. But does it still have active volcanoes? A new study involving lava flows on Venus suggests that, yes, it does.

Colored surface regions with raised bright red area in center.

New research confirms that volcanoes might be erupting on Venus even now. This image shows Idunn Mons, a volcanic peak on Venus, long suspected of being active. The colored overlay shows heat patterns derived from surface brightness data collected via ESA’s Venus Express spacecraft from May 2006 to the end of 2007.

Image via ESA/ NASA/ USRA.

Earth is one of several worlds in our solar system known to have active volcanoes. Now, a new study from Universities Space Research Association (USRA) confirms that – as has been conjectured before – cloud-covered Venus appears to be volcanically active as well.

It’s been known since the early 1990s that Venus has many volcanic features. NASA’s Magellan spacecraft found extensive lava flows beneath the perpetually cloudy atmosphere of Venus, but how old are they? That’s the unanswered question.

Thus, as yet, there’s still no smoking gun to prove that any Venus volcanoes are still active.

USRA announced its intriguing new findings on January 3, 2019. They come not from Venus, but from an earthly laboratory. The peer-reviewed paper was published the same day in Science Advances.

The new evidence stems from spacecraft data on lava flows on the surface of Venus, some of which, the researchers now estimate, may be no more than a few years old. The Venus Express orbiter – launched by the European Space Agency (ESA) in 2005 – continuously sent back science data from its polar orbit around Venus until 2014. It studied lava flows on Venus by measuring the amount of infrared light emitted from Venus’ surface during nighttime.

The data obtained were good enough to distinguish between fresher and older/altered lava flows, but the actual ages of the flows still weren’t well understood.

Justin Filiberto is the study’s lead author and a USRA staff scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Texas. To learn more about the ages of lava flows on Venus, he and his colleagues simulated conditions in the intensely hot and corrosive atmosphere of Venus in a laboratory. They wanted to see how different minerals might react and change over time, under these conditions, on Venus’ surface.

It turned out that olivine – abundant in basalt rock, which makes up about 90% of Venus’ surface – reacted very rapidly. Within only weeks, it became oxidized, that is, coated with two iron oxide minerals, magnetite and hematite. From the paper:

We obtained VNIR [visible to near-infrared] reflectance spectra of natural olivine that was altered and oxidized in the laboratory. We show that olivine becomes coated, within days, with alteration products, primarily hematite … Our results indicate that lava flows lacking VNIR features due to hematite are no more than several years old.

Therefore, Venus is volcanically active now.

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Tall glowing mountain against black background, lake-like yellow features at its base.

Maat Mons, a 5-mile-high (8-km-high) volcano on Venus, with lava flows. This perspective view is based on radar images from the Magellan spacecraft, which orbited Venus in the 1990s.

Image via NASA/ JPL/ Wikipedia.

Absolute confirmation of active volcanoes on Venus would be a major discovery. After all, Venus is the world next-inward in orbit around the sun. It’s very similar to Earth in size and density. If it doesn’t have active volcanoes, and Earth does, the question would be, why not?

But if it does have active volcanoes, then this discovery is extremely significant in studies of all the terrestrial rocky planets – not just Venus and Earth, but also Mercury and Mars – in our solar system. Filiberto commented in a statement:

If Venus is indeed active today, it would make a great place to visit to better understand the interiors of planets. For example, we could study how planets cool and why the Earth and Venus have active volcanism, but Mars does not.

Gray surface with long, narrow, sinuous channels and rough patches.

Radar image from Magellan of lava channels in the Lo Shen Valles region of Venus.

Image via NASA/ Goddard Space Flight Center/ Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Previous studies have also made the case for active volcanoes on Venus, including this one, published on June 28, 2015, in Geophysical Research Letters. According to James Head, a geologist at Brown University and one of the 2015 study’s co-authors:

We were able to show strong evidence that Venus is volcanically, and thus internally, active today. This is a major finding that helps us understand the evolution of planets like our own.

Another clue was the previous detection of upticks in sulfur dioxide (SO2) in the atmosphere of Venus in the 1970s and 1980s by the Pioneer Venus Orbiter. From the paper:

The behavior of SO2 and polar haze can be plausibly explained by episodic injection of SO2 into the cloud top regions, for example, by active volcanism.

This was also noted in the new paper:

This active volcanism is consistent with episodic spikes of sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere measured by both the Pioneer Venus Orbiter and the Venus Express, which could have been produced by the same eruption that formed the young lava flows.

Justin Filiberto of Universities Space Research Association (USRA) and Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI), the lead author of the new study.

Image via LPI.

Thus the new study now builds on earlier ones, and the case for active volcanoes on Venus becomes stronger and stronger. What will need to happen to confirm active volcanoes on Venus with absolute certainty? Filiberto said:

Future missions [to Venus] should be able to see … flows and changes in the surface and provide concrete evidence of its activity.

Future missions to Venus are currently on the drawing board and advocated by many researchers. They could provide more detailed data on the volcanoes, helping scientists learn their similarities to, and differences from, those on Earth.

Studies have suggested that Venus used to be more Earth-like, billions of years ago. Why did the two worlds diverge so radically, so that Earth is now livable, while Venus is perpetually cloud-enshrouded, with surface temperatures hot enough to melt lead?

It’s hoped that data from future spacecraft will help scientists understand why Venus and Earth evolved so differently.

Small rocks in two rows with text annotations. Rocks green on left, black on right.

Olivine crystals before and after alteration and oxidation, as seen in laboratory experiments duplicating Venus’ atmosphere. The rapid reaction suggests that similar lava flows on Venus are only a few years old.

Image via Science Advances.

Bottom line: A study by scientists at USRA provides new evidence that Venus is still volcanically active.

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Secret Space Whistleblower On Trump Space Force Secret Projects

COAST TO COAST AM – Pioneer in the development of ‘Exopolitics’, Michael Salla, shared evidence that the US Navy began its initial development work on a secret space program in the 1940s, signs that the Trump administration may be more open about secret space programs, as well as assorted whistleblower revelations on the ET presence.

Donald Trump doesn’t take the conventional route, he remarked, and as a businessman he may look at the information he’s exposed to regarding covert technologies, and try to maximize their potential in terms of putting Americans back to work.

Does President Donald Trump Know About Secret Projects in Outer Space?

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Categorie:MYSTERIES , Complot Theories, ed ( EN, FR, NL )

Russian KGB Secret Files of Races

Russian KGB Secret Files of Alien Races

“Many people have had prophetic warnings about the coming false rapture/alien invasion, I have had several myself. From what I have seen many millions are going to fall for it when it happens. This video shows a record of Alien Races from a KGB agent.

As far fetched as this sounds. It also sounds darn realistic and plausible. There could be many different intelligent races out there. We can’t possibly be alone. Cool & Mellow

The KGB, translated in English as Committee for State Security, was the main security agency for the Soviet Union from 1954 until its break-up in 1991. As a direct successor of preceding agencies such as the Cheka, NKGB, NKVD and MGB, the committee was attached to the Council of Ministers.

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Possible triangle UFO sighting above Whitestown, New York 2020

Another great 2020 UFO sighting! This footage of a possible triangle formations was filmed over Whitestown, NY on 3rd January.

Witness report:

2 triangle ufos changing shape. It was so strange I couldn’t beleive me eyes

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

UFO sightings across US 'will rise in 2020' with creation of Space Force

EXCLUSIVE: Dozens of UFO sightings in 2019 were attributed to a top-secret military space fleet by conspiracy theorists. And – with US President Donald Trump recently signing a bill to officially recognise the Space Force – some believe sightings could grow

By Simon Green Video News Editor

The establishment of the Space Force will likely lead to a “rise” in UFO sightings this year, a conspiracy theorist has claimed.

The Space Force – a brainchild of Donald Trump – will have the aim of maintaining the “freedom” of the US in space as well as sustaining space operations.

It was officially recognised last month when the US President signed the National Defense Authorization Act, which established a new space branch of the US Air Force.

There are those who believe the Space Force is already in existence, pointing to various military “craft” being spotted across the US in recent months

A UFO over Las Vegas

UFOs, like the one seen over Las Vegas recently, could be seen more frequently with the Space Force creation

(Image: YOUTUBE/UFOS OVER VEGAS)

Blake Cousins is one of those but has said the official creation of the sixth branch of the military will now lead to more UFO sightings.

The owner of YouTube channel thirdphaseofmoon told Daily Star Online: “Is the Space Force going to create more sightings out there?

“Will people interpret a UFO sighting as a Space Force programme?

“Yes, I think the UFO sightings will go on the rise.

“There’s so much experimentation going on with the military and the new technology that is going to be implemented with the new Space Force.

“They are already testing it before it actually comes into fruition next year.”

He went on to claim the Force “has been going on for decades”.

“The Space Force was created in the early 80s,” Blake added.

SPACE FORCE REVEALED?

“Now they’re going to go public because, in my opinion, they can’t hide it anymore.”

Following the signing of the NDA Act on December 21, Trump called space “the world’s newest warfighting domain.”

“Amid grave threats to our national security, American superiority in space is absolutely vital,” he said.

“And we're leading, but we're not leading by enough. But very shortly, we'll be leading by a lot.

“The Space Force will help us deter aggression and control the ultimate high ground."

{ https://www.dailystar.co.uk/ }

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Categorie:UFOs , UAPs , USOS

04-01-2020

SPACEX SATELLITES ARE NOW BEING MISTAKEN FOR UFOS—AND MAKING ASTRONOMERS RAGE

NASA image of light pollution

SPACEX SATELLITES ARE NOW BEING MISTAKEN FOR UFOS—AND MAKING ASTRONOMERS RAGE

Contributed by Elizabeth Rayne

It’s not aliens, but short of a planetary takeover by tall greys, it’s something worse.

Starlink was intended to bring affordable internet to millions of people, many in remote areas, but Elon Musk obviously didn’t foresee the side effects. The light pollution that has already plagued astronomers since 120 of what are essentially, at least to a scientist, fake stars were released into low-Earth orbit. Now it just got to be even more of a headache. Not only is the light from these satellites getting in the way of observations, but they are apparently shining bright enough to be mistaken for UFOs.

MORE ELON MUSK

For whoever doesn’t keep up with SpaceX, this has come as something of a shock. Montana residents recently reported sightings of what they thought were unidentified flying objects to their local news outlets after spotting a train of Starlink satellites that could also be seen from Illionis, Iowa and Michigan in the past week. This shouldn’t be much of a surprise. When the pseudo-constellations were first launched into the night sky in May, Europe experienced a breakout of UFO sightings.

There are reasons this “UFO” phenomenon is more serious than that infamous radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds, which terrified listeners into thinking Halloween 1938 was the last day of their lives before an alien invasion. Even scarier is that Starlink is looking to launch enough satellites for a total of 12,000. Light pollution could have serious repercussion on astronomical observations.

“The number of such satellites is projected to grow into the tens of thousands over the next several years, creating the potential for substantial adverse impacts to ground- and space-based astronomy,” said a statement released by the AAS not long after the Starlink constellations were first released.

Observatories operate at night for a reason. Unfortunately, light pollution is sabotaging the clear skies they need. When there is too much artificial light after dark, it scatters and creates a sort of artificial daylight in which stars and other celestial objects, many of which are already dim from Earth, do not appear as clearly as they would in total darkness. It also affects what astronomers can infer from spectroscopy, or the study of light spectra (bands of colors). Spectra emitted by objects in space can tell you their chemical compositions and temperatures. Redshift, or how far light from an object is shifted towards the red end of the spectrum, can give away how fast something is moving through the void. Artificial light really messes with what astronomers are already straining to see.

Never mind what Musk says in the tweet below—we already know the futuretech mogul stays optimistic even when a rocket explodes. At least he resolved to reduce the reflectivity on any upcoming Starlink satellites, but some astronomers feel that it’s already too late. It definitely won’t help when competitors start launching their own internet satellites.

In the realm of astronomy, things are being seen rather differently by those who are being blinded trying to do science. The last thing you want to see through the eye of a telescope seeking out dark energy are strange twinkling objects that are definitely not dark energy. Last month, these things gave massive headaches to astronomers running the Dark Energy Survey's Dark Energy Camera (DECam) at the Cerro Tololo Observatory in Chile. Dark Energy Survey astronomer Clara Martinez-Vazquez tweeted about how 19 of these satellites disrupted observations for over 5 minutes.

“[Negative] impacts could include significant disruption of optical and near-infrared observations by direct detection of satellites in reflected and emitted light; contamination of radio astronomical observations by electromagnetic radiation in satellite communication bands; and collision with space-based observatories,” the AAS statement also mentioned.

That isn’t really what you want when you’re searching for galaxies swarming with dark matter using an ultra-sensitive camera that images vast areas of the sky in visible and near-infrared light. More light is the last thing astronomers need when peering billions of years into the past of faraway galaxies in order to find out what they were like at the dawn of the universe. DECam is equipped with five filters that each capture images in a different color of light. What happens when man-made lights invade those images? As Martinez-Vazquez said, not cool.

The Starlink constellations must be a bummer to alien hunters who are getting excited over mysterious lights that are coming from no other planet but our own. Who knows if too many shiny things in the sky could be drowning out a message from real aliens.

(via Gizmodo)

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

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Scientists Have Calculated How Long It'll Take to Reach Distant Stars

Are we there yet?

A team of scientists have calculated how long it would take four

operating spacecraft toreach the nearest star.

The researchers compared the predicted paths of four spacecraft to

the paths of nearby stars, as measured by the Gaia space telescope, to

see where and when they might overlap.

According to their work, posted to the online pre-print server arXiv, it

would take about 90,000 years for Pioneer 10 to swing within striking

distance of a nearby star.

The intrepid Voyager 1 and 2 spacecrafts were launched in 1977, and despite having a roughly 12-year mission lifespan, are still hurtling through space and returning data to eager scientists on Earth. They’ve broken through barrier that protects our solar system and are now zipping through the interstellar medium along with Pioneer 10 and 11.

But how long might it take them, or another spacecraft, to actually reach another star system?

A team of scientists—Coryn Bailer-Jones of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Switzerland and Davide Farnocchia of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory—have done the calculations. Essentially, the pair found a way to chart how long it would take a spacecraft to get from our humble solar system to the next system over, according to a paper uploaded to the pre-print server arXiv.

In the quest for answers, Farnocchia and Bailer-Jones turned to the European Space Agency’s Gaia space telescope for help. For more than five years, Gaia has been gathering data on billions of stars, charting their orbits and path through the cosmos.

Using this data and data about the projected paths of both the voyager spacecrafts as well as Pioneer 10 and 11, which are careening toward the outer reaches of the solar system, the researchers were able to create a timeline of when these crafts might reach distant star systems. For those eager to visit other worlds, brace for some bad news.

RELATED STORIES

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Should they continue their transit, the four spacecraft will come within striking distance of approximately 60 stars in the next million years. And in that same amount of time, they’ll get even closer—try two parsecs, the equivalent of 6.5 light years—to about 10 stars.

Who will have the best shot at reaching and exploring a distant star? Pioneer 10 will swing within .231 parsecs the star system HIP 117795 in the Cassiopeia constellation in approximately 90,000 years. And how long before one of these spacecrafts is hijacked by the orbit of one of these stars? It’ll be about 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years.

You'll have some time to kill.

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

04-01-2020 om 22:22 geschreven door peter

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Did we accidentally allow tardigrades to colonize the Moon?

These hardy microscopic creatures crash landed on the lunar surface in April 2019 — and they might still be there.

By Passant Rabie

Our visits to the Moon reveal that our closest neighbor has no life on it — or, should we say had? Earlier this year, humans may have inadvertently left some on the lunar surface by accident.

On April 11 2019, the Israeli lander Beresheet crashed on the Moon with several thousand dehydrated tardigrades on board. The millimeter-long and eerily cute ‘water bears’ were part of a lunar library put together by the Arch Mission Foundation, a nonprofit intent on archiving everything on the planet just in case we need a back-up copy some day. Other items on board included a copy of the entire English-language Wikipedia, and a sample from India’s sacred Bodhi tree.

This is #2 on Inverse’s 20 wildest space discoveries of 2019

But despite the impact, scientists believe that if anything survived the crash intact, it may well have been the tardigrades. The microscopic creatures were sandwiched between micron-thin sheets of nickel and suspended in epoxy, a resin-like preservative that acts like a jelly — potentially enough to cushion their landing.

This wouldn’t be the first time tardigrades have survived space’s harsh conditions.

In September 2007, two species of dehydrated tardigrades were exposed to the dehydrating vacuum of space, solar radiation, or both on board NASA’s Foton-M3 mission. Back on Earth, after they were rehydrated, the tardigrades that were only exposed to the vacuum survived as though nothing had happened. Some of them even reproduced afterwards, according to a paper published in 2008.

But the chances of a little colony of water bears on the lunar surface are slim: The tardigrades are unlikely to come in contact with water on the Moon, meaning they will likely not be rehydrated.

Since the crash, the Arch Mission Foundation announced that it wants to send human DNA samples to the Moon. In September 2019, the group invited people to send swabs of their DNA to be preserved on the Moon (Unfortunately you don’t get to blast your cheek swab into space for free — the privilege of joining the dried-out tardigrades on the Moon cost $99.)

As 2019 draws to a close, Inverse is counting down our top 20 space stories from 2019. You can read them all here. Some are wild, some are mind-boggling, and others will change how you think about the universe. This has been #2. Read the original story here.

Media via Wikimedia

04-01-2020 om 22:05 geschreven door peter

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Saturn’s “Death-Star” Moon Mimas

Much has been learned about Saturn’s system of moons in recent decades, thanks to the Voyager missions and the more recent surveys conducted by the Cassini spaceprobe. Between its estimated 150 moons and moonlets (only 53 of which have been identified and named) there is no shortage of scientific curiosities, and enough mysteries to keep astronomers here on Earth busy for decades.

Consider Mimas, which is often referred to as Saturn’s “Death Star Moon” on a count of its unusual appearance. Much like Saturn’s moons Tethys and Rhea, Mimas’ peculiar characteristics represents something of a mystery. Not only is it almost entirely composed ice, it’s coloration and surface features reveal a great deal about the history of the Saturnian (aka. Cronian) system. On top of that, it may even house an interior, liquid-water ocean.

Discovery and Naming:

Saturn’s moon Mimas was discovered by William Herschel in 1789, more than 100 years after Saturn’s larger moons were discovered by Christian Huygens and Giovanni Cassini. As with all the seven then-known satellites of Saturn, Mimas’ name was suggested by William Herschel’s son John in his 1847 publication Results of Astronomical Observations made at the Cape of Good Hope.

Mimas takes its name from one of the Titans of Greek mythology, who were the sons and daughters of Cronus (the Greek equivalent to Jupiter). Mimas was an offspring of Gaia, born from the blood of the castrated Uranus, who eventually died during the struggle with the Olympian Gods for control of the universe.

A replica of the telescope which William Herschel used to observe Uranus.

Credit: Alun Salt/Wikimedia Commons

Size, Mass and Orbit:

With a mean radius of 198.2 ± 0.4 km and a mass of about 3.75 ×10¹⁹ kg, Mimas is equivalent in size to 0.0311 Earths and 0.0000063 times as massive. Orbiting Saturn at an average distance (semi-major axis) of 185,539 km, it is the innermost of Saturn’s larger moons, and the 8th moon orbiting Saturn. It’s orbit also has a minor eccentricity of 0.0196, ranging from 181,902 km at periapsis and 189,176 km at apoapsis.

With an estimated orbital velocity of 14.28 km/s, Mimas takes 0.942 days to complete a single orbit of Saturn. Like many of Saturn’s moons. Mimas rotation period is synchronous to its orbital period, which means it keeps one face constantly pointing towards the planet. Mimas is also in a 2:1 mean-motion resonance with the larger moon Tethys, and in a 2:3 resonance with the outer F Ring shepherd moonlet, Pandora.

Composition and Surface Features:

Mimas’ mean density of 1.1479 ± 0.007 g/cm³ is just slightly higher than that of water (1 g/cm³), which means that Mimas is mostly composed of water ice, with just a small amount of silicate rock. In this respect, Mimas is much like Tethys, Rhea, and Dione – moon’s of Saturn that are primarily composed of water ice.

Due to the tidal forces acting on it, Mimas is noticeably prolate – i.e. its longest axis is about 10% longer than the shortest, giving it its egg-shaped appearance. In fact, with a diameter of 396 km (246 mi), Mimas is just barely large and massive enough to achieve hydrostatic equilibrium (i.e. to become rounded in shape under the force of its own gravitation). Mimas is the smallest known astronomical body to have achieved this.

Mosaic image of Mimas, created from images taken by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, showing the Herschel crater in the center.

Credit: NASA/JPL

Three types of geological features are officially recognized on Mimas: craters, chasmata (chasms) and catenae (crater chains). Of these, craters are the most common, and it is believed that many of them have existed since the beginning of the Solar System. Mimas surface is saturated with craters, with every part of the surface showing visible depressions, and newer impacts overwriting older ones.

Mimas’ most distinctive feature is the giant impact crater Herschel, named in honor of William Herschel (the discoverer of Uranus, its moons Oberon, and Titania, and the Cronian moons Enceladus and Mimas). This large crater gives Mimas the appearance of the “Death Star” from Star Wars. At 130 km (81 mi) in diameter, Herschel’s is almost a third of Mimas’ own diameter.

Its walls are approximately 5 km (3.1 mi) high, parts of its floor measure 10 km (6.2 mi) deep, and its central peak rises 6 km (3.7 mi) above the crater floor. If there were a crater of an equivalent scale on Earth, it would be over 4,000 km (2,500 mi) in diameter, which would make it wider than the continent of Australia.

The impact that made this crater must have nearly shattered Mimas, and is believed to have created the fractures on the opposite side of the moon by sending shock waves through Mimas’s body. In this respect, Mimas’ surface closely resembles that of Tethys, with its massive Odysseus crater on its western hemisphere and the concentric Ithaca chasma, which is believed to have formed as a result of the impact that created Odysseus.

Color map of Mimas, created using data provided by the Cassini spaceprobe.

Credit: NASA/JPL/Caltech/SSI/LPI

Mimas’ surface is also saturated with smaller impact craters, but no others are anywhere near the size of Herschel. The cratering is also not uniform, with most of the surface being covered with craters larger than 40 km (25 mi) in diameter. However, in the south polar region, there are generally no craters larger than 20 km (12 mi) in diameter.

Data obtained in 2014 from the Cassini spacecraft has also led to speculation about a possible interior ocean. Due to the planet’s libration (oscillation in its orbit), scientists believe that the planet’s interior is not uniform, which could be the result of a rocky interior or an interior ocean at the core-mantle boundary. This ocean would likely be maintained thanks to tidal flexing caused by Mimas’ orbital resonances with Tethys and Pandora.

A number of features in Saturn’s rings are also related to resonances with Mimas. Mimas is responsible for clearing the material from the Cassini Division, which is the gap between Saturn’s two widest rings – the A Ring and B Ring. The repeated pulls by Mimas on the Cassini Division particles, always in the same direction, forces them into new orbits outside the gap.

Particles in the Huygens Gap at the inner edge of the Cassini division are in a 2:1 resonance with Mimas. In other words, they orbit Saturn twice for each orbit competed by Mimas. The boundary between the C and B ring is meanwhile in a 3:1 resonance with Mimas; and recently, the G Ring was found to be in a 7:6 co-rotation eccentricity resonance with Mimas.

This figure illustrates the unexpected and bizarre pattern of daytime temperatures found on Saturn’s small inner moon Mimas.

Credit: NASA/JPL/GSFC/SWRI/SSI

Exploration:

The first mission to study Mimas up close was Pioneer 11, which flew by Saturn in 1979 and made its closest approach on Sept. 1st, 1979, at a distance of 104,263 km. The Voyager 1 and 2 missions both flew by Mimas in 1980 and 1981, respectively, and snapped pictures of Saturn’s atmosphere, its rings, its system of moons. Images taken by Voyager 1 probe were the first ever of the Herschel crater.

Mimas has been imaged several times by the Cassini orbiter, which entered into orbit around Saturn in 2004. A close flyby occurred on February 13, 2010, when Cassini passed Mimas at a distance of 9,500 km (5,900 mi). In addition to providing multiple images of Mimas’ cratered surface, it also took measurements of Mimas’ orbit, which led to speculation about a possible interior ocean.

The Saturn system is truly a wonder. So many moons, so many mysteries, and so many chances to learn about the formation of the Solar System and how it came to be. One can only hope that future missions are able to probe some of the deeper ones, like what might be lurking beneath Mimas’ icy, imposing “Death Star” surface!

We’ve written many great articles about Mimas and Saturn’s moons here at Universe Today. Here’s one about the Herschel Crater, one about the first detailed look Cassini made, and one about it’s “Death Star” appearance.

Another great resource about Mimas is Solar Views, and you can get even more info from the Nine Planets.

We have recorded two episodes of Astronomy Cast just about Saturn. The first is Episode 59: Saturn, and the second is Episode 61: Saturn’s Moons.

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

04-01-2020 om 21:47 geschreven door peter

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There May Be Active Volcanoes on Venus: New Evidence

By Charles Q. Choi

They may have erupted in the last few years!

An artist's illustration of volcanoes on Venus. A new study suggests Venus may have harbor active volcanoes today, with eruptions in recent years.

Venus may still harbor active volcanoes, with eruptions taking place as recently as a few years ago, a new study finds.

Aside from Earth, the only other place known to host active volcanoes that spew lava is Jupiter's moon Io. Mars and Earth's moon once had active volcanoes, but they died long ago.

Still, there are hints that Venus might harbor active volcanoes, such as traces of sulfurous gases seen in its atmosphere. In addition, about a decade ago, scientists analyzing data from the European Space Agency's Venus Express probe suggested that some of the lava flows on Venus are less than 2.5 million years old, and possibly even less than 250,000 years old.

Related: The 10 Weirdest Facts About Venus

Specifically, in 2010, researchers found unusually high emissions of visible to near-infrared light from a number of sites on Venus. Surface regions that are old are expected to have lower emissions of such light after long exposure to weathering from Venus' hot, caustic atmosphere, so these patches of higher emissions hinted at recent lava flows.

However, the exact ages of these lava flows remain uncertain. This is because much is unknown about how quickly volcanic rocks alter in response to Venus' harsh atmosphere and how such changes influence emissions of visible to near-infrared light.

Hunting volcanoes on Venus

To see if lava flows seen on Venus are recent, scientists experimented with crystals of olivine, a green mineral commonly found in volcanic rock. They focused on how these crystals altered under conditions similar in some ways to what they might experience on the surface of Venus.

The researchers heated olivine along with regular Earth air in a furnace up to 1,650 degrees Fahrenheit (900 degrees Celsius) for up to a month. They found olivine became coated within days mostly with the reddish-black mineral hematite, which in turn made certain features of olivine more difficult to detect.

Since the ESA's Venus Express, which orbited Venus from 2006 to 2014, apparently could detect signs of olivine even from orbit, these new findings suggested that such olivine came from volcanic eruptions recently, as otherwise chemical reactions with Venus' atmosphere would have obscured it.

"This is the first time we may have seen active volcanism on another planet," study lead author Justin Filiberto, a planetary scientist at the Universities Space Research Association's Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, told Space.com.

The researchers are now following up on their research with other volcanic minerals baked in air more similar to Venus' atmosphere — that is, laden with carbon dioxide and sulfur. "The results with those are pretty much the same," Filiberto said.

The scientists detailed their findings online Jan. 3 in the journal Science Advances.

Follow Charles Q. Choi on Twitter @cqchoi.

Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

{ https://www.space.com/news }

04-01-2020 om 21:19 geschreven door peter

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Poetin onthult waarom Tweede Wereldoorlog is uitgebroken. Zoiets is ‘nog nooit eerder voorgekomen in de Russische geschiedenis’

Foto: Kremlin.ru CC BY 4.0 Wikimedia Commons

Poetin onthult waarom Tweede Wereldoorlog is uitgebroken. Zoiets is ‘nog nooit eerder voorgekomen in de Russische geschiedenis’

Tijdens een bijeenkomst van de GOS-landen in Sint-Petersburg presenteerde de Russische president Poetin historische documenten die laten zien waarom de Tweede Wereldoorlog is uitgebroken.

Zoiets is nog nooit eerder voorgekomen in de moderne Russische geschiedenis, meldde nieuwsprogramma Vesti.

Officieel waren de Poolse soldaten onze bevrijders, maar de documenten die Poetin had meegebracht, schetsen een ander beeld.

Mooi standbeeld

Zo schreef de Poolse ambassadeur in Duitsland Jozef Lipski op 20 september 1938 aan de Poolse minister van Buitenlandse Zaken Jozef Beck:

“Als Hitlers voorstel om Joden naar Afrika te deporteren kan rekenen op goedkeuring, plaatsen we een mooi standbeeld van hem in Warschau.”

Het is bekend dat Beck geregeld ontmoetingen had met nazi-functionarissen en met de Führer.

Het pact tussen Hitler en de Poolse staatsman Jozef Pilsudski was het eerste niet-aanvalsverdrag tussen een Europees land en nazi-Duitsland.

Het is in 1934 ondertekend.

Overzicht van de verdragen

Een jaar later, in 1935, kwam het Brits-Duitse vlootverdrag tot stand, dat Duitsland in staat stelde om weer slagschepen en onderzeeboten te bouwen.

Op 30 september 1938 sloten de Britse premier Chamberlain en Hitler ook onderling nog een verdrag.

Op 6 december 1938 sloten de Franse en Duitse minister van Buitenlandse Zaken, Bonnet en Ribbentrop, bovendien een verdrag in Parijs.

Daarnaast is op 22 maart 1939 in Berlijn een pact gesloten tussen de Litouwse minister van Buitenlandse Zaken en Ribbentrop.

Tot slot sloot Duitsland op 7 juni 1939 een niet-aanvalsverdrag met Letland.

Polen in de aanval

Uit de documenten blijkt dat Frankrijk Polen niet zag als een betrouwbare bondgenoot en bang was dat het land in de aanval zou gaan.

Polen weerhield Frankrijk er vervolgens van om haar bondgenoot Tsjechoslowakije te beschermen.

Het land dreigde bovendien op de Russen te vuren als zij te hulp zouden schieten.

De stukken laten zien dat de opdeling van Tsjechoslowakije door Polen en Duitsland extreem gewelddadig verliep.

Onvermijdelijk

Iconische beelden van een Poolse en Duitse soldaat die elkaar omhelzen en een Poolse soldaat die in de stad Tesin poseert met een Duitse helm, zul je vandaag de dag niet meer tegenkomen in de geschiedenisboeken.

Frankrijk en andere grootmachten lieten hun bondgenoten in de steek. Alleen de Sovjet-Unie was bereid om Tsjechoslowakije te helpen.

De Tweede Wereldoorlog was onvermijdelijk geworden.

Tijdens de Processen van Neurenberg werd de vraag gesteld of Duitsland Tsjechoslowakije zou hebben aangevallen als landen als Frankrijk en Groot-Brittannië hun bondgenoten in Praag hadden gesteund.

Niet sterk genoeg

Hierop antwoordde de Duitse veldmaarschalk Wilhelm Keitel: “Nee. We waren niet sterk genoeg.”

En zo kon het dat Polen in 1939 werd aangevallen met tanks die waren gemaakt door Skoda.

Volgens sommige bronnen werd één op de vier Duitse bommen geproduceerd in Tsjechische fabrieken.

Naar verluidt verslechterden de verhoudingen tussen Polen en Duitsland omdat de Poolse regering niet tegemoet wilde komen aan de wensen van Berlijn.

De westerse landen, waaronder Polen, hebben hun bevolking destijds voor de bus gegooid, aldus Poetin.

Bekijk de beelden van de bijeenkomst hieronder:

Vladimir Putin: Allied Powers Created Hitler’s Germany With Unfair Versailles Treaty After WWI!

While the 75th anniversary of the Soviet Union's victory over fascist Germany is approaching, the attempts to rewrite the history of World War II are becoming more insolent. As a result, it's nearly said that it's the USSR's fault that the war in Europe began. The topic was also raised during Vladimir Putin's press conference. The President announced that he's preparing a big article on this topic. And for now, he's working with an archive. On Friday, during an informal CIS summit in Saint Petersburg, the President introduced some documents to his colleagues

[Vesti]

04-01-2020 om 18:55 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:NineForNews. nl ( new ipv NIBURU.nl) (NL)

Massive Deep Underground Bases & Alien Close Encounters

A great amount of information that seems to indicate that not only are underground bases being manufactured but also that bases are perhaps being constructed under vast bodies of water. It’s likely that hundreds of these bases exist around the world, yet we don’t know about them, have no idea what they’re used for, and since they’re kept secret they obviously don’t want us to know.

I found this on line: “Author, researcher, and alien & military abductee Derek Tyler has performed hardcore research on the alien agenda conspiracy. He has had private conversations with insiders who spent their careers working in black ops, and has interviewed over three thousand abductees.” My spin? Even though he is a poor speaker, the information is right on the money.

The alien agenda is the long con that is running the surface of this planet, hence one of the needs for tunnels. Who is really in charge here? The visible matrix control system is run by the invisible control system. The invisible control system’s long term goal? Dramatically reduce the population and give the survivors a hive mind. CW

04-01-2020 om 17:54 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:MYSTERIES , Complot Theories, ed ( EN, FR, NL )

NASA Whistleblower Comes Clean About Poleshift - Are You Prepared?

As we enter the unknown…will you rise to the occasion or sit by the wayside. The decision is yours and yours alone. No one can tell you what to do. We will help you get informed and prepared for the inevitable.

Thank you for all your hard work on this. You are right and I’m 77 this year coming hard to believe it will come to this. According to your grafts Penna doesn’t look too bad although I could be down wind from Limerick Nuclear plant.

I will make a concerted effort to get a group of 8 like you said and create a plan for survival. How to create food water etc. this program was quite an eye opener. God bless you, again it is scary but could very possibly happen. Better to be prepared. Help others. Mary Christy

Mr. Greg Allison is currently the Program Manager for the Huntsville Alabama L5 Society (HAL5) High Altitude Lift-Off (HALO) Program, and as President of the High Altitude Research Corporation (HARC). In these capacities Mr. Allison is actively developing cheap access to space technologies. Mr. Allison has worked on the International Space Station Program for Grumman as a systems engineer specializing in robotics, for the Mevatec Corporation as an electrical power systems integration engineer, and for Teledyne Brown Engineering as a payload integration engineer for external space station experiments.

Mr. Allison is currently working for Hernandez Engineering as a safety and product assurance engineer on such projects as Orbital Space Plane, X-37 and HyTEx. Mr. Allison also studies means to defend Earth from asteroids, and the construction of large-scale space stations.

OTHER WHISTLE BLOWER STORIES, selected by peter2011

04-01-2020 om 17:45 geschreven door peter

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Halleys Comet Is Really An Alien Spaceship! NASA Source, UFO Sighting News.

Halleys Comet Is Really An Alien Spaceship! NASA Source, UFO Sighting News.

Date of discovery: Jan 4, 2020
Location of discovery: suns orbit
Source photo:

https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/asteroids-comets-and-meteors/comets/1p-halley/in-depth/

Guys, I hate to break it too you but Helley's comet is a an alien spaceship! The ship measures about 6.5 miles or 11km across. So thats no small ship. It passes earth in its wide orbit, and next time it will pass earth is in 41 years 6 months from today. Thats Jully 27, 2061. The ship is at an odd tilt putting the top of the ship towards its destination and its floor toward the tail the craft is making to disguise itself. Why hide? Because they don't want humans to be frightened of them, they just want to make a flyby to check on things and humanity as well. Nice of aliens to put so much effort into watching over us and worrying about us. Its always good to have friends in high places. :)
Scott C. Waring - Taiwan

04-01-2020 om 17:06 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

Huge bright UFO over St Augustine, Florida

This strange unidentified flying object was seen and recorded in the sky above St Augustine in Florida on 4th December 2019.

Witness report:

The attached video is edited in order to be able to send it but it actually starts earlier and shows a longer time period Of hovering. The attached video is actually the third time we observed this bluish White white ball in the south East sky. I have pictures of the other times earlier that week. The three times that we saw the white bluish light in our Southeast sky it would either completely turn off or disappear or like in this video the last time we saw it it moved and then disappeared. this was the last night we witnessed it and was also a night that we saw a very high and unusual amount of helicopters flying around our sunset evening.

In addition we have pictures and video of an orangish reddish light that appeared during the same two weeks Knightley in the southwest sky at about 45° hovered and then moved after about an hour or after dark and it moved west across the sky nightly until we couldn’t see it.

My husband who actually recorded this video on his phone had an experience about 20 minutes after this recording that he still won’t share with me and I don’t know if he has any video or picture evidence and I still don’t know what happened other than it really freaked him out.

04-01-2020 om 16:35 geschreven door peter

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The Universe May Be Flooded with a Cobweb Network of Invisible Strings

By Paul Sutter - Astrophysicist

We may soon find out whether we live in an axiverse

What if I told you that our universe was flooded with hundreds of kinds of nearly invisible particles and that, long ago, these particles formed a network of universe-spanning strings?

It sounds both trippy and awesome, but it's actually a prediction of string theory, our best (but frustratingly incomplete) attempt at a theory of everything. These bizarre, albeit hypothetical, little particles are known as axions, and if they can be found, that would mean we all live in a vast "axiverse."

The best part of this theory is that it's not just some physicist's armchair hypothesis, with no possibility of testing. This incomprehensibly huge network of strings may be detectable in the near future with microwave telescopes that are actually being built.

Related: The Biggest Unsolved Mysteries in Physics

If found, the axiverse would give us a major step up in figuring out the puzzle of … well, all of physics.

A symphony of strings

OK, let's get down to business. First, we need to get to know the axion a little better. The axion, named by physicist (and, later, Nobel laureate) Frank Wilczek in 1978, gets its name because it's hypothesized to exist from a certain kind of symmetry-breaking. I know, I know — more jargon. Hold on. Physicists love symmetries — when certain patterns appear in mathematics.

There's one kind of symmetry, called the CP symmetry, that says that matter and antimatter should behave the same when their coordinates are reversed. But this symmetry doesn't seem to fit naturally into the theory of the strong nuclear force. One solution to this puzzle is to introduce another symmetry in the universe that "corrects" for this misbehavior. However, this new symmetry only appears at extremely high energies. At everyday low energies, this symmetry disappears, and to account for that, and out pops a new particle — the axion.

Now, we need to turn to string theory, which is our attempt (and has been our main attempt for 50-odd years now) to unify all of the forces of nature, especially gravity, in a single theoretical framework. It's proven to be an especially thorny problem to solve, due to a variety of factors, not the least of which is that, for string theory to work (in other words, for the mathematics to even have a hope of working out), our universe must have more than the usual three dimensions of space and one of time; there have to be extra spatial dimensions.

These spatial dimensions aren't visible to the naked eye, of course; otherwise, we would've noticed that sort of thing. So the extra dimensions have to be teensy-tiny and curled up on themselves at scales so small that they evade normal efforts to spot them.

What makes this hard is that we're not exactly sure how these extra dimensions curl up on themselves, and there's somewhere around 10^200 possible ways to do it.

But what these dimensional arrangements appear to have in common is the existence of axions, which, in string theory, are particles that wind themselves around some of the curled-up dimensions and get stuck.

What's more, string theory doesn't predict just one axion but potentially hundreds of different kinds, at a variety of masses, including the axion that might appear in the theoretical predictions of the strong nuclear force.

Silly strings

So, we have lots of new kinds of particles with all sorts of masses. Great! Could axions make up dark matter, which seems to be responsible for giving galaxies most of their mass but can't be detected by ordinary telescopes? Perhaps; it's an open question. But axions-as-dark-matter have to face some challenging observational tests, so some researchers instead focus on the lighter end of the axion families, exploring ways to find them.

And when those researchers start digging into the predicted behavior of these featherweight axions in the early universe, they find something truly remarkable. In the earliest moments of the history of our cosmos, the universe went through phase transitions, changing its entire character from exotic, high-energy states to regular low-energy states.

During one of these phase transitions (which happened when the universe was less than a second old), the axions of string theory didn't appear as particles. Instead, they looked like loops and lines — a network of lightweight, nearly invisible strings crisscrossing the cosmos.

This hypothetical axiverse, filled with a variety of lightweight axion strings, is predicted by no other theory of physics but string theory. So, if we determine that we live in an axiverse, it would be a major boon for string theory.

A shift in the light

How can we search for these axion strings? Models predict that axion strings have very low mass, so light won't bump into an axion and bend, or axions likely wouldn't mingle with other particles. There could be millions of axion strings floating through the Milky Way right now, and we wouldn't see them.

But the universe is old and big, and we can use that to our advantage, especially once we recognize that the universe is also backlit.

The cosmic microwave background (CMB) is the oldest light in the universe, emitted when it was just a baby — about 380,000 years old. This light has soaked the universe for all these billions of years, filtering through the cosmos until it finally hits something, like our microwave telescopes.

So, when we look at the CMB, we see it through billions of light-years' worth of universe. It's like looking at a flashlight"s glow through a series of cobwebs: If there is a network of axion strings threaded through the cosmos, we could potentially spot them.

In a recent study, published in the arXiv database on Dec. 5, a trio of researchers calculated the effect an axiverse would have on CMB light. They found that, depending on how a bit of light passes near a particular axion string, the polarization of that light could shift. That’s because the CMB light (and all light) is made of waves of electric and magnetic fields, and the polarization of light tells us how the electric fields are oriented — something that changes when the CMB light encounters an axion. We can measure the polarization of the CMB light by passing the signal through specialized filters, allowing us to pick out this effect.

The researchers found that the total effect on the CMB from a universe full of strings introduced a shift in polarization amounting to around 1%, which is right on the verge of what we can detect today. But future CMB mappers, such as the Cosmic Origins Explorer, Lite (Light) satellite for the studies of B-mode polarization and Inflation from cosmic background Radiation Detection (LiteBIRD), and the Primordial Inflation Explorer (PIXIE) , are currently being designed. These futuristic telescopes would be capable of sniffing out an axiverse. And once those mappers come online, we'll either find that we live in an axiverse or rule out this particular prediction of string theory.

Either way, there's a lot to untangle.

Paul M. Sutter is an astrophysicist at The Ohio State University, host of Ask a Spaceman and Space Radio, and author of Your Place in the Universe.

From Big Bang to Present: Snapshots of Our Universe Through Time
The 11 Biggest Unanswered Questions About Dark Matter
5 Elusive Particles Beyond the Higgs
Originally published on Live Science.

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

04-01-2020 om 00:26 geschreven door peter

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03-01-2020

The Decade of Mars: How the 2020s May Be a New Era of Red Planet Exploration

Mars as seen from orbit by NASA’s Viking mission.

The 2010s saw big advances in Mars exploration, but the new decade may bring even more exciting news — the possible discovery of Red Planet life.

Scientists learned a great deal about the history and evolution of Mars in the last 10 years. NASA's Curiosity rover mission led the charge, determining that at least some parts of the planet were capable of supporting Earth-like life for long stretches in the ancient past.

"It's been a very successful and very enlightening mission, in terms of figuring out that Mars was a habitable planet," Curiosity project scientist Ashwin Vasavada, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, said last month during a media roundtable at the annual fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in San Francisco. "And now we can go [to] the next step of the program and figure out if life ever took hold."

Related: Amazing Mars Photos by NASA's Curiosity Rover (Latest Images)

That next step begins this July with the launches of NASA's 2020 Mars rover and the European-Russian rover Rosalind Franklin, both of which will hunt for signs of ancient Red Planet organisms.

But the alien-life hunt may not be the only Mars-exploration front opening in earnest in the 2020s. If the development of SpaceX's Starship Mars-colonizing vehicle goes well, it's possible that humanity could put boots on the Red Planet in the next 10 years as well.

A new phase

NASA has hunted for Mars life before. The agency's Viking 1 and Viking 2 landers, which in 1976 became the first spacecraft ever to touch down on the Red Planet, each carried four biological experiments. But the Vikings returned ambiguous results, forcing a strategy rethink.

The Viking missions "showed us that life is pretty difficult to find," Vasavada said.

NASA scientists and officials came to grips with this fact, and with the realization that it wasn't even clear if the conditions necessary for life as we know it had ever prevailed on Mars, he added. So, the agency embarked on a strategic exploration program designed to characterize the Red Planet in detail with a series of orbiter, lander and rover missions.

This work reached a crescendo in the 2010s. Curiosity and the smaller rovers Spirit and Opportunity plied their trade in the last decade, as did the InSight lander and its two fly-along cubesats and the orbiters Mars Odyssey, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution, or MAVEN. (Spirit barely makes this list; the golf-cart-size rover last communicated with Earth in March 2010.)

And NASA didn't monopolize Mars exploration in the 2010s. India launched its first Red Planet craft, the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), in 2013. Also eyeing the planet from aloft during the decade were Europe's long-lived Mars Express orbiter and the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), whose March 2016 launch took the European-Russian ExoMars program into space. (Rosalind Franklin and its accompanying landing platform, Kazachok, represent the second phase of the two-part ExoMars.)

The past tense is not really appropriate for many of the above craft, by the way: Curiosity, InSight, Mars Odyssey, MRO, MAVEN, MOM, Mars Express and TGO all remain active today.

Related: Occupy Mars: History of Robotic Red Planet Missions (Infographic)

The work done by these robots and their predecessors has paved the way for Mars 2020 and Rosalind Franklin. For example, Spirit, Opportunity, Curiosity and the orbiters spotted lots of evidence of past water activity on the Red Planet's surface. Curiosity dug even deeper, identifying an ancient lake-and-stream system inside Mars' 96-mile-wide (154 kilometers) Gale Crater. And MAVEN provided valuable temporal context, finding that the Red Planet likely had lost most of its atmosphere — which had kept Mars warm enough to support liquid surface water — to space by about 3.7 billion years ago.

"I think the evidence is compelling that Mars has met, in the past, all the requirements for either the occurrence of life or an origin of life, depending on how you think something might have played out," MAVEN principal investigator Bruce Jakosky, of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder, told Space.com at the AGU meeting last month.

Two life-hunting rovers

That brings us to Mars 2020 and Rosalind Franklin. The ExoMars rover is scheduled to touch down in March 2021, likely in Oxia Planum, a plain in the Red Planet's northern hemisphere that shows lots of evidence of ancient water activity.

The solar-powered Rosalind Franklin will use its cameras and scientific instruments to search for morphological and chemical signs of ancient Mars life. The rover will be able to dig deep for such clues; it's equipped with a drill that can bore 6.5 feet (2 meters) below the Red Planet's surface.

Mars 2020, which will soon get a more memorable moniker via a student naming competition, will do similar astrobiology work inside the 28-mile-wide (45 km) Jezero Crater. (The rover will gather a variety of other data — and test out new exploration tech, including a tiny Mars helicopter — as well.)

Scientists think Jezero was home to a lake and a river delta in the ancient past, so it's a good hunting ground on multiple fronts for the NASA rover. Not only was that ancient environment potentially habitable, but river deltas here on Earth are good at preserving biosignatures, mission team members have said.

"We are very much hoping that, with our payload, we can make a very strong case that there are biosignatures on the surface of Mars," Mars 2020 deputy project scientist Katie Stack Morgan of JPL said at the AGU media roundtable last month.

Mars 2020 won't be able to drill nearly as deep as Rosalind Franklin. But the NASA rover will do some specialty boring of its own, collecting and caching several dozen samples for eventual return to Earth, where they can be scrutinized in detail by teams of scientists in well-equipped labs around the world.

This is a key aspect of the 2020 rover mission. After all, confirming the existence of ancient biosignatures on Mars, if any are indeed there to be found, is likely to be a tricky business, said Jim Bell of Arizona State University, principal investigator of Mars 2020's Mastcam-Z instrument.

"We could make a claim about a biosignature, but it's not clear anyone would believe us," Bell said at the AGU roundtable. "So, let's bring the samples back."

Getting the Mars material here will be a joint effort between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA). Europe recently affirmed its financial commitment to the complicated sample-return effort, but NASA is still waiting for its official budgetary go-ahead.

If that green light does indeed come, the 2020s will likely get another serious jolt of spaceflight electricity. The current, still-unconfirmed plan envisions launching a NASA mission called Sample Retrieval Lander (SRL) in 2026. SRL will include a stationary lander, the ESA-provided Sample Fetch Rover and a rocket called the Mars Ascent Vehicle, which will blast the material collected by Mars 2020 into space. These precious samples would make it to Earth in 2031.

Related: 7 Biggest Mysteries of Mars

Boots on the red ground?

There will be much more Mars activity in the 2020s as well — a lot just this year, in fact, if all goes according to plan.

China aims to launch an orbiter-rover mission to the Red Planet this summer, in the same July-August window that Mars 2020 and Rosalind Franklin are targeting. (Such windows come just once every 26 months, when Earth and Mars align properly for interplanetary missions.)

These would be the first Chinese probes to make it to Mars, but not the first to try. An orbiter called Yinghuo-1 launched in November 2011 aboard Russia's Phobos-Grunt spacecraft, which never made it out of Earth orbit.

The United Arab Emirates also plans to notch its first Red Planet success soon: the nation aims to launch an orbiter called the Hope Mars Mission this summer. Japan — whose only Mars mission to date, the Nozomi orbiter, failed in 1998 — is working to send a lander toward the Red Planet in 2022 and a sample-return mission to the Mars moon Phobos in 2024. India's MOM 2, which may include a lander and/or rover along with an orbiter, could lift off in that same general timeframe.

And then there's the realm of human spaceflight. NASA is working to put boots on Mars sometime in the 2030s, with plenty of help from its international partners and the private sector. But SpaceX has a more ambitious timeline.

Elon Musk's company is developing a giant, reusable rocket-spaceship combo known as Starship to make colonization of the Red Planet economically feasible. Starship could end up helping set up a million-person city on Mars within the next 50 to 100 years if all goes well, Musk has said.

And Starship's first interplanetary forays should come much sooner than that. SpaceX aims to launch an uncrewed Starship mission to the lunar surface as early as 2022, company president and chief operating officer Gwynne Shotwell recently said. That flight might be a contracted NASA mission; the agency recently announced that SpaceX is eligible to deliver robotic NASA payloads to the moon's surface using Starship.

Crew-carrying milestones could follow in relatively short order. For example, Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa has booked a round-the-moon mission aboard Starship, with a target launch date of 2023.

Such timelines may prove to be overly ambitious. After all, the only Starship version that's gotten off the ground to date is a stubby, single-engine prototype called Starhopper, and the first full-size variant of the spaceship blew its top during its initial pressure test this past November. But SpaceX has a track record of achieving impressive spaceflight feats, as its dozens of rocket landings and many cargo missions to the International Space Station attest.

So stay tuned. With or without a crewed Mars mission, the next 10 years should be a wild Red Planet ride!

03-01-2020 om 23:54 geschreven door peter

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NASA's New Mars 2020 Car May Look Like the Curiosity Rover, But It's No Twin

By Elizabeth Howell

The two rovers have quite different missions.

Illustrations of NASA's Curiosity (also known as the Mars Science Laboratory, or MSL) and Mars 2020 rovers. While the newest rover borrows from Curiosity's design, each has its own role in the ongoing exploration of Mars and the search for ancient life.

NASA plans to launch a rover to Mars this July to hunt for signs of ancient Red Planet life.

The new Mars 2020 rover's body is similar to that of the older Curiosity rover, which landed in 2012. But the two machines are quite different in important ways.

Curiosity's mission centers on assessing the past habitability of its landing site, the 96-mile-wide (154 kilometers) Gale Crater. The rover quickly determined that Gale harbored a potentially habitable lake-and-stream system in the ancient past, and Curiosity is now fleshing out that long-gone environment as it climbs the foothills of Mount Sharp, which rises 3.4 miles (5.5 km) into the sky from Gale's center.

Related: NASA's Mars Rover 2020 Mission in Pictures

NASA's Mars 2020 rover looks virtually the same as Curiosity, but there are a number of differences. One giveaway to which rover you're looking at is 2020's aft cross-beam, which looks a bit like a shopping cart handle.

(Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Mars 2020 will characterize the habitability of its landing site, Jezero Crater, after touching down in February 2021. But the new rover will also hunt for ancient biosignatures — signs of past life that could be lurking in rock or soil samples. And Mars 2020 will cache the most promising samples for return to Earth by a future mission.

The mass and dimensions of the rovers differ as well. Mars 2020 is about 5 inches (13 centimeters) longer and 280 lbs. (127 kilograms) heavier than Curiosity. That's because Mars 2020 will carry a different set of tools, officials with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) explained in a recent statement.

The two robots' arms have the same reach (7 feet, or 2.2 meters). But Mars 2020 has bigger instruments and a larger drill to do "coring."

"The drill will cut intact rock cores, rather than pulverizing them, and they'll be placed in sample tubes via a complex storage system," JPL officials said in the statement.

Curiosity has 17 cameras, including both color and black-and-white shooters. Mars 2020, by comparison, will carry 23, and most of them will take color photos. In addition, Mars 2020's Mastcam-Z will improve upon Curiosity's Mast Camera with zoom and high-definition video.

The newer rover, unlike its predecessor, will also carry two microphones to listen to the sounds of landing on Mars, as well as the Red Planet wind and the zaps coming from Mars 2020's onboard laser-equipped instrument.

Mars 2020 also will improve upon Curiosity's aluminum wheels, which have been damaged by sharp rocks. NASA successfully modified its driving plan for Curiosity to see it through its time on the Red Planet. But such troubleshooting may not be necessary for Mars 2020, whose wheels are bigger and thicker, and sport more treads, or "grousers."

"Extensive testing in JPL's Mars Yard has shown these treads better withstand the pressure from sharp rocks but work just as well on sand," JPL officials said.

Mars 2020 will also take advantage of advances in computing for "self-driving smarts," figuring out its path on Mars autonomously up to five times faster than Curiosity can. Mars 2020 team members hope this upgraded brain will reduce the amount of planning time needed for navigation, allowing the new rover to cover more ground and accomplish more tasks.

With the self-driving technique, daily operations could take 5 hours, compared with 7 for Curiosity, JPL officials stated. (Curiosity used to require 19 hours of analysis, but improved operations and newer autonavigation on Curiosity have reduced that time considerably in seven years.)

A final major difference is in the landing. Like Curiosity, Mars 2020 will endure "seven minutes of terror" that wraps up with a rocket-powered sky crane lowering the robot to the Martian surface on cables. But the new rover features "terrain relative navigation," an advanced system that will allow Mars 2020 to land much more precisely than its predecessor.

Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

03-01-2020 om 23:26 geschreven door peter

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The Mystery of the Ubaid Lizardmen Figures

Some of the best mysteries are those shrouded in the mists of time, from cultures long gone and little-understood. In the days of ancient Iraq there existed a pre-Sumerian culture known as the Ubaidian culture, which dates back between from 5,500 to 4,000 BC in ancient Mesopotamia and which is thought to have sort of kicked off the Sumerian civilization. The sites related to this ancient culture, known for their groundbreaking use of unwalled city layouts, distinct style of pottery, unique food processing tools, impressive architectural skills for the time, including their complex multi-room rectangular mud houses, paved streets, surprisingly advanced irrigation systems, and elaborate temples, as well as for their advanced agricultural know-how, have become meccas for archeologists, especially the site called Tell Al’Ubaid, first excavated by Harry Reginald Hal in 1919. It is here where a very strange and baffling series of findings has been made over the decades that have made this already mysterious and little-known culture all the more enigmatic, among these figures of some unknown race of reptilian humanoids.

Here among the ruins and various intriguing artifacts left behind from this once great culture have been found an assortment of decidedly odd figurines that are unique in that they seem to depict reptilian humanoids of some sort, both male and female, often wearing padding in the shoulders and hats or helmets, and featured in a variety of poses holding various objects such as staves, scepters, and in the case of female figures even suckling babies that are just as lizard-like as the mothers. The figures are unlike anything else uncovered in the region, and feature elongated heads, pointed, muzzled faces, and slanted, almond-shaped eyes, all of them being unambiguously decidedly not human and displaying mostly very reptilian features. The thing is, since their discovery in the 20th century no one has really been able to figure out what they are supposed to be or what their significance is.

Ubaid figurines

It was at first thought that these might be stylized representations of gods the people worshiped, not completely unusual as there are many cultures that have worshiped serpents and reptilian deities, including the Sumerians themselves with their serpent god Enki, but archeologists and historians have doubted this origin for a few reasons. One is that the figures are never really made out to be decked out in opulence or particularly grand clothing, which one would expect if they were almighty gods, and another is that the poses they are found in, including nursing infants, tend to be mundane, unceremonious, and nonreligious, further pushing away the idea that these were revered deities. They seem to be non-ritualistic in nature, yet they nevertheless still seem to have been important in some way to those who created them. So if they were not worshiped as gods then why did this 7,000 year-old civilization make all of these meticulously crafted figures of reptilian humanoid creatures? That largely depends on who you ask.

One idea is that these were just decorative pieces or abstract works of art, the resemblance to reptilian humanoids merely coincidental or an aesthetic design choice, yet is that is the case then why make so many of them with the same basic appearances, clothing, and items? There is also the idea that the Ubaidian culture might have practiced some sort of body modification such as skull elongation, seen in some other cultures around the world, and that these figures are depictions of these individuals, but if so why? There is also the notion that these figures represent some sort of hoax and were planted there, but modern day analysis seems to date them as indeed being from the Ubaid culture, so what is going on here?

Yet another, more fringe idea is that the figurines could possibly been depicting some real race of aliens or reptilian beings of some sort that were then made into these figures. Could there have been a race of reptilian humanoids roaming about and even interacting with this ancient culture, who were then immortalized in these strange figurines? There is really no way to know, the Ubaid culture in and of itself is already quite the impenetrable mystery, and in the end we can only guess at what these figures signify or what they really meant.

03-01-2020 om 21:55 geschreven door peter

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More Presidential Candidates Weigh in on UFO and ET Possibilities and Disclosure

If you’re running for president and you won’t want to answer tough questions about UFOs, extraterrestrials, X-files disclosure and the Space Force, you may want to avoid New Hampshire where Daymond Steer, a reporter for The Conway Daily Sun, has been hitting candidates hard about UFOs as they campaign in the Granite State. Last week it was Democrat Amy Klobuchar. He has also interrogated Republican William Weld (yes, there’s still another Republican running for president) and longshot Democrats Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado, California congressman Eric Swalwell, former Massachusetts governor Devan Patrick and self-help author Marianne Williamson. What did they have to say?

“Let me say it this way, I have to be extremely careful because I am on the Intelligence Committee. So nothing that I’m saying is anything to do with anything I’ve learned on the Intelligence Committee. (But) our guys are seeing unidentified stuff. They don’t know what it is. And I don’t know what it is. I don’t think they’re saying that it’s necessarily things from outer space, but it’s unexplained stuff. That’s. That’s off the Southeast coast of the United States and off the California coast. We’re trying to learn more about it. The Air Force is trying to learn more about it.”

Michael Bennet

(Wikipedia)

Michael Bennet has a front row seat to the X-files as an Intelligence Committee member, but he wasn’t saying much and didn’t make any promises, although he did confirm that the military is seeing “unidentified” and “unexplained” stuff.

“I’m focused on things like getting rid of a lawless president — that’s first and foremost. Then I will work on out-of-worldly creatures.”

Eric Swalwell

(Wikipedia)

When asked about UFOs by reporter Steer, Eric Swalwell avoided it by punting with a comment on the current president, two moves that won’t win him many votes from UFO and conspiracy believers and open-minded Republicans.

“I will say, though, I have met other pilots, commercial pilots, who have said that there are things that they’ve seen in the night sky, mostly the night sky. I used to be on the board of an airline, I talked to pilots who told me about that sort of thing.”

Deval Patrick

(Wikipedia)

Former Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick was on the board of United Airlines (UAL) and knows that pilots generally don’t report UFOs out of fear of losing their jobs. If he’s really had those conversations, he had to win them over by showing he shared in or at least respected their beliefs.

“I don’t know why the United States is so secretive about that issue compared to other countries. I love that stuff.”

Marianne Williamson

(Wikipedia)

Anyone who knows about Michelle Williamson’s New Age beliefs will not be surprised with her answer to Steer’s question about the USS Nimitz pilot who saw UFOs, although “I love that stuff” is not quite the same as “I’ll throw open the X-files and tear down the fence around Area 51.”

William Weld

(Wikipedia)

Perhaps the best comments came from Republican William Weld. He was much more open and expansive in his answers (watch the interview here), possibly because he’s run for president before. In an interview this week, he said, “I do think there’s extraterrestrial life out there” and he believes it’s probably “more intelligent” than us. While he seemed to scoff at the idea of “flying saucers” visiting Earth, he said “never say never.” In revealing his belief in the idea that memories are somehow passed down through generations and our minds passively receive them from grandparents and ancestors before them, he makes an interesting reference to the Bridey Murphy case, where a U.S. woman (Virginia Tighe) in 1952 was hypnotized and claimed to be the reincarnation of a a 19th-century Irishwoman named Bridey Murphy, possibly giving credence to stories of UFO abductions told by people under hypnotic regression. While Tighe’s claims were eventually debunked, Weld still remembers the story, as do many others. In answering a follow-up question about the files from the 2004 Nimitz sighting, Weld promised to “check it out” because “I’m a curious individual.” Curiosity is not the same as disclosure, but it’s a start and not a flippant punt to a remark about his potential opponent.

There are more presidential candidates visiting New Hampshire soon because of its February 11th primary. Will they be as open as William Weld to the UFO questions sure to come from The Conrad Daily Sun and intrepid UFO questionerer Daymond Steel? We’ll soon find out.

03-01-2020 om 20:30 geschreven door peter

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The Mysterious UFO Crash of Aztec, New Mexico

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The Mysterious UFO Crash of Aztec, New Mexico

There is no other sort of case in the realm of UFOlogy that gathers as much attention and scrutiny as those incidents in which one of these mysterious craft have seemed to have actually crash landed upon our planet. The most notable of these for many is perhaps the Roswell, New Mexico incident, which has gone on to firmly entrench itself into the lore of great UFO events. Yet, there are others as well, and indeed one of the more popular of these supposed UFO crashes happened in the very same state as Roswell, and is sometimes mentioned in the same breath, generating just as much debate and controversy.

The story of what has been commonly called “The Other Roswell” supposedly begins in March of 1948, when an unidentified craft reportedly came down from the sky to make a controlled landing/crash at the remote desert moonscape of Hart Canyon, near the small outpost town of Aztec, New Mexico. The object was supposedly then witnessed perched atop a mesa by oil workers Silas Newton and Leo Gebauer, who were trying to put out a brush fire in the area at the time. What they saw was beyond anything they had ever seen, described it as being an immense metallic disc around 100 feet in diameter, composed of some sort of lightweight but very powerful metal that showed no signs of seams, joints, screws, or nails, or even damage, and which held within it a single portal in its side. The strangest things of all was that when the workers peered into the window-like opening they claimed to have seen strewn about within were at least 16 charred bodies of what looked to be miniature humanoid beings of some type, seemingly killed by the impact of their descent. The men called the local police, who arrived on the scene to be just as flabbergasted as they were, and it was as they stood about with mouths agape the military then predictably moved in to cordon off the area, allegedly telling them they were not to speak of the event.

As is often the case with such incidents, the military then went about whisking the craft and its occupants off, and the two oil workers apparently could not keep their mouths shut about it, because they soon relayed their account to a journalist by the name of Frank Scully. In 1949, Scully would print a whole series of articles on the incident in Variety Magazine, going on to also mention it heavily in his 1950 book Behind the Flying Saucers. It was at this point where the story would enter the annals of great UFO incidents, and also accrue quite a bit of controversy that has continued to this day.

Shortly after Scully’s book was published, doubt was thrown onto the whole thing, when the two original witnesses were exposed as having been not oil workers, but con men who had concocted the whole thing as a scheme to make money selling “alien technology” that they had retrieved from the craft that would supposedly detect il in the landscape. It worked out perfectly for them, as the remote area was so isolated that no locals had apparently reported anything out of the ordinary, the two police men who had reportedly been on the scene were not available for questioning, and of course the military wasn’t talking. It basically came down to the word of the first two witnesses, and they could make up whatever story they liked. The idea is that they scammed Scully, who believed it to be a genuine account, in order to get publicity and get the account out into the wild. Indeed, some of this technology the men had supposedly found had been passed on to J.P. Cahn of the San Francisco Chronicle, who had it tested to find out that it was just normal aluminum, and around this time others who had been swindled in the past by the man began pointing fingers, and both Newton and Gebauer would concede that it had all been a hoax. It seems pretty cut and dried so far, but it would prove to be anything but.

In the 1980s, the case began to gain traction again, with many in the UFO community deciding that it was perhaps not a hoax after all, and that maybe something fishy was going on. This reached a crescendo with the research of UFOlogists Scott and Suzanne Ramsey, who spent over decades tracking the story down and hunting down clues that they would include in their book The Aztec UFO Incident. One of the first things they point out is that the whole idea that this was all orchestrated by two con men may just be a red herring, with Scott Ramsey having said of this:

Gotta remember that from 1952 until about 1986, no one would touch the Aztec incident. It was poisoned. No UFO researchers would touch it because it was considered to be a hoax hoisted off on the public by con men. This was taken apart in our book. We realized the government engineered that story to sink Aztec, and they were willing to ruin the lives of two, three people, to make sure it got covered up. You cannot refute the evidence that we have put in this book.

They also draw attention to an FBI document called the “Hottel Memo,” written by Guy Hottel, the head of the FBI field office in Washington in 1950, directed to J, Edgar Hoover and a part of which which reads:

An investigator for the Air Force stated that three so-called flying saucers had been recovered in New Mexico. They were described as being circular in shape with raised centers, approximately 50-feet in diameter. Each one was occupied by three bodies of human shape but were 3 feet tall, dressed in metallic cloth of very fine texture. Each body was bandaged in a manner similar to the blackout suite of speed flyers and test pilots. According to Mr. ——— (redacted) informant, the saucers were found in New Mexico due to the fact that the Government has a very high-powered radar set-up in that area and it is believed the radar interferes with the controlling mechanics of the saucers. No further evaluation was attempted by SA ——— (redacted) concerning the above.

At the time, many people thought that this was strictly referring to Roswell, but there have been some, including the Ramseys, who think that it was more directed towards the Aztec Incident. They point out various other pieces of evidence to support their plight, such as an incident in which a man was approached for selling photos from the alleged crash, with the government converging upon him in Denver, Colorado to purchase them for a good sum of money. Ramsey has said of this:

Just as the buy was about to go down, the FBI and Army CID – that’s Counter Intelligence Division – stepped in. And they specifically in that FBI report say the gentlemen was trying to sell pictures of the Aztec flying saucer. The bottom line on that one is the government took the Aztec saucer very seriously. If there was no Aztec saucer, they would not be been willing to pony up a bunch of money to buy some photos, whether they existed or not.

The alleged Aztec UFO crash site today

Numerous other pieces of evidence that they put forward seek to paint the Aztec crash as being far more than a hoax, and worthy of serious follow-up. They state that the witnesses were actually 100 percent believable, and that something strange did indeed go on out in those badlands back in 1948, and that it was simply covered up to a remarkable degree to be swept under the carpet. Scott Ramsey has said of it all:

The witnesses were all 100 percent certain. That what they saw that day was not a conventional aircraft, nor was it a prototype Air Force design that strayed off course and crashed on the high plains of New Mexico. Based on clear witness memories, there is no doubt that they saw a landed flying saucer from origins unknown.

I honestly think in 1948, this is right after World War II. We’re only three years after World War II. The Cold War was going on. I think our government was absolutely smart in not letting our enemies know that we had recovered one, two, three, maybe four flying saucers. Why would we let the Russians know that that kind of technology was there? We were better off to make it look like a hoax, ridicule the people that saw it. You know, we had to make them the town drunk. We do that and move on. Take the technology and try to figure it out because if we’ve got it, God bless, it’s a lot better than if they have it.

Personally, I wish that the government would come clean and tell the American people more of the truth of the story, not just of Aztec but of all the other many UFO cases. I think the public is ready to handle the truth. In today’s world, I think we’re ready to handle the truth. Might not have been the case in 1951, or 52, or 53 right after World War II, but I think the public can handle that today.

In the end, they claim that this really did happen, and that the witnesses were sincere, but that it was totally buried by the nefarious government. Is that what happened? Whether any of it is true or not, the whole incident has made the area of Aztec, New Mexico a tourist mecca for UFO enthusiasts, with an annual UFO festival and the supposed crash site even delineated and marked with a plaque, which you can visit to this day. However, there is nothing left out in this eerie desert landscape to hint at what may or may not have happened on that fateful day back in 1948. We are left to wonder, did something not of this world really touch down in this remote wilderness to be whisked away and totally covered up, or is this just a hoax and bit of media sensationalism? We may never know for sure, but the incident at Aztec, New Mexico has certainly gone on to be an oft-talked about UFO case, and still serves to stir up debate and wonder.

03-01-2020 om 20:21 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )

Klobuchar Suggests She Would Disclose UFO Information As President

JAZZ SHAW

Here’s an obscure tidbit from the campaign trail involving Democratic Senator (and POTUS hopeful) Amy Klobuchar. This week she sat down for a lengthy interview with the editorial board of the Conway Daily Sun in New Hampshire, which is something of a required stop for all presidential candidates. The interview was livestreamed on the newspaper’s Facebook page and printed up for a recent edition.

SEE ALSO: Today’s deep question: Does Hustler’s Trump-assassination Christmas card warrant a Secret Service probe?

It was a wide-ranging interview covering most of the usual topics of the day, including a claim from Klobuchar that she feels she’s “well-positioned” to win the nomination and defeat Donald Trump next November. But toward the end of the Q&A she was hit with a somewhat more obscure question that she had declined to answer a few months ago. Has she looked into the reports of US Navy encounters with alleged UFOs and what does she make of all this? It turns out she has and she suggested that, as president, she would investigate whether or not some of that information could be disclosed to the public. (Hat tip to Paul Seaburn at Mysterious Universe.)

Back in October, the Sun asked Klobuchar if she was familiar with New Hampshire man David Fravor, who was made famous in 2017 for his account of chasing a UFO off the West Coast as a U.S. Navy fighter pilot in 2004.

During that exchange in front of The Met Coffee House in North Conway, Klobuchar said she would look into it and on Monday she confirmed that she did.

“I think we don’t know enough … I don’t know what’s happened, not just with that sighting, but with others,” she said. “And I think one of the things a president could do is to look into what’s there in terms of what does the science say; what does our military say.

“Here’s the interesting part of that answer is that some of this stuff is really old … So, why can’t you see if you can let some of that out for the public so earnest journalists like you who are trying to get the bottom of the truth would be able to see it?” she asked rhetorically.

That answer wasn’t really all that long, but those four sentences definitely caught the attention of people in the UFO community. We’re dealing with a politician running for office here, so everything has to be taken with a grain of salt. But what was she really saying?

First of all, she seemed to be familiar enough with the David Fravor encounter to believe that this has come up on her radar. The reporter who asked the question was Draymond Steer and he asks pretty much every presidential candidate about UFOs. In fact, he was the one who asked her back in October and didn’t get an answer.

So Klobuchar doesn’t believe that we know enough yet, but she also apparently hasn’t been privy to any secrets on this topic either. She wasn’t one of the Senators briefed on the subject in secret earlier this year, so that makes sense. Her ideas about what a president can do (ask what the science says and what the military has to say) are fairly generic as well.

Of course, other presidents have asked before, as we’ve discussed here previously. It’s confirmed that both Clinton and Obama asked and they were apparently told nothing. (Or so they claim.) Does Klobuchar believe she’d fare better in getting the intelligence agencies to open the bag? Good luck with that, Senator.

Her last comment was at least a bit more interesting, however. She made reference to “some of this stuff” being “really old.” Presumably, she’s not talking about the Nimitz and Roosevelt encounters in 2004 and 2015 because those are still on everyone’s minds. So what did she mean? Was that a reference to the 1947 Roswell incident? If so, she could certainly generate a lot of headlines if she somehow drove a wedge into that oyster. But so many before her have tried that I somehow doubt any new information would be forthcoming.

Of course, this could all be nothing more than an effort to appeal to a particular voter demographic. According to the most recent polling, while a majority of Americans still aren’t convinced that UFOs are definitely extraterrestrial spacecraft, a solid 68% said that they believe the government knows more than they’re telling the public. And we generally don’t like being kept in the dark. People are fascinated by these questions and it’s possible that Klobuchar is teasing some possible disclosure to round up a few more undecided voters.

So is the truth out there? Amy Klobuchar still has a ton of ground to make up in the primary polling if she really wants a chance to find out.

{ https://hotair.com/ }

03-01-2020 om 18:33 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:Diversen (Eng, NL en Fr)

Democratische presidentskandidaat laat zich uit over UFO-geheimen

Foto: Gage Skidmore CC BY-SA 2.0 Wikimedia Commons

Democratische presidentskandidaat laat zich uit over UFO-geheimen

De Democratische presidentskandidaat Amy Klobuchar deed in een interview met de krant Conway Daily Sun enkele opmerkelijke uitspraken.

Tijdens het interview beantwoordde Klobuchar vragen over een grote variëteit aan onderwerpen.

Zo zei ze onder meer te verwachten dat ze wordt genomineerd als Democratisch presidentskandidaat en Donald Trump gaat verslaan.

Weigerde

Aan het eind van het gesprek kreeg de Democratische senator een vraag die ze maanden geleden nog weigerde te beantwoorden.

Toen kreeg ze de vraag of ze bekend was met een man genaamd David Fravor, die in 2017 in het nieuws kwam omdat hij een UFO had achtervolgd voor de Amerikaanse westkust.

De krant vroeg haar deze week of ze zich inmiddels heeft verdiept in de UFO-waarnemingen door Amerikaanse straaljagerpiloten en hoe zij hierover denkt.

Vrijgegeven

Het bleek dat ze erover had gelezen en ze suggereerde dat ze als president zou onderzoeken of informatie over UFO’s kan worden vrijgegeven voor het publiek.

“We weten niet genoeg,” zei Klobuchar. “Ik weet niet wat er is gebeurd. Dat geldt niet alleen voor dit geval, maar ook voor andere gevallen.”

“Wat je als president kunt doen, is kijken wat de wetenschap hierover zegt en wat ons leger hierover zegt,” vervolgde ze.

Zeven op de 10

Vervolgens kun je proberen om die informatie naar buiten te brengen zodat journalisten ernaar kunnen kijken, aldus Klobuchar.

Uit een recente peiling is gebleken dat bijna zeven op de 10 Amerikanen geloven dat de overheid informatie achterhoudt over UFO’s.

[Hot Air]

03-01-2020 om 18:28 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:NineForNews. nl ( new ipv NIBURU.nl) (NL)

Soft Robotic Insect Survives Being Flattened By A Fly Swatter

Researchers at EPFL have developed an ultra-light robotic insect that uses its soft artificial muscles to move at 3 cm per second across different types of terrain. It can be folded or crushed and yet continue to move.

Credit: EPFL

Imagine swarms of robotic insects moving around us as they perform various tasks. It might sound like science fiction, but it’s actually more plausible than you might think.

Researchers at EPFL’s School of Engineering have developed a soft robotic insect, propelled at 3 cm per second by artificial muscles.

The team developed two versions of this soft robot, dubbed DEAnsect. The first, tethered using ultra-thin wires, is exceptionally robust. It can be folded, hit with a fly swatter or squashed by a shoe without impacting its ability to move. The second is an untethered model that is fully wireless and autonomous, weighing less than 1 gram and carrying its battery and all electronic components on its back. This intelligent insect is equipped with a microcontroller for a brain and photodiodes as eyes, allowing it to recognize black and white patterns, enabling DEAnsect to follow any line drawn on the ground.

Credit: EPFL

DEAnsect was developed by a team at EPFL’s Soft Transducers Laboratory (LMTS), working with the Integrated Actuators Laboratory (LAI) and colleagues from the University of Cergy-Pontoise, France. The research was published in Science Robotics.

Vibration propulsion

Researchers at EPFL have developed an ultra-light robotic insect that uses its soft artificial muscles to move at 3 cm per second across different types of terrain. The robot can be folded or crushed and yet continue to move.

Credit: EPFL

DEAnsect is equipped with dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs), a type of hair-thin artificial muscle that propels it forward through vibrations. These DEAs are the main reason why the insect is so light and quick. They also enable it to move over different types of terrain, including undulating surfaces.

Credit: EPFL

A soft robotic insect that survives being flattened by a fly swatter

An untethered model that is fully wireless and autonomous, weighing less than 1 gram and carrying its battery and all electronic components on its back.

Credit: EPFL

The artificial muscles consist of an elastomer membrane sandwiched between two soft electrodes. The electrodes are attracted to one another when a voltage is applied, compressing the membrane, which returns to its initial shape when the voltage is turned off. The insect has such muscles fitted to each of its three legs. Movement is generated by switching the voltage on and off very quickly – over 400 times per second.

Credit: EPFL

The team used nanofabrication techniques to enable the artificial muscles to work at relatively low voltages, by reducing the thickness of the elastomer membrane and by developing soft, highly conductive electrodes only a few molecules thick. This clever design allowed the researchers to dramatically reduce the size of the power source. “DEAs generally operate at several kilovolts, which required a large power supply unit,” explains LMTS director Herbert Shea. “Our design enabled the robot, which itself weighs just 0.2 gram, to carry everything it needs on its back.” “This technique opens up new possibilities for the broad use of DEAs in robotics, for swarms of intelligent robotic insects, for inspection or remote repairs, or even for gaining a deeper understanding of insect colonies by sending a robot to live amongst them.”

A video explaining the main concepts and results of this study.

Credit: Ji et al., Sci. Robot. 4, eaaz6451 (2019)

“We’re currently working on an untethered and entirely soft version with Stanford University,” says Shea. “In the longer term, we plan to fit new sensors and emitters to the insects so they can communicate directly with one another.”

Untethered DEAnsect (soft robot) autonomously navigates a figure 8 path, then stops at the end.

Video of the DEAnsect autonomously navigating a path in the shape of a figure 8.

Credit: Ji et al., Sci. Robot. 4, eaaz6451 (2019)

DEAnsect the robotic ant: how it works and what it can do

Contacts and sources:

Herbert Shea
Soft Transducers Laboratory (LMTS)
Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)

Other videos about robotica- and dronsesystem, peter2011

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

03-01-2020 om 17:54 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:SF-snufjes }, Robotics and A.I. Artificiel Intelligence ( E, F en NL )

What the In-Crowd Won’t Tell You About UFO Videos from 2019

You may observe the video below. You might examine the video below. The quick video below, for instance, is merely one of several contemporary sightings. Today, there are many videos of UFOs, and you will have the capacity to verify if they’re real or fake. Today, there are many videos of UFOs, and you’ll have the capability to verify if they’re real or fake.

If you’re seeking to get your own UFO sighting, there are in fact a few places where you’re more inclined to acquire your wish. Many reported UFO sightings actually end up being something as simple as a balloon. They actually end up being something as simple as a balloon.

The Downside Risk of UFO Videos from 2019

You might look at the video below. You might have a look at the video below. You may have a look at the video below. Be certain you have a look at the video below. You take a look at the video below. You might have a look at the video below. You have a look at the video below.

The Little-Known Secrets to UFO Videos from 2019

At a while, you will encounter a UFO. At some time, you will run into a UFO. Throughout that time period, there were two triangle UFOs sighted in the exact same spot. Throughout that period of time, there were two triangle UFOs sighted in the same spot. Throughout that period of time, there were two triangle UFOs sighted in the same spot.

The Debate Over UFO Videos from 2019

You think about the video below. You consider the video below. The above mentioned video has some of the communication between the pilots and ATC. Today, there are various videos of UFOs, and you’re going to be able to verify if they’re real or fake.

The Battle Over UFO Videos from 2019 and How to Win It

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The events will typically have an exceptional speaker to supply you with the data you are attempting to find, together with offer you the aid which you simply will need to be more recognized. If you discover that there’s an event in your future and you’re able to make the most of it, you must ensure you’re doing everything that you can to bring as much details to your business or individual life as possible. There are usually promotable events going on all the time in a wide range of areas. There are typically they going on all the time in a variety of areas. There are normally promotable events going on each one of the time in a great number of locations.

Source:

http://footageofufos.com/2020/01/what-the-in-crowd-wont-tell-you-about-ufo-videos-from-2019-2/

03-01-2020 om 16:29 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:UFOs , UAPs , USOS

Real Reasons Behind US Government Secrecy on UFOs

UFO Conspiracy

Perhaps, but many suspects not.

What many others believe is that the few people in the US government who know about it believe the phenomena might be a threat but don’t know how to deal with it.

So, don’t count the military to share more of what it knows anytime soon. We’ll get to the truth eventually, but it will take time.

03-01-2020 om 16:20 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:UFOs , UAPs , USOS

Does complex life exist elsewhere? Study of exoplanet-tilts boosts hopes

Posted by Paul Scott Anderson in SPACE

A new study focuses on the axial tilt of Earthlike exoplanets in binary or double star systems. It boosts hope for complex life elsewhere … although not, these astronomers say, within the star system closest to our sun.

Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B, the 2 stars in the Alpha Centauri system, just 4.2 light-years away. This system is our nearest neighbor among the stars. An additional faint red dwarf star, Alpha Centauri C, or Proxima Centauri, is also nearby. Many have hoped to find an exoplanet – perhaps capable of harboring advanced life – in this system. But a new study lowers those expectations while raising them for the rest of the universe.

Image via NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope/Georgia Tech.

Are we alone, or are there other intelligent civilizations in our Milky Way galaxy? In recent years, astronomers have discovered thousands of exoplanets, or worlds orbiting distant suns, some of which are potentially habitable. The growing consensus seems to be that we probably aren’t all by ourselves. Now a new study – announced by astronomers at the Georgia Institute of Technology (aka Georgia Tech) on November 20, 2019 – focuses on the axial tilt of Earthlike exoplanets in binary or double star systems. It also boosts hope for complex life elsewhere … although not, these astronomers say, within the star system closest to our sun.

The new peer-reviewed study was published in The Astrophysical Journal on November 19.

The researchers found that if a theoretical twin of Earth were placed into a binary star system – where two stars orbit each other – up to 87% of them should tilt on their axes in a way similar to Earth’s. What’s more, the tilt should be as stable as Earth’s: not perfectly stable, but not wildly unstable, either. This result is significant, since Earth’s relatively steady tilt on its axis helps our world maintain a stable climate, needed for complex life to evolve.

Astronomer Gongjie Li at Georgia Tech said in a statement:

Multiple-star systems are common, and about 50% of stars have binary companion stars. So, this study can be applied to a large number of solar systems.

Do the results mean that all exoEarths in double star systems have steady and stable axial tilts, along with a greater potential for complex life? Unfortunately, no. We need only look as far as the next-nearest star system to find a counter-example.

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Planet with oceans, continents and ice with small star in background.

Artist’s illustration of an exoEarth modeled into the Alpha Centauri star system. The planet is hypothetically in the habitable zone of Alpha Centauri B, but is icy and not very hospitable for complex life.

Image via Georgia Tech/Billy Quarles using Universe Sandbox.

That is, the researchers modeled an example of an Earthlike world within the habitable zones of the two primary stars in the Alpha Centauri system, only 4.2 light-years away. Their statement explained:

Alpha Centauri A actually didn’t look bad, but the outlook for mild axis dynamics on an exo-Earth modeled around star B was wretched. This may douse some hopes because Alpha Centauri AB is 4 light-years away, and a mission named Starshot with big-name backers plans to launch a space probe to examine the system, including for signs of advanced life.

So far, no actual exoplanets have yet been detected around either Alpha Centauri A or B. On the other hand, a planet is thought to orbit Proxima Centauri, a red dwarf star and technically our sun’s nearest neighbor (although no one knows for sure if Proxima is gravitationally bound to the A-B stars). This planet – called Proxima b – isn’t thought to be habitable, though. According to the new study’s principal investigator Billy Quarles, also of Georgia Tech:

We simulated what it would be like around other binaries with multiple variations of the stars’ masses, orbital qualities, and so on. The overall message was positive, but not for our nearest neighbor.

Diagram of Earth. Ecliptic plane and line of axis with explanatory text.

Earth’s axial tilt varies between 22.1 and 24.5 degrees every 41,000 years. This is mild enough for the planet to maintain a stable enough climate for complex life to evolve.

Image via timeanddate.com.

A world’s axial tilt is important to the question of whether it can produce and sustain complex life. That’s because, for example, Earth’s axial tilt has a huge effect on our planet’s climate.

Earth’s tilt doesn’t vary much – only between 22.1 and 24.5 degrees every 41,000 years – and that fact has helped the planet maintain a stable climate over hundreds of millions of years, these astronomers say. In turn, the stable climate has allowed evolution to proceed and produce more complex lifeforms.

Earth’s moon also helps to keep variation in Earth’s axial tilt to a minimum.

Plus Earth has a stable orbit around the sun, another factor in how well our planet can maintain a climate stable enough for complex life.

If a planet has large variations in its axial tilt – as our neighboring planet Mars does for example – it’s harder for the planet’s climate to stay stable. Mars’ axis is much more variable than Earth’s, precessing between 10 degrees and 60 degrees every 2 million years. According to Quarles:

If we didn’t have the moon, Earth’s tilt could vary by about 60 degrees. We’d look maybe like Mars, and the precession of its axis appears to have contributed to a loss of atmosphere.

On Mars, this has significant effects; at 10 degrees tilt, the atmosphere condenses at the poles, creating caps that lock up a lot of the carbon dioxide atmosphere in ice. At 60 degrees, the planet could actually develop an ice belt around its equator. There is a lot of ice underground on Mars today, even near the equator, but not on the surface of the planet except at the poles.

The researchers also found that – in a double star system – for example, for Alpha Centauri B, an Earth-like planet would actually have a more stable climate without a moon. According to Quarles:

Around Alpha Centauri B, if you don’t have a moon, you have a more stable axis than if you do have a moon. If you have a moon, it’s pretty much bad news.

But even without a moon, a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri B would have a difficult time maintaining a stable climate. Quarles said:

The biggest effect you would see is differences in the climate cycles related to how elongated the orbit is. Instead of having ice ages every 100,000 years like on Earth, they may come every 1 million years, be worse, and last much longer.

Smiling man standing next to large open-frame reflector telescope.

Astrophysicist Billy Quarles with the telescope at Georgia Tech’s observatory.

Image via Rob Felt/Georgia Tech.

But, Quarles noted, there’s also a sweet spot in their model, albeit a small one:

Planetary orbit and spin need to precess just right relative to the binary orbit. There is this tiny sweet spot.

The potential for habitable climates on Earth-like worlds in the galaxy and the universe in general, however, seems quite positive, according to Li:

In general, the separation between the stars is larger in binary systems, and then the second star has less of an effect on the model of Earth. The planet’s own motion dynamics dominate other influences, and obliquity usually has a smaller variation. So, this is quite optimistic.

This is great news for the search for life elsewhere. About half the stars in our galaxy exist in double star systems, and the new results suggest that many exoEarths in those systems should have stable climate systems, suitable for complex life to evolve.

Even if not right next door.

Bottom line: A new study of exoplanet axial tilts from Georgia Tech shows that many Earth-sized worlds, even in binary star systems, could have stable enough climates for complex life to evolve.
Source: Obliquity Evolution of Circumstellar Planets in Sun-like Stellar Binaries Via Georgia Institute of Technology

03-01-2020 om 01:52 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ASTRONOMIE / RUIMTEVAART

One Year Ago, NASA's New Horizons Made the Most Distant Flyby in Space History

In the early hours of 2019, NASA's New Horizons zipped past the Kuiper Belt Object 2014 MU69, making the most distant spacecraft flyby ever performed. Over the last 12 months, researchers have teased a lot of information out of the images captured over the few hours leading up to and after the exploration of one of the most primordial objects in the solar system.

"It seems like it was just yesterday—time flies!" New Horizons co-investigator Fran Bagenal, a researcher at the University of Colorado Boulder, told Space.com by email.

Team member Kelsi Singer, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Center in Colorado, echoed the sentiment. "I can't believe it was already a year ago," Singer said.

Within the first week, researchers knew that MU69, now officially named Arrokoth, was made up of two flattened lobes, more like joined pancakes than a space snowman. In the intervening months, they determined the precise sizes of the lobes and their densities, measuring surface brightness and crater scars.

Video: Relive NASA's Historic Kuiper Belt Flyby of New Horizons
Related: New Horizons' Arrokoth Flyby in Pictures

A year of images

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft flies by the Kuiper Belt object Ultima Thule on Jan. 1, 2019 in this artist's illustration. It's the furthest planetary flyby in history.

(Image credit: Adrian Mann/All About Space)

New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern (center) celebrates with school children at the moment the spacecraft was planned to reach its closest approach to Kuiper Belt object Ultima Thule on Jan. 1, 2019 at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. It is the furthest flyby in history.

(Image credit: Bill Ingalls/NASA)

If you prefer Kuiper Belt objects appearing to dance across your screen, New Horizons has you covered there, too.

(Image credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute/National Optical Astronomy Observatory)

A new map produced by the New Horizons team appears to show the many different lumps of rock that converged to form the object nicknamed Ultima Thule.

(Image credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute/ESA)

This composite image of the small Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU69, now officially named Arrokoth, was compiled from data obtained by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft as it flew by the object on Jan. 1, 2019. The image combines enhanced color data (close to what the human eye would see) with detailed high-resolution panchromatic pictures.

(Image credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute//Roman Tkachenko)

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft flew by the distant Kuiper Belt object Ultima Thule (2014 MU69) on Jan. 1, 2019.

(Image credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute/National Optical Astronomy Observatory

(Image credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute)

New Horizons flew past 2014 MU69 on January 1, 2019 at 12:33 am EST, buzzing only 2,200 miles (3,538 km) above the object’s surface. When the spacecraft approached Arrokoth, all researchers had was a measurement of the object's size and orbit and a rough understanding of its reddish color and relatively unchanging brightness. The first few moments put much of that uncertainty to rest.

Arrokoth consists of two lobes. The larger lobe, nicknamed Ultima, is approximately 13.5 miles (22 kilometers) long, 12 miles (20 km) wide, and 4 miles (7 km) thick. The smaller lobe, Thule, is more circular, roughly 8.5 miles (14 km) by 8.5 miles (14 km) with a thickness of 6 miles (10 km).

According to observations, the two lobes most likely formed at about the same time more than 4.5 billion years ago, at the dawn of the solar system. While they experienced some light cratering—including a massive blow that left Maryland, an extensive crater on Ultima that stretches 4.3 miles (7 km) across the surface—Arrokoth remains relatively unscathed since its birth. Scientists expect that impacts came early in Arrokoth's lifetime, then tapered off, making it one of the most pristine bodies in the solar system.

"I find it fascinating that Arrokoth is so lightly cratered," Singer said. The dearth of scars suggests that the Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) changed very little since its early birth. Most of the craters are surprisingly large, with few mid-sized or small craters scarring Arrokoth. "That tells us that there are not a lot of small objects out there," Singer said.

The most detailed image of Arrokoth, captured just minutes before New Horizons made its closest approach on Jan. 1, 2019.

(Image credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute, National Optical Astronomy Observatory)

Its early origin was one of the primary reasons Arrokoth was selected for exploration. Scientists had hoped that they would be able to catch a glimpse of the building blocks of early solar system formation in the KBO, a hope that Arrokoth more than fulfilled. The lack of scarring around the neck, where the two lobes joined, suggest a gentle collision. This led researchers to surmise that Ultima and Thule likely formed separately at about the same time, then slowly spiraled into one another to create a single object.

"I think it's really interesting that people can look at the two parts of the object and estimate that they must have come together so slowly, almost equivalent to walking pace," Bagenal said.

Arrokoth rotates on its axis once every 16 hours as it makes its 293-Earth-year orbit around the sun. Unlike Earth, whose rotation axis is roughly perpendicular to its orbit, Arrokoth keeps its north pole pointed towards the sun, resulting in long polar days and nights when regions may receive decades of daylight or darkness.

The crescent of Arrokoth, captured when New Horizons looked back at the object after the historic New Horizons flyby of Jan. 1, 2019.

(Image credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute, National Optical Astronomy Observatory)

New Horizons also mapped the features of Arrokoth, charting its composition, bright spots, and fractures across the surface. The most volatile ices long ago escaped from the tiny object, but methanol, acetylene, ethane and hydrogen cyanide would have been retained. As radiation from the distant sun and other stars hit Arrokoth, hydrogen would have slowly been released, turning the ices into material known as tholins. On Pluto's moon Charon, an earlier target of New Horizons, tholins create the reddish cap at the north pole. They may also be responsible for the reddish color of Arrokoth.

Not all of New Horizons' data has been returned to Earth.

Although Singer said that all of the images from closest approach have returned to Earth, the spacecraft will continue to send home data until the mid-2020s at a speed of only a few bits per minute. Once it has all returned to Earth, the team hopes to begin the hunt for the next target using telescopes back on Earth.

"The team has made a ton of progress on interpreting Arrokoth and what it means for solar system formation," Singer said. "It is still amazing to me that humanity now has pictures of one of the most primordial objects in our solar system."

And New Horizons's work may not be finished.

Alan Stern, the principal investigator of New Horizons, has said the mission team is still looking for other flyby targets that may arise in the Kuiper Belt.

"So as we look forward to the 2020s, our team is planning the next few years for New Horizons," he said in a blog post earlier this month, adding that the search won't start until this summer. "We don't know how many KBOs we will discover or whether any will be within our fuel supply to reach for a final close flyby, but that's what these searches, in 2020 and again in 2021, will reveal."

Follow Nola on Facebook and on Twitter at @NolaTRedd. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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

03-01-2020 om 01:32 geschreven door peter

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There's a Giant Mystery Hiding Inside Every Atom in the Universe

What exactly happens inside atoms?

No one really knows what happens inside an atom. But two competing groups of scientists think they've figured it out. And both are racing to prove that their own vision is correct.

Here's what we know for sure: Electrons whiz around "orbitals" in an atom's outer shell. Then there's a whole lot of empty space. And then, right in the center of that space, there's a tiny nucleus — a dense knot of protons and neutrons that give the atom most of its mass. Those protons and neutrons cluster together, bound by what's called the strong force. And the numbers of those protons and neutrons determine whether the atom is iron or oxygen or xenon, and whether it's radioactive or stable.

Still, no one knows how those protons and neutrons (together known as nucleons) behave inside an atom. Outside an atom, protons and neutrons have definite sizes and shapes. Each of them is made up of three smaller particles called quarks, and the interactions between those quarks are so intense that no external force should be able to deform them, not even the powerful forces between particles in a nucleus. But for decades, researchers have known that the theory is in some way wrong. Experiments have shown that, inside a nucleus, protons and neutrons appear much larger than they should be. Physicists have developed two competing theories that try to explain that weird mismatch, and the proponents of each are quite certain the other is incorrect. Both camps agree, however, that whatever the correct answer is, it must come from a field beyond their own.

Since at least the 1940s, physicists have known that nucleons move in tight little orbitals within the nucleus, Gerald Miller, a nuclear physicist at the University of Washington, told Live Science. The nucleons, confined in their movements, have very little energy. They don't bounce around much, restrained by the strong force.

In 1983, physicists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) noticed something strange: Beams of electrons bounced off iron in a way that was very different from how they bounced off free protons, Miller said. That was unexpected; if the protons inside hydrogen were the same size as the protons inside iron, the electrons should have bounced off in much the same way.

At first, researchers didn't know what they were looking at.

But over time, scientists came to believe it was a size issue. For some reason, protons and neutrons inside heavy nuclei act as if they are much larger than when they are outside the nuclei. Researchers call this phenomenon the EMC effect, after the European Muon Collaboration — the group that accidentally discovered it. It violates existing theories of nuclear physics.

Or Hen, a nuclear physicist at MIT, has an idea that could potentially explain what's going on.

While quarks, the subatomic particles that make up nucleons, strongly interact within a given proton or neutron, quarks in different protons and neutrons can't interact much with each other, he said. The strong force inside a nucleon is so strong it eclipses the strong force holding nucleons to other nucleons.

"Imagine sitting in your room talking to two of your friends with the windows closed," Hen said.

The trio in the room are three quarks inside a neutron or proton.

"A light breeze is blowing outside," he said.

That light breeze is the force holding the proton or neutron to nearby nucleons that are "outside" the window. Even if a little snuck through the closed window, Hen said, it would barely affect you.

And as long as nucleons stay in their orbitals, that's the case. However, he said, recent experiments have shown that at any given time, about 20% of the nucleons in a nucleus are in fact outside their orbitals. Instead, they're paired off with other nucleons, interacting in "short range correlations." Under those circumstances, the interactions between the nucleons are much higher-energy than usual, he said. That's because the quarks poke through the walls of their individual nucleons and start to directly interact, and those quark-quark interactions are much more powerful than nucleon-nucleon interactions.

These interactions break down the walls separating quarks inside individual protons or neutrons, Hen said. The quarks making up one proton and the quarks making up another proton start to occupy the same space. This causes the protons (or neutrons, as the case may be) to stretch and blur, Hen said. They grow a lot, albeit for very short periods of time. That skews the average size of the entire cohort in the nucleus — producing the EMC effect.

Related: Strange Quarks and Muons, Oh My! Nature’s Tiniest Particles Dissected

Most physicists now accept this interpretation of the EMC effect, Hen said. And Miller, who worked with Hen on some of the key research, agreed.

But not everyone thinks Hen's group has the problem worked out. Ian Cloët, a nuclear physicist at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois, said he thinks Hen's work draws conclusions that the data doesn't fully support.

"I think the EMC effect is still unresolved," Cloët told Live Science. That's because the basic model of nuclear physics already accounts for a lot of the short-range pairing Hen describes. Yet, "if you use that model to try and look at the EMC effect, you will not describe the EMC effect. There is no successful explanation of the EMC effect using that framework. So in my opinion, there's still a mystery."

Hen and his collaborators are doing experimental work that is "valiant" and "very good science," he said. But it doesn't fully resolve the problem of the atomic nucleus.

"What is clear is that the traditional model of nuclear physics … cannot explain this EMC effect," he said. "We now think that the explanation must be coming from QCD itself."

QCD stands for quantum chromodynamics — the system of rules that govern the behavior of quarks. Shifting from nuclear physics to QCD is a bit like looking at the same picture twice: once on a first-generation flip phone — that's nuclear physics — and then again on a high-resolution TV — that's quantum chromodynamics. The high-res TV offers a lot more detail, but it's a lot more complicated to build.

The problem is that the complete QCD equations describing all the quarks in a nucleus are too difficult to solve, Cloët and Hen both said. Modern supercomputers are about 100 years away from being fast enough for the task, Cloët estimated. And even if supercomputers were fast enough today, the equations haven't advanced to the point where you could plug them into a computer, he said.

Still, he said, it's possible to work with QCD to answer some questions. And right now, he said, those answers offer a different explanation for the EMC effect: Nuclear Mean-Field Theory.

He disagrees that 20% of nucleons in a nucleus are bound up in short-range correlations. The experiments just don't prove that, he said. And there are theoretical problems with the idea.

That suggests we need a different model, he said.

"The picture that I have is, we know that inside a nucleus are these very strong nuclear forces," Cloët said. These are "a bit like electromagnetic fields, except they're strong force fields."

The fields operate at such tiny distances that they're of negligible magnitude outside the nucleus, but they're powerful inside of it.

In Cloët's model, these force fields, which he calls "mean fields" (for the combined strength they carry) actually deform the internal structure of protons, neutrons and pions (a type of strong force-carrying particle).

"Just like if you take an atom and you put it inside a strong magnetic field, you will change the internal structure of that atom," Cloët said.

In other words, mean-field theorists think the sealed-up room Hen described has holes in its walls, and wind is blowing through to knock the quarks around, stretching them out.

Cloët acknowledged that it's possible short-range correlations likely explain some portion of the EMC effect, and Hen said mean fields likely do play a role as well.

"The question is, which dominates," Cloët said.

Miller, who has also worked extensively with Cloët, said that the mean field has the advantage of being more well-grounded in theory. But Cloët hasn't yet done all the necessary calculations, he said.

And right now the weight of experimental evidence suggests that Hen has the better of the argument.

Hen and Cloët both said the results of experiments in the next few years could resolve the question. Hen cited an experiment underway at Jefferson National Accelerator Facility in Virginia that will move nucleons closer together, bit by bit, and allow researchers to watch them change. Cloët said he wants to see a "polarized EMC experiment" that would break up the effect based on the spin (a quantum trait) of the protons involved. It might reveal unseen details of the effect that could aid calculations, he said.

All three researchers emphasized that the debate is friendly.

"It's great, because it means we're still making progress," Miller said. "Eventually, something's going to be in the textbook and the ball game is over. ... The fact that there's two competing ideas means that it's exciting and vibrant. And now finally we have the experimental tools to resolve these issues."

Originally published on Live Science.

03-01-2020 om 00:43 geschreven door peter

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There's Water on Alien Planets, Just Not As Much as Scientists Thought: Study

By Charles Q. Choi

There's less water out there than we thought. But, why?

A most extensive survey yet of the atmospheric makeup of exoplanets challenges planet formation theories and the search for water on other worlds.

Water appears both common and unexpectedly scarce in exoplanets — many distant worlds have it, but less of it than predicted, a new study finds.

These findings may shed light on how planets form, including those in our own solar system, researchers said.

Scientists examined data from the atmospheres on 19 exoplanets collected by space-based and ground-based telescopes. These worlds ranged widely in temperature, from nearly 70 degrees F (20 degrees C) to more than 3,630 degrees F (2,000 degrees C), and in size, "from mini-Neptunes roughly 10 times Earth's mass to super-Jupiters more than 600 times Earth's mass," study co-author Nikku Madhusudhan, an astrophysicist at the University of Cambridge in England, told Space.com.

Related: The Strangest Alien Planets of All Time
More: Planet Classification: How to Group Exoplanets

The scientists found that water vapor was common in the alien worlds they examined, detected in 14 of the 19 worlds.

"The fact that we are making detailed measurements of water vapor in exoplanets is remarkable, because we have not yet made any significant detection of water for the giant planets in our own solar system," Madhusudhan said. "We can measure water better with exoplanets than in our own solar system."

Besides water, the chemicals most often detected in giant exoplanet atmospheres were sodium and potassium. The amounts of sodium and potassium seen in the exoplanets were consistent with expectations given what scientists know about the planets in our solar system. However, water vapor levels were significantly lower than predicted.

"That was a big surprise," Madhusudhan said.

The predictions the researchers had for how much water these exoplanets should have possessed is based off how much water may lurk in the gas giants in our own solar system, which remains uncertain. Multiple efforts to detect water in Jupiter's atmosphere, including NASA's current Juno mission, have faced numerous challenges.

"Since Jupiter is so cold, any water vapor condenses out of its atmosphere, and we can't see it," study lead author Luis Welbanks, an astrophysicist at the University of Cambridge in England, told Space.com.

The expectations about how much water solar system gas giants should have are based on how the amount of carbon relative to hydrogen in the atmospheres of giant planets is significantly higher than that of the sun. Previous research suggested this "super-solar" abundance originated when the solar system was forming and large amounts of carbon-loaded ices and dust fell or accreted onto giant planets.

Prior work also suggested that abundances of certain elements besides carbon should be similarly high in the atmospheres of giant planets, especially oxygen, which is the most abundant element in the cosmos after hydrogen and helium. As such, this suggested that water, the most common oxygen-bearing molecule in the universe, should also be overabundant in the atmospheres of giant planets, having accreted in the form of ice as those worlds formed.

These findings suggest that when giant planets form, less ice may fall into them than previously thought. For example, if giant planets form by accreting material from the protoplanetary disks surrounding newborn stars, these worlds may accrete very different levels of chemicals such as water depending on where they form and how they move within protoplanetary disks.

"There may be ways of making a giant planet that is underabundant in oxygen and therefore water," Madhusudhan said. "By looking at exoplanets, we are reconsidering how planets may have also formed in our own solar system."

There is life virtually wherever there is water on Earth, so discovering that there is less water in other planetary systems than expected might suggest the chances of life as we know it elsewhere in the universe are lower as well. Still, "if you look at Earth, it doesn't have that much water by mass — in fact, Earth is slightly underabundant in water," Madhusudhan said. "So our findings regarding a lower inventory of water in exoplanets is not necessarily bad news for their potential for habitability."

The researchers aim to look at more exoplanets to see if they follow the pattern they detected or look for outliers that might buck this trend. "Ultimately, we are bound to find outliers," Madhusudhan said. "Nature is extremely diverse when it comes to the properties of planetary systems."

The scientists detailed their findings online Dec. 11 in the journal The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Follow Charles Q. Choi on Twitter @cqchoi. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

03-01-2020 om 00:31 geschreven door peter

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These 5 UFO Traits, Seen by Navy Fighters, Defy Explanation

Called the '5 observables' by a former Pentagon investigator, they include hypersonic speed, erratic movement and the ability to fly without wings.

MISSY SULLIVAN & GREG DAUGHERTY

You know a UFO has earned its "unidentified" status when cockpit transcripts from elite Navy fighter jets include this frantic pilot exclamation: "Holy s___, what is that?"

When Luis Elizondo ran a small team at the U.S. Department of Defense investigating military-based reports of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), he heard numerous such accounts—by some of the most highly trained aeronautic experts in the military. They describe objects that appeared to be intelligently controlled, possessing aerodynamic capabilities that far surpass any currently known aircraft technology.

Now pursuing his investigations as part of To the Stars Academy of Arts & Sciences, Elizondo is an integral part of the investigative team featured on HISTORY's “Unidentified: Inside America’s UFO Investigation," where they have continued to gather eyewitness accounts:

"It's white. It has no wings. It has no rotors."

"It didn't fly like an aircraft. It was so unpredictable—high g, rapid velocity, rapid acceleration."

"I didn't see a trail."

"It was going 70-plus knots underwater."

Those reports—from Navy fighter pilots, radar operators and other witnesses from the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier strike group incident from November 2004—were among a handful of shocking encounters the Unidentified team explored. When Elizondo ran the Defense Department initiative, called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, or AATIP, he compiled a list of extraordinary, logic-defying capabilities most commonly associated with unidentified aerial phenomena sightings.

He calls those traits the “five observables”:

READ MORE: When Top Gun Pilots Tangled with a Tic-Tac-Shaped UFO

1) Anti-gravity lift.

Unlike any known aircraft, these objects have been sighted overcoming the earth’s gravity with no visible means of propulsion. They also lack any flight surfaces, such as wings. In the Nimitz incident, witnesses describe the crafts as tubular, shaped like a Tic Tac candy.

2) Sudden and instantaneous acceleration.

The objects may accelerate or change direction so quickly that no human pilot could survive the g-forces—they would be crushed. In the Nimitz incident, radar operators say they tracked one of the UFOs as it dropped from the sky at more than 30 times the speed of sound. Black Aces squadron commander David Fravor, the Nimitz-based fighter pilot who was sent to intercept one of the objects, likened its rapid side-to-side movements, later captured on infrared video, to that of a ping-pong ball. Radar operators on the USS Princeton, part of the Nimitz carrier group, tracked the object accelerating from a standing position to traveling 60 miles in a minute—an astounding 3,600 miles an hour. According to manufacturer Boeing, the F/A 18 Super Hornet fighter jet typically currently reaches a maximum speed of Mach 1.6, or about 1,200 miles an hour.

READ MORE: UFO Stories

3) Hypersonic velocities without signatures.

If an aircraft travels faster than the speed of sound, it typically leaves "signatures," like vapor trails and sonic booms. Many UFO accounts note the lack of such evidence.

4) Low observability, or cloaking.

Even when objects are observed, getting a clear and detailed view of them—either through pilot sightings, radar or other means—remains difficult. Witnesses generally only see the glow or haze around them.

5) Trans-medium travel.

Some UAP have been seen moving easily in and between different environments, such as space, the earth’s atmosphere and even water. In the Nimitz incident, witnesses described a UFO hovering over a churning "disturbance" just under the ocean's otherwise calm surface, leading to speculation that another craft had entered the water. USS Princeton radar operator Gary Vorhees later confirmed from a Navy sonar operator in the area that day that a craft was moving faster than 70 knots, roughly two times the speed of nuclear subs.

No one has yet gotten close to crafts that display these traits, so their origins are still unknown. Are they a super-top-secret U.S. defense project? Do they hail from Russia? China? Or from even further afield? The only thing we do know is that their capabilities exceed any technologies currently in the U.S. arsenal.

READ MORE: Interactive Map: UFO Sightings Taken Seriously by the U.S. Government.

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

03-01-2020 om 00:17 geschreven door peter

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02-01-2020

Former Polish president warns of ET invasion

Former Polish president warns of ET invasion

Walesa's comments are rather surprising.

Image Credit: CC BY 2.0 Piotr Drabik

Walesa’s comments are rather surprising.

In a recent speech, Lech Walesa made some rather 'out there' comments about extraterrestrial visitors.

His unexpected remarks were made during a talk at a civic club in Krosno where he went inexplicably off-topic and started to discuss his belief that intelligent extraterrestrials are not only watching us, but could soon intervene in a catastrophic way due to the actions of other world leaders.

"There are three levels of intellectual development in other galaxies," he said. "We are the lowest. And the higher civilization comes as a UFO and others [sic], and looks at what they are doing here."

"If we threaten to destabilize here with Macron, Putin there, they will interrupt us, cut us in half, the Earth will collapse, everyone will [be] crush[ed]. They can hold us that way for five thousand years."

"They will send Adam and Eve and we will build the world again."

Walesa also seems to be under the impression that extraterrestrials have interfered with human civilization before, as evidenced by his belief that they had a hand in building the pyramids.

"People find things, dig in stones, these pyramids... no answer, where did it come from?" he said.

Exactly what the former Polish leader is basing any of this on however remains unclear, especially given that he has never publically expressed any interest in the subject before.

While it's easy to dismiss his comments as nonsense, some have suggested that he may have learned something during his time as president and has been keeping it a secret until now.

Then again, these could simply be his own personal views and theories.

We may never know for sure.

WaldemarKowal@waldemarkowal

Wałęsa: Na innych galaktykach 3 poziomy rozwoju; wyższa cywilizacja przyjeżdża i przygląda się, co tu wyprawiają, jak zagrozimy destabilizacji Putinem, oni nam przeszkodzą,przetną na pół,ziemia się zwinie,wszystkich nas zgniecie, przytrzymają nas 5 tys lat

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02-01-2020 om 23:56 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )

Deze mysterieuze tekening in Australië plaatst de wetenschap voor een groot raadsel

Foto: Peter Campbell CC BY-SA 3.0 Wikimedia Commons

Deze mysterieuze tekening in Australië plaatst de wetenschap voor een groot raadsel

Een groot raadsel in Australië is nog altijd onopgelost. In 1998 werd in het zuiden van het land een mysterieuze tekening van een Aboriginal-jager gevonden in het zand.

Het is nog altijd onduidelijk wie de ruim 3,5 kilometer grote geoglief heeft gemaakt.

De zogeheten Marree Man is zo groot dat hij alleen goed zichtbaar is vanuit de lucht.

Restaureren

De Marree Man is vernoemd naar een nabijgelegen plaats. De lijnen zijn in de loop der jaren vervaagd, en in 2013 waren ze nauwelijks nog zichtbaar.

In augustus 2016 besloten lokale bewoners de geoglief te restaureren. In vijf dagen tijd werd de Marree Man opnieuw ‘getekend’.

Het restauratieteam denkt dat de nieuwe versie langer zichtbaar blijft dan het origineel.

Raadsel

De Operational Land Imager-satelliet van de NASA maakte onderstaande foto van de tekening in juni vorig jaar.

Het raadsel rond de tekening is nog altijd onopgelost.

Er zouden aanwijzingen zijn dat de Marree Man is gemaakt door een kunstenaar uit Alice Springs, terwijl anderen suggereren dat de maker een Amerikaan was.

[NASA]

02-01-2020 om 23:07 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:NineForNews. nl ( new ipv NIBURU.nl) (NL)

FAA Issues Ruling and Begins Investigation of Mysterious Giant Drones in Colorado and Nebraska

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FAA Issues Ruling and Begins Investigation of Mysterious Giant Drones in Colorado and Nebraska

Finally! After a week of stories about mysterious giant drones flying in formation over parts of northeastern Colorado and across the border into Nebraska, with numerous eyewitness accounts from law enforcement agencies, the Federal Aviation Administration has made two announcements. First, the agency issued a proposed rule change requiring most drones to be easily identifiable remotely. Second, the FAA announced it is working with law enforcement in the five counties reporting the giant drones in a concerted effort to identify the owner and their purpose. Great news or too little too late?

“It was too low to the ground to be a plane, and it seemed way too close to the house to be out in space, like a satellite. It was definitely within driving range, for sure. You could see that it was rotating. You could see things sticking off to the sides. It was crazy.”

The Denver Post interviewed Jennifer Rollins who captured what appears to be one of the first known videos of the nighttime drones (watch it here) while visiting her parents in Colorado’s Yuma County – ground zero for these drone sightings. Her sighting came a day after the Denver Post revealed it had received an email from FAA spokesman Ian Gregor to Reuters announcing the proposed rule change for identifying drones.

The rule will be open for public comment for 60 days and the debate is expected to be heated, with there currently being nearly 1.5 million drones and 160,000 remote pilots currently registered with the FAA and more coming as excited new owners play with their Christmas presents … and as more potential terrorists seethe over national and world developments.

While officials continue to say publicly that the Colorado giant drones don’t appear to be “malicious,” U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner, who lives in Yuma and is a member of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Aviation and Space, says he’s closely monitoring the situation and is “encouraged that they’ve opened a full investigation to learn the source and purpose of the drones. ‘They’ is the FAA, which will meet with Yuma County Sheriff Todd Combs and other sheriff’s offices and police departments on January 6th. Combs says:

“Hopefully this meeting will provide some answers, or at least aid in the development of a plan to identify who is in control of the drones.”

Meanwhile, local residents like Dawn George of Wray in Yuma County continue to be concerned about the regular nightly appearances of the mysterious giant drones, as are her dogs.

“They’ll run out. They can hear them. If you’re familiar with what a drone sounds like, they sound identical to a smaller drone, just louder. It’s just really weird that everybody is seeing them and no one has an answer … or someone has an answer and we’re not being told what is going on.”

Good observation, Dawn. Why has it taken so long for the FAA to get involved? Why is the identification ruling just ‘proposed’ and ‘open for comment’ and not more of a temporary restraining order until this mystery is resolved? Why is the first meeting a week away while the drones continue to fly in formation in two states? Why do officials continue to say the drones are not “malicious” but don’t say why?

“It’s just really weird.”

Let’s hope that’s all it is, Dawn. Meanwhile, we’ll keep an eye on the story and on the skies over Colorado and Nebraska.

02-01-2020 om 22:21 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

Proof of Real Amazon Warriors Found in Western Russia

The Amazon everyone knows today is in Seattle, Washington. The REAL Amazon flows through South America. The Amazons — the mythological tribe of warrior women believed by ancient Greeks to be the daughters of Ares (the Greek god of war, appropriately) and Harmonia (a nymph of the Akmonian Wood in Anatolia) lived in Anatolia, better known as Asia Minor, the large peninsula that is the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent making up most of modern-day Turkey. The REAL Amazons lived in Russia. Wait … what? Wonder Woman is Russian? This changes EVERYTHING!

Russian? You’ve got some explaining to do!

“Such head dresses have been found a bit more than two dozen and they all were in ‘tzar’ or not very rich barrows of the steppe zone of Scythia. We first found such head dress in the barrows of the forest steppe zone and what is more interesting the head dress was first found in the burial of an Amazon.”

In a recent press release, Valerii Guliaev, the head of the Don River archeological expedition, described what he announced in greater detail at the December 2019 meeting of the Academic Council of IA RAS. The Don River runs from Novomoskovsk south for 1,870 km (1162 miles – making it Russia’s fifth-longest river) to the Sea of Azov, a northern extension of the Black Sea. His team has been digging in Cemetery Devitsa V (Devista is a village on the Don) since 2010 and has found 19 mounds covered burial sites. One in particular, called Barrow 9, recently revealed an ancient tomb from when the ancient Greeks referred to the area as Sythia, home of a nomadic culture of Scythians from the 11th century BCE until the second century CE.

In Barrow 9, Guliaev’s team found the graves of four women of various ages — 20-29, 25-35, 12-13 and 45-50 years old. All were buried at the same time and the grave robbers had broken into the part holding two of the younger women, but the others were untouched. In them, they found “more than 30 iron arrow heads, an iron hook in the shape of a bird, fragments of horse harness, iron hooks for hanging harness, iron knives, fragments of molded vessels, multiple animals’ bones.” One was buried in a “position of a horseman” with the tendons of her legs cut to allow them to be bent. The ceremonial headdress was buried with the oldest woman along with an iron knife wrapped into a piece of fabric and a rare iron arrow head with forked end. These and other artifacts identified the women as Amazon warriors and this as a very unique find, according to Guliaev.

“The Amazons are common Scythian phenomenon and only on Middle Don during the last decade our expedition has discovered approximately 11 burials of young armed women. Separate barrows were filled for them and all burial rites which were usually made for men were done for them. However, we come across burials with four Amazons of such different age for the first time.”

Not only that, two of the women – the oldest and the youngest – appear to have died at the same time. There are no indications of injuries or fatal contagious diseases, so their simultaneous deaths are a mystery still waiting to be solved. As is the mystery of how and why these nomadic Scythian women became the real Amazons of Greek legends – mythical warriors who were tied to what is now Turkey or, in the tale of Wonder Woman, to Paradise Island in the middle of an ocean.

Time for a new movie?

02-01-2020 om 22:09 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ARCHEOLOGIE ( E, Nl, Fr )

The Amazons Were More Than A Myth: Archaeological And Written Evidence For The Ancient Warrior Women

The Amazons Were More Than A Myth: Archaeological And Written Evidence For The Ancient Warrior Women

By Carly Silver

The Amazons frequently pop up in Greek mythology. But unlike the demi-god Hercules, they were probably real.

An Amazon on horseback is seized by a Greek opponent in this fourth-century mosaic from Daphne, Turkey

Legends of formidable female warriors known as the Amazons permeate ancient lore – and, with the Wonder Woman franchise, modern-day movie screens. In particular, Ancient Greek writers loved spinning tales of how the Amazon women matched men in their traditional domain of war-making.

Mythographer Apollodorus, writing in the first or second century A.D., dubbed the Amazons “a people great in war,” who were so committed to martial endeavors that they “pinched off the right breasts that they might not be trammelled by them in throwing the javelin, but they kept the left breasts, that [their offspring] might suckle.”

They were even said to challenge the likes of such mythological warriors as Heracles, Theseus, and Achilles. But were the Amazons just a myth — or were they real?

The Real Amazons Of Ancient History

Did the Amazonians really exist? Historian Adrienne Mayor delves into their complicated history.

What did the ancient Greeks have to say about the Amazons outside of myths? As classicist Adrienne Mayor noted in her seminal book, The Amazons, apparently, they believed that the Amazons were very much real historical figures. They may have very well been real-life horse-riding women hailing from Western Asia — places such as Iran and the Caucasus — who fought valiantly against their enemies.

According to Smithsonian Magazine, Homer’s Iliad was the first to mention them in the eighth century B.C. He described them as “antianeirai,” which many scholars have translated as “the opposite of men,” “antagonistic to men,” and “the equal of men.”

Centuries later, the so-called “Father of History,” Herodotus, wrote that the Amazons hailed from Scythia, a large steppe region in Central Eurasia.

Dubbed “man-killers” in the Greek tongue, the Amazons lived an idyllic, isolated existence, only mingling with men from neighboring tribes once a year in a ceremonious procreation ritual. The mothers would keep their female offspring and train them as warriors, and send off their male infants.

Bibi Saint-Pol/Staatliche Antikensammlungen /Wikimedia Commons

Amazons riding out to help the Trojans on a 6th-century BC amphora.

But their all-female utopia came to an end in the Battle of Thermodon, when three Amazonian ships sailing through the Black Sea reached the shores of Scythia. The native men and Amazonian women soon fell in love, marrying and starting their own tribe distinguished by revolutionary gender equality.

According to Herodotus, the Amazons “could not dwell with [the Scythian] women; for we and they have not the same customs. We shoot with the bow and throw the javelin and ride, but the crafts of women we have never learned.”

Herodotus called the descendants of these marriages the Sauromatae, or Sarmatians. Writing in the fifth century B.C., he said “the women of the Sauromatae have continued from that day to the present to observe their ancient customs, frequently hunting on horseback with their husbands…in war taking the field and wearing the very same dress as the men….Their marriage law lays it down, that no girl shall wed until she has killed a man in battle.”

Dbachmann/Wikimedia Commons

A map of ancient Scythia, where the historical Amazons are believed to have lived.

Amazons In Myth

In Greek mythology, the Amazons were fearsome adversaries to the greatest heroes of the day. Theseus, the slayer of the Minotaur, and Heracles, known in Ancient Rome and in the West as Hercules, were both said to have battled the Amazons.

In Theseus’s case, he reportedly ran off with the Amazons’ queen. Plutarch, writing in the beginning of the first millennium, calls the queen Antiope, though other ancient writers identify her as Hippolyta, Antiope’s sister.

By varying accounts, Theseus either stole the queen, had Heracles steal her for him, or the queen fell in love with Theseus and willingly left with him on his ship.

Furious, the Amazons trekked all the way to Athens to liberate their ruler. According to Plutarch, they put up a good fight: “The war of the Amazons…[was] no trivial nor womanish enterprise for Theseus. For they would not have pitched their camp within the city, nor fought hand to hand battles in the neighborhood of the Pnyx and the Museum, had they not mastered the surrounding country and approached the city with impunity.”

It was only after the Attic War, a hard-fought, three-month-long battle, which culminated in the death of their beloved leader, that the Amazons retreated. So many Amazon warriors died valiantly at Athens that they were buried at near a site called the Amazoneum, a temple that stood during Plutarch’s time and that may have been where Ancient Greeks would go to worship the mythic Amazons.

Zde/Archaeological Museum of Delphi

Theseusand Antiope, as pictured on the Treasury of Athenians at Delphi, from 500 BC.

Theseus and the Amazon queen’s relationship was famous for yielding a son, Hippolytus. According to one interpretation, he was devoted to the goddess of the hunt, Artemis, and defied Aphrodite, the goddess of love.

In retaliation, Aphrodite cursed his stepmother Queen Phaedra of Athens — the second wife of Theseus — making her fall in love with Hippolytus. However, Hippolytus rejected her advances, leading to his death and Phaedra’s suicide.

Heracles And Hippolyta’s Girdle

Another major Amazon adventure came when Heracles embarked on his ninth quest: retrieving the famous girdle of the Amazon Queen Hippolyta for Eurystheus, the daughter of a Mycenaean king. According to myth, this magical girdle was a gift from Hippolyta’s father, Ares, the god of war.

When Heracles landed at Themiscyra, the legendary capital of the Amazons situated on the northern coast of present-day Turkey, Hippolyta was happy to receive him and promised to give him the girdle. But his stepmother, Hera, transformed herself into a mortal Amazon warrior and went around “saying that the strangers who had arrived were carrying off the queen.”

To protect her, the Amazons charged the Greek hero, who “suspected treachery” and killed Hippolyta for the girdle, setting off for Troy.

Bibi Saint-Pol/Wikimedia Commons

Achilles and Penthesilea, queen of the Amazons, fight on a 6th-century B.C. amphora.

According to historian Diodorus Siculus, who lived in the first century B.C., Heracles slayed so many Amazons during his quest that this gave neighboring barbarian tribes an opportunity to attack them.

The Amazons In The Trojan War

A few generations later, by the time of the Trojan War, there were only a few Amazon warriors left. Led by Queen Penthesilea, they allied themselves with the Trojans against the Greeks, who were led by the Ethiopian King Memnon, Spartan King Menelaus and the demigod Achilles, the greatest of the Greek mythological warriors.

The Triumph Of Achilles

Franz von Matsch/Wikimedia Commons

The ancient Greek war hero Achilles was said to have fallen in love with an Amazonian during the Trojan War.

It is said that “after the death of Hector she [Penthesilea] slew many of the Greeks.” And the only warrior who could match her prowess was the mighty Achilles himself.

A surviving synopsis from a lost ancient epic, the Aethiopis, recalls that Achilles only defeated her after she displayed “great prowess” on the battlefield.

So enchanted by her beauty and martial skills was Achilles that one of his fellow warriors, Thersites, mocked him for his affections. Angry, Achilles slew Thersites for his rudeness.

After Penthesilea’s death, the Amazons dwindled even further.

Historian Siculus lamented: “Now they say that Penthesilea was the last of the Amazons to win distinction for bravery and that for the future the race diminished more and more and then lost all its strength; consequently in later times, whenever any writers recount their prowess, men consider the ancient stories about the Amazons to be fictitious tales.”

Did Alexander The Great Have A Child With An Amazon?

The Amazons are also mentioned in the writings of Plutarch. In his Lives, Plutarch recounted Alexander the Great’s march into Parthia, or present-day Iran, in the fourth century B.C.

While he was recovering from diarrhea, legend has it, the queen of the Amazons came to visit Alexander in order to breed a new race of super-strong and intelligent children — although Plutarch himself was doubtful this ever happened.

Thalestris And Alexander

AlexandersTomb.com/Wikimedia Commons

The Amazonian queen Thalestris meets Alexander the Great.

Later historians such as Diodorus Siculus stated that Thalestris, queen of the Amazons, paid Alexander a visit. He described her as “remarkable for beauty and for bodily strength, and was admired by her countrywomen for bravery.”

Along with 300 of her Amazon women, Thalestris came to Alexander to conceive a child because “he had shown himself the greatest of all men in his achievements, and she was superior to all women in strength and courage, so that presumably the offspring of such outstanding parents would surpass all other mortals in excellence.”

Diodorus said Alexander was happy to oblige, and after nearly two weeks of sex, sent Thalestris home with presents — and presumably an heir.

Archaeological Evidence For The Amazons

Joanbanjo/Wikimedia Commons

A gold vessel from a burial site of real-life warrior women.

In recent decades, archaeologists have excavated grave sites in Western Asia and Russia, unearthing proof that women fitting the description of Amazons may have very well existed.

In what was considered the homelands of the historical Amazon women, scientists have uncovered burial places of women with lavish grave goods that indicated not only their wealth but, more importantly, their warrior status.

As summarized by Mayor:

“Archaeologists have found skeletons buried with bows and arrows and quivers and spears and horses. At first they assumed that anyone buried with weapons in that region must have been a male warrior. But with the advent of DNA testing and other bioarchaeological scientific analysis, they’ve found that about one-third of all Scythian women are buried with weapons and have war injuries just like the men. The women were also buried with knives and daggers and tools. So burial with masculine-seeming grave goods is no longer taken as an indicator of a male warrior. It’s overwhelming proof that there were women answering to the description of the ancient Amazons.”

More evidence came in the 1990s, when archaeologists excavated burial mounds of ancient women in the former Soviet bloc. These graves contained not only rich ornamentation but also weapons.

Marcel Nyffenegger

The recreated visage of a teenage Amazon warrior woman, found in a burial site in Siberia. Archaeologists believe she lived about 2,500 years ago.

Then, in Kazakhstan, archaeologist Jeannine Davis-Kimball uncovered deceased women who were bow-legged from a lifetime of riding horses, while another woman was buried with 40 arrows tipped in bronze.

As Davis-Kimball told The New York Times in 1997: “These women were warriors of some sort. They were not necessarily fighting battles all the time, like a Genghis Khan, but protecting their herds and grazing territory when they had to. If they had been fighting all the time, more of the skeletons would show signs of violent deaths.”

Why Were The Greeks So Fascinated By The Amazons?

Even if the Amazons were indeed real, it seems the ancient Greeks used Amazon myths to put women in their place.

In the words of one ancient Greece expert, every Amazon myth followed the same “dark mythic script: all Amazons must die, no matter how attractive, no matter how heroic.” The Greeks may have toyed with the possibility that women were the equals of men, but ultimately erred on the side of subjugation.

While their mythological portrayal is somewhat exaggerated — most notably, their supposed tendency to live in a female-only or female-dominated society — warrior women who rode into combat alongside men certainly existed in the steppes of Eurasia, inspiring the Greeks to write enthralling stories of their beauty and martial prowess.

Little did they know, those stories would inspire and entertain more than 2,000 years later.

After reading about the Amazon women of ancient Greek myth — and reality — read about another formidable woman from antiquity, the ruthless Empress Wu Zetian of China. Then, learn all about ancient societies that adopted pederasty.

{ https://allthatsinteresting.com/ }

02-01-2020 om 22:00 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ARCHEOLOGIE ( E, Nl, Fr )

Arizona UFOs: Mysterious Light Returns to Mesa and a Cigar UFO Hovers Over Phoenix

While the mainstream media has noticed the mysterious giant drones flying in formation in fleets of up to 30 continue to fly over parts of Colorado and Nevada, Arizona ended 2019 with a couple of UFO incidents which can’t be easily dismissed as drones – including one that seems to have returned to the same spot over Mesa to be witnessed and recorded by the same shocked couple on New Year’s Eve. Do aliens celebrate the annual circumnavigation of the Sun too?

“We are the couple who filmed the UFO over Mesa, Arizona, on Dec 8th 2019. We couldn’t believe it! It was the same exact craft, or object we saw from Dec 8th 2019! It behaved and maneuvered dropping the orbs or objects just like the last time we saw it. But this time it did something new we didn’t see the last time.”

As many UFO witnesses will attest, once you see one you can’t stop looking for them. Most never see another — Mesa residents Kerri Burnett and Doug Maier were lucky (or perhaps chosen?) to see the same UFO they witnessed on December 8, 2019. Doug posted his first video on Facebook and the sighting was reported on by many media outlets, with one ABC reporter following up unsuccessfully with the FAA. nearby Luke Air Force Base and the Army National Guard. On New Year’s Eve, just before midnight as fireworks began to blast, Maier and Burnett saw it again and recorded another video (watch it here) along with a shocking new twist.

“This time it did something new, and it was pretty scary as I almost shit a brick. It let off a super bright glow also possibly a second object or craft. It lit up and glowed aggressively, it was no firework. The clock had just hit midnight taking us into 2020, so there were fireworks. Watch for yourself.”

How many more before the authorities admit something is happening?

Maier told me it was the same craft in the same area as the last one. He compiled both his and Burnett’s videos (proving it wasn’t a camera anomaly) into one and added a daytime view of the same area to show it was not a light from a tower. He concluded it with this reaction:

“When that thing took off or disappeared, it got really bright and BAM! Gone. This was a little frightening compared to the last time. Happy 2020!! Watch those skies.”

Good advice from a couple who can’t explain the bright orb they’ve now seen twice in the same location – and no one else seems to be able to (or willing to) explain it either. Are they too busy in Colorado chasing easier-to-explain drones? Or perhaps they’re in Phoenix watching a video of a cigar-shaped UFO over Sky Harbor International Airport on December 28th (does that date sound familiar?).

The Phoenix cigar UFO was reported to MUFON with a video that was uploaded to YouTube by Disclose Screen ‘The Grimreefar’, a popular channel for UFO videos.

While the cigar UFO seems motionless for many minutes, there’s something familiar about that location and date that many commenters picked up on, like this one:

John Moore
It’s the Goodyear Blimp, in town for the Fiesta Bowl. You can see it on the radar archives.

The Playstation Fiesta Bowl was played on December 28th (full disclosure – this writer is a fan of Ohio State and watch the game) and the Goodyear blimp was indeed hovering over it just 20 miles from the airport.

A different blimp photo — can you see it?

OK, that one was easy. Doug Maier and Kerri Burnett’s Mesa glowing orb isn’t. Will the FAA and military officials ignore this one too? Will any other witnesses come forward with more videos? Remember what Doug said:

“Watch those skies.”

02-01-2020 om 20:59 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

The 30-Second Trick for Ufo Sightings

The Hidden Truth About Ufo Sightings

Since the moon doesn’t have an atmosphere, they ask the way the flag fluttered. Earth is nowhere to be viewed. Our planet looks like it was intended for life. It was believed that this sort of planet was obligated to explain the orbital qualities of the outer planets Uranus and Neptune.

You are going to have to listen to the podcast to find out what the guys have to say. The majority of the videos are debunked by experts. It is not shaky like most. Some video footage implies that the objects move quickly. What earns the video footage even more credible is that there’s footage taken by different folks in various areas of town. The video footage is extremely very clear. It’s astonishing how many UFO movies online appear to really demonstrate these lanterns.

Lake monsters aren’t the only inexplicable phenomena that happen at the lake. In terms of Bigfoot sightings, ape-like creatures are seen all over the united states and Canada. Individuals openly declare to get kidnapped with these aliens on a single occasion or the other after they’ve seen a UFO. Since many individuals now think that the aliens are not anything more than the demons of old, we’ve come full circle.

UFOs aren’t so hampered. Throughout that time period, there were two triangle UFOs sighted in the identical place. You’re able to confirm this sighting at their site. Sightings of UFOs have existed for ages. By way of example, over Midlothian, several sightings are made from January to March. The most frequently known UFO sighting in the USA is called the Roswell UFO sighting of 1947.

Inside my memory, but the vessel exists clearly and sharply. Past the aerodrome there’s the sea. Although the lake is record-breaking and lovely, it’s far more than just the Pearl of Russia. Moreover, it’s the world’s biggest freshwater lake, and it’s also the deepest lake on Earth.

The Fundamentals of Ufo Sightings Revealed

Folks find a means to communicate with each other in different and more direct ways. Something needs to be accomplished. There’s very little doubt that the web has played a part in the development of UFO reports in the last several years, though most can be explained by natural or human-caused phenomena. Somewhere beyond all of the tumult lies the reality. It is, most people are not there yet. For that reason, it IS reality. Due to the remoteness of the area, their existence was considered to be a myth for many decades.

The evidence might have been much more compelling, in the event the very first recorded incident was not revealed as a hoax. Before you make a decision as to what you believe, we implore you to comprehend the evidence. For starters, so many individuals say reflexively that there’s no evidence of an ET presence engaging our planet, when they don’t really know the evidence. There are also a number of witnesses. Then explain someone who died in the incident has a fortune in a financial institution and should you help them get the amount from the bank you will secure a lot of money.

Source:

http://footageofufos.com/2020/01/the-30-second-trick-for-ufo-sightings/

02-01-2020 om 18:17 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:UFOs , UAPs , USOS

Mysterious Colorado Swarms of Giant Drones Have Officials Baffled

There are many people in Colorado wondering what is flying over there head and Officials in the area are freaked out because they don’t know who it is and nobody is fessing up. There is a health Drone business in Denver with many companies doing work but I think we might have a solution to the mystery of the Giants Drones. Have you heard of Black Swift Technologies?

02-01-2020 om 17:54 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

UFO Disk Moves Past Shuttle Atlantis In Photos, Video, UFO Sighting News.

UFO Disk Moves Past Shuttle Atlantis In Photos, Video, UFO Sighting News.

Date of discovery: Jan 2020
Location of discovery: Earths orbit
Source:

https://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/SearchPhotos/photo.pl?mission=STS61B&roll=33&frame=12

I found what I believe to be a UFO passing below the shuttle Atlantis while in earths orbit. The photo labels the object as a satellite, but I have found other UFOs in this archive including the Black Knight Satellites which went viral in 2011 and are known by every UFO researcher in the world. I am fairly certain that this too is a UFO that has been mistakenly labeled as a satellite. Now we all heard about the Shuttle Atlantis being followed by several UFOs...I mean they had it on World CNN for 48 hours and said the shuttle landing was delayed till the UFOs were gone and it was clear for landing safely. Well, it looks like one of those UFOs got caught close up in these photos.
Scott C. Waring

02-01-2020 om 17:17 geschreven door peter

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NASA shock: Astronaut Michael Collins drops a major alien hint in tweet about 'life forms'

NASA veteran Michael Collins teased the possibility of alien life thriving beyond Earth when he tweeted about encountering alien “life forms” on other planets.

By SEBASTIAN KETTLEY

The NASA astronaut was briefly the loneliest man in the universe when he solitarily orbited the Moon during Apollo 11 in 1969. But the US astronaut may have not been so lonely after all, if his suspicions about alien life in deep space come true. In a Twitter exchange with his more than 62,500 followers, Mr Collins spoke about the alien mysteries humans might one day encounter.

The NASA astronaut was asked by a fan if he considers seeking alien life beyond Earth or finding a habitable plane to settle as more important.

In his opinion, the Apollo 11 veteran said both options are intertwined with one another.

Mr Collins said in a tweet: “I think of it all as Outward Bound, a journey that may reveal both life and place.

“Ultimately, a place to live may be the final goal but may be dependant upon the life forms found there.

READ MORE: Bizarre UFO footage sparks panic as mystery orb hovers over terrified town

NASA news: Astronaut Michael Collins and an alien

NASA news: Astronaut Michael Collins believes aliens life forms live outside of Earth (Image: NASA/GETTY)

NASA news: Astronaut questions on Twitter

NASA news: The astronaut was quizzed about the possibility of aliens in deep space

(Image: TWITTER)

How did life start on Earth? Breakthrough study offers hope for aliens

“I just hope we never have to make the decisions to leave this Earth. #AskMichaelCollins”

In response to the astronaut’s tweet, Mark Johnstone said: “Finding other signs of life will or should be easier as we don’t have to leave Earth.

“The question of whether we can ever develop the ability to travel the distance to other solar systems is harder to answer.”

Marco Thompson said: “Good question. Through exploration and innovation we will seek habitation that is independent of Earth; mining and other off-world activities are very lucrative.

“However finding life in other places of our universe would be a monumental discovery and would change society.”

Twitter user Kai Noeske also said: “I don't think physics will let us settle other celestial bodies.

A place to live may be the final goal but may be dependant upon the life forms found there

Michael Collins, Apollo 11 astronaut

“But finding life away from Earth would be the most significant moment in human history.

“We'd know for sure that life forms independently more than once, hence that the Universe is full of it; that we are not- alone.”

Mr Collins has spent the last months answering select questions from his fans, submitted on Twitter under the hashtag #AskMichaelCollins.

In August, for instance, the astronaut was asked if he believed in life outside of Earth.

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NASA news: Astronaut crew of Apollo 11

Apollo 11 crew: Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin (left to right)

(Image: GETTY)

NASA news: Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins

NASA news: Astronaut Michael Collins flew on Gemini 10 and Apollo 11

(Image: GETTY)

UFO sighting? Anomaly in SpaceX live stream ‘100% proof of aliens'

Mr Collins replied to the question with a simple “yes”, prompting excited responses from his Twitter followers.

But Mr Collins is no stranger to discussing the possibility of life developing beyond our solar system.

In 1999, the astronaut famously told the New York Daily News: “It seems to me the height of arrogance to say that our little stupid Sun off in one obscure corner of an odd galaxy called the Milky Way should be the only one in the whole universe capable of developing what we sometimes refer to as intelligent life.”

Mr Collins was one of the three astronauts who flew to the Moon on the monumental Apollo 11 mission in July 1969.

On July 20 that year, his colleagues Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin attempted the first manned lunar landing.

As the Command Module Pilot for the mission, the astronaut remained in lunar orbit where he awaited the safe return of his fellow astronauts.

Do you remember the Apollo 11 Moon landing on July 20, 1969?

The Command Module Pilots served a critical role in the Apollo programme, acting as a lifeboat and ticket back home for the two astronauts who walked on the Moon.

Before Apollo 11, Mr Collins flew in NASA’s Gemini programme, during Gemini 10.

Together with astronaut John Young, he successfully performed an orbital rendezvous with another spacecraft in Earth orbit.

Mr Collins would later go on to say Gemini 10 taught him to be comfortable “many miles above Earth”, how to ration his energy and how to appreciate his crewmates.

Quick facts about astronaut Michael Collins:

Michael Collins was selected for NASA’s astronaut corps 1963 and served on Gemini 10 and Apollo 11.
The Apollo astronaut served as the director of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air & Space Museum from 1971 to 1978.
The astronaut was born in Rome, Italy, on October 31, 1930.
Mr Collins was the only Apollo 11 astronaut who did not land on the Moon.
The astronaut retired from the US Air Force with the rank of major general and left NASA in 1970.

Quick facts about NASA’s Apollo 11 Moon landing:

Apollo 11 launched from NASA’s Cape Kennedy on July 16, 1969.
The Apollo 11 mission patch was designed by Michael Collins.
Buzz Aldrin’s mother’s maiden name was Moon.
Apollo 11’s three astronauts were awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Richard Nixon.
Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin only spent three hours outside on the surface of the Moon.
The Saturn V used on Apollo remains the most powerful rocket ever developed and used for manned spaceflight.
Until Apollo 14, all three astronauts had to spend 24 days in quarantine upon return to Earth
From start to finish, the lunar mission lasted 195 hours, 18 minutes and 35 seconds.
Apollo 11 landed in the Sea of Tranquillity region of the Moon.
The astronauts returned to Earth with 47.8 pounds of lunar rock.

{ https://www.express.co.uk/ }

02-01-2020 om 17:06 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ASTRONOMIE / RUIMTEVAART

Veteran Astronaut Drops a Hint on Life Forms Beyond Earth in Twitter

nasa aliens

The presence of alien life outside planet Earth made a buzz on Twitter recently as NASA veteran astronaut Michael Collins took to the social networking service to shed light on the subject.

Collins orbited the Moon during Apollo 11 in 1969 alone, but he may haven’t been so lonely after all if his suspicions about extraterrestrial life in deep space come true. Collins spoke about the ET mysteries humans might one day encounter with his more than 62,500 followers on Twitter.

A fan asked the NASA astronaut if he considers searching alien life beyond Earth or seeking a habitable planet to settle as more important.

Check out the latest 2020 UFO sightings.

In his opinion, Collins said both picks are intertwined with one another. He explained that the two options are all Outward Bound that may reveal life and place. He added that a place to live might be the ultimate and final goal but maybe dependent on the life forms found there.

Collins has been selecting questions to answer that were submitted by his fans on Twitter under the hashtag #Ask MichaelCollins.

Collins is no stranger to talking about the possibility of life developing beyond our solar system. In 1999, the veteran astronaut said that it could be impossible that our Sun is the only one in the entire universe capable of developing intelligent life.

Collins was one of the three astronauts on the Apollo 11 mission in July 1969. On the 20^th in the same month and year, his colleagues Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong attempted the first human-crewed lunar landing. He remained in the lunar orbit as the command module pilot for the mission, where he awaited the safe return of his fellows.

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

02-01-2020 om 16:37 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

Helft meer ufomeldingen in ons land dan vorig jaar: hier zag u ze allemaal vliegen - HLN.be

Helft meer ufomeldingen in ons land dan vorig jaar: hier zag u ze allemaal vliegen -

HLN.be

Koen Van De Sype

UFO-meldpunt Een waarneming van 20 december 2019 in Houwaart (Vlaamse-Brabant).

Het bleek om de planeet Venus te gaan.

2019 was een druk jaar voor het Belgisch UFO-meldpunt. Er werden maar liefst 266 waarnemingen gedaan en dat was 46 procent meer dan in 2018, toen er 182 meldingen binnenliepen. Vooral in Oost-Vlaanderen zagen we ze vliegen. Opmerkelijk: Elon Musk zat er voor iets tussen.

De stijging is hoofdzakelijk terug te voeren tot enkele kleine waarnemingsgolven. “Op 25 mei zorgde een groep van 60 satellieten die door het ruimtebedrijf SpaceX (van Elon Musk, red.) in een baan rond de aarde werd gebracht voor 33 meldingen”, klinkt het bij het UFO-Meldpunt. “En ook een tweede lancering in november van 2019 veroorzaakte verwarring.”

Sliert van sterren

De ‘slierten van sterren’ zullen ook in de nabije toekomst nog voor extra ufomeldingen zorgen, zo verwacht het meldpunt. “SpaceX is immers van plan om maar liefst 12.000 (!!) van deze Starlink satellieten rond de aarde te laten vliegen”, klinkt het in het jaarverslag.

Een andere waarnemingspiek was er op 14 september, toen een Ierse weerballon boven Gent explodeerde. “Dat incident was goed voor 37 meldingen in één avond tijd”, aldus het meldpunt. “Dat is een absoluut record voor één dag.” (lees hieronder verder)

Jörg Carstensen/dpa CEO van SpaceX Elon Musk.

Verder bleken veel meldingen vorig jaar uiteindelijk ballonnen (57 meldingen), satellieten, het internationaal ruimtestation ISS (46) of meteoren (29) te zijn. Voor 55 meldingen was er voldoende informatie om tot een conclusie te komen en één melding is nog in onderzoek. Twee meldingen werden niet verklaard: het ging om “een fel oranje draaiend licht dat geprojecteerd leek op de rijbaan” en “een donkere driehoek die over windmolens vloog”.

Chirurg

Een van de interessantste, met fotomateriaal gedocumenteerde waarnemingen die het meldpunt afgelopen jaar ontving, dateert van 10 januari 2019 in Deinze. Als een chirurg rond 7.15 uur samen met zijn vrouw en vier kinderen zijn woning verlaat, ziet het gezin hoog in de lucht een onbeweeglijke lichtgele rechthoek met in het midden een donker kruis en op het snijpunt van de armen een gele bol. De rechthoek is “ongeveer 25% van de volle maan” groot. Na 10 minuten wordt de waarneming gestaakt omdat de kinderen naar school moeten.

Onderzoek van het UFO-meldpunt kon de waarneming niet verklaren. Vermoedelijk ging het om de reflectie van spots (van de nabijgelegen school of een bouwwerf in de buurt) in ijskristallen. (lees hieronder verder)

UFO-meldpunt

Een foto van de waarneming (rechts ingezoomd).

UFO-meldpunt

Een tekening en rechts een computersimulatie van de waarneming in Deinze.

Het was zes jaar geleden dat er nog eens zo veel meldingen binnenliepen bij het UFO-meldpunt. In 2013 klokte de organisatie af op 267 waarnemingen en ook de twee jaren daarvoor waren er erg bewogen.

Het Franstalige COBEPS (Comité Belge pour l’Etude des Phénomènes Spatiaux) ontving in 2019 ‘maar’ 85 ufomeldingen.

UFO-meldpunt

02-01-2020 om 14:33 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:HLN.be - Het Laatste Nieuws ( NL)

Unsolved Archaeological Mysteries That Will Creep You Out!

Strange archaeological discoveries that are still unsolved mysteries to this day. Unexplained artifacts, creepy mummies, ancient mysteries, strange and incredible fossils with unbelievable stories. History can be downright weird and scary!

02-01-2020 om 01:19 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ARCHEOLOGIE ( E, Nl, Fr )

Secret Space Mysterious Object With Huge Trail of Fire Spotted In The Florida Sky On New Years Day

FORT PIERCE, Fla. — Early risers on New Year’s Day walking along the beach to see the sunrise on the Treasure Coast also saw what appeared to be a mysterious rocket launch.

With no scheduled launches at Cape Canaveral, it is not immediately known what occurred.

Photo taken by John Simard of Fort Pierce seems to show the object going up with a long trail of fire behind it.

Several viewers from Vero Beach to Fort Pierce said they saw the object, which was located east of the shore and out in the Atlantic Ocean.

This story was originally published by Matt Sczesny on WPTV in Palm Beach, Florida.

02-01-2020 om 01:04 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:LATEST ( UFO ) VIDEO NEWS ( ENG)

Latest UFO Sightings 2020 – UFO In Dubai New Year’s Eve

Here’s one possible UFO sighting 2020 recorded in Dubai, city in the United Arab Emirates. It happened just after the midnight.

What do you think this is? Strange alien activity or just a sky jumpers?

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

02-01-2020 om 00:55 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:Michel GRANGER - a French researcher ( Fr)

01-01-2020

2020 in Space! Astronauts Ring in New Year (and Decade) from Orbit

By Tariq Malik

Happy New Year from SPACE!

The six astronauts of Expedition 60 on the International Space Station celebrated 2020 earlier than you might think. Pictured here: (foreground from left) NASA astronauts Jessica Meir, ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano (center) and NASA astronaut Christina Koch (right). Background from left: Russian cosmonauts Alexander Skvortsov, Oleg Skripochka and NASA astronaut Andrew Morgan.

The people of Earth weren't the only ones ringing in the year 2020 at midnight. Six explorers in orbit celebrated the new year's arrival - and indeed, a new decade - aboard the International Space Station.

"Happy New Year from low Earth orbit!" NASA astronaut Andrew Morgan wrote on Twitter as Earth began the year 2020.

Morgan celebrated 2020's arrival with crewmates Christina Koch and Jessica Meir (both of NASA), European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano, and Russian cosmonauts Oleg Skripochka and Alexander Skvortsov. Parmitano commands the crew, known as Expedition 60.

Related: The Space Missions to Watch in 2020
More: The 10 Must-See Skywatching Events in 2020

Celebrating a new year in space is a bit different than ringing in Jan. 1 on Earth. For starters, astronauts orbit the Earth 16 times a day, meaning they see 16 sunrises and sunsets as the circle the planet every hour and a half. Then there's their time zone, which meant the station crew saw 2020's arrival before flight controllers at NASA's Mission Control center in Houston.

"The space station operates on Greenwich Mean Time, or GMT, meaning it will only be 7 pm ET when the orbiting astronauts' clock strikes midnight to ring in the new year," NASA officials said in a Twitter statement.

Andrew Morgan
✔@AstroDrewMorgan

Happy New Year from low Earth orbit!

https://twitter.com/space_station/status/1212070921533566977 …

Intl. Space Station
✔@Space_Station

3, 2, 1... #HappyNewYear! We're usually counting down to liftoff, but today, we're counting down to 2020. The space station operates in Greenwich Mean Time, or GMT, meaning it will only be 7 pm ET when the orbiting astronauts' clock strikes midnight to ring in the new year!

1,704

10:56 PM - Dec 31, 2019

Twitter Ads info and privacy

271 people are talking about this

The year 2020 is a major milestone for the International Space Station. In November, the station will celebrate 20 years of continuous operation with a human crew. (The first station crew Expedition 1 arrived in 2000.)

SpaceX and Boeing are expected to begin flying astronauts to the station for NASA on commercial spacecraft. SpaceX's Crew Dragon will fly an uncrewed in-flight abort test in early January as part of that work.

Meanwhile, Christina Koch is on a record-breaking mission to spend nearly a year in space (328 days to be exact) and has already set a new record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman.

Meir celebrated the new year on Twitter with a photo of her own launch as seen by Koch in space in September. The image, Meir said, summed up 2019 as her "most extraordinary year yet."

"The journey was certainly not only my own, I remain in dept to countless individuals on the ground," Meir said. "Happy New Year to all on (& off) Earth!"

Email Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com or follow him @tariqjmalik.

Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Instagram.

01-01-2020 om 18:36 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ASTRONOMIE / RUIMTEVAART

Archaeological Discoveries Are Occurring Faster Than Ever

Oldupai (Olduvai) Gorge in Tanzania, one of Africa’s ‘cradles of humankind’.

Source: CC BY 2.0

Archaeological Discoveries Are Occurring Faster Than Ever

In 1924, a 3-year-old child’s skull found in South Africa forever changed how people think about human origins.

The Taung Child, our first encounter with an ancient group of proto-humans or hominins called australopithecines, was a turning point in the study of human evolution. This discovery shifted the focus of human origins research from Europe and Asia onto Africa, setting the stage for the last century of research on the continent and into its “ Cradles of Humankind.”

Few people back then would’ve been able to predict what scientists know about evolution today, and now the pace of discovery is faster than ever. Even since the turn of the 21st century, human origins textbooks have been rewritten over and over again. Just 20 years ago, no one could have imagined what scientists know two decades later about humanity’s deep past, let alone how much knowledge could be extracted from a thimble of dirt, a scrape of dental plaque or satellites in space.

Human fossils are outgrowing the family tree earliest hominin

In Africa, there are now several fossil candidates for the earliest hominin dated to between 5 and 7 million years ago, when we know humans likely split off from other Great Apes based on differences in our DNA.

Although discovered in the 1990s, publication of the 4.4 million year old skeleton nicknamed “Ardi” in 2009 changed scientists’ views on how hominins began walking.

Rounding out our new relatives are a few australopithecines, including Australopithecus deryiremeda and Australopithecus sediba , as well as a potentially late-surviving species of early Homo that reignited debate about when humans first began burying their dead.

Fossils like that of Australopithecus sediba, discovered in South Africa by a 9-year-old boy, are reshaping the human family tree. Photo by Brett Eloff. Courtesy Prof Berger and Wits University, (CC BY-SA / The Conversation)

Fossils like that of Australopithecus sediba, discovered in South Africa by a 9-year-old boy, are reshaping the human family tree.

Photo by Brett Eloff. Courtesy Prof Berger and Wits University, (CC BY-SA / The Conversation )

Perspectives on our own species have also changed. Archaeologists previously thought Homo sapiens evolved in Africa around 200,000 years ago , but the story has become more complicated. Fossils discovered in Morocco have pushed that date back to 300,000 years ago , consistent with ancient DNA evidence. This raises doubts that our species emerged in any single place .

This century has also brought unexpected discoveries from Europe and Asia. From enigmatic “hobbits” on the Indonesian island of Flores to the Denisovans in Siberia, our ancestors may have encountered a variety of other hominins when they spread out of Africa . Just this year, researchers reported a new species from the Philippines .

Anthropologists are realizing that our Homo sapiens ancestors had much more contact with other human species than previously thought. Today, human evolution looks less like Darwin’s tree and more like a muddy, braided stream.

The rise of biomolecular archaeology means new opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration among field- and lab-based scientists. Christina Warinner, CC BY-ND / The Conversation

The rise of biomolecular archaeology means new opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration among field- and lab-based scientists.

Christina Warinner, CC BY-ND / The Conversation

Ancient DNA reveals old relationships

Many recent discoveries have been made possible by the new science of ancient DNA .

Since scientists fully sequenced the first ancient human genome in 2010, data from thousands of individuals have shed new insights on our species’ origins and early history.

One shocking discovery is that although our lineages split up to 800,000 years ago, modern humans and Neanderthals mated a number of times during the last Ice Age. This is why many people today possess some Neanderthal DNA .

The 2010 excavation in the East Gallery of Denisova Cave, where the ancient hominin species known as the Denisovans were discovered. Bence Viola. Dept. of Anthropology, University of Toronto, CC BY-ND

The 2010 excavation in the East Gallery of Denisova Cave, where the ancient hominin species known as the Denisovans were discovered.

Bence Viola. Dept. of Anthropology, University of Toronto, CC BY-ND

Ancient DNA is how researchers first identified the mysterious Denisovans, who interbred with us and Neanderthals. And while most studies are still conducted on bones and teeth, it is now possible to extract ancient DNA from other sources like cave dirt and 6,000-year-old chewing gum .

Genetic methods are also reconstructing individual and family relationships, and connecting ancient individuals to living peoples to end decades long debates.

The applications go far beyond humans. Paleogenomics is yielding surprising discoveries about plants and animals from ancient seeds and skeletons hidden in the backrooms of museums.

Natural history museums hold a wealth of information, some of which can only be tapped through new biomolecular methods. Scientists analyze modern and fossil animal skeletons to ask questions about the past using ancient proteins. Mary Prendergast at National Museums of Kenya, CC BY-ND / The Conversation

Mary Prendergast at National Museums of Kenya, CC BY-ND / The Conversation

Biomolecules are making the invisible visible

DNA is not the only molecule revolutionizing studies of the past.

Paleoproteomics, the study of ancient proteins, can determine the species of a fossil and recently linked a 9-foot tall, 1,300-pound extinct ape that lived nearly 2 million years ago to today’s orangutans.

Dental calculus – the hardened plaque that your dentist scrapes off your teeth – is particularly informative, revealing everything from who was drinking milk 6,000 years ago to the surprising diversity of plants, some likely medicinal, in Neanderthal diets. Calculus can help scientists understand ancient diseases and how the human gut microbiome has changed over time. Researchers even find cultural clues – bright blue lapis lazuli trapped in a medieval nun’s calculus led historians to reconsider who penned illuminated manuscripts.

Scientists unexpectedly found lazurite pigment in calcified plaque clinging to a 11th- to 12th-century woman’s tooth, challenging the assumption that male monks were the primary makers of medieval manuscripts. Christina Warinner,(CC BY-ND / The Conversation

Christina Warinner,( CC BY-ND / The Conversation

Lipid residues trapped in pottery have revealed the origins of milk consumption in the Sahara and showed that oddly shaped pots found throughout Bronze and Iron Age Europe were ancient baby bottles .

Researchers use collagen-based “barcodes” of different animal species to answer questions ranging from when Asian rats arrived as castaways on Africa-bound ships to what animals were used to produce medieval parchment or even to detect microbes left by a monk’s kiss on a page.

Big data is revealing big patterns

While biomolecules help researchers zoom into microscopic detail, other approaches let them zoom out. Archaeologists have used aerial photography since the 1930s, but widely available satellite imagery now enables researchers to discover new sites and monitor existing ones at risk. Drones flying over sites help investigate how and why they were made and combat looting.

Archaeologists increasingly use technology to understand how sites fit into their environment and to document sites at risk. Here, a drone captured a tell (a mound indicating build-up of ancient settlements) in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Jason Ur, CC BY-ND / The Conversation

Jason Ur, CC BY-ND / The Conversation

Originally developed for space applications, scientists now use LIDAR – a remote sensing technique that uses lasers to measure distance – to map 3D surfaces and visualize landscapes here on Earth. As a result, ancient cities are emerging from dense vegetation in places like Mexico, Cambodia and South Africa .

Technologies that can peer underground from the surface, such as Ground Penetrating Radar, are also revolutionizing the field – for example, revealing previously unknown structures at Stonehenge. More and more, archaeologists are able to do their work without even digging a hole.

Geophysical survey methods enable archaeologists to detect buried features without digging large holes, maximizing knowledge while minimizing destruction. Mary Prendergast and Thomas Fitton, CC BY-ND / The Conversation

Geophysical survey methods enable archaeologists to detect buried features without digging large holes, maximizing knowledge while minimizing destruction.

Mary Prendergast and Thomas Fitton, CC BY-ND / The Conversation

Teams of archaeologists are combining big datasets in new ways to understand large-scale processes. In 2019, over 250 archaeologists pooled their findings to show that humans have altered the planet for thousands of years, for example, with a 2,000-year-old irrigation system in China. This echoes other studies that challenge the idea that the Anthropocene, the current period defined by human influences on the planet, only began in the 20th century.

New connections are raising new possibilities

These advances bring researchers together in exciting new ways. Over 140 new Nazca Lines , ancient images carved into a Peruvian desert, were discovered using artificial intelligence to sift through drone and satellite imagery. With the wealth of high-resolution satellite imagery online, teams are also turning to crowdsourcing to find new archaeological sites.

Although new partnerships among archaeologists and scientific specialists are not always tension-free, there is growing consensus that studying the past means reaching across fields.

The Open Science movement aims to make this work accessible to all. Scientists including archaeologists are sharing data more freely within and beyond the academy. Public archaeology programs, community digs and digital museum collections are becoming common. You can even print your own copy of famous fossils from freely available 3D scans, or an archaeological coloring book in more than 30 languages.

Archaeologists are increasingly reaching out to communities to share their findings, for example at this school presentation in Tanzania. Agness Gidna, CC BY-ND/ The Conversation

Archaeologists are increasingly reaching out to communities to share their findings, for example at this school presentation in Tanzania.

Agness Gidna, CC BY-ND / The Conversation

Efforts to make archaeology and museums more equitable and engage indigenous research partners are gaining momentum as archaeologists consider whose past is being revealed. Telling the human story requires a community of voices to do things right.

Studying the past to change our present

As new methods enable profound insight into humanity’s shared history, a challenge is to ensure that these insights are relevant and beneficial in the present and future.

In a year marked by youth-led climate strikes and heightened awareness of a planet in crisis, it may seem counterproductive to look back in time.

Yet in so doing, archaeologists are providing empirical support for climate change and revealing how ancient peoples coped with challenging environments.

As one example, studies show that while industrial meat production has serious environmental costs, transhumance – a traditional practice of seasonally moving livestock, now recognized by UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage – is not only light on the land today, but helped promote biodiversity and healthy landscapes in the past.

Archaeologists today are contributing their methods, data and perspectives toward a vision for a less damaged, more just planet. While it’s difficult to predict exactly what the next century holds in terms of archaeological discoveries, a new focus on “ usable pasts ” points in a positive direction.

Top image: Oldupai (Olduvai) Gorge in Tanzania, one of Africa’s ‘cradles of humankind’. Source: CC BY 2.0

This article was originally published under the title ‘ Archaeological discoveries are happening faster than ever before, helping refine the human story’ by Elizabeth Sawchuk and Mary Prendergast on The Conversation , and has been republished under a Creative Commons License.

Videos, peter2011

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

01-01-2020 om 18:16 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ARCHEOLOGIE ( E, Nl, Fr )

Mysterious swarms of giant drones have started to appear in the Colorado and Nebraska night sky, and nobody knows where they're coming from

Irene Jiang

Drones fly over the base during a light show at Travis Air Force Base, California, on July 5, 2018.

US Air Force

Mysterious swarms of giant drones have dotted the Colorado and

Nebraska night sky since last week, The Denver Post first reported.

The drones appear and disappear at roughly the same time each night

in swarms of at least 17 and up to 30. The drones appear to measure

about 6 feet across.

Local and federal government authorities say they have no idea where

the drones are coming from. They do not appear to be malicious,

however, and a drone expert says they appear to be searching or

mapping out the area.

Visit Businessinsider.com for more stories.

Something strange has been happening in Eastern Colorado at night.

Since the week of Christmas, giant drones measuring up to 6 feet across have been spotted in the sky at night, sometimes in swarms as large as 30. The Denver Post first reported these mysterious drone sightings in northeastern Colorado on December 23. Since then, sightings have spanned six counties across Colorado and Nebraska.

Phillips County Sheriff Thomas Elliott had no answer for where the drones came from or whom they belonged to but did have a rough grasp on their flying habits. "They've been doing a grid search, a grid pattern," he told The Denver Post. "They fly one square and then they fly another square."

The drones, estimated to have 6-foot wingspans, have been flying over Phillips and Yuma counties every night for about the past week, Elliott said Monday. Each night, at least 17 drones appear at about 7 o'clock and disappear at about 10 o'clock, staying 200 to 300 feet in the air.

drone flying in blue sky

The Air Force, Drug Enforcement Administration, and Army all say the drones do not belong to them.

Óscar J.Barroso/Europa Press via Getty Images

The Federal Aviation Administration told The Post it had no idea where the drones came from. Representatives for the Air Force, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the US Army Forces Command all said the drones did not belong to their organizations.

As the airspace where the drones are flying is relatively ungoverned, there are no regulations requiring the drone operators to identify themselves. Elliott, however, said the drones did not appear to be malicious.

The Post spoke with the commercial photographer and drone pilot Vic Moss, who said the drones appeared to be searching or mapping out the area. Moss said drones often flew at night for crop-examination purposes. The drones might also belong to a local Colorado drone company, which could be testing new technologies.

In the meantime, Moss urges residents not to shoot down the drones, as they are highly flammable.

"It becomes a self-generating fire that burns until it burns itself out," he told The Post. "If you shoot a drone down over your house and it lands on your house, you might not have a house in 45 minutes."

NOW WATCH: Watch the Navy's LOCUST launcher fire a swarm of drones

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

01-01-2020 om 17:29 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:MYSTERIES ( Fr, Nl, E)

NASA satellite shares a new image of Marree Man, an Australian carving that has puzzled scientists for decades

By Lauren M. Johnson, CNN

It is unclear who created the giant geoglyph or why, but the large earthen figure has drawn attention to a remote part of South Australia for two decades.

It is unclear who created the giant geoglyph or why, but the large earthen figure has drawn attention to a remote part of South Australia for two decades.

(CNN) - NASA confirms one of the greatest modern art mysteries is still going strong in Australia.

A pilot discovered the mysterious 2.6-mile-long geoglyph of an aboriginal hunter in 1998, etched into the earth, and to this day no one knows how it got there.

The Marree Man gained new life in 2016 when a group from the figure's namesake town of Marree plowed the lines to keep the man from fading due to erosion. Now, NASA is sharing an image taken in June showing the success of their efforts.

So far, the restoration team's belief that their preservation will last longer than the original holds up. They created wind grooves, designed to trap water and encourage the growth of vegetation, according to NASA. They hope that eventually the man will turn green.

Many have tried to discover the origin of the Marree Man.

CNN previously reported that Dick Smith, founder of Dick Smith Electronics and Dick Smith Foods, decided to tackle the mystery in 2016, and for two years his team pored over all the evidence to see what they could find.

He believed it was professionally done, so in 2018 he offered a reward of $5,000 Australian dollars ($3,712) for anyone with information regarding its existence.

No one has come forward, but several believe it was made by an artist living in Alice Springs, though other clues suggest the creator may have been an American.

Regardless, the Marree Man mystery lives on.

{ https://edition.cnn.com/ }

01-01-2020 om 17:05 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ARCHEOLOGIE ( E, Nl, Fr )

Presidential Candidate Amy Klobuchar Answers UFO Question

Where do the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates stand on UFOs? In front of the nearest ET camera, of course! Bada-bing! Sorry, couldn’t help myself. But seriously, what do the people running for president on the Democratic side think about UFOs, the possible existence of extraterrestrials and the disclosure of secret files on those and other related subjects? Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar was recently interviewed by Draymond Steer, a reporter for New Hampshire’s The Conway Daily Sun and someone known for asking politicians those tough UFO questions. Steer asked Klobuchar about the USS Nimitz UFO incident – one of the witnesses was New Hampshire’s own David Fravor. Here’s what she had to say:

“I’ve read some articles about it. And, you know, I think we don’t know enough. I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know what happened, not just with that sighting, but with others. And, I think one of the things a President could do is to look into what’s there; in terms of what does the science say; what does the military say? Here’s the interesting part of that answer, is that some of the stuff is really old, these sightings. So, why can’t you see if you can let some of that out for the public? So, earnest journalists like you, who are trying to get to the bottom of the truth would be able to see it?”

Senator Amy Klobuchar

She explained that a president should be able to figure out what information still needs to be hidden and what can be released, implying that she would be that kind of president. What about the other Democratic candidates? Earlier this year, The Conway Daily Sun asked Andrew Yang and he said:

“I’m very curious about UFOs. I have a feeling they probably do exist.”

No word on whether extraterrestrials from other parts of the universe would qualify for Yang’s $1000-per-month ‘universal’ income. When asked about Bernie Sanders, Steer said, “Bernie had no interest in the UFO question.” However, in a later interview with Joe Rogan, Sanders himself said he’d reveal UFO information if he found it and “Alright, we’ll announce it on the show. How’s that?” Did Bernie flip or is he just flippant?

Many will remember the 2016 campaign when both Hillary Clinton and her campaign manager and former chief-of-staff to her husband, John Podesta, promised to open the X-files if elected. That didn’t happen, and the current president shows no sign of opening them. When asked about the briefing he received on the USS Nimitz UFO incident, President Trump commented:

“I did have one very brief meeting on it. But people are saying they’re seeing UFOs. Do I believe it? Not particularly.”

The other candidates don’t seem to have been asked any UFO questions or, if they have, are avoiding giving an answer. They may remember 2008 when then candidate Dennis Kucinich admitted during a debate that he had once seen a UFO Over the house of actress Shirley MacLaine and that he “felt a connection in his heart and heard directions in his mind.”

“It was an unidentified flying object, OK? It’s, like, it’s unidentified. I saw something. I’m also going to move my campaign office to Roswell, New Mexico, and other one in Exeter, New Hampshire, OK? And also, you have to keep in mind that more – that Jimmy Carter saw a UFO and also that more people in this country have seen UFOs than I think approve of George Bush’s presidency.”

Dennis Kucinich

Kucinich dropped out of the race shortly after and some say his poll numbers plunged because of the comments.

Is this an endorsement of Senator Amy Klobuchar or Andrew Yang because of their UFO beliefs? No. Will any other Democratic candidate give us full disclosure if elected? Partial disclosure? Let’s just say it would be wise to base your voting decision on some other criteria.

01-01-2020 om 15:22 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:UFOs , UAPs , USOS

Scientist Designs Engine to Move the Solar System

If you don’t want your car to get hit by a bus, you move it out of its way. If you don’t want your house to get hit by a tsunami, you move it out of its way. If you don’t want your solar system to get hit by a supernova … believe it or not, you move it out of its way. How? According to a recent paper by Matthew E. Caplan of the Department of Physics at Illinois State University, published by Acta Astronautica, entitled “Stellar engines: Design considerations for maximizing acceleration,” with a giant stellar engine.

“Stellar engines, megastructures used to control the motion of a star system, may be constructible by technologically advanced civilizations and used to avoid dangerous astrophysical events or transport a star system into proximity with another for colonization.”

That’s probably the easiest-to-understand sentence in the entire scientific report. Fortunately, a German design studio called Kurzgesagt – German for “In a nutshell“ – has released an animated YouTube video explaining Caplan’s stellar engine in a way the rest of the world can understand. (Watch the video here.)

The real question is, after watching the video and attempting to read the paper, can the rest of the world – or anyone in the world or universe – build one?

“Stellar engines are a class of hypothetical megastructures which use a star’s radiation to create usable energy. Some variants use this energy to produce thrust, and thus accelerate a star, and anything orbiting it, in a given direction. The creation of such a system would make its builders a Type-II civilization on the Kardashev scale.”

Wikipedia points out that developing a working stellar engine to move the Sun – dragging the solar system behind it – out of the way of a rogue supernova – would bestow on its inventors the title of “Type-II civilization,” which Soviet astronomer Nikolai Kardashev defined as a civilization that can use and control energy at the scale of its stellar system. For comparison, our current civilization (us) is nowhere near Type-I — a planetary civilization capable of using and storing all of the energy available on our planet.

Wait a minute, you say, what about that guy Matthew E. Caplan? Didn’t he develop a plan?

Yes, he did. And in fact, his “Caplan thruster” uses something that has been proposed as an explanation for those blinking or dimming stars, like Tabby’s star, that astronomers have been discovering with greater frequency – a Dyson sphere cluster. Caplan first considered a giant solar sail which would passively move the Sun via its own solar energy. However, “At full throttle, the solar system could probably be moved by about a hundred light-years over 230 million years” – too slow to save the Sun and solar system from most catastrophes. For that we’ll need a star-sized Brussard ramjet – a fusion rocket which compresses hydrogen from massive electromagnetic fields until thermonuclear fusion occurs, causing energy to blast out of the exhaust, thrusting the Sun in the opposite direction at a speed of 50 light-years per million years – fast enough to save civilization – provided it survives the move.

That doesn’t sound too complicated, you say, so when can we start building a Caplan thruster … just in case?

Well, the Brussard ramjet – despite approval by great minds including Carl Sagan – is still theoretical. The magnetic sail is also theoretical, but much closer to reality. And the Dyson sphere or star-circling cluster of electromagnetic-energy-collecting mirrors is a daunting project for a civilization still struggling with solar energy panels.

However … if a dimming orb like Tabby’s star is already surrounded by one, that means a Type II civilization already exists in a nearby solar system and, upon seeing our potential demise, it might come over and build one for us in a galactic-sized barn-raising or “help us move our apartment” kind of way. How much beer and pizza would that cost us?

So, what does our Type .0001% of I civilization have to save our sorry butts from a supernova apocalypse? A possible but far from plausible theory. An excellent design paper and entertaining animation to help us. And two great names for bands – the Caplan Thrusters and the Brussard Ramjets.

Also great porn star names … which are probably what we really need because we’re screwed.

01-01-2020 om 15:10 geschreven door peter

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Categorie:ASTRONOMIE / RUIMTEVAART

Linda Moulton Howe: Reptilians, Blondes, and Greys via Coast to Coast AM

Linda Moulton Howe is a graduate of Stanford University with a Masters Degree in Communication. She has devoted her documentary film, television, radio, writing and reporting career to productions concerning science, medicine and the environment. Ms. Howe has received local, national and international awards, including three regional Emmys, a national Emmy nomination and a Station Peabody award for medical programming. Linda’s documentaries have included A Strange Harvest and Strange Harvests 1993, which explored the worldwide animal mutilation mystery. Another film, A Prairie Dawn, focused on astronaut training in Denver. She has also produced documentaries in Ethiopia and Mexico for UNICEF about child survival efforts and for Turner Broadcasting in Atlanta about environmental challenges.

In addition to television, Linda produces, reports and edits the award-winning science, environment and earth mysteries news website, Earthfiles.com. In 2003, Earthfiles received an Award for Standard of Excellence presented by the Internet’s WebAward Association. Earthfiles also received the 2001 Encyclopaedia Britannica Award for Journalistic Excellence. Linda also reports science, environment and earth mysteries news for Clear Channel’s Premiere Radio Networks and Unknowncountry.com. In 2005, she traveled to Amsterdam, Hawaii, and several other U. S. conferences to speak about her investigative journalism.

In 2004, Linda was on-camera TV reporter for The History Channel’s documentary investigation of an unusual August 2004 cow death in Farnam, Nebraska. In November 2009, Linda was videotaped in Roswell, New Mexico, to provide document research background for a 1940s American policy of denial in the interest of national security about spacecraft and non-human body retrievals for a 2010 History Channel TV series, Ancient Aliens.

In 2010, Linda was honored with the 2010 Courage In Journalism Award at the National Press Club in Washington, D. C., by the Paradigm Research Group’s X Conference. She has traveled in Venezuela, Peru, Brazil, England, Norway, France, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Yugoslavia, Turkey, Ethiopia, Kenya, Egypt, Australia, Japan, Canada, Mexico, the Yucatan and Puerto Rico for research and productions.

Other videos selected by peter2011